In case you’re seeking a practical pathway…

Proof of Miracles

Dear one,

When a butterfly floats out of the sky and lands on your outstretched finger it feels like a miracle, right? And it’s also a totally natural phenomenon. Inexplicable and wonder-filled, but plausible moments can dapple our days if we intentionally leave room for chance.

I have three stories from my life that I’ve been thinking of sharing with you and the miracle of this week pushed me over the edge and into writing this for you.

The truth is, I actively use open ended questions like “I wonder what if” and “What would It feel like..” to create space for natural miracles. Daydreaming on open ended questions, questions charged up with feelings of excitement and gratitude, allows these miracles to flutter into my life like butterflies.

Previously it’s something I did naturally and now, having seen the pattern and struck upon the method, I practice asking open-ended questions charged with high frequency emotions often. If I can you can too! There’s a list of questions at the bottom of this post for you.

Here are three true stories that I hope inspire you to start using the same practice!

“Miracles are natural phenomenon that feel inexplicable, but if we shift our expectations and perception of what’s natural, I believe they can become everyday experiences”

— Amanacer

Proof of Miracles #1

On February 29, 2020, just two days before I moved my entire life from Haiti to Tulum, I was concerned about two things. First, I was wondering whether I had saved enough money to jump-start my new life in a place I had never visited. I had quit my secure job at the United Nations and was planning to head into uncharted territory of being an entrepreneur. Second, I was curious about what to do with a dozen of my original paintings which I had neither sold nor put in storage. They were special, large and quite valuable, some six and seven feet tall like this one.

In Haiti with my painting shortly before moving to Tulum, Mexico. — In Haiti with shortly before moving to Tulum, Mexico.

Instead of stressing about money and logistics like my old Self would have done, I started to wonder.

I laid down on the floor of my living room, physically exhausted from packing my life into boxes. I simply thought “I wonder if I could get some art collectors to visit the house, even though it looks like a disaster. Maybe it doesn’t matter that it’s not a gallery setting. I wonder if I could find a kindred spirit to buy these pieces?”. On and on I mused with growing excitement and anticipation.

That same day I got a message on Instagram from a well known art collector who I knew socially, but had never bought anything from me.

She said “Hey Amanacer, I heard you’re leaving the country tomorrow, I’d like to come by and see any pieces you have available before you go!” That was it! The lovely lady came through for a visit, connected deeply with half a dozen of my paintings, bargained hard, and filled her SUV with mermaids and galactic spirit portraits.

Just like that, I had several thousand dollars of cash in hand for my fresh beginning in Tulum. Thanks, Sherri! Like a true guardian angel, she even gifted me a face mask, and hand sanitizer for my airport trip the next day. The pandemic hadn’t spread to the south of the USA just yet, so needing a face covering wasn’t even on my radar.

We both celebrated!

Landing in Tulum, touching the shores of my newly claimed destiny.

Proof of Miracles #2

Here’s another story that still makes me giddy to recall. A few months after I’d moved to Tulum, in the summer 2020, I realized that my eight year old MacBook Pro was on its last legs. There was no denying it! I saw a blue line cutting through the screen and some days it just wouldn’t fire up at all. I was concerned because I had a music video for a new client to edit on it. He and his wife had flown me up to Nashville, Tennessee to shoot their respective projects and I was deep in the editing cycle. Uh oh!

Instead of stressing and allowing myself to sink into old patterns of worry and left-brain analysis, I did something different. You can too. Intuitively, I got crystal clear on the kind of laptop I needed to complete my work. My heart was set on a MacBook Air that had USB ports. The apparent problem is the new models of Apple computers. don’t have USB ports. It also felt impossible because there are no Apple Stores within a two hour drive of Tulum. Moreover, the roads to Cancun were blocked by Mexican police due to a lock down that was over within a month. That’s a lot of potential justification to get all hunched over and stressed out, right?

