Method for Magic

Summer 2007 | Costa Rica

“You’re going to Costa Rica.”

I am?  Terrific. That is absolutely terrific.  And how was that about to happen?

But the Voice was the kind you listen to, the kind that offers no space for hesitation.  The definitive truth has been spoken.

Really.

You never know just when that is going to hit.  Any normal person, proceeding with logic and truth of a certain kind would have smiled and waved and simply kept walking on past that voice.  I knew this voice though, and I knew she meant business.

The truth was, I was in the midst of resigning from my job, having just gotten married, and on the doorstep of signing the papers for a little old home.  There was no money to go gallivanting, as some would call it, in the rainforest with a bunch of retreaters on a yoga journey.  This was certainly not the time or the place.  

But that evening the instructor from our yoga class had sent out an email.  Just 2 weeks before departure and one student, already fully paid, was no longer able to go.  Anyone else interested, she wondered..

I had heard about this trip every Tuesday and Thursday for the last 6 months.  Every Tuesday and Thursday was Yoga class, my great grounding during a wild first year in Florida.  And I held onto that class with every downward dog and sun salutation I could breathe into.  The position I had essentially moved to Florida for just a year before was doing a fine job of breaking my heart.  I gladly and eagerly listened to this group of yoga adventurers dream out their retreat weekly.  Heck, I might not be going but I was certainly going to ride the wave of their pure excitement.  I even went to their Pot Luck Party for the Costa Rica Crew; this seemed like a healthy bunch of people and I needed all the positive community I could find.  I found nothing strange in sharing in their joy.  It was natural.  It just never occurred to me that I would actually be going on the journey, clearly mentally unaware of what every cell in my body had already known.  

So on that night, I rested in bed with eyes wide open, asking for help.  There was simply no time like now, in the midst of major transitions, to consider what to do with the rest of my life.  And that’s when I heard clearly, “You’re going to Costa Rica.”

And it rang true in me with that clarity of a gorgeous bell.  The group left in 2 weeks.  With a stillness I have come to recognize, I agreed.  As an adult, it was not initially as easy to listen and accept this guidance, as it used to be as a child.  I have envied so often those who make their decisions with lists and logic, reasons and being reasonable.  It never, ever worked that way for me.  I was never much for order; writing in a straight line down the sheet of paper the list of pros and cons was almost as confusing for me as trying to pack a box during moving day at college.  It just didn’t happen.  I looked on with envy at the planners, the people who heeded forecasts, who really considered the facts of the matter (whatever facts are) before making judgements. 

Some look at me as rash.  Not so.  In reality, I am a waiter.  I wait.  I will wait and wait for the clarity of knowing before I move.  There is a fine and often long period of incubation that can take weeks, often months.  But once that clarity comes in, I pounce.  Maybe it is a hunch, or the grace of hearing the Voice, or just the silent sudden peaceful knowing.  Instinct.  Whatever we choose to call it, it’s far from rash, but often far from visible to everyone else.  Having finally accepted this process as my method for magic, I try to relinquish all judgment and accept.  

So a few weeks earlier, of course I had to listen when at the end of yoga class I heard clearly: “Tell the teacher about work.”  Now, there are many others who have intimate relationships with their yoga teachers, sharing the deeper truths of their personal journeys, but other than her support with my fine postures, we did not talk about things of this nature.  But the information was insistent.  So, unusually shy, at the end of that class I approached her.  Kneeling face to face, not knowing how she would respond to my openness, I proceeded to tell her about my job, about the sadness and disappointment within that ministry, allowing the words and the tears from my cracked heart to spill.  She looked at me and simply said, “There’s a Woman I think you should meet.”

And so I did.  A few days later, I found myself at lunch with the Woman, almost twice my age, learning of our similar experiences within similar churches, and of our interest in energy healing.   And then, a few weeks later, I again found myself talking with the Woman, this time in her cabin after a day of swinging along zip lines in the high trees near our retreat center in Costa Rica, learning more of each other’s gifts in the healing arts.  During our conversations while on the retreat, and after watching me work with another person, she recommended I continue studies in energy medicine at a school in Miami, one that I had heard of many years ago but did not consider because of cost.  Right there in Costa Rica, she offered to sponsor my first year of studies.  A few months later, we found ourselves roommates at one of the most intensive energy healing schools in the world, the beginning of an amazing international journey for me.

Against all things practical.