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Hi, I'm Robin - a counselor, coach, artist, writer, teacher, crafty vixen, wild dancer, and lover of life… and, yes, I laugh a lot! I think the days of needing to label yourself strictly as a this or a that are over and there's a surge of people, like myself, who are Renaissance people with diverse gifts and talents breaking out of the old molds of what a person can be or do in the world. The challenge may be in creatively figuring out how to tell others about yourself, but it seems to me you can say it all. Or say what's relevant at any given time, because we're all evolving and nothing, especially our identities, are static. To me, this change and opening is profoundly refreshing because, truly, we each have so many threads woven into our rich and varied lives and we don't have to only focus on one. Instead, we can be multi-faceted, pan-talented waybearers living fulfilling, creative, dynamic lives of purpose that serve others and the collective, each in our unique way. So I'll share with you some of the threads in my life that have brought me to this moment. The main ones being counseling, spirituality and art. There's more, of course, but I'll save that for my book! I joke, but… that probably has more truth to it than I'm currently willing to admit. Being a counselor is a calling I've had my whole life. Even as a child, when I considered what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew that if I couldn't be Ella Fitzgerald during the Harlem Renaissance, Monet, or Stevie Wonder, I wanted to be a counselor. Now, of course, I see I can be, and am, a bit of all of these flavors but at the time I didn't yet know being a Artist-Healer Renaissance Woman was a possible job title. In any case, I liked the idea of helping people, but that can look many ways. What made me realize that counseling was an ordination of mine was that beginning in childhood people of all ages, including my friend's parents, would tell me about their lives, troubles and dreams and seem to experience a sense of calm, support, or reassurance through speaking to me. It happened all the time, and continually surprised me. And although I didn't understand what it was about me that brought this out in people, I knew that something special was happening, something greater than the individual conversations, and that I was being guided on my direction. So when I began my undergraduate degree at CU Boulder in 1995 I knew that I wanted to study Psychology and pursue this calling. I also majored in Humanities - focusing on Religious Studies, Sociology, and Art - but, at the time, that seemed like my personal interest as opposed to career-path study. Little did I know. But what moved me from being deeply interested to SOLD on being a counselor was an internship I did at the Boulder County Safehouse, a battered women's shelter that was run by grad students from Naropa. Many people would find the situations and stories at a safehouse understandably difficult to be around. I, on the other hand, found it completely enlivening and looked forward to my shifts all week long. I loved the women, I was deeply moved by their courage to reclaim and redirect their lives, and I felt so honored to play any small part in their process of healing and empowerment. This experience was a turning point for me and I spent the next five years working as a counselor and learning all I could at several social work jobs. First at a treatment center for emotionally challenged kids in Colorado, then on a locked psychiatric ward in Massachusetts, and finally at a drug and alcohol treatment program for homosexual men in San Francisco. I also did the full training at the SF Zen Center Hospice as I found that, like the battered women, I was particularly moved by those who were facing death. These were each profound experiences and I learned a tremendous amount about how to be of service to vastly different populations, how to listen, how to create and facilitate groups, how to care for myself as a care provider, boundaries, compassion, patience, support, empowerment, what to do, what not to do - the list goes on. It was an amazing education.
In 2002 I moved to San Francisco to attend CIIS and study spiritually oriented psychology. This was a really exciting time in my life. I had always wanted to live in SF and, even more magically, the path across the bridge I had been seeking began seeking me and answers, opportunities, and openings started coming to me at warp speed. They say when you're ready, the teacher appears and that was certainly my case. In fact, I got two and both of them I met within the first week of my arrival in SF. The first was an amazingly talented and skillful counselor who became a mentor and teacher to me. I worked with her regularly for over five years, learning a tremendous amount about self inquiry, intuitive development, emotional allowing and unfolding, self love, as well as many of her techniques for working with others. This is the kind of personalized education people dream of. The second was a friend I met at CIIS who was very much a kindred spirit. We lived together for a time and her gift was in the abundantly creative and artistic way she lived. It dripped off of her and into every aspect of her life. As a child I made art all the time. I even had a second bedroom at one of the houses we lived in as my art and playroom. But as I got older, I drew less, focused on school more, and lost some of my creative confidence. In high school I took art and liked it but I didn't totally own it as mine, feeling intimidated by another student's wild expression and not quite sure how to channel the full intensity of what I was feeling into 2D imagery. But when you take someone who is highly creative, even if they're stuck, and drop them like an ice cube into a caldron of creative energy, they melt open and start gushing with it… which is exactly what happened to me through this friendship. To me, this is a great example of living one's purpose. I think we all wonder about our purpose, and ask ourselves: Am I doing what I came here to live? Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing enough? To me purpose is much broader than this. It's in the every day genuine living of who you are and sharing of your unique light. It's in the thoughts you think, the energy you emit, the feelings you generate. And as this story shows, whether we recognize it or not, people around us ARE paying attention and taking in the inspiration and light we naturally give off. And our light ripples to and through those directly around us, out to the people in their lives, and into world beyond. I mean, just think of the number of people who have been effected by my interest in art!? Or of the number of people impacted by my interest in intuition, a gift my friend who died gave me. It's profound! And it's because of two people who generously and unapologetically lived their passion and uniqueness. To me, that's really living your purpose. So, this synchronistic, activating entry I had into SF was life "tilling my soil" because like many people who are about to enter their Saturn Return, by late 2003 I unexpectedly found myself at a deep crossroads where my life was going one direction but my heart wanted to go another. People talk about having a "wake up" moment and that fall while camping in the desert with some friends, I had mine. I was sitting up on a hill contemplating my life and received very specific guidance that if I wanted live the life I saw for myself in my heart and to be of service in the meaningful way I truly wanted to, I needed to make some big changes, let go of much of what was in my life at that time, and take a different path. I took this on like my life depended on it (because it did!) and initiated about 6 months worth of changes in 3 days. Through getting behind the wheel of my own life and activating my power to create, I was struck with a lightning rod of creative energy so intense that I sat down to paint my first painting in 8 years and painted for 3 weeks straight! I felt electrically charged, clear as a bell, awakened, connected, and fabulous - I was hooked! Here it is..
