I promised this story to a friend, I told him that he would be the first one I had ever told this to. At the moment our lives have taken us in different directions and I always keep my promises so I will leave this story here for him to find when the time is right for him to read it. In the process I will share it with you. He is a good guy, a high quality soul and among my favorite people.
I have come to believe that in our everyday life there are currents and patterns that go unseen because we are not looking for them. That there is more to our everyday world than we know, behind seemingly unrelated events and random choices there are reasons that we are not aware of. Some call this the hand of god, I prefer the term of my old friend the northwest Salish story teller Johnny Moses. He calls this phenomenon "The great Mystery". As a country woman of tough pioneer and Native American Stock I tend to be well grounded in the solid, and be a skeptical of anything else until the proof presents itself to me in a way I can no longer deny it.
So if you are prepared for a unusual ride that will leave you wondering if what I say could possibly be real, read on. I assure you that it is very real and I would know I have lived it.
For all of my life there has been a parade of interesting people, adventuresome and fearless they grab onto life with both hands. They flow through my life, some staying for good, some only a short time. They are the ones who will take the chances and soar to heights in their life few people can even dream of. Their lives also occasionally crash in a heaping blaze that is equally awesome. But always they will reinvent themselves and when all is said and done it is easy to draw a line through all of these experiences and see, that inexplicably, every step they took even the ones that seemed to take them off a cliff was a straight line in a progression that is leading them somewhere almost as if destiny is tugging them along with a rope. I always seemed to share a special bond with these people that went into the realm of complex. I knew of this pattern for along time, it has been there always been there. But, for the most part, I dismissed it.
It was my friend Katrina the well respected psychologist with a fascination for Tarot Cards that first brought the idea to light that there may be more to it. She came into my life some twenty years ago. Dark was nearing as she turned up on my farm hopelessly lost and looking for directions. I, who was about fed up with dealing with tourists for the day was not terribly happy for the company. But there was a cougar in the valley that week and I feared for her safety if I sent her on her way. This cougar had a problem, it hated motorized vehicles with a vengeance. It would chase them and become very aggressive, often sending cars into the ditch then chewing off their tires while they awaited help. Sending this woman on her motorcycle back down the mountain after dark was not an option. So I did something I had never done invited this stranger to stay for dinner and spend the night.
Over food and blackberry wine we became friends. Some time during the evening I told her the ghost story associated with my farm. She told me of her life long interest in Tarot cards. She offered to do a reading. I had heard of these things and seen the signs for readers of cards in the seedy areas of down town Seattle usually couched between strip clubs ans peep shows. But Katrina seemed perfectly sane. At this point I was feeling no pain. In that state I am generally up for anything that won't get me killed, so I was game.
She began by telling me that every person had a set of traits that could be linked to specific card in my case the chariot. She told me that I was a vehicle for change and that life would often move very fast. That in my life span I would actually live many lives. While to me live would seem normal even boring at times others would see it differently and envy the magical quality of the experiences I thought normal. Sitting there on the porch that night it didn't seem very accurate and as I write this it seems life is moving painfully slow. But as I look back at the years since she first told me this I realize her words were very accurate.
She went onto tell me that I would often find myself associated with those of another card, the magician. She described them as wonderfully magnetic individuals, always brilliant, with eloquent communication skills. Magicians she said preformed miracles, through slight of hand or real magic they brought real changes to peoples lives. Often, it would be hard to distinguish what was real and what was illusion. Smoke and mirrors are their specialty. They are the people, who through example, taught the rest of us how our thoughts and choices shaped the circumstances of our lives. That I would find over time they would show up in my life and I in theirs, fellow travelers on the road of life, a kind of kindred soul that we could each relate to. We would be drawn together to help each other in some way or to collaborate on some mutual work that would bring about some great change. Their lives like mine also moved quickly and through many changes, deaths and rebirths. If I wanted proof of this all I had to do was add up their birthday month day and year, and keep adding, until I had a single number it would always be a 1 just as mine was a 7. I decided to do this a few days later just because I was curious. I chose those people with whom I had a strong bond that seemed to traverse more than ordinary friendship. It might surprise you, as it did me, that she was right. I have never had to do it again because over the years I have come to just know who they are.
They are the people who enter my life usually when and where I least expect it. One moved in next door to me in the middle of the wilderness, one tripped over me while I lounged in the sun on a beach hitting his nose on a piece of driftwood and breaking it. Some, such as the friend I write this for seem to show up against their will almost as if compelled by some outside force. Our friendships seem surrounded by the fantastic, odd events, coincidences, and sometimes a meeting of the minds so strong it seems we are sharing a few brain cells. More than one of them has read my thoughts and I have almost always read a few of theirs. Our friendships tend to be beyond complex because we are forever unknowingly dragging out each others junk, old wounds and angers into the light of day to be looked at in a new light, rethought, and possibly discarded.
