To the saying: if the only prayer you say is thank you, it is enough, so too the prayer that asks for clarity. To know yourself, to see clearly the dynamics while they are in play in any interaction, to look in the rearview mirror without ruminating on why? – these are divine gifts.
I took Blake to see Calle Cinco and the gloaming had set in. I drove down the “not street” and circled the oak tree. As we parked for a moment alongside the house, looking towards the not street, I spoke my vision to Blake. And as the words fell, I glanced a shadow crossing in front and landing high up in the most present tree in a tapestry of leaf and bark and yellowy sunlight.
Look! I pointed at the shadow image nestled by a broken branch, but Blake couldn’t spot its dark fat body in the waning light.
I whispered, Wait. And the barred owl took flight again, its remarkable wingspan throwing shade at me.
Blake said, “I expect you’ll be seeing more of this.”
And I pulled his words into a list I am archiving:
Kristy said: I knew something special would happen here.
Forrest said: This is a once in a lifetime home.
James said: This is a good place.I came home eager to research the meaning of seeing the barred owl at Calle Cinco. Then was stopped in my tracks by happenstance while I listened to a Maria Popova interview where she dismissed seeing other as meaningful instead stating other deserves only observation.
As coincidences with the owl and dodging meaning continue, in came a surprise gift from my friend Susie – Popova’s divination cards because she knows I keenly observe the glory of birds in my coastal town.
I ruminated on the owl who crossed my path, who exists independent of me.I exist as an observer of its beauty, its magic, the shadow it cast as it flew, and the shade it threw in the thinning light with my thoughts of me as the center of its universe.
Coincidentally, I pulled the barred owl card from the divination deck this morning – “for in the glare of/how they appear and/how you imagine them to be/you cannot see their shadow. And I observed myself, in the habit of asking why, and not able to close a door, a tomb if you would, because I have steadily waited for this answer to find me.
I have looked so long in that rearview mirror trying to pull meaning into the present and have failed with one particular encounter. I don’t know why I let La Bruja in, it perplexes me, I gave her access, wove her into my fabric, when I could clearly see the warning signs from the get-go. I gave up on love because I didn’t trust myself again. I didn’t believe this could be a one-off outlier.
The question plagued my thoughts for years – why why why – did I let La Bruja in? Tin’s therapist said I had an image of her as a latch-key six year old, when I wasn’t seeing the 50-year-old bitch standing in front of me. That seemed harsh but he said as long as she has breath, you will do battle. I like to think I could not see her shadow because I made up a biography about her, that she woulda, coulda embodied. My fretting and gnashing comes from knowing I did see her shadow early on and kept going with my story anyway.
This stubbornness in me defies expectations.
As I embark on a new and my best chapter, I am closing doors – I attract glittery radiant magic and welcome the open-hearted enchantment that comes with wise knowing. I rest in my clarity: when I encounter “other” there will always be me, in my own story, independent as observer. Time granted me the grace to see La Bruja’s shadow for what it truly was – hers, not mine – I was blessed to know to walk away, and I regret it has taken so much time to learn how to not look back.
Viva Calle Cinco! Viva the next chapter! Viva!
Note: Calle Cinco is a not street where I will live the next chapter as I play my highlight reel and create anew.