Brad Miller 0:00
Pathway to Promise podcast episode number 36 Rocks tell Stories with author and artist Patty Rockus with the new book "He is Risen"

Patti Rockus 0:16
I thought it was going to solve all the questions I was going to journal and write and figure everything out. But instead I just became really quiet and became I felt like a piece of moss or a tree. I just became one with nature.

Unknown 0:31
Hi, this is Kevin Murphy, author of the three rooms where I help people change your thoughts to change your life. You're connected to the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller, helping you overcome adversity to find your promise like

Unknown 0:47
you're on the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller Bradley's every person has a god given promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose and that you must have a plan and a guy to get

Unknown 1:00
They're the pathway to promise podcast. Not only is your guide through the wilderness of depression and disappointment that stand between you and your promise life but also brings you insights and direction from inspiring successful thought leaders who have transformed their lives. Welcome to the pathway to promise now here's Brad

Brad Miller 1:19
pathway to promise podcast is brought to you by the book The promise given life that Reverend Dr. Brad velour, the 40 day way to your promise, life of peace, prosperity and purpose. You can be part of the launch team and get on the waitlist for this new book, which is coming out later this year by going over to pathway promise.com. This episode is also brought to you by Patty rochas, who brings you a free downloadable resource called Making angels an easy way to make a rock art for children. It's a downloadable video or author today.

We're speaking to his Patti Rackus, and she has incredible story to talk to us about the power of the transformative power of connecting with nature and expressing it through art. My name is Dr. Brad Miller. And the pathway to promise podcast is all about helping you transform your life to help you overcome any adversity in your life. And the know that you have a promise, life of peace, prosperity, and purpose. And we bring you teaching and and and ways to help you to overcome whatever things are going on your life, maybe as divorce. Maybe it's a financial problem, maybe as a health related thing. We all have them, but there's got to be ways to get through that. That's been a lifetime in ministry and studied life transformation and like to teach about this area and bring you great guests like Patty rook is today. Today is day three of our 40 Day Challenge. We're in the 40 days and in March and April 8.

weekday each Monday through Saturday we were teaching a lesson or bringing a great interview which teaches you something about how to transform your life and I made commitments to you and you can make commitments to me and we can be in relationship to one another just connect up with us at our at our website page pathway promised calm or on our Facebook page which is facebook.com pathway promise we're committed to help life transformation happened for you. And each day we have a theme of today's theme is nature and the power of the transformative power of nature we have an incredible artist guest with us today, Patty ruckus who has an incredible story to tell and we're going to get into that with her just a minute just want to share with you that she wasn't always an artist. She started off her life in her career in the technology field where she was a product manager for for companies like Nike and Microsoft and she was involved with many things in the tech field but however, she

calls herself a recovering Product Manager because overcoming some difficulties in her life, some issues growing up and some other issues, she found herself needed to take some time off. And she went off into on a three month camping trip. And there she discovered the power and the restaurant, restorative nature of nature itself. And among other things, she discovered rocks and she considers rocks to be a love note from God which is irresistible to her and she then turn these rocks and the artwork and she first started off with a book that had on the Christmas themed savior as born which came out last year and her new book is he has risen which is about the last week and the mortal life of Jesus Christ and both these books are artistic wonders that she has a number of

of incredible videos and how to videos and artistic videos on her website. Rocks tell stories calm

And her book is available in bookstores everywhere and we'll put links to her book and her videos on our on our website pathway promised.com It's a pleasure to have with us today author and artist, Patty Rockus, Brad thank you so much for having me. I'm really thrilled to talk with you today. Well, you really have a fascinating story that is really, really unique. And my experience at least, that you are an artist and you are an artist who uses a medium that to express stories in your life using rocks and that's an incredible thing and are what we're about here is helping people get through adversity in their life through all kinds of means. Sometimes it's through music and sometimes it's through therapy and reading and writing and and other things that they've done but you've done it through this process here but I'd like I want to hear more specific about your artwork here in a minute. But also

