Sky+Light Exchange

Since Birds Eye Adventures are currently on hold as we continue to navigate through these unprecedented times of isolation and turmoil, I am sharing these images and sentiments from a recent adventure I embarked on with the hopes of planting the seeds for a return to this beautiful area of the world soon.

I was planning to travel to Santa Fe this September, where I experienced my first sense of “spirit home” 25 years ago, to attend a conference and take time to write more solo retreat and venture reflection resources for clients. After canceling this trip months ago the call of the landscape of the Southwest kept growing louder. I ended up packing up the car and recruiting my two children as future Birds Eye Adventure scouts and hitting the open road.

One of the prompts of the rather sudden embarkation happened during my participation in a cohort facilitated in July by friend and colleague Jeffrey Scott, that focused on vetting relaunch strategies for businesses in the time of Covid-19, aptly named Relaunch. In the third session, he conveyed the notion that we carry 3 cards that we can play in any given day when challenges arise. One is The Head Card, one is The Heart Card, and one is The Path Card. Essentially, we have the option to think our way out of a challenge and/or feel way out of the challenge, and yet sometimes we need to change the external stimuli that we are responding to and shift the scenery along the path that we have been slogging along and see what transpires. I had been finding myself and my clients doubling down on The Head and The Heart cards in recent months, trying to think or feel our way out of current challenges and giving myself permission to play The Path Card was the very reset and recharge play I was seeking. The words “Sky” and “Light” had been nipping at my heels alongside my new puppy Ruby in recent weeks and I knew that I needed to seek out a horizon that extends way further than what I am accustomed to tucked here in the forest of Western North Carolina. (In college in Chapel Hill, NC I worked at a very special little spot called Skylight Exchange and it became clear to me that this is was what I was seeking in this adventure: to exchange sky and light for a bit. Pleasure comes in finding these little constellations in our lives that come to form in retrospect).

So, it was at 600 miles into the 4,000 mile total trip that that I began to catch sight of the expansion of sky I was seeking. And this opening was coupled with glimpses of deeper insights into the various identities that I carry, whether they are those granted to me at birth or by the choices I have made in life. I tuned into the growing prickle of awareness that comes from the freedom and the extra layer of safety in traveling the open road in America that is granted to me by my white skin, or rather the layer of safety that has shamefully yet to be fully granted to People of Color in our nation. I experienced swells of gratitude and respect for the small business owners that we encountered along the way who made all of the adjustments necessary to allow us to still experience their goods and services and how deep the reverence and kinship that I carry for fellow entrepreneurs is regardless of demographics. I celebrated where I am in my journey as a mother now that my children are old enough that if I park the car on the side of a barren highway and climb barbed wire to get a break that they are essentially still going to be ok.

But the core discovery of this adventure was the one I inherently knew at the offset for it is one that I have witnessed in the lives of so many Birds Eye clients who have traveled with me: Often times in life, and business, we must leave in order to experience the beauty of the return.

The most beautiful sky that I traveled thousands of miles to discover was waiting to welcome me back twenty minutes from home. As I came around the curve of the mountain pass, I was so taken aback by the double rainbow overhead, curved arches that I was living to see in the architecture of Santa Fe were now extended across the sky ushering us across the threshold, coupled with pink cotton candy clouds barreling across for extra effect that I screamed to the shock of my kids. The old adage of “Home is Where the Heart Is” has been with me as I peruse these images and I think on the cards we get to play, and I remember that there will be many days in these darkening months of shorter days that I will need to free my heart and my head to return back out to surrender under the skies of the Southwest or the Scottish Moors. However, the truest path back to myself and my flock continues to be the one that leads me back here to live in community in these ancient Appalachian Mountains and serve the entrepreneurs and leaders who are facing their own needs for expansion, though not quite sure in what form. To which, I can honestly reply, I relate.