Kathleen used to say being an artist means never having to do anything you don’t want to do. We met in graduate school. She and her husband Will, a retired architect and strict Buddhist, were originally from Pasadena, and had relocated to the land of rugged coastline and Redwood Forests in far northern California, after they welcomed their first child onto Earth. Later, she also informally adopted me and invited me to call her my “Humboldt Mom.” Kathleen was a local sculpture artist and community activist; she had led a grassroot initiative to integrate quarterly tsunami preparedness drills into the emergency training practice at an elementary school north of Trinidad, California, one at a high risk for submersion or liquefaction. That project, which she launched as part of her Masters thesis, was completed only two years before she passed.
Sometimes, synchronicities unfold that illuminate the profound truth of our interconnectedness and what we are collectively creating. Carl Jung is credited for categorizing and naming synchronistic experiences, referring to the “meaningful coincidences” or “acausal parallelism” that provide insight, direction, and guidance to the observer. Last week, I had thought about texting Peter to arrange for a discussion of workshop content that he is developing around “Yoga for the Common Good.” In April, Peter had facilitated a session through the Yoga Teacher Training certification at World Peace Yoga, and he had requested a meeting afterwards to hear my insights and feedback. I met with him for an hour and shared ideas based on my perspective and experiences. He had then requested a second meeting, but I was unable to hold more time. The second session of the workshop series was offered on May 19. Following this session, the thought crossed my mind to schedule another coffee chat with him for Wednesday, May 22, but that appointment never occurred. However, the energetic channels had been activated, and our discussion unfolded organically on a sidewalk in Clifton. We both happened to be walking along Ludlow Avenue on Wednesday, May 22, and had a few minutes to exchange ideas and knowledge about facilitating space to integrate yogic principles into collective decision-making processes. These synchronicities, or meaningful experiences, indicate to me that what I am creating in my life is aligned with the larger collective mind we share as humans.
Changes are in progress for Nomad Star Travel, to align within a framework that feels the most authentic for what I desire to create on this planet. I had been feeling stuck within Nomad Star Travel. Travel as a concept felt limiting to me; travel conveys a time-bound departure from the ordinary to replace drudgery with escape. I am feeling the need to facilitate spaces that weave paradigm-shifting adventure into the daily moments, moments shimmering with meaningful coincidences and acausal parallelisms, because really, we are all traveling all the time, whether here or there, for four days or 106 years, alongside fleeting companions who are all following their own paths. This Earth could be one large multi-bunk hostel of transient beings twinkling in and out like meteors that burn streaks of fire across the atmosphere.
When Kathleen told me that an artist never has to do anything they don’t want to do, I understood her to mean that we are creators of our lives, we are the magicians who alchemize our experience into the energetic qualities we desire. The intention is not to selfishly only do what we want to do, but to see the intrinsic value and purpose of whatever it is that we are doing, even if the experience is not necessarily pleasant or immediately rewarding. Viktor Frankl, a physician and psychologist who survived Nazi internment at Auschwitz, decided that the truth of his resilience grew from his ability to identify with a connection to purpose throughout his experience. This truth grew so strong within him that he abandoned plans to escape so that he could continue to be a peaceful and loving presence in a space of deep hatred. I read his memoir, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” last January, and his ability to maintain faith in the meaning of his experience inspires me to collect moments of gratitude every day, recognizing with humility that my heart and mind have never been tested like his. What he endured and survived reveals the depth of darkness possible in the human heart.
Recently, I was sharing my feelings of energetic stagnation around Nomad Star Travel to my friend Karen, who is a healing arts practitioner in northern Kentucky. She smiled, and suggested, “how about Nomad Star Journey?” I loved it. A journey has edges that are more blurry than ”travel” and implies a process rather than the destination. We are living our journey, and each outcome is illusory, blowing like sand into the great ocean when we grasp at the wind. So, Nomad Star Travel is evolving into Nomad Star Journey, and the services are also shifting to focus on personal transformation, intuitive-energetic body strengthening, and mindfulness through movement, pilgrimage, and yes, some travel. I’m still navigating the shape of this evolution, and the pieces are falling into place. In the meantime, to quote NorCal oracle Rob Brezny, “Ride hard. See deep. Speak true. Live free.”
Following the Nomad Star 