Journey Jars, 2007–2009

All was well — I was writing and rolling, selling online and in stores across the country and technically around the world (if one store in Australia and one in England count). And then, I made a mistake that would take two years to recover from: I got fancy.

My market was 30–50 year-old New Agey women, as I had learned from selling on the street and at trade shows around the country for the past four years. Most other demographics would scrunch up their noses, ask themselves, me or the air, “What is it?” And no matter how long I talked, they didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t get it. Only now do I understand that those 30–50-somethings were just more forgiving and bought despite my pitch.

As Journey Jars caught on, store buyers started to ask for themes, and I was ready and willing to comply. I wrote scrolls with themes of rebirth, transformation, remembrance and many many more. I wrote what I wanted people to want and it was doomed. I was lying.

Whenever we effort a thing for another, we’re betraying ourselves. Well, usually. The reason there has to be effort at all is that it wasn’t there already. There is an artificiality to many of the things we do for each other. We dress up, we talk about expected things, we come and go at proper times with the proper people.

Not to say I was ever bound by any of the above things — and most certainly to my detriment at times — but lying by way of producing rather than expressing has always been my personally preferred poison.

Producing is what we do all day long. If you’re lucky enough to do what you love, the producing is enjoyable, because you’re watching little cute bits of the whole you adore go by on the assembly line of whatever it is that you do.

Expressing is what the truly fortunate do with a lifetime. If you’re wise enough to express, you’re alone sometimes and thronged by adoring fans other times. But you’re always somewhere other than in or even near the audience. Expressing comes from a deep connection to why we’re here. For me, it took the sorrow of divorce to understand that if I didn’t write for me, there was no point in being. But that part happens much later in the history of these Journey Jars.

Back to the point of this, in 2007, I hired a fancy videographer and two models and had my basement turned into a green screen studio and everything. I had this whole thing figured out, to add a dreamy video ad to journeyjar.com and sell more jars than ever before. The entire production took weeks if not months to complete. Up to the moment before launching it I had a steady stream of orders that would come in in response to a weekly email I would send out. After the moment of launch, all user response stopped. Subscribers thought it was strange or at least different enough from where they were at with the jars that they just dropped off. I kept a consistent go of it for another season, but after four months of dead silence, I had to acknowledge that I had chased off my entire base.

I had chased them off earlier, most likely, by being whatever they asked me to be. I had begged them to leave by merely being a milker and not a maker. I was happy to perfect and use Journey Jars to bring me acceptance and compensation. Despite setting out to, I had lost my initial intention to be authentic and relevant. I had lost it because I took authenticity and relevance to mean things that require other people to validate.

Authenticity and relevance mean that you are really there for yourself when you need it. Once my customers left, there was no one there other than a well-meaning peddler of glass and paper. It was a sad time indeed — sadder still because it was like getting the punch line long after everyone else has left the comedy club. It would take another four years to get to a place where there was something real to build on.

If I had it to do over again, I would have spent more time trying to find my own authentic Creator rather than trying to sell others the ideas that they told me they wanted to hear about. There is nothing wrong with that most noble sort of service, providing what others are requesting of you. But if you feel called to create, you are accountable to a higher power than approval.

What is true for you?