23

I remember the first time I spoke to the moon. She was round and glimmering brightly above the food court lights. Peaking right in between the architecture as if going out of her way to see me. I was having a rough night at work, who knows what for or why, but my fast food gig was no longer satisfying my hunger and out of desperation, I begged her to throw me a bone.

I had just applied for a job with an insurance company and just knew it was my only way out. Forever destined to be entry level with no prospects for a college degree, my heart yearned at the possibility and broke at the thought of one more day at the chicken place.  And with money twice what I was making and no more late nights, 19 year old me thought that was freedom. “If I could have just this one thing…” I remember wishing as I stared up at her, stone-still like the bench I was sitting on. I then gave all my longing, impatience and discontent to her. I felt my wanting absorbed instantly and comfort from her taking it from me, as if I was released from the shackles of my desires. From that moment, I knew there was nothing more I could do but I found peace thinking my little prayer was out there working for me too. Although my idolatry for her was spontaneous, weeks later when I got the job I looked up for a moment to thank her, just in case the cosmos did have something to do with it.  

After that we were pretty tight. I confided in her often whenever I faced uncertainty, change, or just needed something to go right. Heck, I’ll admit it was to her I turned to 2 years later when I came to hate that job too. She was always there for me. She didn’t judge or criticize my desires or the path I was on. She was ever seeing and all knowing, beside me with every step and greeting me with a warm glow around every blind corner.  

A couple years later, I’m driving down a long Texas highway, distracted and hopeless yet again from the current chapter of my life. My self-absorbed misery was halted as I heard the chorale-y words ring out of the stereo. “Its always darkest before the dawn…” Florence Welch’s powerful vocals sermonized, and I perked up. I’d heard that before. I’d told myself that a thousand times. For some reason it was always one of those cheesy sayings that rang true for me and helped me through dark times (no pun intended). When I heard it sung for the first time on that drive, by an artist I was only just getting to know, it felt like I had just received a telegram from the universe. And in that moment when I looked up, there she was. Shining down on me in the evening sky as full as she could be. It felt euphorically sincere, perplexing, and astonishing. Like I was on to something, and she knew it. In one serendipitous moment, the curtain lifted ever so slightly to show me the cogs and gears of the universe. Even the awestriking placement of the clouds in the sky were there that day, in that moment, for me to witness; to experience the bewildering beauty of time and space syncing up with the beat of my existence.

And it was to my awe and delight (but no surprise) that she was there with me on my wedding day 4 years later. Beaming as brightly as I was in the clear, Colorado sky.

My favorite number is 23. Some might think that’s cliché, being my birthday and all, 7/23 to be exact. It started out as 3 when I was young. It was a common trend in school where I’d be picked for team #3, or assigned desk #3, or third in line for roll call. Maybe because I knew I was born at 12:03 AM I gravitated towards that number. I really don’t know how it started, but I always seemed to be calling it to me, and when it worked out naturally it felt like a positive sign, and from what I remember, those days usually did work out.

It was in the recent years that it evolved to 23, and although I might have modestly appreciated the number crossing my path when I was in high school and my early 20s, but it no way compared to the way I do now.

Its significance intensified when I was read a chapter in “the Ancient Secrets of the Flower of Life”, where the author illustrates the Dogon tribe’s worship of the date 7/23 in Africa. They observed the helical rising of Sirius which began their new year. I took this discovery with a grain of salt, careful not to let my head get as big as the Sphinx (who’s carved gaze is claimed to align with the planet’s rise on this date too, I might add). I didn’t dive too much farther into it, but did find the coincidence intriguing and mysterious all the same.    

I can’t recall when it first happened, but I started catching the time, at exactly 7:23, sometimes both times a day. Often when I checked my phone for the first time in hours, when I’d reached my destination or in the consequential moments after finishing an intense thought about my life. At first I thought it might have been a sign of luck, or that something was going my way, but no. That didn’t feel right over the years when I caught it in moments of absolute turmoil or distress. When I had no guiding light and felt on the completely wrong path. No… this meant something else.

On top of catching the clock unintentionally at 7:23 am, I’d have days where I saw 23 every hour all through my work day and my commute. I made a point not to seek it out, not to watch the clock if it was close and not to check the time frequently. It’d only count if it was completely random and it still persevered in trends for weeks at a time. I found myself disappointed on the days it wouldn’t happen, wondering what it meant just the same. Was I no longer on the right path? Did I do something wrong? Am I supposed to change something? I nearly drove myself mad, silently of course knowing that even my closest friends and family might cock their head questioning my already ambiguous outlook on the world.

To move forward with this story I feel I should back track a bit. I’m not alone in my peculiar perspective,  you see… I have a magical mother.

She raised me with know-how on catering to a young girl’s wild heart and encouraged me to clap to rainbows and dance in their rain. As a child we created tiny worlds and she taught me the art of seeing fairies. Knowledge and wisdom flowed freely from her, uninhibited and unabashed by how radical or eccentric the subject was at the time. She was manifesting before it went mainstream and grew kale before it was cool. She knew the Secret, and the Secret’s secret, that would have otherwise sat on the shelf untold. The knowledge she passed on was always ahead of her time, several years seemingly before the general public caught on. I, in my young arrogance could be caught rolling my eyes in some half-handed attempt to redefine my already wide-open mind as something other than “naïve”.  I now read the same notions on my news feed that she’d propagated years ago, so wisely, I’m beginning to pay her my full attention. Some of her propositions however, just made sense and need no confirmation. Such as the obvious fact that daffodils make perfect fairy bath tubs.

