Going the Distance

"Going the Distance" © 2002  ~ colored marker by Carol E  Fairbanks

"Each one of us who travels further than the obstacles, will know a different kind of life from that time on....."

                                                           - from Brushdance

On May 20, 2002, feeling a lot of anxiety, I wrote this entry in my journal.  I had finalized my plans to travel in my little red Honda all by myself across the country from my home in Ohio to Colorado. I was not sure exactly what I wanted to accomplish, but it was an adventure that would not let go of me.  It felt like a mountain that needed to be climbed, just because it was there.  I was hard pressed to give my family and friends a rational reason why I decided to go on this venture, but something inside me said that to not go would mean losing an opportunity to live out the fullest expression of myself. 

Maybe it was something in my ancestral lineage that drew me out west.  My mom dearly love Colorado and described vividly the big sky that she photographed on vacations there. Just talking about her experience out west seemed to enhance her joy for life and extend to her a promise of a self not yet realized in Ohio.  The only book that Dad ever owned was a book about native Americans and the western landscape.  I even found among my Aunt Betty's photos, after she passed away, an old postcard photo of one of our clan's distant relatives.  I am not sure exactly how she is related to me, but her "spirit of adventure" and her sense of humor are definitely part of my psyche and soul. 

Fairbanks family photo - Helen - around the early 1900's.

Helen, around the turn of the century, had the guts to go out west, pose for a photo in a short skirt and, while holding a gun (probably unloaded, but even so...) write on her postcard...... 

"What do you think of me as an Eastern-Western girl?"

Helen had this independent self image even before women were allowed to vote in this country !!

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face... You must do the thing you think you cannot do."   I really believe those words.  And for some reason, my clan looked to the "west" to inspire them to challenge their fear of limitation. To my family, it represented a kind of "OZ" at the end of the "yellow brick road".  It was a calling that could not be ignored.

"Mountain Vision" © 2003 ~ Carol E Fairbanks

I believe it was my destiny to travel out west...to the land of the big sky and mountains...to a place where I could make use of those resources within to actualize the reasons I incarnated in this lifetime.  It was important that I manifest this adventure with an open heart, and so I titled my journal which documented this experience, "A Journey of the Heart."  Under the "light of the full moon", and wearing a "multicolored cape" of heart inspired possibilities, I dared to "fly" west that summer of 2002. 

" Trail by the Flatirons, CO" 2001 , by Carol

And indeed, the mountains of experience and challenge, both inner and outer, in Colorado did push me beyond my fear.  Colorado was not meant to become my forever home, but the experiences there prepared me to be more "at home" with myself.  I never felt a connection to the people there, but I did, in my solitary journey, connect with my true authentic self.   

My destined trail was not to Colorado, but rather through it to a place I could never have imagined.  Colorado was my 'way shower" , my guide, who prepared me for my life in the northwest.  I never would have moved to Oregon directly from Ohio.  In fact, it never once entered my mind, when I lived in Ohio, to make Oregon my home.  It felt too far... too unreachable and unattainable. In Ohio, I seemed to lack what it took to travel to the northwest, and so the lure of the southwest stepped in and created that possibility within my heart and mind.  

Native American wisdom says that "every step you take is supported by 1000 ancestors."  And so this "journey of the heart" of mine was not a solitary one after all. I drew this drawing below, two years before I moved out west.  The spirit of the West was calling to me even before I was aware of the possibility of making it my home. Maybe my true self empowerment is more of a collective effort, where ancestors, great nature, and my sense of adventure have worked together in the process of opening my eyes to all that I really am. And to deeply know oneself, with love and appreciation, is to be fully empowered.

"Empowerment" © 2000  ~ crayon by Carol E Fairbanks