As Much Magic As Fact...

Be warned: if you come along here, this tale has more questions than answers, twists and turns with a backdrop of mystery, more murk than certainty.

It started last week when I found a curious photo on my phone. I took a second and a third look at the date that I had taken this screen shot...December 18, 2020.

In the photo, an advertisement, a woman stood with her prosthetic leg - her gaze blazing in determination.

A few months later I would have my own leg amputation. But on the day that I saved this photo, I had no conscious idea of my soon-to-ensue path.

Now we all tell stories.

Random screen shots that we save on our phones...words inside our heads, words spoken out loud to another, thoughts tumbling. The exquisite power of our minds, weaving the future into our present, our past into our now, time tangled and jumbled in our current reality. Paths taken and not taken, choices made and forgotten, every single minute, a billion times more. Einstein's Quantum Physics speaks of magic as much as fact.

Yes, we are writing our own stories, bit by bit and day by day. As Joan Didion urged, "We are the stories that we tell ourselves." Yet we often call forth in whispered, hushed voices...

Oh the ending will be bad.

Yes, the ending will be awful.

For sure, the ending will hurt me or those I love dearly, or the whole earth in fact.

So this week, I wondered what if we tell ourselves a fairy tale...

...where we are knights and kings, queens who wear ruby slippers and diamond tiaras, with great power and also great goodness, learning lessons and victorious in the end.

Try it, it's fun.

Write a fairy tale for your week, with all your grandest wishes, the lavish ones. Speak your fairy tale out loud in the car, or walking to the mailbox. Call it a prayer with the sureness of truth.

For we are heroes on our path.

Yes, we face awful, scary dragons, all of us - but we do have a choice what story we tell about our adventures, whether we spin a tale of horror or one of hope and love eternal. We can be savvy, certainly, scanning the horizon for what might need our attention or action to prevent or take care of something troublesome. But...it all must beg the question - what is our fundamental view of our world? Are we scanning for trouble constantly, or do we look to the open doors, the magical, the joyful as well or even first?

So back to the photo. Why did I save it? I don't know, it's a mystery. Perhaps I was drawn to the quote on it which read: "What do you want to manifest today?"

Or perhaps I wanted a tatoo like the woman in the photo...You Are Beautiful. Perhaps I loved the power in her gaze and wished to be like her, flying through the forest on a magic carpet with her leg, strong and sure.

You see, this tale is a riddle with no answers firm and right, questions all around. So you write your own ending...

...here is my ending: I used to tell Knight Evan and Prince Ben a story every night. But then they grew older, and for awhile her kingdom was dark...

...until one day, she began telling fairy tales again.