I transform into a she-wolf. The first acting class summons her to prowl, sniff, howl, intensely and inquisitively gaze. I envision that she has piercing green eyes and every cell in my wolf-body is heightened in an alertness and an aliveness that affirms a homecoming to a creative tribe.
I tell him he has depth, and I feel the air between us change. I remember a yoga student, a wise teacher, gently telling me that most people are hungering for soulfulness, and to be met in those deep waters of being initiates a wave of healing.
In acting class, I am reborn. We breathe in and out of alternate nostrils, harmonizing our brains, and relaxing into back into the core of nascent wonder. I watch as she sheds the protective layers of personality, patterns, politeness by softening into the miraculous completeness of breath. She re-emerges with glistening skin, eyes bright in internal shine, a spontaneous laugh, an innocent openness to the moment that startles and sweeps my breath up in awe. I witness the raw beauty of the human spirit reignited, embodied, exuded. This profound emptying into presence, I learn, is the exact sacred space where every character must be born.
I delight in making a list of self-care needs:
~A day liberated and shielded from any to-dos.
~Quality caffeine and organic cream.
~Secured reading time before bed.
~Impromptu pinterest-ing.
On a Friday night, I stumble into a sudden search on Instagram for a trickster, a charming and cruel ghost. I marvel at the long absence he has had from my thoughts, and repeatedly question why I am plunging into the rabbit hole of social media to glean a hint of his life now, and the Universe seems to step in and block in any finds. Later, I contemplate the impulsive inquisitiveness over a man I know to be an illusion (because the man I loved does not exist, he and I excelled in our delusions). I wonder what truth I actively avoided through this dizzying, digging distraction. I stay in a bath that fades from hot to cool trying and failing to remember.
NO. NO. NO. I know I need to honor and implement my NO. The next two months bustle in creative opportunities, yoga instructing, preschool teaching, and NO is the only way I will be able to step into the joy of my what is my YES. I practice a meditation that guides me to silently say, “I say no with grace and ease,” and believe I’ll need to re-listen to this meditation until this mantra can flow from my lips without an apology.
We nestle onto a blanket of sun to feast on lunches carefully crafted to be nutritious and fun. I admire how mindful they are as they eat – there is no rush, there is no hurry, they move through their lunch, through their preschool day, with a peaceful attentiveness that instructs my heart on how to be present, wholeheartedly engaged. I am enthusiastically commanded as “Teacher! Teacher!” and gifted a collage of drawings with pink hearts and yellow and purple overlapping circles. I say I like the combo of purple and yellow, and the child wisely nods. “Yes, your favorite colors.” They are now.
Before moving to Texas, I consult a deck of angelic guidance cards. I’m alone in the kitchen with only my thoughts and the ongoing bubbling of the fish tank, and on a whim, ask about my destiny and fate, and the card that shows itself (and will show itself to me again and again) depicts teaching children. The card catalyzes a vision that is outside my thinking and doing mind, an image of an older, exuberant and happy me with waves of long hair, dressed in yoga gear and beaming brightly with a crew of laughing kids.
I try the deck a couple times after that initial communing and still am delivered back to that card, to that message. That message does not match my launching plans – my hair is collar-bone short, my position at a nonprofit in Austin is in administration. But the vision remains and now is my reality. My life here in Austin is drastically different than what I originally imagined and I thank the stars for the surprise.