Here’s how she describes it: “I was taking a bath and suddenly it came to me. I have to move.”
By the way, it was a passage in the book about Carley warming her hands by the fire in Flagstaff’s Hotel Weatherford that inspired hotel owner Henry Taylor to go ripping through the drywall to find the original fireplaces and fueled his passion for renovating the historic Victorian building.
I thought of Grey’s book when I met beautiful, serene Karen Russell during a Saturday afternoon party at her home in Sedona. She had recently moved there, the result of a middle-of-the-night calling that brought her to Oak Creek Canyon and the Red Rock Country. Here’s how she describes it: “I was taking a bath and suddenly it came to me. I have to move.”
Karen lived in a little town in Ohio at the time. She was a nutritionist and health coach at the local hospital and would teach, “you are what you eat,” but she had a difficult time setting the example. “I couldn’t find organic food. It was hard to eat out and find healthy meals,” she said.
Karen felt like a Martian in her circle of friends. “I don’t eat pizza and drink beer, so I’d feel like an outcast. The last vacation we took together, I was the only person in the group trying to buy healthier food. They laughed at me.”
Trying to fit in was making her sick. Literally. She endured painful flare ups from fibromyalgia. The auto-immune disease caused her to feel tired and achy. Her neck would become so stiff and sore that she needed a massage twice a month for years. She also was suffering from adrenal fatigue, which she says was caused by chronic insomnia that was weakening her immune system.
“I knew that inflammation was at the root of all disease, caused by gluten and processed sugar. Many people don’t connect the dots between how they are feeling and what they are eating. I knew I had to get rid of the chemicals and get moving.”
She says her gut was trying to tell her what to do. “I was afraid to leave. I had stuffed my feelings down so far, that after a while, you can’t even feel what your gut is telling you.”
And that was Karen less than a decade ago, her body and spirit sinking into her bathtub. And then she received her own Call of the Canyon. “I’d only been to Sedona once,” she said. But it didn’t matter. She got out of the tub and booked a flight. “As soon as I got here, I felt like I was home.”
For Karen, this was highly unusual behavior. She didn’t know if she could financially survive moving away from everyone and everything she knew, but she also knew, “I couldn’t stay there one minute longer.”
To strengthen herself, she drew on words she heard in the health coaching school she attended in New York. “Leap and the net will appear.” To punctuate this phrase, her instructor had taken the class to a flying trapeze gym. “We had to do it to get the point. It was about leaping and knowing you’ll be safe. But if you don’t take that leap, then you’re stuck.”
Her leap landed her “right in the middle of nature,” as she describes living in Sedona and the Red Rocks. She found that encouraging people and ideas began showing up right away, and so did dragonflies. “All these dragonflies were here, landing on me, on my arms, on my legs, they were everywhere. Coming from Ohio, I didn’t know anything about dragonflies.”
She did some research and learned that dragonflies symbolize change. “That was kind of my ‘Sedona Moment,’” she said, of the place that is often known for its vortexes, crystals and mystical energy.
With or without dragonflies, I believe when you start following your heart and your gut, doors open, opportunities appear and an undeniable creative force blows into your life like a desert dust storm. Karen’s might have been elevated to a haboob. That gritty wall of intention demanded that she start baking. And, boy, did she. “This recipe had to come out!” she explained.
She started making dozens and dozens of gluten-free, sugar-free chocolate chip cookies. She put them in baggies, tied a bow around them and added a Karen’s Gluten-Free Living label that included the ingredients for her Chocolate Chip D-Lites. She sold them at farmers markets and in local health food stores. She focused on health coaching and nutrition counseling and began conducting cooking classes in her home and at the community college. She hired a business coach and discovered good things began happening quickly.
“When you’re living your purpose, things go faster,” said Karen. “It could be the energy here, or the open-minded, like-minded people in Sedona. It could be the healthy living, the healthy eating, the hiking, the spirituality that I feel in nature and understanding that there is something out there bigger than us. Sedona helped me with that.”
Eight years since her bathtub revelation, she opened Karen’s Gluten Free Bakeshop in Sedona. “I’m still helping people get healthier, but I would never have known I’d be doing this. I would not be owning and operating a health-food bakery if I were still in that small town in Ohio.”
The baked goods she sells are often inspired by and named for land formations in the area, including the Chocolate Diablo Cookies, made with dark chocolate, cayenne pepper and ginger. “They are like happiness in your mouth,” she said. And Red Rock Energy Bites, a mix of almond flour, maple syrup and beet root. But her most important ingredient, she says, is love. “How you feel when you’re making the food goes into the food. If you’re calm and happy, that transfers over.”
And that’s exactly how I met Karen: calm, happy, introducing others to delicious – yes, delicious – gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, non-GMO food, and living a life surrounded by nature.
Her favorite hiking trail is Devil’s Bridge, a four-mile round-trip path that rewards the visitor with a spectacular sandstone arch – the largest in Sedona. Once you get to the bridge, It’s a great stopping point to find a shady spot and enjoy a snack. Karen recommends the Chocolate Chip Quinoa cookie. “When you’re hiking,” she said, “you want to keep higher protein in mind. This cookie is packed with protein – nuts, chia seeds, quinoa flour and almond flour. I would eat one of these and feel really good.”
Her Red Rock Energy Bites are a great choice, too. Plus, they come packaged in a little bag and are hardy enough to hold their shape, even in a backpack!
For perhaps the first time, Karen feels grounded, energized and healthy now that she’s found her “home” in Sedona. “If we love people and love what we’re doing and really try to live in integrity in our purpose, that is really what we’re here for.”
And, oh yeah, she hasn’t experienced any sign of fibromyalgia since she arrived. “To be in gratitude with where you’re at and what you’re doing and what you have, I think that’s the best way to stay grounded. You realize how lucky you are and how grateful you can be for what you have.” FBN
By Bonnie Stevens
Bonnie Stevens is a public relations consultant. She can be reached at bonnie.stevens@gmail.com.
