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I felt extraordinarily happy.  Sasha promptly gave birth to a litter of five pups, and in the days that followed I heated Purina Puppy Chow over a Coleman camp stove. I loved my new family and my new life, and that winter I did photograph both buffalo and northern lights.  Somehow I managed to keep body and soul together. That all happened twenty-five years ago, and from that fateful beginning I have never looked back, nor ever again become a part of the conventional work world. I offered photography classes, sold my prints at craft shows across western Canada, wrote for photo magazines, led photo tours, and since 1985 have been successfully publishing a series of photography books. Each step has led to the next and through it all, my passion has grown and my work has matured. I now pay a lot of heed to that inner voice, knowing that my creativity and the 420,000 photographs that have sprouted from it, has its roots deeply embedded in radical trust.
Oh yes, and by the way, two weeks after the move to the little house, the doctor pronounced, "I don't know what you did, but your blood sugar levels are perfectly normal; no insulin needed here!"

Courtney's story is typical of those who have had the radical trust to follow their soul's calling.

Exercises:

1.  While reading the following sections of this chapter, reflect on Courtney's story and how it relates to where you are in your life.   
2.  Listen to Sarah McLachlan's song "Sweet Surrender" and reflect on what cold rooms you have left.   What cold rooms are in your life that you are either prepared to leave behind or fill with life and warmth.

Know Thyself

The three essential questions we need to ask as we begin our spiritual quest are "Who am I?" and "What is my place in the universe" and "What is my purpose here?" 
The question of "Who am I?" is paradoxical at best.  It seems like such a simple question, such a simple thing to know.  After all, haven't we all lived with ourselves for all of the years of our lives?  This question is often a challenge to answer, in part because we are constantly deepening and re-creating ourselves as we live life.  The spiritual quest is a path of discovery of the self.  The forums where we discover ourselves are in the workplace with our family and in community life, and play.  Every interaction, every experience, every moment of every day provides an opportunity for discovering who we really are.

Those in the counseling professions say that 90% of their clients are those searching for their own identity. Whether we are in counseling or not, how many of us have felt dissatisfied with our work, have felt that somehow the job doesn't fit us and that somehow we aren't using all of our full gifts and talents and our full potential as human beings?

Peter Senge describes the "Who am I?" question as "personal mastery".  He says that personal mastery is the "discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively.  Personal mastery is the learning organization's spiritual foundation."

At whatever age, in whatever career or job we have chosen, a reasonable goal is to live our lives like a work of art.  So we can ask ourselves the question:  What would I be doing if I were to create my life as a work of art, to create my life as sacred... for me?  What is

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