My Amangiri chapter

For nearly two years, I was involved behind the scenes at one of the world’s most exclusive resorts - Amangiri.

Mostly, pictures and stories of this place that are circulated, come from celebrities, influencers or architecture blogs. My story is a bit of a different one.

This place had been on my vision board for years, and I just knew one way or another, I’d get there eventually. I remember sitting in front of my computer, feeling like a chapter in life was closing but not quite knowing what the next one was about. Out of nowhere, an image of this place hit me. And I knew that was the next step. Some people have tales of love at first sight, just knowing that’s their person. I get hits of insight, and just know, where to leap.

As I’m typing this, I’m already onto the next one, but for now, back to Amangiri…

I had been living in California for 17 years at that point, the summer of 2022 was drawing close and so was my lease. I hadn’t renewed it, bluffing with the universe. Or fully leaning into trust, whichever way you want to put it. Within a week of that insight, I had sold most of my belongings, packed what was left in a tiny Uhaul, signed on the dotted line and took off with my dog towards the desert. With no clue what awaits.

What followed this impulse, were some of the most surprising months of my life. Well, years nearly… filled with very good and very bad.

The heat in the summer months was grueling, and so was my work schedule. The landscape was arid and harsh, even on the windiest day seeming not to be moved. Decevingly so, though it had learned to be resilient, and not show signs of bending, or it would be swept up.

Intense late summer rainstorms swept entire roads away, charged with thunder that echoed and shook the panes of my windows. I used to sit outside, under a small awning, taking in these outbursts like meditations. Knowing they alter outer landscapes, inviting them to alter inner ones too.

Before my hit of insight, I didn’t know much about the place. I had a couple pictures saved but never inquired into it more than that. In ways, it’s a way of not inviting others to shape my opinion of something, but rather allowing mine to form on its own.

Just like desert flowers, in a work environment that mimicked it’s harsh surroundings, I was surprised to find people blossoming in the intense heat, being creative with the limited resources of a place like this, alchemizing materials that, to most, wouldn’t even register.

One such beautiful human, is Ulrike Arnold. For months at a time, she would live in the desert, and spend day in and day out, creating large scale textural paintings on site, under the blistering Utah sun, grinding rocks to make her own pigments - and the shades and textures seemed to be endless.

Like Ulrike, I discovered in my own time, that the environment provides all the tools we need to create. I might need to sit with what I just wrote there, as I’m again in the midst of an identity crisis but I digress.

The truth is, the environment does provide. Whether it looks like we expect it, or not, that’s another story.

Before moving to the desert, I imagined this place would be where I meet the right people, where I’d advance in my career, where my skills would be recognized and appreciated, where I’d get to be seen as valuable to something of that scale. What I very quickly and unpleasantly learned (the details are irrelevant at this point), is that entities (humans and places or businesses) that we place on pedestals, we give, by default, power over our unfolding. Power than is not necessarily deserved, or there to begin with. I had given this place so much importance, that I had lost myself in the entire story.

Destiny has a way of intervening though.

And in my case, after getting to see this place for what it is, and its beautiful facade, I found myself needing to recalibrate and redefine what it is I want to experience in this chapter. And so, even after a brutal ‘welcome’ and its subsequent effects, I did exactly that.

I decided that I am always the right person at the right place and time, and even with all that lead me to that moment and decision, I was going to hold on to my belief. That in time, I would start to see proof of this view.

I don’t know how to explain it besides divine providence, but what followed was a shock even to me. I started playing with flowers, in the desert! And before I knew it, I was running a flower business of my own.

Everywhere I looked, I saw inspiration. I started noticing textural desert branches, grasses and dry blooms that looked so architectural and unique. And I saw potential in each.

photos by Tai Lee Photography

I expanded my search and found a local flower farmer, about an hour away, who had learned the way of the landscape and its capriciousness and against the odds, brought life to the desert. Finding her yet again confirmed, this was right.

The remainder of my chapter was filled with that feeling to the end. I was the right person, at the right place at the right time. Bouquet after bouquet, and one elaborate engagement after another, my eyes welled with joy and gratitude, that this is what I get to do, for as long as I am meant to.

photos by Raymond Chee

And now I find myself again leaning into the belief that made space for this unfolding, to turn into a knowing and invite divine providence again, to do its thing. My part is staying open to the signs, and when they come, to bloom again.

Until next time.

xx

p.s. Special thanks to the Amangiri crew who supported this creative endeavor, most notably Sam Fleming, Christine Farley, Backy He, Eric Nestico, Marques Johnson, Derek Fusmer, Valeree Espinoza, Brennan Benkey and the entire Experience team.