Her Wings Appeared

I am genuinely amazed by the act of creating.

Creation is inherent to the human experience, making something out of nothing, something out of something else, or something out of a number of seemingly unrelated things.

As a painter, I have taken a long and deep dive into this mystery. The mixing of paint and water. Loading a brush. Bringing my hand to paper. Watching an image emerge where moments before there was only blank space.

I am mesmerized by the act of doing it, by the feelings that arise, and by what comes forth.

The creative process itself intrigues me. First there is a thought, provoked by a feeling, a memory, an idea. Then comes the creative urge. If I stay with it, hidden doorways in my imagination begin to open and inspiration rushes in.

From where, I wonder?

There are moments when creation no longer feels entirely like something I am doing. It feels more like something I am participating in. A kind of divine dance. In that state of flow and co-creation, something that existed only within me begins to take form in time and space.

Beauty. Light. Love. Joy. Peace. Presence.

Something of my soul becomes visible.

And I am amazed.

Genuinely, wholeheartedly, repeatedly amazed. I crave this encounter with creation itself. A plant, a cloud, a stone, the shape of a wing, a creature crossing my path, any of them can suddenly become muse, invitation, dance partner.

This is one of the gifts of creating. It teaches us to notice. To wonder. To become available to what wants to emerge.

That is why I keep returning to it.

I am astonished by what can appear when I make room for it. Even writing these words has stirred the feeling again.

No doubt, I will make time to paint today.

As Diana and I prepare Her Wings Appeared for publication, I find myself thinking more and more about these moments - the ones when something inside us opens, shifts, or becomes visible. Sometimes our wings appear in great turning points. And sometimes they appear quietly, with a brush in our hand.

What amazing thing will capture your heart today?

When Diana and I first imagined Her Wings Appeared, I thought my role would be to create the art, help shape the chapters, and contribute some of my poetry.

The stories themselves would come from the women who had so generously trusted us with pieces of their lives.

But as I began reading their words, naming the chapters, and arranging the stories alongside Diana, something began stirring in me.

Their courage called to mine.

Their honesty invited my own.

And slowly, I felt the desire to add my stories too.

That has been one of the gifts of this project I didn’t anticipate. It has never felt like something Diana and I were simply assembling. There is an energy that has been created between all of us, through partnership, trust, story, art, and shared vulnerability.

A kind of creative synergy.

Something larger than any one of us could have made alone.

And somewhere inside all of that, I began to find my own voice.

For years, I dreamed of writing a book.

What I could never quite figure out was what was mine to write.

I could write a talk. I could write a newsletter. I could teach. I could share ideas I cared deeply about. But a book felt different.

I struggled to find my way in.

I wasn’t sure what my voice sounded like on the page or what story was really asking to be told.

Something shifted over this past year.

As I created each of the illustrations for Her Wings Appeared, the goddesses became my constant companions and my muses. I spent hours with them, drawing their bodies, their wings, the flowers and symbols that surrounded them.

And somewhere in those quiet hours, something in me began to awaken more fully.

Her voice.

My voice.

My essence.

I’m not sure anymore where one ends and the other begins.

I began to trust the soft inner whisperings that came as I worked. I stopped trying quite so hard to figure everything out.

I leaned into her wisdom.

I listened.

And slowly, the words began to come.

Then came the six stories I wrote for this book.

I had no idea how much weight those unwritten stories were carrying.

They weighed down my heart.

They weighed down my mind.

They weighed down my body.

Writing them began to lighten the load.

As I wrote, I could begin to untangle my wounded version of the story from the perspective that time, healing, and maturity had given me.

I could see what belonged to the girl I had been, what belonged to the woman I had become, and what perhaps had never belonged to me at all.

And in sharing them, something else happened.

I felt free.

The weight of a story left unspoken can be significant.

But the weight of a story once written, in my case, anyway, became light as a feather.

And then something else began happening.

The writing started changing the art.

The stories influenced the images, and the images spoke back to the stories. The writing and the painting no longer felt like separate forms of creativity.

They became part of the same unfolding.

The art helped me hear her.

The writing helped me hear myself.

And out of that conversation came the cover art I created for Her Wings Appeared.

For so many years, I wondered what I was meant to write.

I think, in some strange and beautiful way, I had to paint my way there first.

It feels like I landed.

Thankfully, I had wings and knew how to fly!

For the past eight years, I have been traveling, helping family, and working remotely.

I never stopped painting. I never stopped writing. I never stopped meditating.

These three were, and are, my constant companions.

It has been a time of creative chaos. And if I could, I wouldn’t change one moment of it.

My chaotic adventure led me here, to Eden, Utah, in the beautiful Wasatch Mountains.

There have been many legs of this journey, each one blessing me in its own way and helping to pave the path toward what feels like the most wildly creative chapter of my life.

I have played many roles. Some I was well prepared for. Others, not so much.

There was a lot of on-the-job training.

I discovered the many parts of myself that rose to meet the different occasions, situations, losses, opportunities, and adventures.

I was a completely bereft mother who lost her oldest son.

I was a carer for my mother-in-law as she was dying of cancer.

I was the free spirit living with her husband in Om Shanti hOMe, our little camper.

I was the spiritual director, offering meditations, counseling, and hosting a weekly podcast.

I was the artist painting in the great outdoors and making her wings appear.

I was the wanderer traveling from coast to coast and camping off the grid.

I was the mother who came to Utah to live with, love, and nurture her children and grandchildren.

I was the one who kept learning things like the Enneagram, how to be a fun grandmother, and how to make salted caramel brownies from scratch.

I was the one who went to care for her mother and held her as she crossed over.

I was the one who spoke to her therapist regularly!

I was the one who gathered women and sat in sacred circle.

I was the one who partnered with Diana.

And together, we were the ones who gathered women and invited them to share their stories.

I was the one who flew, grew, and landed.

Through it all, I have grown, and my life feels more like a fit than ever before.

I really believe I was made for this moment, this body, this family, this life.

I have learned to move through life’s thresholds with a little more grace and ease.

I am quite proud of myself.

It wasn’t always easy.

But strangely, some of it was easier than I thought it would be.

These days, I paint and write from my cozy Aspen Cottage.

Besides my family, my community includes the four-legged, the winged, the finned, the creepy crawlers, the elementals, Earth, trees, plants, the warmth of the sun, clean fresh air, healing flowing waters...

and the occasional human.

I am the one who feels nurtured, inspired, and at home.

I am the one who is writing and loves it.

I am the one who can’t stop taking photos of what I want to paint next.

I am the one with her wings out, ready to fly when the wild calls.

I have been quiet, but I haven’t been still.

Something has been taking shape here in the quiet, through painting, writing, women’s stories, friendship, and more than a few pairs of wings.

I’m ready to begin sharing it with you.

If you’ve been quiet too, I’d love to know what has been growing there.