Instead of that approach, I daydreamed about the laptop I needed. I felt a deep trust that everything was going to work out. It was the kind of trust that wasn’t backed up by logic, by the factors of the situation or the vote of my rational mind. There I was, with a huge deadline and imminent catastrophe if I looked at the facts of the situation. I looked elsewhere.

So I put on some Haitian Konpa music from my youth that lit me up. I danced around the living room and imagined the new laptop’s silver facade and how smooth the buttons would be. In that moment I allowed it to casually come to mind, without worrying where it would come from.

Guess what, dear one? Two days later, I was doing a deeply discounted Art Spa 1:1 activation for my neighbour, Kyril.

He was a university student from New York and mentioned out of the blue after our session that he had come to Tulum with not one but three laptops. This was extra strange because he came on vacation! It made no sense. Who does that? All his friends left Mexico for the States when lockdown was imposed, and yet he followed an intuitive pull to stay alone in Tulum for three months. I call that divine intervention.

So there we were, wrapping up after the Art Spa and I mentioned casually in response that I was in need of a new laptop. He immediately offered to sell me a two year old MacBook Air with USB ports that fit my exact needs, and for $100 USD.

Ten minutes later, a mere 24 hours after wondering about my laptop with open ended questions, the perfect tool was in my hand. For one hundred dollars. It had been sitting upstairs waiting for me. Isn’t that wild? I was blown away and doing happy dances with joy all around the house for the rest of the week.

I’m writing to you on that laptop now.

Proof of Miracles #3

I’m not sure what it is with technology, but this third story feels like the most inexplicable one of all. You see, I have an iphone 11 that only turns on when I need a miracle. At first I thought it was a coincidence but after it happened twice it knew I needed to share this with you!

For no apparent reason my shiny smartphone stopped taking electric charge in the fall of 2020. To my knowing, the phone hadn’t dropped in water, fallen or been zapped by a surge of electricity. It was “fine.”

At the time I used my phone to shoot video and photos nearly every day. Desperate for a solution, I switched chargers, took it to the Iphone doctor for diagnosis and tried everything I could to get my favorite tool back online. Nothing worked. Grrr!

I was deep in denial and fighting the reality, trying every day for a week to get it to light up until eventually I reflected on the role of the Iphone in my life. I realized after a while that I’d let it have far too much importance in my creative expression and sense of well-being. I had started shooting nearly all my photos and videos on it instead of being slow, artful and feeling purposeful in my craft.

The panic sparked a deep and needed introspection time around my relationship with social media and technology.

“Perhaps you know the feeling of deep attachment to your phone? Scientists have shown it can take on the physiological importance of a third arm or appendage for many of us.”

I’ve been to the edge of the world and back with that iPhone. Case in point, shooting Sabrina on Lombok Island, “Desert Point” where you have an uninterrupted horizon over the Indian Ocean to Antarctica.

So without a real choice I gave upon the dear old fancy Iphone, feel into acceptance about it and set it aside in a drawer for all of September and October.

I decided I would listen to the signals, and that it would feel good to shift my relationship with Whatsaap, Instagram and go more analog for a while. Two weeks went by without having a phone and I loved the way it felt. I was free! Can you imagine the spaciousness? I felt like a bandit, a pirate slipping around the beach and zipping in and out oftown undetected and totally in the flow. But I will admit, coordinating with delivery guys and arranging work meetings with Mexican craftsmen and women was nearly impossible without a phone. I caved and got an Iphone 6 on the cheap, forgetting about my former love in the drawer as the first Art Spa Retreat came up on my calendar.

Then the day before the Tulum Art Spa Retreat arrived and I was packing at home in excitement. I knew that ten women would spend four days getting their creativity and radiance activated in the one of the most beautiful Mayan sanctuary beach hotels in the world. I wanted to give them my very best, and I felt ready except for one detail. My digital SLR camera wasn’t the right tool for shooting videos in the cenotes and photos in the sea. I wanted to capture photos of the retreat participants in all their watery wonder as part of the before and after imagery. I thought to myself that the Iphone 11 would have been perfect.

