Karen Ely Dares to Live Her Dream
By Sylvia Somerville

From the first time I met Karen Ely I knew that she was a muse for other women. Her dream, she told me, was to create a way to provide women with the space and support they needed to find their vision and voice. What better way, she added, than in the company of other women and with the insights and encouragement of some of the greatest female thinkers of our age.

Three years ago Ely formed her company A Woman's Way while continuing in her role as the executive director of the Sedona Arts Center (SAC). A few times a year she began inviting women and nationally known facilitators to retreat in Sedona. I had the pleasure of attending some of those weekends, enjoying the space to reflect upon my life. Other women said they did too.

Now the time has come for Ely to step into her role as a full-time midwife for other women's dreams. As much as she has enjoyed her role at SAC, she feels an urgency to move forward. Another decade is creeping up. In October Ely will be 60.

With the publication of her book Daring to Dream: Reflections on the Year I Found Myself, a chronicle of Ely's journey to wholeness following the end of her 32-year marriage, Ely has decided to take a leap of faith. She is ready to devote herself full time to developing a retreat organization for women on par with the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, and Esalen in Big Sur, California.

In order to grow her organization, Ely has decided to spend more time on the road, attending women's conferences to meet more facilitators and dropping in on independent bookstores in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado to distribute her book. "I have always seen my book as an avenue for developing A Woman's Way," she says. "As women we share things we love with women we love."

In the spring of 2005 best-selling author Sarah Ban Breathnach came to lead a one-day workshop for A Woman's Way. She talked about how she wrote her seminal book Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy and the promises she made to herself about when the book would be published and how long it would be on the New York Times bestseller list. Breathnach was very specific about her goals and attributes that specificity to her success: Simple Abundance became one of the 10 best-selling books of the 1990s.

This got Ely thinking about her own projects and inspired her 2006 New Year's resolutions. Ely made specific plans for both A Woman’s Way and Daring to Dream and placed these next to her monitor the way Breathnach had done. "I had no idea that providence would move so decisively to put things in motion," she confesses.

"For some people it may look like a foolhardy move for me to step out of a well-paying job I love in order to pursue my dream and vision," adds Ely. "because at this point A Woman’s Way does not provide a living wage."

But Ely is not concerned. She is excited. She believes that by committing 100 percent to being of service to women, providence will move in her favor in ways she has no way of knowing. As she quotes Mary Chapin Carpenter in Daring to Dream: "Where I thought a light went out, now a candle shines."

On Saturday, July 29, Karen Ely will have a book signing at 2 p.m. at the Well-Read Coyote on Dry Creek Road. On Saturday, September 16, at 2 p.m. she will be signing books at the Golden Word bookstore on 89A.

Ely's book Daring to Dream: Reflections on the Year I Found Myself is a chronicle of the changes she experienced the year after she left her husband in 1998. Ely says she wrote her memoir to give other women the confidence they need to make important changes in their lives. "This is my story," says Ely, "but in so many ways it is every woman's story. Daring to Dream is meant for women who are going through loss or a difficult transition. It’s not just a book; it’s a tool for personal growth."

Daring to Dream is written in short chapters, each of which stands alone. Ely believes that any crisis is an opportunity for growth and transformation. The chapters are designed to be meditations and supports for women moving through their own passages.

According to Ely, when things are scary in one's life and one does not know how to proceed, it often helps to hear the story of someone who has survived - whether it is in a circle of women or in a book. Ely herself found solace in other women's stories, including those of Jean Shinoda Bolen, Julia Cameron, Pema Chodron, Judith Duerk, Anne Morrow Lindbergh and May Sarton, whose journal-like style is most like her own.

Daring to Dream is divided into sections that identify the major steps in Ely's transition: Waking Up, Falling Off Course and In Love, On the Road, Colliding Lives, Recommitment, and Leaving Home. Each section begins with an inspirational header and one of Ely’s Colorado photographs. (The story takes place in Colorado.)

"I am thrilled to have my first book signings in Sedona," says Ely. "After all, this is the place where I have chosen to live my dream."