When I met Malaya Quinn at Clear Center of Health in Mill Valley, where I am about to start my new job, I never expected we might share so many big dreams. It turns out we are both passionate about women’s health, we’re both encaustic painters, we’re both mothers of daughters, and we love working with small groups of women. Malaya was interested in Clear Center as a venue for teaching her workshops in Creativity & Vitality. Me, I had already been marinating on the idea of developing workshops that combine art, writing, and women’s health, my three big passions. So when I heard her say “workshops” in combination with “creativity,” my ears perked up. I’ve been gestating these ideas for a few months now, since I took the writing workshop at Esalen Institute. I got so much out of it, not just tips on how to be a better writer, but how to be a better listener, even how to be a better person. It inspired me to dig deeper to consider how I might take some of the wisdom of that workshop into my office practice, how I might help facilitate similar growth in women. Imagine if women could grow together, through community, through creativity, and through optimizing their health and well-being, learning, not so much from me as from each other. Malaya clearly shares a similar interest.

When I first met her, I asked Malaya to describe the work she does and she explained that she is trained as an art therapist but she, like me, has worn many hats. The work she is most passionate about includes what she calls interactive imagery, a type of guided meditation similar to shamanic journeys, only with Malaya’s work, you not only envision your gifts, you interact with them. I was intrigued. She went on to describe her own experience, as a woman who had suffered three miscarriages and sought out this type of healing therapy to help her become a mother. Her mentor invited her to visualize her future child, and her future child began to dialogue with her, to give her guidance and comfort. She believes the process opened her womb, allowing her daughter Gracie to ultimately grow and thrive. Now seventeen years later, she is serving women with this same sort of healing therapy, not just for treatment of fertility, but for artistic blocks, entrepreneurial inspiration, creative exploration, and people in transition- be it illness, loss of a loved one, divorce, or career change- who need assistance reconnecting to their creativity in order to move forward in life with more vitality.

Malaya’s work sounds exactly like the kind of work I want to bring into my life, not just personally but professionally, as I strive to set up workshops that help women find balance in their life, as I encourage them to get in touch with their creativity, by tending to the health of their bodies, and by communing with other women with similar goals. Curious to know more, I asked if I could schedule a session with Malaya, so yesterday, we met.

Not knowing what to expect, I arrived at Sausalito Healing Arts, where Malaya lead me into a quiet, fragrant room. I closed my eyes, while she lead me in an exercise of deep breathing, inviting me to relax into my chair, breathe into my heart, and expand my third eye. Then she asked me to visualize a place where I feel completely comfortable, a place of peace and beauty. She gave me a few minutes to allow the image to appear, and when a natural hot spring perched on a cliff above the Pacific appeared in my mind’s eye, she asked me to describe it to her. I told her about the warm water, the baby otters playing down below, the far-off crashing of the waves. The cold fog on my chilled arms offered a welcome foil to the steamy water inside the pool. The air smelled like salt, seaweed, and sulfur. I could hear seagulls and distant voices. I was alone in my pool, lying down, reclining on the edge. It was springtime.

With my image fully formed, she asked me to visualize my Inner Guide, and my mind raced through a slide show of images before settling on a pale, thin, wispy woman who was older than me, but younger than my mother. The woman reminded me of my favorite Aunt Trudy, only I haven’t seen Trudy look this radiant since her cellist son died years ago. I got a little teary, thinking of my cousin Corry and how much it hurt to lose him, but I felt somehow reassured by the presence of this airy Trudy-like woman. She had a soft voice and blonde/grey hair and she was patient and quiet- a good listener. Mostly, she was not afraid. She was wearing scarves and drapes, but then she undressed and got in the pool with me. I named her Willow.

At this point, Malaya invited me to ask Willow a question, so I asked her whether I should move to Marin. Willow said she had lost someone here, and it would be nice to visit. I asked whether I should take this new job, and she said, “For now.” Unsettled by the seeming uncertainty of the answer, I asked her why not forever, and she said, “Nothing is forever.”

