In 2015 a phrase came to me and would not let me go:

“Go to the water, learn from the water.” 

Soon after I had a dream that I was climbing up the side of a cliff, much like Sunset Cliffs in San Diego, and a massive tidal wave came crashing in. As I looked back I could see a dragonfly hover over the crest of the tidal wave, turn upside down, and lay its back against it. “Is it dead?”, I thought, but I recognized that it was in a position of surrender. 

In April 2015, just months after this dream, I was working for a client in Nepal when 2 devastating earthquakes hit. This dream immediately guided me to surrender to the “tidal wave” that could utterly destroy me, to that which I cannot control, and to life in each moment. What was most surprising was the reaction of the Nepali people. After each quake or aftershock, once everyone’s well-being was confirmed, they would move into celebration, tea, dancing, and song. I had never experienced anything like this: Such joy in the face of devastation, such life at the doorstep of death. I was forever changed and ushered into a new way of “being”.