lara simmons

"Stay calm, nothing is under control." -- Lynnet McKenzie The theme of the month has been "Wisdom from the Road" - quotes gathered on our family road trip this summer. Today's quote is wisdom from someone else's road trip. Lynnet McKenzie is the founder of "Opening to Ecstasy," She recently left her home and most of her possessions behind to take off in search of the unknown. Just her, her partner, her son, their dog and a mini-van on the road, looking for their next Divine Assignment . The lessons have been many, but this is one that resonated with me. How often we strive to get things "under control" only to realize that this is not always possible, not always within our power. Yet, we struggle and fight to try and make it so. This is the true wisdom of the road. We are not in control. If we can stay calm in the wake of that realization, we can come to understand that The Universe that is wants nothing but what is truly for ...

WRITE YOUR LIFE Session Two tonight at East West Bookshop . Join us!

"Know the power that is peace." -- Black Elk , from the visitor's center at the site of Custer's Last Stand There are certain places on this earth that seem to carry the energy of the things that happened there: my grandparents' farm in Iowa , the former site of the Twin Towers , the city of Paris . The site of Custer's Last Stand, or The Battle of Little Bighorn is like that. Bleak, hot (on the day we were there), and preternaturally quiet, there is no doubt that this is a place where serious things happened. Where battles were fought and won, mistakes were made and men died. Where the hope of a people rose and then fell again.... In the midst of all this are these words from Black Elk, the famous Medicine Man of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), who fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn when he was just twelve years old. Whose hopes no doubt rose on this day, but fell after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. What does it mean to have peace under ext...

Wow! What a great group of writers - 21 in all! - showed up on Wednesday to write their lives at East West Bookshop . I enjoyed getting to know you all and hearing about the role writing plays in your lives and where you would like to go from here. If you couldn't make the first session, here's what you missed: For a bit of inspiration we read Dear Sugar's column " Write Like a Motherfucker ." Then we each wrote our own "Dear Sugar" letter, to Sugar or our favorite advice columnist, about what we felt was the main thing holding us back right now or what we needed advice on to move forward in our lives. After a time of sharing, we came back to our journals, put on our advice columnist caps and wrote back to ourselves with some objective, kind and compassionate advice. (ADVICE TO MYSELF) Putting our advice columnist hats away, we shifted focus to Part Two of our mini-session: RELEASING YOUR STORY. In this section of class, we focus on letting...

Today's the day! WRITE YOUR LIFE tonight at East West Bookshop.

"If we share what we have, we will all have enough." -- Opportunity Shop brochure from Dubois, WY My great aunt lives in Dubois, WY and I have always wanted to go there. On this trip, we made that happen. One of our stops was the "Opp Shop," as it is known in town, a thrift store that my aunt helped to found as a non-profit that benefits the local community. This quote rings so true to me and yet I know that like many profundities of life, it can be hard. Hard to believe. Hard to trust. Hard to truly live. But I am trying....

This is it! Only one week to go until we are going to write our lives together. Are you signed up yet? If not, click here to sign up. Hope you can join us! 

"We don't trust ourselves. We need to trust ourselves. Women especially." --Night Manager at the Mini Golden Inn in Hungry Horse, MT My family and I recently got back from a nearly month-long road trip. It was an amazing adventure and we are enjoying a little "down time" back home before the onslaught of supply lists and school shopping ensues. For the next few weeks I will be sharing some "Wisdom from the Road," quotes that I picked up on our trip. This first one is courtesy of the night manager at the Mini Golden Inn in Hungry Horse, Montana where we stayed on our way to Glacier National Park . She asked me for my license plate number and I went out to check, despite that fact that I already knew it. When I told her that she said, "We don't trust ourselves. We need to trust ourselves. Women especially." And I knew we had come to the right place.