Life is rarely easy for a magician, the winds of change swirl around them always sometimes at hurricane force. They are always in motion as their thoughts, dreams. ideas and fears become real. It can be hard for those around them to understand this. The pace of their lives can be exhausting as movement never ceases there is little peace and security because everything is always changing. People in their lives tend to be transient simply because they become to weary from the pace. They need to rest yet there is none.
They usually seem to find their way to me when the winds of change are stirring up darkness, when their current life must die before a new one can be born. The youngest, an incredible three year old, who, I was to discover could not only read very well but do so when the words were up side down. He was introduced to me by his foster mother. He ran to me at full speed throwing his arms around me with gusto and so tight I wondered if my neck would survive. Heartrending sobs that seemed to come from the marrow of his bones along with a small lake of tears soon followed. He seemed to know, without a doubt, that I was someone he could count on. No matter what foolishness he got himself into I would stick by him and probably even still like him. There are others I am sure who would have done the same thing had they not been adults with inhibitions and a mandate to be strong and buck up. Change is difficult, letting go of familiar and that which has become important is always hard. But sometimes it is necessary so that better things can come. A magician may be forced into this many times in his life but it gets no easier or or less painful. It often feels like I am there to keep them company, point out things they might be missing in the onslaught of information that is always descending on them.
Sometimes just to hand them a flashlight so they don't get lost in the dark.
Over the course of time they tend to lay rare gifts of knowledge and insight into my arms some are lovely others cause great pain but are no less valuable. My life and my base of knowledge has benefited beyond anything I can describe from my association with them.
And so it was in the height of last summer I sat in Katrinas Yurt helping her out with a seminar she teaches once a year about her tarot cards. I am her favorite assistant in these. Among my many hats is as victim of their practice readings. I do not wish to know what the future holds because to do so is to take the focus from the present moment. But something about this reading upset me. I was told I would start writing again, something I had not done since high school. for some reason that made me very angry. The rest was a sea of red, I closed my ears and heard no more of it. I excused myself and spent the next many hours walking far into the hills as I like to do when I want to think. I never did figured out why I had become so upset. Luckily it was the last day of classes so I was able to escape further scrutiny of my future. The following day my world changed and life as I knew it ended forever. I forgot all about my future and that reading as I struggled just to carry the great burden that had been placed on my shoulders.
It was many months before I ventured back to Katrinas farm, during a strong winter storm that had wiped out the electricity we sat by the fire once again drinking blackberry wine and I ate crow yes indeed I was writing again. Katrina turned and asked me if I had met the new magician. Seems I had missed something while I was being cranky. In fact I had.
So I told her a bit about my friend how when first I met him he spent those first words apologizing for what he saw as a short coming in his life, but he had told me of a prospect to change that in the future. How I had sat there perplexed at how to answer him, not really wanting to point out the obvious that he had accomplished a level of self sufficency that few will ever manage and that was actually far more impressive in my book. How I had ended up suggesting that if he wanted to make this change he would be able to to it, I had no doubt. That as she and I sat there warm by the fire, he was going through much diffaculty. How I admired his strength of character, his ability to endure and face the hard road that had become his life for a time. His amazing ability in spite of it all to carry on with the part of his work that he could still do. It is not how we handle the calm waters of life but the stormy seas that show who we are.
In the end she told me that I had met some one who very similar to me, whether I realized it or not and that when the time was right I should tell him this story. That time is now.
Life has moved on since then and the world is a bit brighter these days things are changing as they always will. My friend and I have spent very little time in the past while mulling over some idea or some abstract concept trying to bring it into focus with an interchange of words. Our lives have each become busy and our priorities have changed. I still miss those times yet I know that all things come to an end even the most enjoyable ones. Knowing what was going on for him then, the here and now is far more to my liking.
So my friend, as I prepare to leave, for a time, the space where we have had so much fun, there are a few things I want you to know. The things I have shared I did for a reason what you take from them or if you take them at all is your choice they are meant to deepen and broaden the understanding you already have of the place you call home. To help you deepen your roots and draw from the strength, energy and knowledge this place has to give you. To know it as I do is to have a solid foundation for the work you wish to do. I am afraid I have only scratched the surface and there is so much more but we can get to that when you are ready. I cannot promise you roots as deep as an old growth, but a large second growth should be within reach.
Know my door is always open and there is no need to knock, you will always be welcome. I will always, and gladly, have time for you.
So until next time may the winds of change be warm and carry you to wonderful places. I am sure you will go far.
Peace out.