Juxtapositioning

There is a boundary between the worlds. I know, because I have been there. Crossed it. Danced at its edge. Sang it songs. Breathed in the fire.

Approaching magic can be a little like approaching a wild animal. Breathe too quickly, too loudly, and it coyly disappears into the mists, trailing its song behind it. But if you’re too wary, too uncertain, too unlike yourself, it vanishes entirely. Approaching magic has to be done with, well, magic. Magic attracts magic.

1 + 1 = 3.

I know all this because I have been there. The wet wild woods of the Olympic Peninsula enveloped me in its embrace, leaving me gasping with shared delight. Mountain and forest gave way to wood-strewn pebbly beach and then ocean: a vast plain of undulating waters marked by towering tree-topped sea cliffs and rocks that jutted jaggedly into the enfolding, flowing wet of the waves.

For three days we breathed. In and in. We sipped red wine and talked about everything — all that mattered — in front of the fire while the endless surf pounded outside. We walked down the beach in the cold winter wind and stood watching a pair of sea lions playing in the cove at the far end. I imagined they were lovers. We ate and laughed and played. We discovered and delighted. We drank in the essence of our creation.

Shh, I have a secret: my lover is magic.

I am being courted by magic. I first knew this as a child when I immersed myself in worlds drawn with words, my rainy autumn Saturdays spent in the company of cats and paperbacks. I have felt magic in the closing of a door, a seemingly random event that exploded my reality, knowing at once that forever the world — my world — had changed in that one moment, and that everything to follow would be different as a result. I have felt magic in my breath, my disintegration, my transcendence. I have made magic for others, long years spent creating worlds that others could walk in. Fly in. I have loved magic since I learned what breathing was. I have chosen to live in a world where it exists, and magic loves me back, just as passionately, just as perfectly.

1 + 1 = 3.

It’s a cruel blow to find out that you’ve been hiding something from yourself, perhaps for years, and that you have — intentionally, mind you — set up minefields, mazes and mirrors in order to avoid getting to the bottom of the whatever-it-is that eludes you. Not that any of this is a surprise, but I am just good enough at what I do, just skilled enough at self-discovery, to trick myself into thinking I have Done Good Work and as a result, veer off course from going deeper into what lies beneath.

A lot of the anger I feel as a result — TRICKED! — is at myself.

Self, you suck. Self, you are too good at what you do. Self, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?

I know that this is all about self-preservation. I get that. There is a layer waiting there that scares the bejesus out of me. And dammit, no one — NO ONE — is allowed to see it. Least of all me. But I have to say, I am tired of the charade. Am tired of expending what probably amounts to 90% of my energy maintaining this facade. Am tired, just tired. Can see through the mists, a little, just enough to want more.

There is a light.

I keep using the cliff metaphor — standing on a precipice, waiting to jump or fly into the unknown-but-awesome — and it totally works here. Here I am, again, at the edge of the unknown. It scares me. It beckons me. There is a promise that OH MY GOD this will be better than anything else (so far) has ever been. I know all this without a doubt. I know it and my feet keep inching forward. My heart says yes, yes, a million times yes.

I speak in metaphors. You understand that, right? I code my words here because it amuses the hell out of me to do so. I love how words slide around in their juices, warmly, wetly. Words like kisses. Words like caresses. Words like forgotten rainbows behind rain-soaked skies.

This is a time of creation, of birth. I can feel that, and I feel the life that pulsates under the moist mossy trees, neolithic ferns and flowing volcanic rocks of my twilight world. There is life beneath my feet, life within my veins, life in the drumbeat of my heart. The ancient songs call to me, calling in a song of creation. What comes next sets the scene for much to come.

Waking from the dream, breathing into being.

I am poised, yet again, at the edge of something magical. Unbearably exquisite. Scary as hell. It’s not as if I was hurtling uncontrollably towards a certainty, and yet … perhaps I am. Have the stars aligned to bring something to fruition now that was perhaps begun years ago while my attention was elsewhere? Is there a way to tell?

All I can tell you is that on a regular basis, I am slipping through the veil into a beautiful new world beyond. Over and over and over, reaching new levels, new heights, feeling deliciously grateful each time for the new shared space, moving into that space seamlessly, joyfully. Over and over, deeper, farther. Exponential, amazing new worlds.

Tonight I walked a long time in the falling snow, reveling in the stillness that surrounded me. Off in the distance, closer to the bay, a muffled joyful snowplay shout, but on my block there was total quiet. I felt soft flakes brush my face with tenderness. I felt the decadent softness of sheepskin on my warm, bare feet, crunching virgin steps on five fresh inches of white. I heard the snow falling on my head, my hair. I watched the shadows of falling snow in the pool of brightness under a street light.

Up ahead, letters trod in the fresh unbroken expanse in the street: I ♥ U KITTY FUZZ. A sign? When I got home I shook half an hour of snow off my jacket, revealing a single white feather under the accumulation. A sign.

I know the third sign is around here somewhere. I can feel it. My eyes and heart are wide open.