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December 6, 2007 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico


Holiday Letter from Mark David

As we in the northern hemisphere move deeper into winter's darkness, it's important to remember that the light always returns and that its return is that much more radiant and luminous for the dark that has preceded it.

Hanukkah and Kwanza candles, Christmas lights and luminaria, all remind us that even in the midst of the darkest season — in our hearts as in our calendar — illumination is possible.

Just as night fades inexorably into day, so whatever emotional bleakness dimming our inner light will also fade and make way for the incandescent glow of our natural luster.

May all that you truly are shine through all self-imposed limitations and may your passion blaze into the world for all to see — through this season and always.

Holiday blessings,
Mark David



Infinite Expansion


"Let go and live your story as it yearns to be lived. Let it take your hand and lead you along new roads, across new rivers, over new mountains...into new realms..." — The MoonQuest


Some weeks back, before the weather here took a turn for the cold, I was ambling along one of the hiking paths in the Sandia Mountain foothills near my home. As I walked, desert plains spreading endlessly beyond the city to the west and granite flanks soaring skyward in the east, I was reminded of my first visit to Albuquerque.

I was still in the early weeks of my 30-month road trip, heading back to Sedona, Arizona after a California Christmas, when a little voice said, "Albuquerque...after you're finished in Sedona, go to Albuquerque."

I had never been to New Mexico, and all I'd been told about its metropolis was that it wasn't as interesting as Santa Fe. Whatever the truth of that, Albuquerque won me over as soon as I saw the majestic mountainscape rising up from city.

It didn't take me long to discover the hiking paths that crisscross the Sandia foothills, paths that felt profoundly healing at a time in my life of great woundedness.

Whenever I felt overwhelmed, which was often, I drove to my then-favorite trailhead at the top of Menaul Street and conversed with the spirits of the rocks as I walked and climbed. I always left refreshed and ready to face whatever was next — even if that "next" pushed me right back up the mountain the following day for another dose.

One reason I preferred the Menaul trailhead was that it was high enough above the city and nearby subdivisions to offer an ocean-like vista clear to the horizon. When I was up there gazing westward, I felt as expansive and limitless as the view. Yet I felt fully supported by the granite bulwark behind me.

It was that sense of infinite-yet-supported expansion that found its way into my first Sandia drawing in 2005. And it was the Sandias that kept pulling me back to Albuquerque over my nearly three years of cross-country travels.

On some days through that time, I was convinced that I would land here when my journeying was done. Other days, other places felt more probable.

Now that I'm living in those foothills, it's increasingly clear to me that it's that same energy of supported expansion that kept bringing me back and that has now brought me here to live...for now.

Many of us are feeling like rubber bands these days, as we're stretched and stretched and stretched some more, as we're pushed — sometimes beyond our sense of our own limits — to expand to meet our potential, our divinity, our God-ful-ness. ... As we're challenged to awaken, acknowledge and express our greatness. ... As we're pushed so far beyond our comfort zone that that one-time refuge has receded to a place beyond memory.

It's certainly been true for me these past months as I've wondered why living in a house in Albuquerque should feel more stressful than living on the road.

It wasn't until last week that I got it.

"What are you most afraid of?" a new friend asked me over dinner.

Various answers rattled through my brain as I replayed all the book-promotion/new-book-publication overwhelm and financial stress I had been feeling in recent weeks.

Then I remembered something I've written about here before, about the fact that my financial anxieties are rarely truly about money and my overwhelm is rarely truly about an overabundance of tasks. They're both stand-ins for more deeply rooted fears.

So what was it, I asked myself, that had put me in so much fear-based imbalance?

"Expansion," I replied finally. "I'm afraid of expansion."

And with that, I knew why I was in Albuquerque and why I was feeling so stressed.

For me, this place that represents supported expansion is the perfect place to experience, well, supported expansion.

Until that moment, the rubber-band analogy had felt uncomfortable. After all, even a rubber band's rubber is stressed through the stretching. More to the point, a rubber band can snap if stretched beyond its limits.

However, a rubber band isn't living supported expansion. A rubber band isn't enfolded in love. A rubber band isn't being held in divine embrace through one of the most rapidly transformative periods in human history.

Whether you're living in Albuquerque or Kalamazoo, it's important to remember that you're not being stretched by some malevolent energy determined to break you.

It's you, through whatever higher energy you believe in, that is pushing and prodding your human self to meet your divine self at its level (even as that divine self's infinite nature itself continues to expand!).

Through it all, it's important to remember that you are never alone and that you are always supported in your journey into the experience of your most expansive and expanded self.

I'm not on the hiking trails so often these days. But the mountains are still there, in my backyard now, supporting me as I face west out to the ever-expanding horizon.





Answering Your Call to Write

Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, whatever your genre or form, The Voice of the Muse book and 2-CD set will rekindle your creative fire, free your creative spirit and revolutionize your creative life.


Never did I think, when getting The MoonQuest ready for publication earlier this year, that I would be doing it all over again before 2007 was done.

Yet here I am, on the cusp of both a new year and a pair of new projects: The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, a 248-page book of inspiration, tools and techniques for writers of all levels/genres, and The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers, a 2-CD set of my recordings of the book's writing meditations.

The new softcover book
• is more than 50 percent longer than the old e-book of the same name
• contains new chapters and new exercises
• includes whole new sections, including one specially designed for all of you who know you've got a book in you but don't know what to do about it. It's called Birthing Your Book...Even If You Don't Know What It's About

The 2-CD set (sold separately)
• is twice as long as the CD that came with the e-book
• comprises more than two hours of guided meditations, instruction and inspiration recorded by me
• is attractively packaged in a bookshelf-friendly DVD case

Although you don’t need the 2-CD set to have a full experience of the book, or vice versa, the combination will work synergistically to enrich your creative journey and give you a renewed confidence in your innate gifts.

Now, here's the best news of all:
• While the book and CD set are in production, advance orders for either or both will have no shipping charge**. (Sorry, US orders only.)
• Advance orders paid by credit card will not be charged until the book goes to the printer and the CD set goes to the production facility — likely by the end of next week.
• This special offer will remain in effect until I take delivery of the books (mid- to late January) and CDs (before Christmas). After that, regular shipping charges will apply.

Check out these The Voice of the Muse excerpts
• Excerpt #1
• Excerpt #2
• Audio Excerpt (complete meditation)