What Are You Carrying in Your Backpack?

By C Alexa | October 7, 2026
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By Kate Lemay, Founder of ETJ *

 

Note: Kate Lemay joins us by video this week, where the real magic happens.
Below is a brief summary of the content, but to really dive in, click the video link above.

For almost three years, I carried a microphone in my backpack.

Today, I learned how to use it.

It’s a Hollyland microphone—like Hollywood—that comes in a cute little case designed to hold two microphones for interviews. It has a small adapter that attaches to your phone so the audio streams automatically. I kept thinking I would eventually have enough space and time to figure out how to use it, so I just carried it everywhere, in case I found that extra moment.

I’m probably not alone in this. Most of us carry something like this—a book we think we’ll read, art supplies, knitting needles, or something else we’d do if we just had a little extra time. But we never quite get to it, and it just sits there in our bag. I have a friend, Lani, who always brings her ukulele everywhere. She’s always hopeful that there will be time for it. You can see how excited she gets when that actually happens.

Today, I had that time. And what I discovered was that three years of carrying something is often exactly what we need.

The Evolutionary Codes

This morning, I read a book I’ve been carrying around since 2011: 52 Codes for Conscious Self Evolution by Barbara Marx Hubbard. It’s a book about metamorphosis and realizing our full potential. I’ve started it many times over the years, but I never got very far—maybe to page 25 of 88. Today, something shifted.

Hubbard describes herself as someone guided toward evolutionary consciousness. She writes about reaching a point in her life—at 73—where she felt called toward something new. She had experienced illnesses for the first time, felt her vitality weakening, her energy draining. But she recognized this not as a sign of decline, but as a signal that something more wanted to be expressed through her.

Instead of fighting the depression and fatigue, she asked: “What wants to come through?”

The essence of her message is this: current planetary leadership does not know how to guide us to the next stage of evolution. But we—those of us awakening to our universal selves—do know. We have to listen to that inner knowing.

Hubbard calls the guides in her book “evolutionary codes.” They are downloads from the highest frequency of our being—examples that activate dormant potentials within us. She believes that when we receive them, record them, meditate on them, and speak them with our deeper voice, they incarnate and activate that dormant potential.

She also uses a powerful metaphor: the imaginal cells in a caterpillar. These cells have been proliferating in the caterpillar’s body all along, waiting. When the caterpillar can no longer grow, these imaginal cells jump into the chrysalis in response to their growing creativity and purpose. They feel what Hubbard calls “vocational arousal”—a passion to co-create the new structures forming the still-invisible butterfly.

I ache for that feeling again. I had it so strongly for so long. But since launching my retreats and stepping into the role of executive director, much of my creativity has been squeezed into packages that no longer include this kind of work. I’ve been in the chrysalis, doing the tasks, for a little too long. But reading this this morning, I felt it starting to emerge.

What Was Actually Holding Me Up

But first, I had to solve a practical problem: how to actually use the microphone.

The first issue was charging. The microphone case has a USB-C port, so I tried using a C-to-C charger. It didn’t work—the lights wouldn’t activate. I couldn’t figure out why. With AI’s help, I discovered the problem: I needed an A-to-C charger, not a C-to-C. Once I had the right charger, everything lit up.

The second issue was understanding how to use it. The microphone has tiny buttons I can’t see, even with reading glasses. The directions were too small to read clearly, even with the glasses on. Again, with AI’s help, I learned the actual process:

There’s a USB-C charger for the case. There’s a small USB-C plug that goes into your phone. There’s an audio receiver that connects to the microphone. You take the microphone out of the case, plug it in, and it automatically connects.

That’s it. Four seconds to turn on.

I tested it. It worked.

For three years, I carried something around that I never used because I couldn’t figure it out. Today, in just a few extra minutes—minutes I haven’t really had since COVID—I discovered what I needed to know.

What Are You Carrying?

So here’s my question for you: What are you carrying in your backpack? What is the thing that might only take four seconds to turn on? What is your microphone—the work, the practice, the creativity that you’ve been carrying around, waiting for the right time?

Since launching my retreats and taking on more administrative work, I’ve felt squeezed. The things that once came naturally—speaking, recording, creating in this way—got packaged into structures that didn’t include space for them anymore. For a while, I thought I had given up. But the truth is, I didn’t give up. I carried the microphone for three years, waiting for this day, because somewhere in me, I knew I would need it.

Hubbard writes about this moment in humanity’s evolution. We’re in a metamorphosis as a species. Old patterns aren’t sustainable. Current authorities don’t know how to guide us forward. But those of us who carry these seeds—who feel this vocational arousal—we know. We’re the imaginal cells. We’re the ones forming the butterfly.

My awareness now is this: it wasn’t wasted time. I was waiting. I was preparing. And when I finally had enough space, the microphone was there, ready to go.

What are you waiting for? What are you carrying that might be waiting for you?

 
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