The Gathering of Artisans In North Carolina: Finding Lost Dreams

Hello Appalachian mountains!

After 6 long years my husband and I were able to take our first holiday together without the kids.  This was kind of a big deal for us as we have been in a season of busyness raising kids, starting a creative business, doing a music business and so on.  We connected with a great ministry in North Carolina called The Worship Studio (www.theworshipstudio.org) about a year ago and have found that it has had a profound impact on our lives and our creativity.  It's where a lot of our dream have all begun.  I have had the privilege of a having a creative coach from this place as well.  So when we heard they were having an event called The Gathering of Artisans (www.gatheringofartisans.com) we knew we needed to go! And I am so glad we did.  After a 16  hour drive ( a few stops in between) we landed in Black Mountain, North Carolina. With stunning views of the Appalachian Mountains, this little town was a great place to be.  The days were full with workshops, teachings, and lots of fun.  Meeting lots of new people, we had a blast and not once did our conversations get interrupted by one of our children, although I did miss them lots.  It was still a much needed time away.

YMCA North Carolina

The dreams in me seemed to come alive again while we were there.  In fact dreams that I had lost along the way all of sudden became real again.  Do you ever have those kinds of dreams where you think this is just me wanting something that I can never have so I will just forget about it?  It didn't take long, after being around a bunch of dreamers who are living out their dreams, that I began to revisit those lost dreams again and realized that they are still available for me.  Will they just come to me?  They might, they might not.  But either way there is action required on my part.  Four simple questions were asked of us and this began to trigger a greater unveiling of the dream in me.  So I will direct these to you as well.

1. What do you see when you are looking at your dream?  I often would get choked up in this place  because I know what I would see but it didn't always seem practical.  For example, I would see a building where I wanted my dream to take place and maybe I could even describe the kind of building I wanted for my dream.  That sounds great right?  But then I would allow my practical side to get in the way and say "no this won't work if I do this there... it's not the right location." In reality I was altering the dream into what I thought would work rather than believing that I have dreams and desires that work together.

2.What do you need?  It's good to write this out and be specific about it.  I'm sure most dreams are way bigger than ourselves and there are a lot of things required to see them happen.

3. What's in your hand?  I love this because that is the beginning stages of your dream.  What do you have that you can do or use now to begin stepping into this dream?

4. What is a realistic timeframe?  Even as much as I want my dream to happen today, I realize there is a lot of preparation to make a dream happen.  Not just on my part but also from the help of others.  It's good to have a timeframe because you are setting a goal to do this by such and such a time and if you are anything like me you may just have the mindset one day I will..........and one day never comes! So set goals that have time frames!!!!

A big thank you to The Worship Studio who proposed these questions to us and got us thinking about them and made our dream a little more clearer and a little more attainable!!!

Anyways, that was just a bit of what we experienced not to mention the amazing painting classes I got to be a part of and even a dance/movement class!  I loved them all.  We came back feeling full and alive ready to continue living a creative life with our three kids and living out our out dreams.  So dreamers, get yourself around other dreamers that are living out their dreams and start dreaming again!!!!

Eating Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kentucky!  Best chicken EVER!

Stevie the driver drove the whole 16 hours to North Carolina.

Beautiful scenery: A place of peace

An awesome campfire with new friends

Cool art in the city of Asheville.

Exploring Asheville.  So many art galleries.  Loved it!

Great time of painting and great workshops

Thank you Gathering of Artisans!  It was a great time!!!