serendipity – Aspirational Adventures

Tryfan taken from near Llyn Ogwen Sunday 28th April 2024 by myself

I know I said yesterday’s was the last post until after my holiday but I really wanted to tell you about what happened yesterday afternoon. To me it felt like the serendipitous moments that happen when you follow your heart.

I woke up feeling like, after I walked the greyhound mid morning, that I wanted to go to see if I could buy some new trainers. My heart also said that I should treat myself to lunch at a cafe I like. So after walking Mikey the greyhound Renly and I set off in the car. We had lunch then I dragged him round Sport Direct looking at trainers and walking boots. But I couldn’t find any I liked. So I put all the boxes down, said sorry to the shop assistant and left the shop. Outside were a group of women that I had to walk round.

One of them squealed “Mum look at that cute dog” about my Renly. She must have been in her mid-twenties 🙂 The younger women were asking about the dog and then their Mum said “It’s you. You’re the writer.”

Her and I had met at that well-being day I’d done at the end of February. She’d done the cooking for the event. She had said she wanted to come to one of my writing workshops sometime.

As we chatted it turned out things had been tough with her grown-up children and she hadn’t had the headspace to get in touch. This time I was bold enough to take her email address. This way she can come as and when she feels like it.

So I came out of the shop feeling despondent because I driven 12 miles and not bought anything but then I meet this lovely lady and also get a confidence boost; one that she recognised me; and two that she praised me to her daughters.

I got in the car thanking God and my heart for leading me there. I also thanked myself for the work I have been doing via QEC and other things to clear my heart so I can hear it clearly. Now I trust my heart even when it makes no sense.

Serendipity

A picture of one of the turret of Castell Aberlleiniog, Anglesey, Wales — From https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1141115

Serendipity means – the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident; good fortune; luck

On Wednesday I had decided to take myself off on an Artist’s Date as recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. On Tuesday night I’d had an important email regarding working with a school’s holiday club which needed admin tasks doing but I decided, as I am trying to “wear the cloak of a writer” – something that comes from the Warrior Goddess work I’ve been doing – I decided that the admin would wait until the afternoon.

Before getting the dog up and leaving for my Artist’s Date – which was going to be a walk from Beaumaris to Castell Aberlleiniog, some writing on the castle motte and then walking back again – I did some journaling around “Roots”. One of the things I wrote was “God will supply all my needs whether money, time, energy, direction, etc” Also things around trusting that I get done each day what I need to get done for that day. A sort of “give us today our daily bread”.

I managed to get a bit lost on the drive to Beaumaris, but found the car park and set off with my bag with notebook, water and a sandwich and the dog along the coast path. The weather was awesome. The clouds were low and were hugging the mountains across the water. I walked for a while and then thought I would stop and take a photo. That was when I discovered that I had left my phone in the car. And I had said to my husband that I would be fine on the walk because I had my phone with me!! Ok so it did help that I was walking a coastal path so just had to keep the sea to my right on the way out and then on my left on the way back! But it did mean that I didn’t know what the time was.

Even though I had journaled around trusting that I would get everything done in the back of my head I had thought that if after an hour’s walking I hadn’t found the castle I would turn back. Well now I didn’t know what the time was so I just walked.

I did find the castle, which turned out to be further from the coast path than googlemaps had said. But because I was working on “trusting time” I was at the top of the motte when the sun burned off the clouds. I wrote poems and bits for the story I’d gone to write in situ, but also as I came down I bumped into a man who had been involved in the restoration of the Aberlleiniog who told me lots more than was on the information boards which was so helpful to my story.

I would say my day turned out to be totally serendipitous. But it came from letting go of something that we all use so much now for so much – the smart phone – and trusting to God/the Universe/our own intuition.

Brene Brown in her Daring Greatly book, talks about believing we have “enough” and from the vulnerability to trust oozes. I trusted that I had “enough” time, energy and whatever, to have the time out I needed for my writing, and from it I was blessed immensely.

I’d love to share pictures from the walk but like I said I didn’t take my phone. And then when I got home there was an email from the school I’m going to be working with dates for me to work, and I did get all the admin tasks I needed to do before supper time!