Patti Rockus 6:00
Want to hear kind of what motivated you to get started here you've had some challenging pieces your life tell us a story about how it came to be that you found working with rocks away to help you process some challenging points in your life goes your story a little bit better. Thanks, Brad. I'm really glad that you're starting with this piece of adversity as opposed to the art because I'm really not an artist, which is surprises me and everybody else because I couldn't draw a stick figure if I had to. And I never intended on doing physical art for anyone. This came as part of my healing from the adversity and the struggles that I've had in life. And if you'll just let me briefly start with my childhood so because of my childhood and I was raised in a challenging situation to say the least and with some severe hardships that really shaped how I saw the world and how I felt about myself and that just drug along with

me through the rest of my life, even though it might not have looked like it. You know, I was working for Nike and Microsoft and appeared to have everything under control and looking good on the outside. But by the time I was in my 30s, I really I really fell apart. And it was through I had done counseling and I've always been a faith based person. And so I've always turned to God and all those things that helped me for sure, but not being healed the very center wound that was deep inside of me until much later in life. And that's kind of a background to why I needed something a catalyst if you will, to help me through through my beliefs about myself and my struggles. And it wasn't until my late 40s that I've this finally transformed for me and I was able to come across this this wonderland of rocks and pebbles in nature that can be

Like people and places and that specific story I'll be happy to tell you but I just wanted to let you know that there isn't this nice fairy tale background I don't think any of us have that real some real struggles that I needed to so and growing up and in your adult life in your corporate life you had some

Brad Miller 8:20
success but some real challenges that you were less than satisfied so tell us what some of the actions that you took I think you nature was involved with helping you turn things around a little bit tell us some of the actions that you took to to deal with a sense of diversity you're having yeah well nature she says always been a critical part of me just feeling at peace and I think that's what we're all looking for is is peace and contentment it regardless of our life situation, the really the very first story about the rocks was in my 30s I hurt my back severely.

Patti Rockus 9:00
And at the time I was working on contract I was renting. I wasn't in a relationship. Everything just felt like it wasn't what I wanted. And then on top of that, I hurt my back so badly. All I could do is crawl the first couple of days. And

the remedy turned out to be a lot of walking, just gingerly walking. And a couple of months into this. I was feeling so crushed by the situation and so depressed and I was barely walking down the street, trying to do my physical therapy and crying. I just said out loud, I said, God, heavenly Father, I need to know that you love me. I need to know you're there. I've always believed that but I just wasn't feeling it in my life. Circumstances didn't seem to prove it out. And just as I said that I noticed something on the ground and I gingerly bent down and pick that up it was a half of a pecan shell and if you've ever looked carefully it

Unknown 10:00
pecan shell bit inside half. It's a perfect heart shape. And I looked at that heart shape. And you know, God speaks to each of us very individually. And he spoke to me through that pecan shell as crazy as that sounds. When I saw that hearts after asking that question of him, this love and this feeling of comfort just poured over me. And my tears changed from being completely frustrated, and feeling alone to feeling completely consumed in the love of God. And that was the very beginning of me having a passion for seeing hardships in nature, which transformed immediately into seen heart shaped rocks, which many people I've discovered because of my books and the heart shaped box in those books. Many people collect heart shaped rocks and decided that those are love notes from God

Unknown 10:54
messages every time I see one, I just smile and I know that's God saying, Patty, I love you and it's all going

Unknown 11:00
Just fine. There's an awesome story. And so

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you've now started the process of collecting rocks and kind of getting a message from God's or the shells and through the, the rocks. How did that transition to you to then being able to utilize that to create art and create processes where you've been helpful to others, even therapeutically. Tell us a little bit about how that transformed for you. Yeah, that that began began

Unknown 11:33
that along with some other healing and emotional relief and healing that I had created a passion in me that I wanted to be a catalyst I wanted to be helpful to other people in them feeling the love of God and overcoming the the hurts and the challenges of their lives, but never figured it out. I thought maybe I'd be a counselor, but never did it because I had such a strong career in corporate America with technology and Nike and Microsoft and such and so

Unknown 12:00
I continued on still single until I was 44, which was crazy. I never imagined I'd be single and not have children, which was a great heartache to me. But I finally married a wonderful man. But the marriage didn't work and after three years when that didn't work out, I was completely crushed and my self confidence was obliterated and I just could not understand what had happened and why I wasn't lovable and why he wouldn't want me and all that so I took I put a tent in my trunk is the day that I left and went to the Pacific Northwest and camped for three months just to figure out myself what happened and to try to heal just on just on your own right just on your own okay, but Okay, yeah, I went to my people at work and said, I just have to take a break and I left

