A birthday to remember
A reminder that if we believe in our capacity for magic, then we can all be magicians
Contemplations
In which ways can you connect with and see the magic in your life?
How can you tap into your inner magician? What magic do you want to create?
***
It’s my birthday today. I am 37.
Even though 37 is not a “big” birthday, this year feels significant.
This past week, I have been reflecting on what has led me here — the challenges, the triumphs, everything in between.
My life has significantly transformed in the past decade. If you haven’t talked to me since the early 2000s, then buckle up for some whiplash.
On Tuesday, I drove the 90 minutes it takes from my house in the Western Catskills to Woodstock to see some friends. It rained the night before, enough for the ground and lush green leaves of the Catskills to still be wet. I love to put my windows down to feel that mountain breeze on my skin, smelling the sweet summer flowers coming in and out as I swerve along the Hudson River.
The day before the Spotify DJ feature had re-surfaced P!nk’s Where We Go. It’s not a very well-known song of her’s but my favorite. The strength in her voice pierces through the lyrics in a way that overwhelms me in her dance songs. But here, here her voice is resilient, desperately searching for answers, for some kind of resolution.
There's not a holy man or prayer in sight
There's not a priest around to read our rights
There's no magic balm to save our lives
[…]Write my name up in the sky
As we contemplate goodbye
I don't know
We don't know, where we go
I used to listen to this on repeat when my life looked much different than it did now, finding great comfort in P!nk’s assurance that everything was going to be OK, despite feeling utterly lost in the unknown. At the time, my whole world had turned upside down. I was lost in every way possible: In my career, my relationships, my identity. I had no idea who I was anymore. All the labels and constructs and other things that made up who I thought I was, was now gone.
That was 10 years ago. When I drove through these same roads, desperately looking for answers myself — but to only one burning question: Who am I?
***
I’ve been studying and sitting with the idea of Buddhanature for the last few months. Tathāgata in Pali, Buddhanature is the teaching that the purest essence of who we are is good.
In our overly complex modern day world, this can seem unfathomable. Conceptually, it’s a radical idea — that we are all good. Yes, all of us. You, me, Donald Trump, any of us.
This teaching has been radical for me not only in reminding me of the humanity in others but more so helped me understand — slowly — that nothing is in fact wrong with me. That all the narratives that I were imposed on my by media, white supremacy, capitalism, American culture, my ancestors — those were all stories that had their own agendas. Those were all stories that were taking me further and further away from the core of my being.
So what if I believed a different story instead? This radical teaching says I’m enough, that I have always been enough. And that perhaps, my true self was the human I had been pushing away all these years. That instead of searching for answers out there, all I needed to do was look inwards, underneath all the layers of conditioning to see the me that’s been there all along.
That was and continues to be revelatory to me.
On my way to Woodstock, I had lunch with a dear friend in Kingston who asked how I was doing. To which, I felt the deep resonate beating of my heart answer:
“I think I’m finally starting to believe all the good things people say about me.”
***
Yesterday, after another batch of rain came through, my wife gave me an early birthday present — a new sitting area she had made and dressed with native Catskills flowers. I sat down on the ornate white plastic lawn chair that the last owners left behind, finding my grounding on unleveled grass. I looked out, seeing the orange sunset peeking through the fog that hung around the peaks of the mountains. The stillness and quiet brought tears to my eyes as that P!nk song quietly played in my mind. Her powerful bravado, now just a whisper in my mind’s eye as I looked out at the horizon on the eve of my birthday.
So here we go
Take my body, not my soul
Took me high and left me low
I honestly never imagined we'd get this far
There's a road that takes me home
Take me fast or take me slow
I don't know, we don't know
Take me home
“Do you like it?” My wife asked.
I nodded and held her under the awning, watching the soft rain dissipate and remembered the card I pulled earlier in the week during my birthday tarot reading: The Magician.
That card served as a reminder to me that we are all heroes of our own stories, creators of our own path, and that we can live the life we want to live, if we allow ourselves to believe that it’s possible. That we can feel worthy, if we allow ourselves to see the true essence of our being. That if we believe in our capacity for magic, then we can all be magicians.
Here, now, and in every moment.
“In this moment, my life is perfect,” I said to my wife, and I meant it from the depths of my soul. I looked around and thought about the choices I have made, the lessons I have learned, the growth I have committed to — to craft a life for myself that is rooted in joy, peace and care.
What a gift.
That is why this birthday, today, is perhaps the most special birthday of my life. I am finally believing the story I am writing.
***
Contemplations
In which ways can you connect with and see the magic of your life more?
How can you tap into that idea of The Magician? What magic do you want to create?
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