Malaya then asked me what gifts Willow might have for me, and I saw, sitting beside the pool, a tray of objects. On the tray was my Anything Box, a figurine of a man with a beard, a red ball, a tiny purple church, a green metal bell, and a violin. She told me to take them down to the beach and put them where they belong, not now, but later.

Malaya asked what gift I might give Willow, and I said, “I want to give her a painting, but she only wants Time.” Malaya asked if I would be willing to give her that, and I nodded, promising to visit her, to talk to her, to give her more time in my busy life. Malaya then closed the meditation, grounded me back in my chair in Sausalito. Smiling at me, she asked if anything surprised me. I said I was surprised my spirit guide looked like my Aunt Trudy, and it made me want to call her. I was also surprised how quickly I could step outside of the details of my world and be transported to another time and place, with her coaching. The tray of gifts surprised me too, since I don’t know where they came from or what they mean. She told me it would come to me. Malaya then encouraged me to return to my place of peace and call on Willow, any time I felt I needed guidance, and I promised to do so.

She then offered me some homework. She asked me to look at the voices in my head, particularly the critical ones, and simply pay attention to them. She also suggested I write in my journal with absolutely no expectations, to see what happens. Offering words of encouragement, she said she believes I am on exactly the right path, and the practice of medicine needs me, since I bring many gifts the profession lacks. She said I’m a shapeshifter, wafting back and forth between doctor and artist, and I am on a hero’s journey all my own. No one has paved the path before me, so I must forge my own way. This I know. She encouraged me to follow my passion and to remember that, within the word “passion” is Pass- I- On. She nudged me, metaphorically, since that’s how she works, to simply act as a conduit for those who need me, to pass myself on in the act of healing, to trust that this will be enough.

She explained to me that her methodology would differ, depending on what her client needed. For some, expressive arts in the form of dance or dramatic therapy might allow their actions to speak louder than their words. For others, drawing, painting, or creating in some other way might be in order. She never knows exactly where each session will go, but it always ends up right where it was supposed to go. In my case, she invites me to make a painting that reflects this session. The painting can then act as an oracle, guiding me, inspiring me, and reminding me of these moments down the road. I promise her I’ll paint one.

Later, over lunch, we brainstormed about how we might combine the healing gifts we bring. We marveled over how different but complementary our respective tool bags were. In mine, I hold twenty years of medical knowledge and experience, plus skills for painting, writing, and relating. In hers are exercises for rebalancing your IQ with your MQ (metaphor quotient), getting in touch with your truest creative self, linking your lineage to your legacy, tending the fire of your soul, recognizing and reconfiguring inhibiting thinking patterns, forming a whole new mind capable of freely dialoguing with imagery, symbol and myth, and developing a heartfelt sense of self, purpose, belonging, and possibility. (Wow- her toolbox sounds way cooler than mine!)

Later that day, I passed three signs with the word Willow on them, and I wondered if my Inner Guide was playing tricks on me. Literally, one of them was a crossroads, where Willow Street intersected another one. I was trying to figure out which way to go and my GPS had failed me. Instead of telling me where to go, the GPS said, “Awaiting satellites,” but the satellites never came. So I decided to take Willow, and I got where I meant to go, only to find out I wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. Figures.

Then, later that day, I got an email from my mother reminding me that it was the six year anniversary of my cousin Corry’s death. I had forgotten, in my conscious mind. But in my meditative state with Malaya, Willow had reminded me to call my Aunt Trudy. I will call her today to tell her how much I miss Corry, how sorry I am that we all lost him, here in the Bay area, where Willow seems to be guiding me to move. I will tell her how she looks like my Inner Guide, how I would love to have her join me in my warm pool on the ocean cliff, how I’d appreciate her help as I ponder the message of the purple church, the red ball, the green bell, and the little man with the beard.

But for now, I am excited to imagine where all this could lead. The possibilities seem endless…But stay tuned. Something is brewing, and I have a feeling it’s going to be really healing, both for me and for those involved. You never know, when you’re tiptoeing down an uncertain path, where you’ll ultimately end up, but as Willow says, “For now” it feels like the right thing to do.