Moving on from Authentic Transformation Advance at El Capitan Canyon, California

Wow what an incredibly beautiful place I’ve been staying at since Friday! There is so much to enjoy and explore from the nature trails with its flora and fauna, the clear night skies full of stars, or the log cabins with the Jacuzzi style bath (big enough for two), and the deeply soft comfortable queen sized beds! It’s been an absolute pleasure being here in this magical place, working in the meadow yurt and surrounding neighbourhood - eating at the canyon market place or outside the cabins, which come provided with BBQ and wooden picnic tables.

I’ve had a fantastic time getting to know everyone on the course: Neil who I’ve met before (the man behind authenticity and our facilitator for the 3 days; originally from UK and who now lives in Majorca); Nicki (the logistical organiser and person responsible for bringing the course to such a beautiful location; also originally from UK, who now lives in Santa Barbara); Robbie (from New Orleans); Paul (San Atonio; President of Century GSE); Barbara and Rick (married, from San Atonio; Vice Presidents of Century GSE); Elsie (New York); and Kylin (New York) my room mate - she also collected me from Venice Beach - turned out her friend Daz (originally from Kendall, UK) lived round the corner from the hotel I was staying at - and delivered us safely to the course destination, albeit 30 minutes later than the expected course start time! I didn’t mind because it meant I had a chance to discover about her life story (Kylin was the only person not to write and send her bio in advance because she’d been busy overseeing her art expo). She’s an amazing person because of the experiences she’s had in what I found to be a fascinating life (e.g. spiritual, creative, family oriented, etc).

It’s incredible to think that we were all strangers before the course and that through sharing a painfully honest autobiography (about 2000 words in advance), reading the 7 stages of authenticity book and the duration of 3 days we were able to connect, provide trust, support and love to nurture our life purposes and desires to make various projects a reality.
Not sure how long I've got until the rental car picks me up and I start my drive along the pacific coastal highway, luckily I prepared something for the blog last night when I couldn't access the internet because the signal was too weak from the cabin. On Thursday night I went to a sushi bar and got chatting to Richard, who used to be a dentist and is now an inventor! His daughter is studying in San Francisco. We had a great conversation about travelling and places to see in California - Hearst Castle and Monterey Aquarium. Ok got to go, taxi here ... more later I promise!

The first day was mainly a solo exploration involving a walk to get you out of breath, getting tired, feeling fear, 20 minutes of meditation, 20 minutes standing still looking at a view and a one-to-one session with Neil. I didn’t particularly like the prospect of going it alone so soon after arriving and took my time in finding my way to the kiosk where all hike trails began. I noticed that the others all seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going. I stopped to ask directions to the kiosk because the El Capitan site is so vast and I wasn’t convinced I was going in the right direction. This resulted in me getting a map from a man called Dave (there always is one!) and I soon found myself in the canyon market place. I needed to buy some water and noticed they served hot food, so I settled in to enjoy a toasted sandwich, which enabled me to look at the map and plan my next steps. I contemplated hiring a bike to ride along the coast to Refugio Beach as that would take care of the fear element and getting tired. I decided though to head for the Bill Wallace lower trail (about 4.5 miles) on foot.

I had my new camera, with its battery charged and took advantage of snapping things I considered to be important (natural beauty and sign posts of where I’d been).

There was not another person in sight for the majority of my hike giving me a sense of real freedom and at one point I ran like a child down a long stretch of land to get me completely out of breath and to feel the adrenaline pumping in my body. Naturally I chose the hard path when offered a choice between that and easy.

This led me to climb to a high vantage point, which if it had been less cloudy would have unveiled the pacific ocean. I descended the path (passing a sign saying one mile) only to find myself in front of a sign post signifying the beginning the Bill Wallace trail. Puzzled I set off again choosing the easy and yet unexplored route, which brought me back to the original hard/easy sign I’d seen 30 minutes or so earlier. So off I set walking in the opposite direction searching for a new path to take me further on what should be a significantly longer trail than what I had done. This proved to be the right thing to do because I soon saw another sign saying 2 miles check point. I was getting tired by this point, my trainers were wet and trousers muddy. I was conscious of needing to find somewhere to mediate or stand still but no where seemed appropriate until I found a spot where you could wander off the path that wasn’t covered in thick uninviting vegetation. I chose a big thorny bush with red berries to sit behind, out of sight (I hoped) from the actual trail route.

I sat there for some time trying to mediate - earlier we’d leant about switching off the left hemisphere of our brain (logistical/rational) to allow the right side (visual, auditory, olfactory sensory, etc) to take over. I concentrated on what I could see in the microcosm and macrocosm, e.g. a purple flower up close or spider on the floor to a bird with a blue tail flying from tree to tree and watching the fog roll in over the landscape until the sun turned up and it burnt off. Towards the end of the meditation/looking at view I started to become aware of human voices in the vicinity and this generated a fear in me of being discovered. I could hear people laughing and initially thought damn I’ve been spotted and am being ridiculed. A quick glance to my left and right reassured me that no, I was safe and no one could see me. Their laughter was caused by something else. Never the less I stayed there another 15 minutes before setting off from my hiding place. I thought that’d I catch up with the people I heard but I never did. It wasn’t until I’d looped back and found myself yet again back at the hard/easy sign post, thinking how on earth do I get back to camp that I saw two ladies and a girl. (Help always arrives when you need it!) We chatted (me telling them about the short looping route) and they told me how to get back. Following their instructions I learnt that I’d actually started at a short cut rather than the beginning, although I’d probably gone round in circles enough times to make up for it!!
By now I was ready to check into my room and I had the good fortune to meet Kylin driving the hire car to our log cabin. So I hopped in and took the map to help navigate the way. We dropped off our bags; my 1-2-1 with Neil was at 5.15pm and I still had an hour to wait.

Kylin asked if I’d mind driving the car back to the parking bay because she was tired. I agreed, thinking this was a great opportunity to try driving an American car in a safe environment (speed limit was 5mp) before having to do it for real on Monday. Paul showed up and asked for a lift to the market place, so we both set off and I parked the car. I collected my laptop thinking I’d have time to log on and blog, but then retraced the route taken by the car, which was a mistake as it took me forever - I subsequently leant a quicker route back. As soon as I’d arrived I needed to head back for my session with Neil. Thankfully he was running a bit behind schedule with Robbie so I had a chance to drink some water and get my breath back.

Kylin's altar - made up of rocks collected from the beach ...

I'm still figuring out how much to tell you all about my life purpose and project, so if you're interested let me know!