Michelle WatersHave you ever set out to do something simple and what you got back was one of the greatest gifts of your life? I had no idea I was getting ready for an about-face in my life when I met up with Jordan Serpentini to talk about her mural art.
For the record, I don’t drink coffee (it makes my heart go crazy) and I don’t tend to be super down, like I was in the days leading up to meeting Jordan. I don’t make a habit of blindly following the advice of strangers, and I also don’t tend to cry in front of them. But here we are, and within the next few hours, all on one day, I did all of that. And I’ve never been happier.
Meeting Jordan at the time that I did was not only perfect, but more needed than I realized. I was tired, overworked and feeling ungrateful. I had no focus, and I was on a negative inward spiral. Jordan reminded me how important mindset was in the throes of major change, and how trusting in something greater than yourself can reward you in more ways than you could ever imagine.
For those of you who have driven by our favorite Parkersburg healthy living store over the past few months, you’ve probably noticed a very welcome addition to one of the main exterior walls of Mother Earth Foods. Store owner Dave Hawkins invited Jordan to paint a large mural on the side of his building. But even this was much more magical than just a client/artist transaction.
I was out photographing the Colors of the PKB assignment late last summer. I was driving around, seeking the most colorful, beautiful slices of my town to share with the ClutchMOV community. It just so happened I was driving by Mother Earth, and was blindsided by this awesome mural in-progress. So I stopped to take a quick photo, and ask someone working at the store who the artist might be. They gave me her name, and I set out to talk with her about her art.
Excited, I hopped onto Facebook and aimed to talk with her more. Little did I know she’d planned on being done with the entire HUGE piece by the next day, and then was moving on. I needed to work fast if I was going to meet her. We made plans to meet up the next day. She called it divine synchronicity. The more we spoke, the more I agreed.
When I arrived at Unity Cafe, Jordan – an unassuming, relaxed gal with a huge smile and arms made for hugging – gave me a big hello, and proceeded to finish a commission for more work that would be her next stop, after leaving Mother Earth. Based in the Cleveland area, Jordan has been traveling the country painting, skateboarding and playing music to the places that need her. She explained to me that all of her plans were divinely guided.
“So this whole tour I’m on, the Music and Murals Tour, actually came through inspiration of meditation. It just hit me like an energetic bag of bricks, you could say. The guidance that got me on this tour was ‘You can go on this tour, and follow your passions, you just have to omit all fear, that’s all.’ I’ve been trying to get to this level of fluidity for a long time, that ‘go with the flow.’”
“I was at Unity Cafe and a friend I was with wanted to skateboard really bad. But then I saw these thunder clouds rolling in, and I got this guidance to go to Mother Earth before they closed. When I was there, this guy – this embodiment of a wolf – asked me how a mural I was working on was coming along (about an hour South of here, in between Ripley and Ravenswood at Ruby Lake). I told him I had finished it, and he asked if I knew Dave and that he was looking for a muralist. And I said ‘Can you connect me?’ And he was headed to dinner with him!”
They just told me that they wanted it to encompass gratitude, and they wanted people to be humbled by it, and they wanted their eye to be led from one side to the other, toward the front door.
“Later that day I was guided to camp on the river, and I did a Google search and my finger went to the first place I saw. And I thought ‘I must not be staying there very long,’ but my heart must want me to stay in the area. That’s how I try and govern my entire life, is with my heart. It wasn’t always that way, but it’s become that way, from a series of synchronous events. Anyway, 30 minutes later, Dave calls and says ‘Where are you staying tonight? Do you want to stay on my farm?’ and then I met up with him and we talked for so long. He invited me in and I’ve been staying there every day (since the beginning of the mural project). He lets me do everything I need to do, so effortlessly, it’s like family.”
When I asked if Dave gave her a specific idea/visual for the mural:
“No, I drew up the picture. They just told me that they wanted it to encompass gratitude, and they wanted people to be humbled by it, and they wanted their eye to be led from one side to the other, toward the front door. I just put out a prayer, and drew up a watercolor. And they let me put it up there. I’ve been working on it for about 5 days. And it’s the biggest I’ve ever done. So the fact that I’m gonna finish it in about a week is ridiculous!”
