I’ve waited six months for the publication date of the book I’m in! Today’s the day! I’m so excited to share the book with 35 other storytellers and to have my personal experience with whales be included.
Adair Heitmann on book launch day!
You can see and hear me reading a section of my story, page 133, “Overcoming Fear with Help From the Whales” on the video here.
The book is Animals: Personal Tales of Encounters with Spirit Animals by Dr. Steven Farmer, is published by Sacred Stories Publishing. Available from online booksellers worldwide and at https://bit.ly/cs_animals
Creativity and wellness message for today: Never give up on your dreams! Keep submitting!Keep having your deep and authentic experiences in life and with nature.Don’t let anyone try to take them away from you.
In 2019 I had a nighttime dream in which whales metaphorically foretold a health crisis that I would survive in 2021. Their wisdom helped me weather a very trying and scary time because I knew to trust their guidance. I’ve been connecting to spirit animals in my dreams and in waking life all my life. They’ve never steered me wrong.
Last year I was so sick and the medical treatments so severe that I had to take a medical leave of absence from work. Due to the severity of the treatment’s side effects, I had about 5.5 non-consecutive hours a month (that’s right — 5.5 hours per month, non-consecutive) when I had functioning brain cells and a modicum of energy. I called it my “one week a month when I came up for air,” for about an hour each day for a period of about one week.
During my long stretches of down time, when I could focus, I had a lot of time to think. When I thought about what I wanted to do when I came up for air, once a month, I thought “Do more of what makes me happy.” When I thought about this I pondered . . . writing makes me happy.
Serendipity played a hand one day, while I had brain cells I was randomly scrolling though LinkedIn, and along came a call for writers from Sacred Stories Media about its upcoming book by world-renowned author, teacher, shamanic practitioner, and licensed psychotherapist, Dr. Steven Farmer, ANIMALS: Personal Tales of Encounters with Spirit Animals. The publishing company’s call was “Have You Had a Mystical Experience with Spirit?” Well, yes, I have.
The Common Sentience book series is a first-of-its-kind series that brings to the fore and celebrates mystical experiences we have. Every book is anchored by a Featured Author (Dr. Steven Farmer for the ANIMALS book) who is a eminent thought leader on the book’s topic. These teachers share both their personal stories and deep knowledge in chapters throughout the book, along with selected contributing authors. Sacred Stories Media asked people to share their true, compelling personal stories of a direct interaction with a Spirit Animal. The story that immediately bubbled up from deep within me was an experience I had with gray whales in 1988 and how they helped me overcome fear on the Pacific Ocean outside of Tofino, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
Over the next weeks, whenever I had a few brain cells available I jotted down my memories of that profound experience. Over time my briefly drafted word sketches grew into the whole true story. During my few hours each month in which I had energy and brain power I stitched all the pieces together and I felt happy writing it. The deadline loomed. I knew I had gotten the story as good as I could. I submitted it to the publishing company for consideration and went back to sleep.
Needless to say, when I learned my story was accepted I was delighted! I am now counting down to the book launch date of January 11, 2022.
Part of the back cover states: “Experience how these spiritual allies can guard, aid, heal, and guide you in the most unexpected and delightful ways.” I’m proud that out of the 35 selected sacred storytellers that my story is one of the highlighted six on the back cover! You can find my story on page 133, “Overcoming Fear With Help From the Whales.”
Best U.S. Book Links to Use: ANIMALS is available worldwide. If you live outside the U.S. please look up the book on your favorite retailer site. A shortened Amazon link is – https://bit.ly/cs_animals A shortened Barnes and Noble link is – https://bit.ly/cs_animals_bn
Creativity and wellness message for today: Allow yourself to to guided by the intelligence of animals and the power of nature.
PechaKucha Night Bridgeport, CT. Photo credit: Arne Heitmann
Have you ever wanted to reinvent yourself? I’ve done it many times and I’ve lived to tell the tales!
I know first-hand what it’s like to outgrow your job and how the creative process isn’t always linear. I also know how art and writing and expressing myself have saved me time and time again. And how being in the creative flow makes me feel alive. Taking leaps and willingness to walk into the unknown are beacons in my life.
“Creativity is the Mother of Reinvention” is my visual storytelling about life continuously being about retooling and reinventing. I shared it at the PechaKucha Night Vol. 12 “Reinvention + Discovery” at the Bijou Theatre in Bridgeport, Connecticut as a part of the 13th annual Bridgeport Art Trail. It’s 6 minutes/40 seconds with 20 fast-paced inspiring slides. I welcome you to take a look and a listen!
Do you think you don’t have time or creativity to market yourself? Think again! This week I learned three key tips during a Facebook Live workshop: Glow Up to Show Up by Gina Tassanelli at stylishlybranding.
It’s more about your audience then it is about you.
Offer a solution to a problem.
Put a little authentic pizzazz into it.
Thank you to the other amazing female entrepreneurs and innovators in the workshop and to #GlowUpToShowUp
Creativity & wellness message for today: Just show up and do it — keep it simple, add some style, and remember to smile.
