This is who I am. (Except I don't know)
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She used to tell me that after time at the Loft she would leave feeling sexier, more desirable.
Everything about the Loft oozed sexy. Disco ball hanging from the ceiling and twinkle lights wrapped around the stairs and vintage shot glasses lining the wall of the kitchen.
The Loft was born from a moment in time when it all needed to change. I needed to find my life because the one I was in was hiding my true self.
The feeling of sexy was because at the Loft, it was about your essence, your shine, your exploration, your simply showing up as you, no walls, no judgement.
That is sexy. Confidence and other women lifting you up fosters that feeling of loving who you are in your skin.
.......
We had agreed to separate and he didn't feel like he was emotionally in a place to be the one to leave.
I woke up at 4am and I saw the space. I saw the brick wall. I knew that it was where I was supposed to be.
I found it the next day. Exactly as I had seen in my vision.
The Loft held my (re)awakening. It was super charged with the decisions I was making to become the woman I was growing into when I was 19.
The same morning I woke up with the vision of the Loft I saw a circle of women. They would travel to this space, retreat in this space, become along with me in this space.
My business would co-create with my life, as I transitioned so would the journey of my practice.
The Magic Making Circle was birthed for this space, from this space. The Lift Ups, where 4 or 5 women would gather for a weekend of intense vibrational shifting, were born for this space, from this space.
The woman in that photo above was born for this space, from this space.
.......
We didn't let the kids know what we were going through for almost 3 years. When we decided to legally separate the kids came to live at the Loft with me. In a few hours I transformed it from retreat-awakening-woman-space to home.
We all slept tribal style in the basement. The kids skateboarded in the long concrete hallways. I always felt sexy there. I was a woman becoming and my body was tingling with sensuality and a chance to be better, to give us a playful, fun, beautiful life.
I used to wake them up playing a song, singing and dancing. We had fancy mac and cheese candlelight dinners. There were always people around. Hosted dinners. Sitting on the deck with neighbors. Walking to get the mail and flirting with people on the way.
I still look back on it and think, holy shit, I did that. I dreamt it. I made it.
It made me.
.......
The Magic Making Circle was born because of that space.
I always felt sexier at the Loft. My work vibrated differently there because I was held inside the walls of my work as my life as my teacher.
I miss the woman in that photo because she has gone through a shit of muck. She lost a lot of hair. She gained weight. She spent months terrified that she would be homeless. She became a single mom. She lost friends.
When I look in the mirror there is a new face looking back and I have been trying to wrestle up compassion for her because I keep trying to see that other woman.
The one who felt sexier.
The one who was so brave.
The one who was falling in love.
The one who ate potato chips for lunch naked.
The one who had this ridiculous energy of freedom inside of her.
As I've tried climbing back into her she continues to be in my past, no matter how I grab back at her image.
When I was working on launching the Magic Making Circle for the 5th year I kept wondering if maybe it was time to let it go. I couldn't feel that woman anymore.
My intuition guides every decision I make and there was something churning me up, telling me that something needed to be new.
I am just now climbing out of the hardest year of my life and I am still looking in the mirror trying to understand who I am now.
I looked at the sales page from last year and one of the month's work is called 'Beautiful Dreamer' and in seconds I could hear a song playing in my head from when I was a young girl. It was like I went back in time and was sitting near my record player singing.
You, you're different
You go your own way
Come what may
You seem to do, what you should do
And nothing ever gets to you
You're special
They wrote a song just for you
Beautiful dreamer, that's your name
And I wanna be the same way too
Beautiful dreamer
Share a dream with me
You beautiful dreamer
Dream on and on
Through eternity
Some may all you foolish
But only those who don't believe
They can't conceive that dreams can come true
But I do cause I'm a dreamer too
Beautiful dreamer
Share a dream with me
You beautiful dreamer
Dream on and on
Through eternity
You, you're different
You, you're special...
From Fame. The show that I would dream could become my real life. The one that took me into the world of acting.
And that song, I would play over and over and over. I know each word as though I wrote it.
And boom. Just like that. I could understand what I have been feeling.
That song is me.
Each repetition that I played as that little girl infused my spirit. Charged me.
I am a beautiful dreamer and that is what I teach.
The work inside of Magic Making Circle isn't just a course, it is my life. In circle we dream together and create together and learn who we are.
Year one I manifested the Loft and this gorgeous circle which continues to take my breath away.
Year two I manifested my awakening, sexually and inside of freedom.
Year three I manifest the man I love, who has shown me safety inside of love.
Year four I manifested home, the Magic Lakehouse for my retreats, the urban farmhouse, the someday home for our huge family.
Year five I feel empty of a dream.
And I'm a dreamer.
And how can I teach a course about creating magic in your life when I have no idea what my next dream is because I still don't recognize who I am in the image looking back at me.
And then. I read this...
“WHAT YOU DO IS TAKE WOMEN WHO DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO BELIEVE IN WHAT THEY ALREADY ARE, DON’T KNOW THAT THEY SHOULD, AND YOU GIVE THEM HOPE, GIVE THEM THE TOOLS, INTRODUCE THEM TO A WAY OF LOOKING AT THEMSELVES, THE WORLD, EACH OTHER – THAT ILLUMINATES, ILLUMINATES THE PATH THAT WE FAILED TO NOTICE WAS BENEATH OUR FEET ALL ALONG.”
Year five.
Year five is the integration of all the magical manifestations that have come from my beautiful dreams so that I can learn who she is. The one looking back at me. The one with so many stories to tell. The one who needs to rest and plant and make home and love. The one who has been begging silently for the chance to catch up to her own self.
To look in the mirror and know her.
I remember the song. The dreams. The women. Dorothy and the slippers. The path. The work of magic, which is the beautiful dreamer who goes her own way, come what may...