Magically Pisces

I believe in magical beings.

Fairies, gnomes, trolls, wisps, ents, wizards, witches, elves, sprites, giants.

I believe that just because you cannot see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I’ve never seen a million dollars. I can’t quantify love. But I know these things exist.

It’s like what Lydia read in the Handbook for the Recently Deceased in Beetlejuice, it’s not that some people cannot see something, it’s that they won’t.

I’m willing to believe. And like on the X-Files poster, I want to.

You see, I am drop-your-voice-two-octaves deeply Pisces. But not just like, I read my horoscope at lunch and then fit my day into what I read.

I mean, I believe that Hogwarts exists, I just don’t know how to find it.

I mean, I dream so hard about some things that I feel in my marrow I can manifest them.

I mean, early on in my relationship with Clint, we went on a hike in a mountain forest and I pointed out fairy homes to him. (He later admitted to me that he thought I was a little cuckoo, but here we are 5 ½ years later, so…) That might have been too bold of a move so early into a later in life relationship, but it seems to have worked out. Besides, I’m a high-functioning Pisces. I may not always hide my weird very well, but then most of the time I’m not really trying.

As a kid, I would skip through my grandparent’s side yard singing the song from Sleeping Beauty. “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream…”. I thought my singing voice was spot on and that the birds, squirrels, and other woodland creatures were flitting and gathering around me just like they did for Aurora.

Being a Pisces is as normal and natural to me as just about anything else. I suppose that makes sense. I’ve been a Pisces all my life.

Your average, run of the mill Pisces is described as someone who is moody, empathic, and emotional. Pisceans are compassionate, intuitive, artistic and live in a duality between fantasy and reality. But, I know some even-keeled, normal Pisces.

No wait. No I don’t.

As a strange contradiction regarding the emotional thing, my feelings are easily hurt but it takes a lot to offend me. People I let close to me can easily hurt my feelings if their intention doesn’t come through on the right wavelength. I know I’m delicate in that way, so I don’t easily let people in. I don’t use the word friend lightly - to protect myself - so by choice I don’t have many.

If you’re not my friend, though, what you say rarely hurts me. You might piss me off, but not offend me.

There are a lot of nuances in my emotions. Throw in my sarcasm and snark, and that creates whole sub-categories. There’s not grey area. There are a lot of hues and values - terms that I’ve learned in color theory! I don’t see life, the world, and the universe in black and white. I don’t like extremes. They’re just too…extreme. I can dislike a person very much but also recognize something beneficial they’ve done. I can love a person deeply and still have moments when I need to not even see their stupid face.

And I suppose that’s why the distance between fantasy and reality is almost non-existent for me.

It’s not just that I have a wild imagination. It’s that I want there to be more than just what I see on the surface of it all. I want to see more depth in people. I want there to be magic - and to believe there is magic if we were just open to it - because wouldn’t that make life more fun and interesting? I want there to be wormholes and portals to other dimensions. Travel would be so much easier!

I want there to be fairies and gnomes and ents and things because…I’m pretty sure there already are.

As a deeply empathic person, I am sensitive to light, dark, sounds, music, touch, taste. All the senses.

Many times, I would stand on Mount Sentinel next to the sign that indicates the level of water from Glacial Lake Missoula. I let myself get chills when I imagined the sound of the final cracking of the ice dam that held back all that water, and the violent roar and rushing of 600 cubic miles of water that emptied out in just two days. Can you imagine? How awesome! All of that water (the equivalent of both Lake Erie and Lake Ontario) being completely emptied in 48-hours. The sound must have been colossal.

Or the thunderous sound of giant dinosaurs’ footsteps.

If I had a time machine, that’s what I would do. Go back to hear those sounds.

And yet - I cannot tolerate the sounds of loud cars, trucks, motorcycles. Man-made sounds like that create that fear-cage feeling in my body. Nausea, anger, aggression, confusion.

So then I imagine a t-rex happily stomping around and crushing them.

But giants, though. Have you ever tried to build a pergola? I have. Twice. You know what would be helpful? A friend who was a giant who could just pick up the top and place it on the posts.

Wisps, like in Brave, would have been extremely helpful the other day when I did a 7 ½-mile 5-mile run at Pocahontas State Park. I didn’t know how long the Bright Hope Loop was (a sign would have been nice), but also I wasn’t sure which exit trail was mine. I did an extra mile of double-back - which I was physically and mentally able to do, but still. Wisps to show the way would have come in handy.

Telepathy. Teleportation. Scrying. The book I wrote after my mother died - the fantasy version of my life with her, includes those things. The only rule of the universe I created was that it doesn’t have plastic. What a lovely world that would be. I’d love to go back to having more containers made of glass and wood. We’ve lost touch with nature. We’ve lost touch with magic.

Think of how life would be different if we had the ability to communicate directly from our minds. When words fail me, or when I want Clint to feel what I feel, telepathy could help.

When I think I forgot to turn off the oven, I could scry and see if I did.

I believe in past lives and reincarnation because I want there to be more than just this. It’s not that I’m afraid of “just this”. And I’m certainly not afraid of death or the end of things. I just think it’s more interesting if there is something more. I’m a Buddhist because I want all of that to be true. And so, I believe that it is. Samsara makes sense to me - the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. If energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transferred, then reincarnation stands to reason.

I believe cats can see different dimensions. We see 3. We live in 4. Physics says there could be11. When my cat is looking at “nothing”, perhaps she’s looking at a whole lot more.

I could provide examples of experiences and experiments that support my belief in all of these things, but I’m not a missionary. I don’t want to convert you. I don’t particularly care if anyone else believes what I believe or even believes me when I say these things. It doesn’t matter to me that Clint doesn’t experience the same tingle that I do when I see a knot at the base of a tree with some moss and a few rocks. I know it’s a fairy door. I know there are magical creatures nearby.

The world we live in right now is particularly tough to live in. I don’t like what’s going on. I don’t like Trump. I don’t like that people blindly support him. Not only is he a terrible human (and his supporters know it and don’t care), but he lacks creativity and depth. He’s an asshole just to line his own pockets and for the sake of being an asshole. It’s hurtful. It’s boring. It lacks color. It’s not fun.

I’m not delusional (and I’m not particularly concerned if anyone thinks I am) but I am pragmatic. I can hold a belief in magic and a desire for a well-functioning society at the same time. I’m fine with paying my taxes to fund schools and roads and the fire department. But do we have to be such selfish assholes about it? All of the shit going on in our country and around the world has taken so much fun and delight out of life.

White Christian Nationalists are the worst. Don’t invite them to your party. They not only lack empathy, integrity, and a moral compass, but they lack a sense of humor.

Don’t trust anyone that can’t laugh at themselves.

I’m tired of how angry the world is. How ugly. How bland.

I’ll say it again that I think watercolor is going to be the thing that saves me.

Watercolor has allowed me to bring magic back into my life. Gnomes, mushroom houses, sprites, magical evenings. I’m letting myself get lost in these forests I’m creating. My soul needs it. My spirit needs it.

When I need to come out from under my mossy rock to protest, vote, and use whatever privilege I have to make the world a better place - I will. But when I don’t need to do those things, I’m writing fiction and painting.

I’ve added a new project to my list of things. Once I get better at rocks, mushrooms, trees, and butterfly wings, I’m going to write and illustrate a little book for adults called How to Find Fairies and Other Magical Creatures. Kids already know how. Adults have forgotten. To do this, I’ll dig deep into my Pisces-ness and hop back and forth over that line between fantasy and reality. A healthy amount of both is the balance I really need.

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