James Van Der Beek and his wife meditated under a tree to decide whether they should move to Texas.
Kimberly and James Van Der Beek
The 'Dawson's Creek' actor and his spouse Kimberly - who have children Olivia, 10, Joshua, nine, Annabel, seven, Emilia, five, and three-year-old Gwendolyn together - relocated from Los Angeles to Austin last year but first asked the state for "permission" to make it their new base.
Kimberly said: "When we were flying I asked Texas for permission to explore this as a place to live, just an energetic meditative sort of asking, and I got ‘yes.’ So, James and I took a drive and we thought we’re going to meditate under a tree and see if we get any information about living here.
"I found an Oak tree that I wanted and James said ‘OK, let’s make sure’ and he kept driving and then we got to a T in the road and realised we’d been driving on Sacred Oak Lane.
"So, we went back to that tree and the information I was given was that Texas has the capacity to heal. It’s expansive and nature will hug you and heal you."
And after a "crazy" year which saw Kimberly suffer two late-term miscarriages and James' mother pass away, their decision to make a fresh start was solidified and they're very happy with the "nurturing hug" they've received from the state.
Kimberly told Austin Life magazine: "We just had been through a crazy year with two late-term miscarriages and my body was still healing and it was hard for me to walk around at that point.
"I was still just a couple of months out of the hospital from my second one, so I was exhausted. James' mom had just passed, so to get that message from the trees of Texas was the nurturing hug we needed to feel welcomed here.
"It felt like LA had kind of birthed us out and there was a real calling to move. It came from desire, it came from dreams, and by the time we left LA we were in a deep gratitude for everything it had given us, but Texas was saying, ‘Here’s what you need and we can provide this next layer for you.’ That was exactly what we needed."
James was attracted to Texas because of its "energy".
He said: "We wanted to get the kids out of Los Angeles. We wanted to give them space and we wanted them to live in nature. When we were flying here for our anniversary, I felt an energy to Austin.
"The energy was the same energy that I’d felt shooting 'Varsity Blues' here when I was 21 and I realised that feeling wasn’t just where I was in my career or the movie I was shooting, all of which were very exciting, but that the energy is the place. It was really cool to realise, ‘Oh, I can go be there. We can drop in and bring our family to that.’"
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