UGWA 2020 Book Submission

I almost didn’t go to the airport to get on the first of three planes. Halfway around the world, almost 27 hours of actual travel time, is a long way to trek thinking you may find disappointment when you get there. Then there was the voice that said, “Just go. You can always just sit on the beach.” A beach beckoned, I listened, and went.

What if I hadn’t? I wouldn’t have even understood what I had missed. Having gone, I can almost feel regret for just considering staying home. Cosmically, I can see myself traveling back to my past self of only a few weeks ago, and chiding her for even letting a thought like that enter her head.

When I try to describe that one week, even to myself, what I get is a picture. A snow globe, not with snow or glitter, but a clear glass sphere filled with turquoise waters. Swirling in those waters are faces, words, tropical fish, ideas, teardrops, smiles, laughter, golden balloons, stories, lessons, dolphins, paintbrushes, music, voices, purple jellyfish, mermaids, sequins, and sisters.

Sisters not by biology, but by something that can be far more powerful. I know sisters by blood that don’t speak. I can’t imagine seeing any one of those faces, anyone of us, seeing another out in the world, and not having a word to say. We’d have too many. A binding such as that only happens through alchemy, through magic.

Magic. We also changed the very essence of who we are by being in that place with each other. We can’t ever go back to who we were before. We, transformed matter, we have changed our genetic makeup. Which for some, can still be passed down physiologically through generations yet to come. For others, who physically can’t do so, there will be stories told, and lessons offered, which can reproduce the same transformative powers we experienced. Magic.

We may continue patterns, or behaviors, good and not so good, but the good will only become more powerful, and the not so good more disturbing to our soul. We are not the same. We can’t change back. There were realizations to be had, and promises made. When we don’t actualize them, we will feel it much more deeply. When we don’t let loose the demons, or our gifts, they can both be poison. Neither are meant to live inside. Let the demons out, they die, let out your light, and it is blinding.

Intuition was once considered magic. I would still consider it so. I won’t burn at the stake for having it though. It has led me down all the most brilliant roads, when I’ve listened. This time it led me to three planes, a bus ride, and a ferry, and dumped me out on an island. The island, all those brilliant colors, the faces, the voices, the shiny, swirling bits and pieces, now all harnessed in that globe. Standing in the center, I find myself.