Love in The Looming Shadows

There’s a bit of enchantment in the air. It could be coming from the trees, dressed in scorching colors, tossing acorns and apples — shamelessly showing off, or from the cobalt sky as it poses behind the flashy trees, my two pretty sisters, vying for attention. Or perhaps the universe is feeling generous; directing the angels to make haste — sprinkle the magic!

I imagine it’s all of the above, plus a little more: I believe I’ve finally embraced the reality that grief and grace are partners, one taking while the other gives, paradoxical lovers brought together by brokenness and sincerity — I get that I’m actually equipped for this bi-polar journey, where hope rises like the sun, giving birth to the light, and then drops below the bruised horizon, plunging my soul into darkness — for a season. I finally understand that there is a place within my being which grasps the great mystery —that we are timeless spirits, kin to the divine, and that we have within ourselves the resources needed to not only persevere, but to see the invisible, and embrace the eternal.

I experience this magic when I invite Love to guide me through the looming shadows, ministering to me through nature and nurture, sending me serendipitous messages like a secret admirer — a random song pouring like a poem into my soul, subduing me like a strong martini. All things are needful, motivated by love for love. And my path, although strewn with thorns and often blanketed in gloomy skies, is somehow a place of safety…a wayward home away from home.

Ah yes, I speak these things while the sun is high and the calming sway of the martini lingers in my blood. How bold of me to speak so plainly of this enchantment, knowing full well that the ordinary will soon revisit me, leaving dry heaves and dead leaves as the only evidence of the magic…yet still, I will believe.