Funny Thing About Santa Fe...

Saturday, April 8, 2006 ~ Santa Fe, New Mexico

It's a funny thing about Santa Fe...or, at least, my experience of Santa Fe.

When I arrived here in January, just another stop (or so I thought) on the road to wherever, the signs, signals and synchronicities seemed to fall over each other to convince me to stick around. My favorite was that week's Walk Your Talk column in The Santa Fe Reporter. The column began with this line, "Dear Robert—I am considering a move to Santa Fe...", and it seemed to have been written just for me.

Once I committed to staying, the signs multiplied. For example, I found a jewel of a place to rent from two jewel-like beings who went out of their way to accommodate me. I was the only person who ever responded to their ad.

Other signs hinted at great professional and financial accomplishment.

Santa Fe, it seemed, would be the key to my success.

It has been, I believe, though not in any of the ways I expected.

Instead of launching me on the fast-track to Sound Healer Superstardom, it has chipped away at my professional identity, pushed me to expand my sense of self and dared me to shatter illusion, expectation and limitation.

It also refused to allow me to get too settled here, as though there was foreknowledge of the temporary nature of my sojourn.

Of course, this upheaval isn't happening only because I have been living in Santa Fe. Many are experiencing similar shakeups.

Nor can I say with 100% certainty either that I'm leaving or that, if I do, I'm never returning. Too much can happen in a week for me to make that kind of claim.

Yet the frequencies of particular places can amplify and focus prevailing energies. It happened for me in Sedona. It happened for me in Hawaii. And I believe that's what has happened for me in Santa Fe.

It's no accident that my Advanced Mastery teleconference series was conceived and launched here (a series that has taken a radically different turn from what I expected when I first promoted it as an ultimately aborted Santa Fe retreat).

There is an alchemy sparked by my being here, an alchemy that's informing how the series is taking shape and that's already kickstarting me into the next level of my own mastery, whatever that is.

So often in my life I have been guided in a particular direction on a pretext that has proven more ruse than reason. My higher wisdom doesn't hesitate to resort to trickery if that's what it takes to garner my cooperation.

Sometimes a little knowledge isn't dangerous at all. It's the safest possible course.

That was true when my ex-wife and I moved to Hawaii seven years ago, another place where I experienced a radical identity-stripping.

Then, I was angry, resentful and scared. Then, I tried to cling to who I thought I was and wept bitterly when I couldn't. Then, the "deception" that got us there temporarily dissolved my faith.

Today, even as fear occasionally overtakes me, I smile at the ruse and laugh with Spirit at what is sometimes required to do its bidding, which is, of course, the expression of my heart's desire.

I can't pretend to know the depth of that desire or how it can be most joyfully and powerfully expressed.

Clearly, part of it has been expressed by my being in Santa Fe.

Yet without all the signs and signals, hints and promises, I probably wouldn't have stayed here.

In this moment, the signs and signals point to a departure, seem to be directing me toward southern California. Whether it's for a week or a year, all I can do now is trust my inner sensings and surrender to whatever is next, knowing that that is the ultimate key to my mastery.