This feels wild, right? To live your life as if the universe has your back? But how do you contest it if you actually see it working. Jordan shared some of her mantras and beliefs, and suggested I could also have them for my own:
“I am always supported by the universe, the universe always has my back, and I have everything I need, as I need it. I’m changing the world through my creativity. I’m always inspiring others. I always have more money coming in than I do going out – even while I sleep. It’s not being ignorant to your reality, it’s about being powerful to your ability to create your reality. Instead of chasing my dream, I became my dream and it became me. And I never looked back. There is literally only this ceiling that I place upon myself.”
And how is it all working our for her?
“It’s been a great journey. I’ve never had this direct kind of guidance in my life. I guess my soul always had it, but now I’m really letting it come through. It’s coming through the music, it’s coming through the murals, literally into the perfect flow. I actually stopped relying on past guidance. I’m just fully in the flow of divine synchronicity, that became my reality. The right place, the right time… I’ve literally been guided to music festivals and they needed a performer at the last minute. I was wondering where my first stop would be on my tour, and then someone sent me a message asking if I was going to the Summer Solstice festival on the Serpent Mound. My name is Serpentini. I asked for very clear signs, and I keep getting these ironic, beautiful signs. And everywhere I go, it seems they need a muralist…I asked how this could get any better, and they’re showing me how. You want to make sure you’re always putting out positive stuff.”
May seem a little wild, right? But can you fully deny a life that’s being led through flow and trust, and seems to be working out?
“It’s been the most fulfilling thing, ever (to live in the flow). I’ve been blogging about it and it’s been such a big lesson for my whole family. My family wasn’t really supportive of my skateboarding. So really, it was what my mindset was doing, the seeds that I’d planted in my mind. A lot of people were nervous about me going on this tour, and I told them I couldn’t do anything else, because this was what my heart wanted to do. I planned nothing, because I wanted to leave everything up to the divine. I asked for sponsors along the way, I ended up at the X-Games, I went to extreme sports camp for free, and have a key to the place. So much craziness happened.”
“My dad was like ‘You have all this stuff lined up, you have murals and shows?’ And I said ‘yep!’ So it’s a really big lesson for them to see. My mom said ‘You’re exactly where you need to be, doing exactly what you need to do’. It’s been really nice to have that support. And now my dad is getting on board. He sees that it’s something bigger than him. I want to keep him on the same level, so I update him, I tell him ‘Hey, this happened today-right place, right time. This happened because I said this. I brought this to life.’ Because I just want him to know.”
So what’s next on the tour?
At the time of our conversation, Jordan shared “I’ll be continuing it for the mural in Cleveland. Even though that’s my home. And then surprisingly, oversees a little bit, in Italy. And after that, it’s called the Riff-Raff collective in Princeton, WV. It’s a collective of artists, of muralists. They want me to do a live-in residency in January. And then this town pretty much gave me everything in Quentin, NM. One of the guys owns a vaudeville theatre there, and he takes me upstairs in the theatre, and shows me his state-of-the-art recording studio, and tells me he wants to barter and says ‘Dude, can you fix our mural that was destroyed in the weather, and I want to put on a concert for you, and I’ll record your album for free.’ And I was like, ‘Let me just pick my jaw up off the ground.’”
Since our conversation, I’ve gone back into a life of more gratitude and flow – quite possibly more than ever before. And I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this fulfilled. I love her mantras on abundance and trusting that all is working out for the greater good… and it really does flow better when you let go of fear. When I stop worrying about what’s coming next and just know that really cool projects are on their way, really cool projects have been showing up more and more, and I’m not lying. If you don’t think you’re in the flow right now, these words haunted me the most from my entire conversation with Jordan:
“Everybody’s in the flow of something. Maybe you’re just in the flow of something you don’t want to be in the flow of. This is a crazy journey. I feel like I’m finally in my truest heart, living my truest life.”
Maybe you’re just one breath away from a better, more true-to-your-heart flow.