“I wonder if it will turn on for me? I mused out loud with excited curiosity”

I took the phone out of the drawer where it sat for months and plugged it into the charger. Zing! It lit up without a moment’s hesitation. And let me tell you, the photos and videos were incredible! Royal blue butterflies flitted around us at the cenote as we dove into the icy cold turquoise waters.

Long story short, the miracle phone charged up for the duration of the Art Spa Retreat and stayed on just long enough for me to transfer the content to my miracle laptop mentioned above.

As the 2% battery faded to 1% and the screen went black, I joked to my co-facilitator Juliana that the phone only turns on when I’m fully serving others and aligned with my heart’s true mission.

The first Tulum Art Spa Retreat graduation ceremony

It sounded pretty out there. But was I onto something?

The cherished Iphone stayed unresponsive for two months despite my periodic attempts to revive it again. Christmas came and went. Then just yesterday I was in a technical conundrum while trying to film a video training series called “Starter Kit: How to Fly Your Spaceship.”

I was getting frustrated while searching for a missing second bluetooth microphone in my tech drawer. Lo and behind, I noticed with awe and confusion that the Iphone was lit up!

“What in the world?” I thought. How is that even possible? Why now?

Deep inside, I knew what was going on and laughed. It was a call from the universe to set aside the teleprompter and fancy gear that I thought I needed. The video had looked stiff instead of natural. I didn’t need better audio quality, I needed more authenticity and inner security.

The illumination moment was a call to set the Iphone on a $10 tripod, clip on a single bluetooth mic, and go into a more flow-oriented, low-tech but heart-led video recording mode. So I did!

And you can probably guess what happened. The recording sessions felt like pure magic and the stiffness turned into channeled messages of radiance and fun.

Would you believe me if I said the phone stayed on just for the time frame of the video recording series and then went dark again?

It’s the miraculous truth.

So, dear one, what do you think of my three stories?

Do you consider the last minute painting purchase, the laptop arrival and the mysterious Iphone to be everyday miracles?

This isn’t about how special my life is or about manifesting material posessions. In fact, I believe more than ever that if I can learn to repattern out of stress reactions and open up to new, creative ways of living then you can too!

It’s all replicable, like any kind of technology.

Make it your own

No matter how you label these stories from the past year of my life, I sure hope you’re feeling curious about using open ended questions and creative thinking in your own world.

In my experience, charging up daydreams and wonder-filled questions with emotions and high-frequency feelings like joy, excitement, celebration and gratitude is like a technology. It’s as simple as a kindergarten class, and works best when it’s sourced from your juicy heart. In the end, stress and left brain worry gets us into spirals that lead down, never up.

This method works because creative thinking and right brain wonder leads us up, and outside of ourselves. Solutions and interventions can come from beyond our controlling 1 + 1 = 2 ways of approaching life when we step into it and try. Its like a game!

And ultimately, the the mind is like an arrow that will always be pointing and jabbing at something or other. It’s never going to stop. But what would happen if you allowed the heart to guide the arrow of your mind?

What might happen if next time you see yourself getting stressed out you flip it? What if its an opportunity and you spend some time dancing and daydreaming into questions of wonder and creative mindsets? From my experience you can have some truly beautiful, wondrous experiences.

They may even feel like a butterfly landing on your finger. You might even step into believing in everyday miracles.

A few examples of open ended questions:

What would it be like …?

How would it feel to..?

I wonder how this could….?

What could happen…?

Where could this go...?

Here’s to your success and creative radiance!

Beaming you love and a healthy dose of Tulum sunshine.

P.S. All the photos in this post are edited with my Lightroom Rosegold Preset in GLOW . If you’d like to transform your smartphone or professional photos into this look, you can! It just takes one click to apply the preset. Shop the whole collection of the warm, polished, pro-edited looks I personally use here. Happy creating!

Proof of Miracles: Three True Stories