Through this, my vision expanded to see that personal empowerment and healing, spirituality, and creative expression were all hand-in-hand processes. I had officially bloomed as a Renaissance Woman and felt called to share what I had with others. Conventional wisdom says that to be mid-twenty-whatever and teaching is too young, but my guidance says that I am here to share what I have. It may not be perfect, whatever that is, or what it will be 5 or 10 years from now, but it is enough and people who are supported and nourished by it will benefit from my sharing, so I share. And so opened a new chapter of my life where I focused heavily on yoga, meditation, self-inquiry, painting and running my own business for the first time in SF doing individual consultations and teaching classes aimed at empowering folks to develop their intuition. The community I had been involved with flocked to this and it turned out to be much more successful than I had expected. In late 2005 I moved to Venice, CA. I took all that I had learned and brought more of my own flavor to it as I re-established my business. Awakened Spirit, the intuitive development class, flourished and became a community in and of itself as people from all over LA attended and shared in an unexpectedly empowering and opening experience together. And, I keep learning and evolving. I studied bodywork at IPSB, took an abundance of yoga classes, worked with a great Ayurvedic practitioner who became a teacher to me, and I expanded my offerings to include Reiki trainings, women's retreats, and painting classes with themes including vocal work, intuition and creativity, balancing directing and surrendering to the flow, shadow, and taking the gems gleaned in the creative process into daily living. I lived as an entrepreneurial Renaissance Woman and it felt great.
Life is a mysterious dance, a wildly collaborative puzzle that's forever coming into being. What's exciting is that just as life is always evolving, so are we, like eternally blooming Russian dolls. I love art and spend a lot of time painting and creating, but I think that each of our greatest artistic achievements is in creating who we are. We're each so powerful. And whether we know it or not, we are creating every aspect of our lives through sculpting who we think, feel, and live ourselves to be. So my invitation to you is to join me in sharing who you are with the world around you. There is no one else like you and your light is needed.
To see my paintings please visit my art site: www.robinclarkgallery.com
...Take a peek into my Sketchbook: 2004-mid 2008... ...Sketchbook: mid 2008-2009....
You Are Never Alone
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While these years of social service were happening, another major turning point in my life developed. In 2000 I left Boulder and moved to my parents house in New England following the death of one of my closest friends. I moved seeking a temporary refuge but ended up staying for two years. Grief is blindsiding and touches you in deep and unexpected ways. For me, I was profoundly heartbroken. During this first year of grief, I had a few dreams where my friend came to visit me in a very tangible 3D way. I knew these were not normal dreams and I got very fired up by the realization that if he could visit me, that meant there was a bridge between us, which meant I could learn to cross that bridge and visit him myself. I had no idea how to do this, or if it was even a possibility for me, but every spiritual tradition I had heard of says meditation is the path into a deeper level of being so I began weekly meditation classes at CIMC in Cambridge, which is a wonderful place to study, and started a daily sitting practice. I was on fire, hungry for information and I read every spiritual book I could get my hands on. I was seeking. I was looking within. I was learning how to calm my mind so I could listen to life more deeply. And I became clear that emotional healing and spiritual awakening were a hand-in-hand process.
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But after 3 sweet, productive, and service-oriented years in Venice that were filled with much empowering learning, my heart yearned for the redwoods so I returned to the Bay Area, where I've been since. You can find me running my practice in San Mateo, participating in the wonderful offerings of 