My thoughts today alight on feathers: Feather symbolism has different meanings depending on who you ask. For me, they represent hope, alignment with Spirit, divine protection, poetic inspiration, and profound yet light mystical connections. They also come into my life unexpectedly and offer me insight and strength to try something new. The feather comes as a sign and teaches me to creatively trust what is in the immediate moment.
Others have said: “In a result oriented culture like ours, it is easy to get hung up on endings, on figuring things out and finding precise solutions. But a true fascination continues building with each new piece of information, making new connections, revealing new patterns and opening new perceptions. The exploration of natural miracles is a fundamentally open ended and curiosity driven enterprise. It reminds us that science is not always about the answer, it is about the questions.” – Thor Hanson, Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle
.“The soul, light as a feather, fluid as water, innocent as a child, responds to every movement of grace like a floating balloon.” – Jean-Pierre De Caussade
“Style is the feather in the arrow, not the feather in the cap.” – George Sampson
Creativity and wellness message for today: Acknowledge unexpected gifts from nature that may float into your awareness.
I’m continuing on my healing journey and am letting myself be changed by it. I think it’s fundamental to my emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual growth . . . to allow myself to be changed by inescapable realities. Yes, I can change some things and I do. Yet, in life, outside forces can change you and you have to yield to survive and thrive. (Surthive).
Per Webster’s: An example of yield is an orchard producing a lot of fruit. An example of yield is giving someone the right of way while driving. I love both definitions, they ring true.
Here’s a quote to live by: “It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” -Wendell Berry
Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer.
Creativity and wellness message for today: Yield to your own transmutation of self and listen to your stream sing.
Happy New Year everyone. I hope you enjoy a year enriched by beauty and wonder. I continue on my year-long healing journey and in order to recuperate I need to be quiet and rest. I am finding these times of solace and solitude restorative. There’s a wonderful book our son gave me for Christmas, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May. It beautifully describes the process of tuning inward in order to heal. I recommend it!
And then there is Mary Oliver . . . just when I think I have read all her poems out of the blue a member of my church (who doesn’t know me) sends me one I haven’t read before and it nails it.
The Lily by Mary Oliver
Night after night darkness enters the face of the lily which, lightly, closes its five walls around itself, and its purse of honey, and its fragrance, and is content to stand there in the garden, not quite sleeping, and, maybe, saying in lily language some small words we can’t hear even when there is no wind anywhere, its lips are so secret, its tongue is so hidden – or, maybe, it says nothing at all but just stands there with the patience of vegetables and saints until the whole earth has turned around and the silver moon becomes the golden sun – as the lily absolutely knew it would, which is itself, isn’t it, the perfect prayer?
Creativity and wellness message for today: Be open to the gifts of the day no matter how quietly they come in.
Recently I’ve been dealing with a major health crisis that requires my full-time attention, managing severe side effects of treatments, and being fundamentally exhausted every day of every month. To deal with this major life upheaval I fully embrace my introvert self and go very internal, diving deep into rest and reflection. I nap when I am not having treatments or managing side effects. I come up for air briefly for a short period of time once a month right before my next treatment. I thought I could work at my fulltime job while undergoing aggressive treatments but I’ve learned the side effects are so strong, unpredictable, and completely flatten me that I’ve had to take a medical leave from work to focus solely on my health.
Eight years ago in January 2012 I wrote an essay for the Fairfield Writer’s Blog “Writers – Use What You Have” about the power of creativity and the value of not reinventing the wheel. You can read the blog here and view the book I mention in it Haikus of Nature, Family, and Art by Adair Wilson Heitmann at The Sketchbook Project — Brooklyn Art Library here.
Enter September 2020 and the Fairfield County Arts Association Virtual Art Show Call for Artists. I received the information awhile back but was too sick and exhausted to even consider submitting. Then weeks later I opened an email reminder and since I was in my brief moment up top I wondered “why not?” Even though I pushed myself to submit to the exhibition I used my own advice to use what I had and submitted a recent fine art unedited photograph that was readily available. Now seeing it in the virtual art show, I’m glad I did!
Creativity & wellness message for today: trust your own best advice and then follow it.
My last post was about inspiration, today’s post is about intermission. Thank you to the Seattle Theatre Group for the inspiration!
Even in the pandemic I’m busy working (I am grateful for my job that is considered essential), caring for our family (with a college son at home finishing his senior year remotely), and supporting my sweetheart (taking care of his aging father remotely). Life is full and yet blessed. We have each other, a home we enjoy with views of a tidal creek, friends we adore, neighbors we love getting to know even in the land of physical distancing, extended family strewn all across the country, and a new grandniece on the way!
Viewing what we are experiencing right now through the filter of intermission . . . pause . . . the curtain will rise again, and the show will go on, brings me comfort and acceptance.
Creativity and wellness message for today: What one word is offering you comfort and acceptance?
Adair Wilson Heitmann's Blog 