Everyone looks for inspiration. Even the most creative people in touch with their inner child artist, struggle at times to find something to churn the fires within. I must admit that sometimes I feel lost. I forget all I have been offered, all I have been blessed to experience and be a part of. Blessed enough to have time to ponder the small things. A trip I took recently stirred something deep in me. At times, I get bogged down with "chop wood, carry water" like everyone, but I needed to reconnect to nature. We humans do a funny thing in thinking we are above or separate from nature when we are very much a part of it. This disconnect leaves us depressed and lonely in a world seeking to connect to us, too. This summer I started to feel misdirected and I knew I needed to free something old and scarred within me. I took a trip to Salt Spring Island, British Columbia and what a jewel it is sparkling its wonder in the sheltered waters between Vancouver Island and the Mainland of BC, Canada. On a misty day I took my bike on a trip to the south of the island. I stopped along the way to eat a plethora of wild blackberries, delicately hung between thorny vines. In a little park with a hiking trail by the sea, I made my way to the shore and stumbled upon these bright purple starfish. They were huddled together on a rock in the retreating tide, as if hoping for the next high tide to again surround them in their comfort zone of these softly swishing waters. They clung to each other like ardent lovers in a desperate time, reassuring each other it would be okay. This place is quiet, the quiet that erases thinking and allows intuition and knowing. Was it possible they were aware of me, too? They were a magical reminder of the immense possibilities that this world offers. A reminder that happiness does not need to be pursued as we were taught in school from the doctrines of old, stiff ideas. Happiness waits for us all the time within us, we just need to allow it...no pursuing needed. Why is it we fear what is so near, so perfect and right for us and trade it for security and predictability, even if the predictability eventually becomes our own prison? I often wonder if there are reasons for being put into the form we were born into. Is there a divine purpose for the set of gifts and challenges we were entrusted with in this lifetime. Did my spirit manifest itself in the current form to allow me certain opportunities for greater lessons? Perhaps. But today purple starfish fill my heart with wonder and optimism that everything is dynamic, mystical, and as it should be. This is exactly what my lost and lonely heart needed. And I am okay lingering in the essence of this question... Leah West