My sister and I recently travelled to Colorado for a learning vacation. I knew I needed to get out of the routines and patterns of my daily life and experience the relaxation of a different environment and rhythm of life. My spirit needed a vacation just to be in a new way. As we headed into the Midwest, I shared with Lucy how flat everything was. She told me just to wait; I haven’t seen anything yet.

Driving into Nebraska was a challenge for me. It felt lifeless and soul-less in some in nondescript manner… flat lands with lots of wide open space. Not a lot of variety to this ‘scenic’ voyage, I commented. The horizon seemed always so far in the distance. Little to nothing blocked the view. Dry and sparse fields of corn and soybeans limply stretched for miles and miles. I asked this Nebraska land about its ‘soul medicine’ and its power. I have been to places where the scenes and the energy has ‘wowed’ me, left my soul moved by the beauty and magnificence of Nature’s artwork. Nebraska just wasn’t this kind of place, or so I thought.
However, after hours of driving on the open road with little traffic and highway speeds not permitted on the 401, the land’s unassuming influence and medicine began to shape me. Something began to happen inside, a subtle yet dynamic encounter with endless space. This Nebraska land powerfully absorbed all my blocks and assumptions I was holding and opened me up to the expansiveness of my spirit previously unimaginable to me. I could feel my ‘spirit wings’ unfold in my chest, my muscles in my mid-thoracic literally breaking open.

I saw my self. There was nothing to hide behind in these wide open spaces. It was just endless space … the open space of Nebraska and me. The land quietly and imperceptibly caused me to know ‘me’. In those moments, the power of this Nebraska land was that I was faced with my ‘heart’ – to see the beauty and power hidden deep inside that only this endless space could reveal.

I gave thanks to this land as we drove. I gently laid down prayers of healing and gratitude for the gift I had received. It is a gift that ‘came upon me’; not one that was initially apparent or discernible, yet surprisingly transformative.

What is your soul encountering this summer to shake you up and clear assumptions that are clogging your mind and veiling the truth of who you are and the path you seek to fully engage upon? There is time. What shake is yet needed for the fruits of the harvest this fall to manifest?

And then as I drove across the state line, travelling along I-76 into Colorado, I was ‘blasted away’ by what I encountered!! Stay tuned… more to come in next week’s blog…