For years during camping trips and on beach walks, I had been collecting gifts from Nature—seashells and driftwood mostly. Finally, after what felt like a whole lifetime of uninspired living, I again began to feel the call to create. I knew that keeping all this treasure hidden away in boxes didn't serve me, or anyone else. It didn't honor Nature like it should. If I had picked up these items, they shouldn't be hiding in storage. Maybe I could share with others the wonder and awe that I had once found when collecting these items, I thought. Maybe I’d even make a few bucks while I was at it.
There were prized pieces for sure, but what I found most intriguing were those items considered less than perfect by most—those passed by or if picked up, quickly discarded once the imperfections were perceived. Shells with holes and uneven edges, and seaweed that had been dried on the baking beach sand into curlicues, made me sing internal praises of gratitude for such simple beauty. And so it happened, that I set up a maker’s space in the garage and got to work. Before I knew it, my rubbermaid table was overflowing with inspiring heaps of shells, rocks, pieces of wood, and pinecones that had been worn smooth by the ocean. I stared at the gifts, arranging them, and then stared at them some more until the composition felt just right. Soon, I required a bigger table and moved part of my husband’s workshop so that the whole back wall could be mine. In a short time, I had created more than I could adorn my body and home with, and more than I figured my friends and family could handle as gifts. Necklaces, earrings, everyday ornaments, and suncatchers multiplied quickly. The iridescent abalone and ocean tumbled driftwood whispered sweet stories of their humble journeys as I worked, inspiring my creativity and continuously leaving me in awe of Nature's creations. Thus, a decades old jewelry business from my early twenties, Faith in Nature, was revived.
It had been a couple decades since I had pursued my creative passions seriously, and boy was I taking it seriously. I had dabbled in writing intermittently when it felt like the words needed to move through me, but making jewelry and other visual forms of art had slowly faded as career, children, and chronic autoimmune illness moved into my everyday life. The previous year I had been diagnosed with breast cancer and swiftly quit my part-time jobs as farmstand worker and yoga studio front desk gal. My teaching career was already long gone by then. In a stupor and wondering what was next, a friend had encouraged me to create again—Faith in Nature 2.0., and to sell at her upcoming holiday maker’s market, but all I could think about was my next scan, whether the cancer had made it to my lymph nodes or farther into my bones, lungs, or brain, and the impending mastectomy. Cancer is a frightening word.
After a unilateral mastectomy and getting off fairly easy as far as cancer goes, I finally answered the call to create and with the next maker’s market coming almost exactly a year after my diagnosis, I began to process a new set of fears. All the doubts one could ever have were pouring in and flooding my self-confidence. Who on goddess’s green earth would want such things? Who the hell do I think I am to try and sell such trinkets? Maybe I should just go back to teaching or get a real job? I tried to evict the thoughts and just create, but they were ever present and seriously squashing the artistic mojo.
A couple months before the date of the maker’s market I opened the door to one of those little free libraries and smiled at what I had found. I didn’t anticipate finding anything of interest, as was the usual case, but there, on the shelf, was a gift left just for me, or so it had seemed—a copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. I recognized it even before reading the title. I had read this book before and knew it was the inspiration I needed. It just so happened that soon I was fortunate enough to be taking a trip to Maui, a week of yoga immersion followed by another week of snorkeling and swimming in the calm, clear bay. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to finish all my preparation for the market and toyed with the idea of packing some tools and wire so that I could continue to create while I was there. Instead, I saved Big Magic. Perhaps the yoga, the bay, and the book would be enough to keep me in the flow.
The first week on Maui I read a book on yoga and went deep into the pranayama and asana, laying the groundwork for the synchronicity that was to come.
It seems that every trip to the island, my husband and I talk about getting tattoos—the beaches being such a great place to view the various works of body art that people have adorned themselves with. On this trip we had gotten more serious about getting wedding bands permanently inked as a sign of our devotion, a sort of vow renewal I suppose. The first tattoo shop we approached abruptly stated they didn’t do fingers. The second shop loved the idea of finger art but admitted touch-ups were inevitable and suggested not doing the sides or underneath portion of the finger due to the extra wear; there went the band idea. However, the artist, a cute Lahaina local named Shelby, suggested there were lots of other sweet ways to tattoo the fingers and express our dedication. So we left the shop and kept thinking about what that would look like. We walked out of the grocery store downstairs twenty minutes later and went back upstairs to Island Time Tattoo, excitedly telling Shelby we’d like matching sun and moon tattoos on our ring fingers—a nod to our cosmic devotion and our ha-tha yoga training. With deposit paid and appointment scheduled, we walked back to the car, and I secretly wondered if we had made the right decision.
During the second week on Maui I enjoyed the family beach time and read Big Magic. Dog-ears were accumulating and my creative confidence began creeping back with each page and anecdote Gilbert shared—awe was multiplying. About a third of the way through, I laughed hysterically, ran out to the lanai, and made my husband reread an especially potent section—admittedly, a little ashamed and feeling like an adolescent boy for finding it so captivating. Gilbert, in her chapter titled, “Your Permission Slip” writes, “Some of the art that people have created across the centuries is absolutely sublime, and probably did emerge from a grand sense of seriousness and sacredness, but…a lot of it is just folks messing around for their own diversion…drawing penises on walls to pass the time. And that’s fine, too.” Then, later, she continues on the next page: “You want to draw a penis on your wall? Do it. Who cares? It’s your birthright as a human being, so do it with a cheerful heart.... Let inspiration lead you wherever it wants to lead you.” And so, there it was, my permission; If I wanted to play with seashells and driftwood, who cares?
Interestingly enough Gilbert’s next chapter titled “Decorate Yourself” is all about a woman named Eileen who decorates herself with tattoos on a whimsy.
On our last day of vacation, my husband and I headed down to get our tattoos. Afterward, a little giddy from the self-induced pain and semi-impulsive decision making, we settled our debt and thanked Shelby for the ink. She smiled and handed me a sticker. No fucking way…. I looked down and there was a mischievous looking kitten sitting at a desk and drawing a penis. I left Island Time Tattoo marveling at the mystical confirmation I had received, eager to continue my work when I arrived home.
If no one else likes my tattoos or my trinkets, who cares!
