When I set out for Australia nearly three years ago I saw it as a grand adventure.

As is always the case it was more work, hard work, than I expected.

If I had known this beforehand, as they say, I would never have gone…

Or maybe I would have…

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The returning from grand experiences, those we have poured our heart and soul, reveals the truth of what they really were.

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I’m getting to that returning just now. The part that is teaching me what it was really about.

Not at all surprisingly I’ve discovered

I was not on mission to evangelize encaustic

I was on pilgrimage;

set off on a journey of self discovery.

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The truth of our life is much clearer from the edges.

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EncaustiCamp was this grand adventure five years ago. And it is my greatest creation.

 sb-ecamp

(gingerangas aside of course!)

I tried to quit it. I couldn’t hold it to the original design

so I tried to quit it.

What I have realized though?

It was this original design that was dead; quit.

ecamp instructors 2011

God help us; just five years ago?! We look sooooo much younger….

I was keeping it on life support; Frantically feeding it my ambition

as if this were nutritious and life-giving.

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Australia slowed me down.

It took wearing me out to the edges of myself to see what I need to see.

I had to find the ‘real’ behind what I was doing.

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EncaustiCampInt’lAU 2014

I thought I was doing a necessary service in killing EncaustiCamp-

unhooking the life support system to which I stubbornly strapped it.

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What I discovered, much to my surprise, was that it still breathed on its own.

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It didn’t need me keeping it alive.

I needed it keeping me alive.

crystal and amanda ecamp book signing d smith 2014

EncaustiCamps creation: Book signing of Encaustic Revelation

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EncaustiCamp is a community.

It is a place.

It is people.

EncaustiCamp was born as a place to experience heaps of encaustic.

It has grown into a place to experience heaps of community.

     -Sure, making

                     encaustic.

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It has been a month since EncaustiCamp 2015 concluded.

I asked your comments and critiques be held off until now. Thank you for so doing.

The few I have received have done something

moved me to this place of discovery

of courageously, confidently being able to say I can let go of my original design for EncaustiCamp,

realizing it’s dead already,

and let it breath on its own.

EncaustiCamp has a vitality, integrity, purpose it’s own now.

I’ve been graced to have given it life;

from here, I serve to grow it up-

My eyes have been opened to the valuable growing place that is the ‘real’ of EncaustiCamp.

It has spurred me to listen to what it can become as it grows

and let the exciting, great ideas speak.

In short, EncaustiCamp is old enough to tell me what it needs, and I am confident enough to listen and take on the work.

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I get to.

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EncaustiCamp 2016 will be changed. It has grown up and become something new.

Whiskery-chinned and ache be-speckled-

     I love it none the less.

I get to walk alongside, evolving in my role

confidently doing the work I get to

as long as I get to.

In the next few weeks I will share with you what I am seeing for next year in its new alliteration.

Then it is time for you to step up and claim your purpose and place in it.

In the community it has become.

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By October 28 I will need 35 expressions of interest in order to assuredly hold Dumas Bay for our group.

       ‘Newbie’ interest, ‘lifer’ interest, instructor interest-

We are all needed. We all belong.

We are all part of what is EncaustiCamp.

I offer you the assurance of my continued leading and forming EncaustiCamp

     I need in return your show of support in continuing the beautiful part you play.

It will take us all, we all play a vital role

we always have.

We always will.

in love.

trish