Kindred Spirit...Revisited

Because I am on vacation this week, I've decided to run an old essay that was popular when it ran. My best to you! Suzanne

Recently I had the distinct pleasure of speaking at a New Age bookstore/tea salon in Key West, FL called Kindred Spirit. This wasn't a 'must do' stop on the circuit of major bookstores for Authors On Their Way Up. The business was brand new and unknown. In fact, when the owners invited me to speak, they didn't even have a location yet for their store. Still, I had a feeling that this was a place where I had to speak. There was something about Kelly and Karen, the owners, that resonated with me when I met them at a conference. They had a certain intensity, the air of women on a mission. It was clear that their lack of a lease at that moment was pretty irrelevant -- they would have exactly the space they wanted, and it would be great. Not only that, I would do an event with them, and that would be great. The Big G was clearly whispering in their ear.

When I got to Key West, my hunch was confirmed. Here was a beautiful old two-story clapboard house, with a gracious front porch, waving palms, and those cool dark green shutters that are so much a part of the Key West landscape. Every inch of this store held things that were beautiful and unique, each artfully arranged. Karen had hand-painted fresh, original calligraphy on the walls, and they had composed their space so you could wander at will, finding treasures at every turn. There was even a tiny antechamber, beautifully decorated, where you could have a reading with a remarkable psychic. Lace-covered tea tables here and there waited for you to sit down, relax, and have superb cup of tea. The effect of being in Kindred Spirit was that my travel-jagged soul was immediately soothed. This store had the ability to heal people.

That healing comes from what my friends Yannig and Karin calls "the essence". It's an immutable standard for your work that comes from within, a refusal to deliver less than exactly what your soul told you to create. And this takes considerable work. When I met Karen and Kelly, they were coming off of weeks of 12-hour days putting the finishing touches on their store and holding their first event. This is the same kind of effort Yannig, an artisan bread baker, puts into his loaves of Crown Point Bread. It's the same care Karin puts into developing her candlemaking business. It's this slightly insane, but critically important vision you get that pushes you forward, and forward, and forward, until you do create exactly what you want.

And please note that such work is not just a string of non-stop, blissed out moments of creative joy. There are many moments when you want to go home and go to bed. There are just as many when you lie awake worrying. Still, there is something sacred and holy that pushes you forward, whether it be the 'essence' or your own hands-on interpretation of God. Not surprisingly, all of Key West turned out for my talk at Kindred Spirit; the event was electric! All, I say, because people wanted that healing at the heart of Karen and Kelly's hard work.

May be you as moved as I've been by the healing work of all creators, great, small, famous and unknown, who are driven by nothing more than their desire to deliver what they feel. And may you discover the same within yourself.

For more information on Kindred Spirit, call Karen or Kelly at (305) 296-1515 or email [email protected]