Celebration

{photo by Melissa Piccola}

I began my work as a creative entrepreneur 17 years ago, starting out with one computer, one inkjet printer, a 10' x 10' office in a two-bedroom apartment and a wild dream. I continued this work over the next decade, running my business in relative isolation just as the internet was beginning to burst. I'm not sure I even had a website when I officially "opened my doors" in 1995. By the time Swirly was a bona fide brand I did, indeed, have a website, and I connected with my peers, colleagues, sales reps, clients, agents and licensees through email, the phone and a fax machine. Face-to-face interactions tended to occur in one of two ways - either quietly over coffee or at a trade show. I built my business slowly - month by month, sales rep by sales rep - unaware that in a relatively short period of time this pace of entrepreneurial growth would be made all the more challenging by a little thing called social media.

I am still a bit flabbergasted that I managed to straddle these two worlds of pre-social media and post-social media. That I have created and built an entirely new platform beyond Swirly feels like a minor miracle. I still don't feel like I do an exceptionally good job at managing all the facets, layers and portals of social media, but I've done a good enough job that I'm here with Pixie and Maya creating Matrilumina, and that opportunity didn't just fall in my lap. With that, I don't feel the need to dissect the details of my work in order to figure out exactly how I got here; I am content knowing that the common thread of my work - the cord that stretches from that 10' x 10' home office to the grounds of Esalen Institute - has been the real leader in all of this. The work of my soul - to inspire, uplift and leave a positive imprint on the world - has brought me here. It built Swirly, it provided the gust of air I needed to leap from pre to post social media, it paved the way for Matrilumina. It has been the compass, the lighthouse, the guidepost.

In this new age of social media, where we can connect with one another no matter our geography or time zone and share the details of our life and work with photos, videos, journal entries and tweets, the need to carve out time for intimate, face-to-face encounters is all the more urgent. I think we are seeing that urgency in action in the wide array of gatherings, retreats, workshops and summits that are now held all over the world for the purpose of bringing together kindred creative spirits and entrepreneurs. It's fine that we get to stay in touch through our keyboards, but the real magic happens when we can talk, laugh, share and cry in person. When we can share space in silence, when we can hug at the end of the day. When we can hold hands and pass a tissue, say "Bless you" after a sneeze and look each other in the eye, saying more in that moment than we could through words. This is where the greatest gifts exist; this is how we create sisterhoods.

On our Anchors page, when we speak of Celebration, we say: To walk one's own path is to celebrate the gift that life presents: Exploring possibility, excavating oneself for treasure, collaborating with kindred folk, and creating for the pure joyful sake of it. My entire career has been an exercise in Celebration, due in no small part to the face-to-face connections I've made before and after social media took over our lives. My work has been guided by my Desire to Inspire, and this desire has given me the opportunity to meet and collaborate with some of the most extraordinary women in the world. This is - by far - the most meaningful part of the work I do. It isn't the book deals, the license contracts or the essay bylines. Those are lovely, but they aren't what my work is really about. My work is about sitting in a room and looking you in the eye, about holding a space for your dreams, about taking a deep breath in unison and exhaling a sigh of release. It is about the tears we might shed together and the laughter we will certainly share. It is about celebrating those moments, honoring their beauty, and letting that light shine wherever I go from there.

Blessings...Christine