READ THE INTRODUCTION HERE

Somewhere it's written that you will do things, meet people, go places you never thought you would, and dive headfirst into the murky waters of the unknown. In some liminal space, choices are not made, roads are not taken, and a reality you once dreamed was yours now only exists as a regret for what might've been. Life has you choose between Door #1, #2, and # 3, barking out the numbers like a talk show host. The crowd screams, "Pick 1, pick 2, pick 3." Finally, you muster the courage and pick your door while believing you control that choice. The door swings open, and no, it's not a cruise; it's a kayak on the Chesapeake Bay.

You learn to love your choices.

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At nineteen, I lost my innocence about the world when my father, who kept me safe, died suddenly. My family is now broken and impoverished. I decide not to return to college, only to find out that an anonymous donor has paid for my tuition and will continue to pay for it for three years until I graduate. Years later, a boozy wedding reveals the mystery donor, someone I had never met but who thought enough of me to ensure my education because his niece, my friend, told him I deserved more.

On the darkest night in the middle of a violent storm, I approach a rocky precipice, ready to take that one last step into oblivion, driven by the inevitable relief that comes from a deathly silence, from heartbreak, and the unrelenting pain in my body and soul. But as the wild wind threatens to rip away my clothes and life, I hear the pleading voice of my child begging me to stay. So I return, empty, surrendering to a life I didn't know I wanted, soaked through and through by salt, rain, and tears.

A mere two words, rising unbidden from my throat, mean the end to a 21-year marriage that I thought would last forever. Hope vanishes like a puff of smoke, leaving behind the odor of hurt, grief, and bitterness.

The dog I adopt is my only true guru, saving me from the nights I'm on my knees, barfing out my tequila-fueled sorrow into the porcelain god in the bathroom.

A simple decision made on a whim becomes a life-changing encounter with an unseen world that takes me into a life that feels both alien and familiar. Love arrives like a shooting star across the heavens—brilliant, unexpected, pointing me towards the uncharted territory of the universe. I'm drawn by destiny to a land steeped in mystery and spirituality, where the ancestors are guides and sacred truths spring from the crystalline rivers, the snow-capped mountains, and the vast expanse of the ocean. An ancient ceremony amid ancestral ruins on the top of a grass-covered pyramid offers the promise of eternal love from the Andean shaman, who later becomes my husband.

Without money or a plan, a sacred space arises on a fallow hillside, a seed planted in the dirt that dares life to emerge. The ongoing conversation between the mountain and ocean speaks to a secret portal to other dimensions. This battleground of spiritual warfare co-exists with sacred rituals daring me to cross to the other side to meet myself, shadow and light enmeshed, while I cautiously learn to dance between the spiritual and secular worlds.

In many ways, my life feels like a pilgrimage, its events leading me step by step to where I am today, a place I never expected to be. I can now see how each incident transformed who I am and continues to transform who I am becoming. Each person has chiseled away at any mask I may have created to protect myself from sorrow and pain. The longing I have felt all my life has driven me to explore through books, travel, and deeper conversations with people I never imagined I would know. Priests, shamans, artists, healers, writers, poets, adventurers, and rebels have all left their mark on my being. I have discovered the power of co-creating beauty and magic with others.

I call these collaborations "encuentros," or encounters. Encounters occur when the full power and creative force of two or more beings are at play. Since there are no scripts and instructions, there are also no assurances. These encounters hold the life-giving energy of stars when they meet with their full force exploding into a new nebula of light and energy. My encuentro changed the course of my life and, like two colliding stars, destroyed and rebirthed me.

In April 2012, I arrived in Ecuador for a meeting I was unprepared for but destined to experience. In an unassuming man with long black hair tucked into a baseball cap, I intuitively recognized my guide. I would learn about shamanism, mysticism, and the unseen spiritual world for the next eight years. Most importantly, I would learn about myself and recover my soul's mystery in Ecuador's Andean wisdom traditions.

This encounter marked the portal to an inner world I had explored as a child and had left behind as an adult. I was coming home, and I didn't yet know it. It would take eight years of stepping one foot in front of the other, sometimes knowing what was ahead and, more often not, trusting that each day would reveal my life to me in new ways.

The illusion that we know where our lives are going is a belief we carry unconsciously. We're not prepared for that whimsical decision that at the moment seems insignificant but that eventually changes our life forever. In his poem "The Road Not Taken," Robert Frost writes, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." Those lines echo across time, repeating like the voice that carries over a canyon. I took the road less traveled, and it most certainly made all the difference.