Epiphanies, Legends, & Thank Goodness, no Gnomes

When I woke up on the morning of my 50th birthday, I didn’t feel any different. Later that morning, after several phone conversations with dear friends hearing myself say 50, something was gently tapping at my brain. At last, you may say! Don’t you see and hear that you’re half a century old, as long as garden gnomes have been in western gardens? By that evening, the tapping had led to the fleeting release of an awareness so acute I felt I had briefly been removed from my body to see time from the outside looking in. Those 50 years had truly passed so fast as if I weren’t a part of them. It just didn’t seem possible to have lived so much in such a fleeting amount of time. Immediately, I thought how am I going to feel ‘included’ as the next 50 fleet by?

One activity I can remain in for hours at a time is reading, and yesterday I came across an article about epiphanies. Actress Elise Ballard says, “…(they) usually happen in moments of crisis when we need them most”. She went on to say that they are “a deep calling” that “guides ones gifts and talents”. Is this the ‘inclusion’ I want to feel in my coming years, that I’ll use my gifts and talents fully? I’m trusting everything I’ve chosen, experienced, and travelled, including arriving at my 50th in one piece, has brought me to this arguably timely and intimate question: can I slow down my awareness to be fully engaged in my soul’s calling in my years ahead?

A week after my birthday, again submersed in the world of words, and increasingly aware of time running out to read more classics, I began to read The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. Oddly, for many years, I was reluctant to read it as I had this notion it would be mystical, almost fantastical and over my head as I prefer historical fiction or non-fiction. Almost amusingly, it’s a quick read, reminding us just how quick our lives can feel as they pass us by! I finished reading/listening to it in a week. I had to draw it out – there were many profound statements. The author states in the forward that the story is in fact him living “his own metaphor” : he sets out on a journey, dreaming of a beautiful place, in pursuit of some unknown treasure. The journey ends, he realizes the treasure was within him all along. He “followed his Personal Legend which is his capacity to write”.

This story is his heart and soul which has opened him to everyone knowing him. As a result, he doesn’t feel so alone. He states that if we each give our heart and soul to sharing our life stories, we too wouldn’t feel so alone. Moreover, if we understood each others stories, wouldn’t we have less or no need to understand each other’s politics and religions? Our stories should be enough?

The book’s story made me feel less alone, that I too am a part of, as he describes, the “soul of the world”. My story will become a part of that, at whatever chronological age I will reach. I won’t BE a legend as the world defines one, but I plan on living my personal legend, filling the purpose I’ve been given, beginning with being a kind woman, which can only be with God’s help in these current days! So today, I ask you my fellow souls of the world, has a significant birthday or other milestone, like even the current Covid-19 pandemic (as I’ve previously posed in an earlier post), nudged you into a deeper awareness, or gifted you with epiphanies of where you are at and where you truly want to go with your story? What is your heart telling you? Are you living your Personal Legend? What will you leave in the “soul of the world”?