250 miles north of the Twin Cities lies Ely, a town known for its exploration and natural beauty. We were drawn up for a day and night to meet with Patti Steger, the founder of Steger Mukluks, one of our generous sponsors. Wow, was it worth it.
Northern Minnesota is gorgeous- lake after frozen blue lake permeating thick forests of green and white bordered by golden tall-grass. Not to mention we got to go hang out at a bonafide explorer’s castle, built on the cliffs of a meandering river to be a meet-up for explorers and environmentalists from across the world.
Patti herself was a trip; a wonderful, brilliant and caring experience. We were taken to the Steger Mukluk factory to pick out our boots, which are “The Warmest Winter Boots in the World.” Well, so far they’re living up to that slogan. Plus I wouldn’t doubt it; the inspiration and design for the boots came from the Inuit which Patti met and lived with on numerous occasions during her dogsledding trips.
I got the opportunity to talk with Patti about her art which she would call design (interview will be posted soon). Patti was able to describe the process in which she’s found success doing what she loves.
To her, things she hopes to accomplish or sets out to do come first as visualizations of an idea. She then stays present in the moment, keeping these images in mind so she can gather the pertinent information the world is showing her. In this way she continually refines the vision, and slowly but surely matches it with the world around her.
One thing she and other successful women like her have told me is that this manifestation process takes time, and it’s important to know that going in. The only way to make something that truly works is to do it naturally, and nature operates at its own pace.
Of course I was pretty jazzed about what she was saying about focusing energy on an idea and then gathering the information to support it because I love the relationship between energy and information. Maybe it’s my Physics background but to me it’s so able to explain everything that’s going on in both the natural and cultural worlds.
Life is a combination of the two. It’s energy gathered from the sun and information in the way that energy behaves and is positioned in patterns. We as conscious beings get to focus our energy on any aspect of our life, and then at the same time take in information from our senses and intuition.
The information we receive is related to where we put our energy, and the places we choose to put our energy have to do with what information we’ve experienced. We’re looking to help people do this with awareness rather than out of habitual and societal conditioning so that as a culture we can choose how our world works.