Breaking Spells.

Taking Vows.

That sounds so serious.

It makes me think of women in black and white habits, on their knees, heads bowed, pledging to become brides of Christ. It doesn’t sound like something I would do. It doesn’t sound like something I would want.

However, I took vows — different sorts of vows — as a child.

Unconsciously, long ago, I decided to fold myself up and become as small and insignificant and invisible as I could.

I wove a cloak of invisibility around my life.

I created a golden hive of protection. In a world that seemed hell bent on injuring me, shattering my feelings, intruding on my most personal thoughts, I secreted myself away.

I did it for good reasons. I did it so I could fade into the background of situations that filled me unease.

I wanted to be tucked in, safe from harm, warm and full, surrounded by armor. I wanted to live where storms couldn’t reach me.

Once there, I had respite and silence. I had the solitude of trees. I could climb up and nest in branches above head, no worse for the wear. I could listen in on conversations and see danger as it approached; and once I perfected my abilities, the world couldn’t see me. And that’s how I liked it.

However, I see this has limited my life in lots of seen and unseen ways.

If I am invisible, I am safe, but I am also difficult to pin down, difficult to find.

I’m a fleck of dust in a sea of tumbleweeds.

I am here but not actually here.

And, as a writer, a woman, and a budding entrepreneur, invisibility is not a winning strategy. What once offered protection, now blocks my capacity to bloom in a blaze of color.

I can’t be seen by those who’re looking for me. They’re looking for me, and I am looking for them. How can we find each other if I am not really here? So, the warm cape of oblivion becomes a tomb, rather than a hearth.

Breaking the spell of invisibility.

Visionary Activist and Writer, Caroline Casey, suggested in a recent Trickster Talk that it’s time to break the spells that have governed our lives up to this point. It’s time to emerge from the chrysalis, from this dreamless sleep; it’s time to awaken and to take new vows. These vows are to help us grow, to stretch us into the people we were born to be.

So, I earlier this week, I sat with all this percolating in my mind. I turned it over and over. What vows would I take, if I was choosing my vows, rather than taking them in reactive form? Who would I become if I took vows that supported and sustained my life?

I would become visible. I would ask for help. I would reveal myself, so I could find my kin.

And then, I created the little meme [above] and posted it on my Facebook page, as a means of expressing this newfound insight.

I admit, I wanted to see what would happen if I announced myself.

A cosmic door opened and light flooded in.

It’s 48 hours later. The little meme was seen by a friend who shared it on Twitter, where it was shared with even more farflung others. At this point, it’s been shared with over 20,000 people. Over a thousand of my Facebook followers saw it and shared it. Now, it has started to show up as a vow on other people’s pages.

I had no idea how powerful our unconscious agreements are. Watching this unfold, I’m amazed and gobsmacked with joy.

#hellokindredspirits #iseeyou #powerfulmagicthis

#thankscosmicdancer #yourock

© 2016  Shavawn M. Berry All rights reserved