True Magic

Sat, August 12, 2006
As the summer wanes and school approaches, I am reflective of how to keep the magic I nurtured in myself all summer. I have learned a lot since this spring and have felt the flow from my fingers and my curves all through the heat of the days... I have found myself feeling a little sad that I will soon buckle down and risk losing this deep contentment as I spiral back into the bowels of my education.

I have truly been blessed this summer. I recieved my Reiki II attunement two days after finals this spring, and the torrent of experience, energy and emotion has really been amazing. I feel more and more clear and the waters running through my mind feel sweeter and more pure. (I feel this is the best way to describe it). I was uncertain how the journey would affect me and at times I have been overwhelmed by the amount of sensation that runs through; there were moments I felt I could not handle it but someone once said: the Universe only gives you exactly what you can handle. And so I do.

But this magic! Oh, this magic! I thought it had fled. I feared it was gone, buried under too much school work and emotional hurts. Having it laid bare by such a summer as this has shown me what I am capable of, and I am loathe to let it go; it is too easy, when in school, to forget- to blend in with the rest (muggles? Is it fair to say that?), to let it become dusty for fear of overwhelming the folks around me... I hide myself too much sometimes, but only to ease my life in terms of dealing with the rest of the world.

Doesn't the world need magic? Only the ticket sales for each new magical movie are necessary to prove that, yes? I am nothing if not chaotic, wild, hilarous magic. But I let it go! I always let it go; it seems easier than dealing with judgement of this place, this small community of PC people, this petrie dish of neurosis (because truly, to be in vet school you have to have something wrong with you... we are all a little 'special' in our own ways). I never feel right, ever, here; I feel something missing always. Even today I have felt something amiss, something not right, for I am isolated already in my new home... a mile from school... as something of a melancholy hits me for thought of the work to come. Oh I will face it, and I will do it, I will soak it up and eat it whole, mop up the sauce that's left... I will do it... but need I lose myself meanwhile? Must I forget how to laugh, and create chaos, and put the spark and mystery into the obvious and explained? Where is there in science room for the magic I possess?

Last semester there was a bull calf in the stocks, and we were standing near his head talking about scrotal circumference in regards to fertility... (Read Kenna's fun facts for that info). He was scared, rightfully so; captured, surrounded, unable to flee. I surreptitiously came near and put my hands on his head, sending him a little love and calm. It was working- I was listening to the teacher, sending love energy, calming the calf down, when suddenly the teacher noticed what I was doing.
"what you doin', voodoo? Reiki or something?"
"Yes, Reiki." I said, deeply embarassed... they frown upon the alternatives for the most part here. Not as much as in other schools, but it is still distrusted.
Then he laughed, the rest of them laughed... but I continued on... but it tells me how much I hide what I can do. I know the calf felt better, I could see that. It was important to me. And this is part of my magic, the magic of healing... I do this all the time with the horses in the hospital, but I do not feel free as I do elsewhere!

So it turns out this is a whining crying rant. Oh well. It's gotta go somewhere.

So here is my promise to myself: I will be myself, no matter how much it feels out of place and strange- because the alternative is far too miserable. I am not like them. I can't be like them. I don't want to dress like them, talk like them, eat like them and think like them. I want the medicine, and I want to do it my way when I am done here. I can't let go of who I am- if it means I am labelled a freak so be it. It seems strange it has taken me two years to get to me like this (it really is easier to go along!) but here it is. Giving up myself made me miserable for two years; I went back to eating sugar and feeling like crap, wearing clothes and a face that don't belong to me.

It's not that easy! Especially in a place as conformist as this, this pressure cooker of experience and learning... so here I go. It begins August 21, and I will keep my magic by my side as a talisman, reminding me why I chose this path to begin with... not to conform, but to create the world of medicine anew in the direction it needs to go in.