Why Am I Traveling To Bhutan?

This seems to be the question people want answered when they learn of my impending excursion to the other side of the world. “Why Bhutan?”

Tang Valley, Bumthang, Bhutan

While I find “Why not Bhutan?” a perfectly acceptable response, the true answer is a bit more woo-woo. In fact, I'd say serendipity danced smack dab into my intuition resulting in my upcoming two-week trip to a tiny country nestled between India and China in the shadow of the Himalayas that boasts the measure of success as “Gross National Happiness.”

I’ve been drawn to Buddhism and Asian cultures for some time now. A trip to Tibet seemed like an impossible, but lovely dream. When my dad revealed that the same folks he’d climbed Kilimanjaro with a decade ago had contacted him about a possible trip to Bhutan, I experienced a feeling of instant knowing throughout my entire being that he and my mom would indeed make the journey and further more (inexplicably at this point) that I would go with them. This was based purely on my intuition and seemed highly unlikely and illogical at the time.

photo by Bob Munro of Sacred Pause

Believe me, it’s not like this is a run-of-the-mill trip for us. Although my parents have traveled to some pretty fabulous places around the world, our family trips had been more along the lines of Disneyworld. Also, my parents had never expressed any interest in visiting any part of South Asia.

Serendipity showed up in the following ways:

* I wore a Love Hope Strength – Kilimanjaro Rocks t-shirt the day may parents told me about their possible trip. (Dad had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with the people who were inviting them to Bhutan.)

* The day my dad told my mom about the trip, she opened a book that I’d lent her (Roll Around Heaven by Jessica Maxwell) only to find the narrator on a plane to Bhutan (a place my mom had never even heard of until that day!)

* The week after I learned about my parents’ possible plans (they didn’t decide to go right away) I received an email with “Bhutan: a play by Daisy Foote” in the subject line as there was a Horton Foote retrospective taking place in Dallas and his daughter had written a play entitled “Bhutan” which was being produced by a local theater.

* I kept hearing Bhutan mentioned in interviews and stories on the radio and in the news.

Because the trip would take place in November and that would entail my being away during the school year (complete with a full schedule of my daughter’s dance classes, piano practice and homework) – the prospect of actually being able to go seemed highly unlikely. Especially when combined with the not so small matter of airfare and the price of the trip. (In order to preserve their unique culture and control tourism, only a small amount of tourists may visit Bhutan each year and they must hire rather expensive tour guides to do so.)

Tiger's Nest Monastery

Still…something in me stubbornly insisted that I would indeed be going, although I had no idea how that could possibly happen. I had accumulated enough airline miles to cover the airfare – if it were even possible to get a seat using miles, but that was the only hopeful part of the equation.

My parents decided they would accept their friends’ offer to join the group. I continued to daydream about the possibility. Then, one day while driving to teach my group Creative Oasis class last spring, I received a phone call from my dad telling me that if I could cover the airfare and work out the logistics for my family while I was away, he and my mom wanted to take me with them. The gift of a lifetime! It really was going to happen. I still had no idea why – but for some reason I was destined to take this trip with my parents.

I was still shedding a few tears of joy when I arrived at Pigment School of the Arts and began setting out materials for the day’s class including stacks of magazines for a collage project. The ultimate serendipity occurred when I pulled an old National Geographic magazine out of my bag (one of several copies that I’d carried with me to various classes, workshops and retreats for years) and noticed there was an article about Bhutan including a map inside. I felt an absolute electric current of synchronicity ripple from the tips of my toes to the top of my head! Message received – “I get to go to Bhutan!”

A few weeks later, while looking for something to read, I ran across a stack of books that my dear friend, Krys Boyd, the host of THINK on KERA 90.1 had given me months earlier and found “Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth” by Lisa Napoli.

So…there’s your answer…this is why I’m going to Bhutan. It seems that the universe (in cahoots with my generous parents and my supportive husband and daughter) has deemed it so! I’m going with an open heart and an open mind. I’m going with a feeling that this is absolutely meant to be, though I have no idea why. And I’m going in ten days…so I’d better get packing!

I hope to post mini-blogs as I am able along the way, so be sure to subscribe to Creative Oasis™ if you’d like to see how this whole experience unfolds.

In the meantime, all the best from my creative oasis to yours,

Jill

High Octane Serendipity & Napping! Creative Oasis™ Permission to Pause Manifesto Part Two

Welcome to my 

Creative Oasis™ Permission to Pause Manifesto (Part Two) 

in which I continue to receive rather in-my-face messages from the universe in the form of high-octane serendipity that 

taking the time to do nothing is something we all need to be doing! 

(If you missed it - you can read Part One here.)

A reflective sunrise pause beautifully shared by Twyla Smith.

When last we met, I was cocooned in the restorative energy of Ten Thousand Waves. As synchronicity would have it, a coaching client of mine, Twyla Smith, happened to be in Santa Fe that same weekend. She suggested we meet for lunch on the patio of The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Café, which was lovely. Things turned interesting when Twyla introduced us to her friend Pat Webb. Why? Well… Pat happens to be one of the founders of The Silence Foundation. Here is their mission:

“To practice and teach silence. 