Unknown 13:00
And it was a most remarkable three months. And that's that was the beginning of this the deepest healing of my life. I didn't know at the time that just being in nature was so powerful. And I thought it was going to solve all the questions. I was going to journal and right and figure everything out. But instead I just became really quiet and became I felt like a piece of moss or a tree. I just became one with nature. And after three months, I was so frustrated that I hadn't used the time well to solve my problems. It took me several years later when these rock books came forward. And these images came forward for me to look back and realize that God just needed to calm me down. He needed to create a quiet place inside of me where he could be. I was so noisy and so hurt and so frustrated. There wasn't a room for him.

Unknown 13:56
He felt like he needed a time of season of listening and he

Unknown 14:00
lean in. And just to be before you could be so you could be filled up in order to do or to share with others. Yeah. And I had no idea. That's how God worked, you know, always taught in the church, serve others and lose your life so you can be one and God and all this where I just was so outside of myself and so busy and so working so hard. I didn't realize that I didn't have room for God, even though I was praying every day and I was trying to make space I didn't have enough space. So you're right, I came away from that a much quieter person more reflective and calm and that created the space in which all kinds of miracles came into my life. That's awesome. But you had to take action, didn't you? What I'm getting at is that you chose not to just kind of you know, just suck yourself into your own misery whatever that would be within divorce and when

Unknown 15:00
Other things would you do the action of going off of the off into the wilderness and to be self aware enough to take your time to heal? Yeah. And I could have used that time to be miserable, right? I could have most most people do be honest with you, as we well, and I have

Unknown 15:18
plenty of my own pity parties, for sure. But nature is so beautiful that I could not help but rejoice in God's creations and noticing the beauty and the Wonder from a butterfly to a Trillium flower was just so beautiful. I could not help but be joyful in that space. And that seems like that kind of got your artistic juices flowing. Whether you saw yourself as an artist or not, you became one didn't you? You became an artist and such a to to have your heart touched by the by nature and then to transform that into art into books into videos that are touching to others.

Unknown 16:00
Tell us what how that happened and how that impact on you as in been impactful to others. Yeah, thank you. Well, two years after that experience in the woods, I really decided that I was really tired of technology just didn't represent who I am. I couldn't be creative. I couldn't be feminine, if you will. And I went on a two week camping trip to Montana and found the most glorious place of these old growth cedars up in northwestern Montana. And as I was hiking through these old huge giant, trumped cedars I thought I was hiking to go through the mountains like always do, but instead, I got drawn to this riverbed. And the riverbed was this dry, huge riverbed full of beautifully colored large stones, and I walked through that riverbed and the rocks was so pretty, I kept pocketing them and I was I don't know what to do with this, but I got to take it home and pretty soon all my pockets were filled. Fortunately, I had a

Unknown 17:00
Lock it in my trunk. And after two weeks in the woods, I had a bucket full of beautiful rocks. No idea what to do with those. I just thought they'd be pretty, maybe an A path or something. But I had one day left of my vacation. I in my pajamas, I paddled out to my trunk and got that bucket and spilled it out on the porch, just to push those pretty rocks around. And I noticed the one rock look just like somebody kneeling in prayer. And I thought, How interesting. I put a little round rock above it for ahead and there I had Mary as I thought, kneeling before Angel Gabriel and looked around, I thought, could there be an angel in here, and there was a long rock for the angel with a triangle for a wing and a circle for ahead and now was six rocks. I had the Annunciation or the the first scene of the Nativity story. And so I thought, Oh, my heavens. This is kind of juvenile, but so interesting. So I dug through the rest of that bucket and the entire Nativity story was

Unknown 18:00
In that one bucket of random rocks and I completely stunned I took some pictures with my iPhone seven about your friends going isn't this crazy? And my friend said I want a book and I thought that was insane. Like who wants a book of rocks and pebbles? But I ended up putting one together. I went on Facebook and I'm not a big Facebook person wasn't before. And but I did a little two minute video just in my little Nike shirt, and that, hey, here's my story. Here's my book. Anybody want one? I thought maybe I'd sell maybe 25. But I had to print 54 economies of scale and to my complete astonishment in two weeks I had sold 900

Unknown 18:44
awesome that is so cool. That's a good...