I just got back from a spring break. It was a big vacation—a 10-day trip to a Kauai, my partner and two youngest kids in tow, where we would stay in an old-style house just steps from the beach. I've been to Hawaii many times in my life, spending most summers there as a kid while my dad worked for the Hawaiian government (I don't think he was a spy, but you never know about these things). But I hadn't been back for years—and I was surprised how much it affected me.

The idea of vacation—we'll, I'm no Latin scholar, but that word VACATE is in there pretty prominently, I'd say...

So, what did I vacate? Well, after a busy schedule of promoting my book, going to expos, doing readings and so forth, I actually vacated working for almost the whole vacation. (Okay, I did check my iphone). But otherwise, I actually Didn't Work. For those of you who know me well, this is a Big Kahuna of A Deal.

Mostly, what I found during vacation was that my mind... well, it vacated its previous reality..my analytical, intellectual, scheduled, Twittering mind, that is. It's hard to tell if it was the jet lag, the steady pounding of the surf, the tradewinds howling every night, or that combination of heat and humidty that is pure Hawaii magic. Maybe it was the pace (non existent) of the sleepy little town we were in. Maybe it was simply that at the first opportunity for release, my monkey mind vacated—and left a person who spent much of time in pure bliss: tranced out, ocean'd out, sun'd out, shave-ice'd out... All the mystical and sacred spots I'd planned to visit while on this trip slipped away; it was enough, really, to sit on the beach, or walk to town with the raindrops glistening on the tropical ferns, our flipflops squelching in the mud as we made our way.

In this state of Vacat-ion, everything was meditation, bliss, happiness, fun. Monkey mind left the premises. And a full, complete serenity descended upon me; a lifting of consciousness as I allowed myself to be emptied out and refilled, slowly and deliciously, by nature, my family, relaxation, a time for doing No Thing, and the mysticism that is inherent to these islands.

Vacations are great ways to shift priority; to discover what is really important. In vacating schedule, task and to-do, and in basking in the warmth of doing No Thing, priority was clear: What is Divine is Everywhere. There is nothing more important than remembering this in the Every Day, doing the Every Thing.

I took this Lesson back with me.

So, my question to you? When do you get to Vacate your current illusion? When do you get to do No Thing, so you can see clearly what is real and true?

It's funny, how life makes you stretch. When I was writing my first book, Writing the Divine, I was so thrilled to have an agent, a publisher and contract, that I really couldn't fathom life getting any MORE exciting than sitting with my BIC (butt in chair) for those six to eight hours a day that the writing required!

After all, it had taken eight years of writing unpublished novels and non-fiction, 65 rejections (but who's counting) and a whole lot of Divine intervention to make this happen. I couldn't imagine anything bigger.

Back then, I even remember making grandiose, I've-Reached-My-Peak statements  like "I'll write this book, but I'm NEVER going to do readings." Or "I'll write this book, but I'll NEVER travel or tour" Or, "I'll write this book, but I'll NEVER, EVER speak in front of crowds of people."

Hmmmm.... let's see... It's now two years later, and I just got back from a) a trip to a Seattle expo where I b) did readings, and c) spoke in front of large groups of people... twice!

S • T • R • E • T • C  • H seems to be the name of the game. Lately, every time I think something is too difficult, or too hard, or too impossible, I find myself doing it.

That doesn't mean I do it gracefully!

I am a shy person, prone to a nervous stomach while flying and a basic inability to go through a security line without fearing I'm on a one-way trip to Alcatraz (is this a past life thing?) Oh, yeah, I can write—but it's no simple feat for me to book tickets using frequent flyer miles, fly at 35,000 feet, drive in a strange city in a rental car,  sashay into a expo or store and do an event, and then remember to collect my suitcase from the rental car trunk before I hop on the airport shuttle.... sigh.

And yet, when I accepted the task of receiving The 33 Lessons in channeled writing back in 2008,  I understood that I was accepting a task that was bigger than just writing down that channeled writing. I also accepted whatever it was the Divine had in store for me—plane trips and attempting to use GPS systems and lost luggage included.

What's stretching you today? This month? This year?

When we look at what we resist most, that's probably a place we're ready to stretch. Best of all, we humans are not like rubber bands. When we stretch, we don't snap. Intead, we extend, we expand, we become bigger than we were before—and this expansion of our Earth self in our Earth life during this time and space we inhabit on this planet? Well, it's all part of the process of soul growth.