Through the creative use of silence we aim to 

gently guide individuals into new lifestyle choices…

choices that reduce the stress, allow reflection, 

broaden vision, and provide tools for positive change, 

especially in times of transition.”

Ah-ha! Another blatant and beautiful reminder that it’s a good thing to practice not filling every waking moment with doing. (talking, reading, writing, eating, shopping, watching media, worrying, planning, etc…) Here was an entire foundation devoted to it!

Santuario de Chimayo by Jill Allison Bryan

After a leisurely drive on the beautiful back-roads from Santa Fe to Chimayo to Taos, we reached our next destination – the Mabel Dodge Luhan House for a creativity retreat held by Jill Badonsky. (author, founder of Kaizen–Muse® Creativity Coaching, my mentor and friend)

The Jills

Doug and I arrived in time to enjoy the first of many delicious meals, meet the other attendees and receive a card that Badonsky had randomly chosen for each of us from Roger von Oech’s Creative Whack Pack.

When I flipped over my card to read and share with the group, I felt as if the universe had slapped me upside the head! “Are you getting the message yet?!?!” For on it was an illustration of a woman’s face which looked eerily like my own sitting on a rocking chair with the title “Pause for a Bit” across the top.  Hello.

Check out the text!

Poet Doug King on the value of incubating: 

“Learn to Pause…or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you.” Allow the Muse to whisper in your ear. What problem are you working on that would benefit from a pause?”

Okey–dokey then. Message received…loud and clear. I would definitely be spending some more time playing with this idea of pause. The week-long retreat dedicated to sparking creativity (and encouraging nap-taking) would be the ideal setting to do just that. But wait…it gets better.

Just in case I wasn’t 100% certain that the whole concept of  “pausing” was something that deserved my exploration, after Doug and I ambled back to our casita I decided to do a quick e-mail check before unpacking. That’s when I received a message from my friend, Bob Munro of Sacred Pause (his beautiful business which shares his serene, inspiring photographic images from around the world.) He asked if I would like to contribute a little something during the coming week to his facebook page focused on the idea of…you guessed it…PAUSE. Pardon my French…but what the…..?!?!?!?! This was some high-octane serendipity! (my favorite kind)  

So between quiet morning runs in the sunrise solitude of Taos, gourmet meals at Mabel’s, convening with other creative spirits on retreat and rejuvenating afternoon naps, I pondered the importance of “pausing” and The Creative Oasis ™ Permission to Pause Manifesto was born.

Gertrude Stein by Andy Warhol.

Gertrude Stein, one of the greatest creative instigators and supporters of all time in my humble opinion, nailed it when she said,

“It takes a lot of time to be a genius. 

You have to sit around a lot doing nothing…really nothing.”

I’ve always loved that quote and upon further inspection and reflection I know why. This is a message we receive far too infrequently in our face-paced, do-more-faster-better-now society.

We hold those whose schedules are so jam-packed they barely have time to sleep or eat in high esteem. We equate busyness with importance. As a nation we take less vacation days than any other and often don’t even use all we’ve earned. Or we plan vacations so chock full of experiences that we come home feeling more exhausted than the day we left.

So here’s a question to consider. 

If we’re always so busy doing, making, talking, 

watching, reading, planning, moving – 

when do we have time to experience 

the peace of simply being…

to let new creative thoughts bubble to the surface? 

(Perhaps this is why so many wonderful ideas come to us in the shower…it’s one of the very few times and places when we’re not multi-tasking. God help us all if they ever invent water-proof cell phones!)

My morning meditation (which I’ve been practicing for six or seven years now) has become a sacred time that I look forward to every day. The mornings when I don’t allow myself the time to meditate, rolling out of bed and barreling into my day like a freight train, the difference is palatable and not pretty. (Think Wylie Coyote falling off a cliff, being blown up or run over by said train in his futile attempts to catch the Road Runner.) 

But, when I allow myself even five or ten minutes to sit in silence and breathe, I feel centered, in touch with myself and balanced – a preferable way to start off the day in my book.

My next step will be to look for new ways to create time and space in my life for “pausing” in addition to my morning meditation. Yet, as intrigued and excited by this notion as I am, I’m guessing it will be a challenge. The idea of taking the time to “just be” flies in the face of society’s norms and a lifetime of conditioning that busy is better.

Luckily I have the techniques of Kaizen-Muse® Creativity Coaching to help me – in this case using small steps and lowering pressure for myself, knowing that it’s okay if I’m not perfect at this “sacred pause” stuff right off the bate because it’s pretty new and foreign to me.

What about you? Are you willing to give it a go? I’d love to hear your desired method of “pausing.”  Do you have one? Do you wish you did? Can you see the benefits of allowing time and space in our busy lives to simply be?

Perhaps we can support each other as we venture into this new exotic landscape where sitting and staring out the window at the trees blowing in the breeze is considered time well spent. In fact, that’s what I’m about to do right now…a little bit of nothing. Care to join me?