Last month Publisher Sharon Bruckman boldly went where she had never gone before—leaving on vacation without her laptop. I have delighted in the synchronicity of her trip to Europe with my recent jaunt just down the road to a women’s retreat at the Amrit Yoga Institute, near my home in Salt Springs, Florida, seeing it as more evidence of the Universe at play.

What may have seemed two distinct events opened a floodgate of memories from my Sacred Journeys for Women trip 12 years ago with my daughter, Yvette. As Sharon and her daughter, Alina, packed their suitcases and headed for England, we spoke of the benefits of mother/daughter travel and it reminded me of the anticipation we felt boarding the plane for London’s Heathrow Airport. Once there, we joined up with 17 women from around the world to journey to sacred sites throughout the United Kingdom.

One of our fondest memories of our adventure is a full moon ceremony near Avebury. We all walked a narrow path through a field of ferns as high as our shoulders, until it opened up into a field where a young woman played a harp in the middle of a small stone circle. Looking up above the cows languidly grazing in a nearby field we stood in awe of the biggest, most beautiful moon we had ever celebrated. We danced and sang as the night passed as gently as the breezes on our skin, before fearlessly returning on a path now made invisible in darkness. While the moonlight graced the tops of the ferns, our glorious band held hands and sang our way homeward beneath a star-studded sky.

This time I didn’t need to travel as far as Sharon and Alina did to experience a special sharing of women empowered by their life stories. It’s a good thing because I could easily pack my car with the joy-filled paintings I created during the retreat, reflecting my years with Natural Awakenings, my blessed relationship with my daughter, and the privilege of experiencing life in a community of like-minded people learning from the teachings of Yogi Amrit Desai.

For 10 years Natural Awakenings has allowed me to make a living doing what I love. It has gifted me with hundreds of opportunities to meet incredible people, hear their stories and write about their unique insights. It’s because of an interview with Amrit Desai several years ago that I am happily living where I am today. It’s safe to say that Providence was smiling on me the day I did my first interview for this magazine, with Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq, on “Melting the Ice in the Heart of Man.”

Since then I’ve grown right along with this publishing family, now approaching 90 magazines across the country and in Puerto Rico. As this visionary Eskimo elder states: “The greatest distance in the existence of Man is from his mind to his heart. Unless he conquers that distance he can never learn to soar like an eagle and realize his own immensity within.”

Natural Awakenings has helped me take flight,

Linda Sechrist, Editor