Comme une Fée

When we last spoke, I was down in the dumps. Its cause was more chemical than psychological, though, as I discovered several days later.

I'm mercurial for sure because the next day I felt wonderful again. Elements of joy and synchronicity began to repopulate my hours, and that's the way I like them. Certainly this is why I cannot tolerate anything less; I've grown accustomed to fantastic.

Perhaps it was a darkest-before-dawn scenario. Having released my fears, regrets, and resistance, there was an incredible freedom, a high I am still relishing.

I am happy. Electric. When I see butterflies and hummingbirds in my garden, I get even bigger chills than I used to. I'm letting people come and go as they please. I'm not engaged in molding and crafting a specific path and, in fact, have altogether abandoned my once religious interest in this. I'd rather chisel my insides and witness how the outside responds in kind. I am at peace with the present moment. In loving what is, I am able to savor small things in a much more intense way than I ever have. Last night, for instance, a simple brushing of my hand brought me such wildly enormous pleasure that I couldn't move, except to giggle like a schoolgirl. Such innocence. Such thorough surrender.

Perhaps my tantric practice has deepened without overt attention. My teacher does say that tantra has nothing and everything to do with sex. My now is so rich, so deep compared to what it used to be. To think it's only a tiny fraction of what it is quickly becoming...

When Mom is giving me shet, or Luke's parents are being unsupportive, I have instant compassion for them, and I don't take things personally anymore. If something rubs me the wrong way, I address the internal situation it brings up. Progress is made.

Before, when I thought I was living magically, I found myself taking life litmus tests at regular intervals. If something "bad" happened, I blamed myself for stepping out of my flow momentarily and cutting off my good, but that idea is out of alignment with real magic, which does not give the seemingly bad any power or credibility. A big breakthrough.

I recently recounted the following story to a dear friend who was in need of inspiration. As it begins, Mom and I are picking up one of my two adoptive Jewish grandmas from LAX. When we arrive, Grandma 3 is farklempt. She's been crying for hours, devastated over having lost some very precious jewelry given to her by her late husband. As she lamented the clumsy luggage search in waves of palpable grief, I sat in the backseat, wondering why I'd brought this into my experience. Like I said, my life's fantastic, and I don't need to hear about unpleasant things!

That was my first thought, emerging from my former misunderstanding of magic. Then the new magic asked a question. Why am I here right now? The answer was loud and clear. I am here to act on behalf of good.

As Mom was soaking up the drama, which, of course, is easy to do when you are surrounded by it, I was enveloped in clarity. I sent out a silent request that Grandma 3's jewels would be discovered, forming a clear mental picture of her being reunited with her pearls and her diamond watch. Sure enough, by trip's end, my intuition was shouting at me to check her bag. Once inside her home, we did just that, and, after having examined almost every inside pocket without success, we had a single zippered pouch left, and bingo!

Had I taken the situation as an indication that I was being a bad attractor, I wouldn't have had the sense to check her bag. Instead, I would have left bummed out by the episode after having said some sad goodbyes, under the assumption that Grandma 3 was effed, which she was not. Eventually, I'm sure, she would have found the jewels anyway, but her belief in their being gone forever was so strong, she wasn't open to finding them, and it would undoubtedly have cost her several sleepless nights. I fixed it in fifteen minutes.

So this is the newish me. But some things may not soon change.

Luke likes to point out that I don't move like an adult. I jump onto my bed at night like a child or plop down into it like a whale into foam, depending upon how tired I am. My speech is distinctly melodic. My hands are no bigger than a girl's, and I have the same body that I did when I was fifteen. My skull is miniature, so hats tend to cover my eyes. I don't walk normally either. I bounce and flit about like a fairy, but it's much more fitting now that I am light and free. My connection to experience has entirely shifted. To cull a memory from childhood as explanation, I am a young girl at her swingset, admiring her life in the breeze-borne parachute seed before her, crowned in buoyant silky tufts, delighting in its flight, in its alighting on the precise place for its thriving.