Now, it took me a long time to sift through the mystical propositions and possibilities spread out before me as I grew up, and with careful consideration of my experiences and intuition, some things just did make perfect sense for me to believe in. I confidently believe there is a thread of magic tying us together with the flowers and the trees and especially each other. Even things we cannot see. I choose to not dismiss the undeniable anomalies that people collectively experience like dejavu, and you know that weird thing when you think about someone hard enough and they call you the next day? Yeah, that sort of thing.

Practicality is so last year and people are actually starting to catch on that maybe thoughts do become things. The best part is, I have no intention of converting anyone to my beliefs. But I won’t deny they’re existence and the possibilities I embrace in order to make others feel more comfortable existing along side me. I mean, judging by what we’ve seen in this lifetime already and read about in history and story books, what’s so crazy about the thought of magic really existing once and for all?

One thing I could never quite lean in to however, was my mother’s affinity for angels. She spoke of them since I was young. She said there are thousands of angels for each one of us, just waiting for us to call upon them for aide. I couldn’t quite disassociate from the religious connotation, or the fact that her depiction sounded more like imaginary friends so I never really could embrace this one.

But eventually several other sources began crossing my path claiming their presence and camaraderie and people I knew who usually closed themselves off to wild notions were testifying their experiences of protection and good fortune. My mind was opening to the possibility, because why rule it out? Even if it was just a personified way of speaking to the universe, I believe in manifestation and can’t deny the feeling I get when I’m talking to the moon.

It’s a similar feeling when my eyes catch that clock, that license plate, that price tag and my number is there, following me. I was contemplating its reasoning one day as I witnessed it for the second or third time, and it finally occurred to me. It was my angel number. My eyes welled up and I let out a sigh of relief. Now it all made sense, it was my way of knowing they were near. When things were going awry or my way, they are making their presence known. And when they’re not showing themselves it simply means they’re off helping others. They are my personal cavalry for good-doing; an extension of my prayers and positive intentions for myself and others.  Now that I finally discovered the truth of the anomaly that had haunted me for years, I feel so much security, so protected, and so much confidence in using this new tool for manifesting on my journey.

Over time I started to piece together more magic mumblings of the number 23. It’s contained the angle of our planet’s axis and the amount of chromosomes in our DNA. I hear it dropped in episode after episode of any given sitcom we’re watching when any other number written into the script would have sufficed. E told me once it was like a blue car. Once you start looking for one, they’re everywhere, and maybe he’s right, but the frequency of this number being used throughout the world isn’t exactly what’s consequential to me. It’s when it crosses my path and I notice it that makes it magical. When something with personal significance is being placed directly in front of you, up to a dozen times a day, you start to take note. Even E still seems surprised when we’re together and the number finds us throughout our day, either printed in our tickets, squeaked over speakers or simply carved on an ornamental stone in an antique shop…. was it sitting and waiting for me to come find it?

Some people still think magic is evil, silly, or not even real. That’s fine. That’s great actually. I love that there’s so many different types of people, with different conclusions drawn as to why we’re here, what constitutes blind luck and miracles, what is guiding the puppet show from above, or what isn’t. There’s a billion ways to be in this world, so I say you might as well be yourself. And I love believing in beautiful possibilities, and that I have power to positively change my circumstances and help others by simply harnessing the energy around me.

I can’t deny that my influences growing up have shaped my beliefs towards the mystical. I also cannot deny the synchronicities I’ve experienced. The energies I’ve felt shift and change within and around me. The voices I’ve heard that direct me on the higher and wiser path for everyone. Its taken me weeks to try and depict in words what magic means to me and why I believe what I do. As I write I wonder if my influences and upbringing make me more inclined to experience magic, or if my personal experiences are the reason I believe. Sort of a chicken or the egg situation that I’m not sure I’ll ever know the answer to.

What I do know for sure, is that I’ve experienced instant manifestation, and perfect intuition. I’ve had my personality depicted spot on by the stars, and my future told by tarot cards. I’ve seen fairies flutter and apparitions transcend. I can’t deny the wisest whispers I hear when I’m listening to the radio or the wind. I feel a charge in my fingertips and love radiating from my heart. I seem to receive messages from something beyond me. Like I’m woven into the fabric of a tapestry wrapped around us all. I feel the power and its trepidation but I no longer fear it. I use it as a tool for spreading light in this world, like a beacon. A candle used to light a thousand others and if you don’t hold out your wick, I say live and let live.

Your life is yours and mine is mine. I might be called crazy or diluted by those who deny these possibilities. The path I choose to walk and the messages I share but honestly it makes no difference to what’s real to me. I feel like I’m seeing the real truth and its enhancing my life. It gives me hope and is making the years I’m awake and conscious in this reality a true adventure with unlimited possibilities. You can choose to embrace the potential of your own mysterious experiences or not. I will still love you. And I will still choose to live by the words of my mother’s favorite children’s rhyme, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”