Author: Michiru Adrienne

magic

.Reading time 2 minutes.

“You don’t need to believe in magic.
You are magic.
Believe in yourself.”

Emmanuel Dagher

The above quote crossed my path the other day, like an unexpected butterfly or rainbow in the sky. Riveted, I stopped. “Yes!” I thought. “We are indeed magic, and if we just believed in ourselves… no—if we truly knew that we are magic, why anything wonderful, miraculous, and beautiful could be possible!” It is true, don’t you think? That if we arrive, if we show up each day simply as we are—unadorned, messy but real… unafraid to be whatever particular expression of life that we just so happen to be—then our days cannot be anything other than magic and magical. So I was inspired to step out of my personal comfort zone and share this quickly snapped, unfiltered, messy-haired selfie-on-a-whim… to say hello to the world and to you, whoever you may be. We are all, after all, one light and one love.

But, what precisely is magic? 

magic

         maybe magic is, 
     a heart cracked open
   to the tender beauty of the world
                    to be
     raw    open     and real
   and tumbled like broken pieces of sea glass
    worn smooth with the grain of tides
   high and low
    of time
                           to be
               to just be
     in this one world 
   both wounded and wondrous
 allowing the soft edges of shadows
   to dance
          into the light
   like sparkles and glitter of rain
     in the sun
   and finally
             finally and at last
                            to stand on the shore
                                      with arms outstretched to the  wide  open  sea
                                                           and declare
                                              here i am my love
                                              here i am

blackness

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the deepest shade of love is black
that unknowable depth
from which all creation comes—and ultimately returns
is the kindest love
unconditional   embracing   infinite
in black, there's every shade of grey
and white is taken in everywhere

in this moment
feel raven wings alight
and hear the midnight of winter solstice
they swirl an elemental vortex
folding into itself
the sharpest cut of diamond

and in the tender arms of blackness
even rainbows find reprieve 
from arching displays of color writ loudly in sky blue

and now somewhere far, far out in the distance nearby
lies a   black   panther
limbs resting softly on the dark belly of the earth
she stirs into the heart of all being
a power
the deepest shade 
of love

the gift

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
and stumbling along the seashore
she found in the round curves of a rock
her heart
Ah-ha! she exclaimed
Here is the perfect gift to give
my love
This heartrock warm in the sun
is my heart
my heart of eternal love
May the seasons spin round and round and around
and may the storms wail and rage and rage until 
they turn themselves
skyblue
Meanwhile my heart remains here
unchanged
on this seashore—on this woven red strand by dusk
and by dawn
dancing all the sparkles 
the light and the shadows
into one
into one timeless
one timeless and divine
love

captured

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clouds have so very much to say
      it seems
 capturing the light and the shadow     both
out here in this summery blue
                                       if i could just fly
    straight up  and 
into those soft billows  and 
                              linger awhile
i'm sure i'd hear a heartbeat  and 
      a silver voice
   singing
singing the shapeshifting story
       of the skies

house of love

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in the black ink of sky          
stars dance   
toes dipped in glitter bodies draped in sheer silk    
swirling, arched, sweeping       
they scribe    
a new path across the milky way           
and ignite     
fire in this body burning   
a virgin light       
tumbled raw open and naked     
yet wrapped up in these angel arms             
i'm carried across the threshold   
into a new spiral of glittering galaxies     
into this dance                       
into this eternal           
house of love

beauty

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maybe if i spill open
my heart
at the break of dawn
and let love shine
like sun gold
as it climbs over
peaks tops and ridges
glittering everything into new day

and maybe if i embrace
the light
with noontide soaring
to release my fears from
the shadows secrets and silence
like feathers
they'll erupt into euphoria
and flight

maybe if i serenade
the dark
as dusk deepens
and surrender my dreams
like sand
they drift to ocean beds
singing dancing and shifting
into pearls sparkling in the night

and maybe if i pour
my self
into the soft fold of night
to fall steeped in love
like moons
swollen cradled and hungry
for the round gravity
of blackness

then surely when i dance
for you
until i die
and give my body to a sacred fire
in beauty i will
have danced lived prayed and loved
in beauty i will
embrace death

with the water

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i step
into the water
cold tingling
my toes
ankles
the backsides of my knees

swirling all around
submerged 
with the water
i run
twisting and turning
wind like
through wild summer prairies 
and snow-steeped tundra in winter
i run
falling and flowing
light like
through slot canyons
gorges and ravines
i run

with the water
i run
cascading and streaming
over and down ever onwards out ahead and forwards
i run
i run to the ocean
to the magical ocean of my dreams

murmuration

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my heart     
like a murmuration of starlings     
races, swooping and soaring     
all throughout these rosé wine skies     
aglow and glimmering twilight     

like a murmuration of starlings     
i'm flying     
here in the light and over there in the shadows     

somewhere, i know there is a pathway or a secret door     
somewhere here in the open wild of these fields, windswept and pink     
or here somewhere, in this enclave of elms, shifting and shady     
i am sure, i am sure...     
here is the pathway or the secret door     

like a murmuration of starlings     
i long for home     
to feel forever     
somewhere here or there or somewhere anywhere     
this skin soft landing     
in your arms     
your arms holding     
holding     
my heart

skin

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the river's soft skin   
slows wild rapids of my heart                    
running to the sea

beauty

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if today i die
may beauty be my only
footprints in the sand

Ikigai, raison d’être, purpose, legacy… What is it, ultimately, that propels you forward in life? That keeps your fires burning at night and wakens you from your morning slumber? That enables you to rise again and once again, after each and every stumble or fall? That heals your grieving heart after loss? That brings you to your feet when life has brought you to your knees? That causes you to smile, once again?

Now and then life brings these questions to me, and inevitably, in one way or the other, I always come back to hózhó. Hózhó is the Navajo word for “beauty,” however, it is not limited to notions of aesthetic beauty but encapsulates a profound paradigmatic lens of beauty as composite expression of harmony, peace, balance, and reciprocity. Hózhó is my north star and my raison d’être.

And what is yours?

They say that each of us has come here for a reason, to fulfill some particular longing of the soul. Perhaps it is to experience joy, or love. Perhaps it is to be joy, or love, or beauty. Perhaps it is to learn how to rise again and smile, against all odds. Perhaps it is to acquire a soft heart after hardship. Or to discover light at the end of the tunnel, or to become that light. And it could simply be to discover whatever it actually is—that, that seemingly eternal chimera.

Whatever yours is, may it propel you ever forward on your path. May you walk in beauty. May you journey well. May your dreams be fulfilled.