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Stories

Nonfiction storytelling that embraces the unknown. This is magical memoir: true moments grounded in reality. Nothing more. Nothing less. Energy science, spirituality, philosophy, & advice for magical living.

The Books in the Mountains (or How books randomly discovered in New York and Virginia sent me on an unbelievable journey)

December 20, 2016 Virginia Richardson

Book Serendipity, Part I

This past February, a small reclaimed furniture store was closing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  Inside, all that remained were a few chairs, a dresser, some chalkboard paint, a random assortment of knobs, and the tiniest of books tucked beside a lamp.

The book was two and a half inches high, four inches wide, and eight pages long.  It was covered in images of fall foliage - orange and red - along the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia - images faded over the four decades since their printing.

I told the shopkeeper that I was from Virginia, and she begged for me to take it.  Everything had to go.

I went home, sat on my couch, and flipped through the pages of this tiny book - pages featuring picture after picture of rolling mountains colored by the seasons and a road winding through them.  A road I felt I needed to drive.

Book Serendipity, Part II

A few weeks later I received an invitation to a childhood friend's wedding in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Everyone was going, including my mother, so I decided I should go too, and I looked at a map.  The entrance to the Skyline Drive was just thirty minutes from the wedding, and the wedding would be in June.  By then, the leaves would be green, and I would do the drive.

The morning of the wedding, my mother and I wandered into a used bookstore.  We explored the shelves of yellowed pages, reading the cartoons and poems and quotes that were taped to the sides of the stacks, and after an hour, we shared our finds.

She was particularly excited about one book.  It was blue, and in gold, on the cover, were the words:  Trinity Church, Huntington, West Virginia, Something of Its Story.  She flipped it open and showed me a picture of a bishop.  She told me that he'd been one of her father’s best friends and that she'd attended the church growing up.  As we were checking out, she showed the shopkeeper the same picture and told him the same story.  That’s incredible! he said.  Book serendipity, she called it.

Did you see our Virginia section?

We hadn't, so he led us to it.

Book Serendipity, Part III

The Virginia section was about four feet wide and eight feet high, but all I could see was one book - bound in red leather, a year and two words embossed on its spine:  Fir Tree 1943.  I pulled it out.  A gold tree was embossed on the cover, and inside, I read the name of my mother's father's high school.  I knew then that I was holding his yearbook, and sure enough, when I flipped to the index, there he was on page 67, page 74, page 85, 86, 134, and 135.

I still don’t know why a high school yearbook was being sold at a used bookstore, but I know that it now lives on a shelf in my parents’ home, and that that day, I was called to find it.

***

I began writing this story on December 5th, which is the same day that I began researching the bishop - my grandfather's friend.  I immediately noticed that his birthday was two days before mine, and that his wife Rosemary's birthday had just passed on December 4th (which coincidentally is also the birthday of one of my best friend's whose mother's name just happens to be Rosemary).  I continued researching and learned that after West Virginia, the bishop and Rosemary moved to Tennessee, which is where I was considering moving when we found the books, and I learned that while in Tennessee, he fought the banning of books and advocated for the ordination of women, and I learned that after Tennessee, he moved to Charlottesville, where in time he was buried facing Rockfish Gap, the southernmost entrance to the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, which is where I headed after the wedding and where this story continues, but first, yesterday:  I learned that two weeks before I began writing this story, Rosemary - who is still very much alive - moved back to Charlottesville after years of living in Boston, and I learned that my mother is planning to visit her soon, and that maybe I will too.

To be continued…

In Stories Tags books, mountains, brooklyn, virginia, charlottesville, wedding, family, mother, grandfather, trinity church, skyline drive, adventure, fate, faith, synchronicity, serendipity
← The Music in the Mountains (or How self doubt creeps in before the story ends)The Spinning Tin (or How a single memory can carry you through self doubt) →
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Happy Valentine’s Day! Today’s energy reminds us of the biggest love lesson there is. One that’s good to remember everyday. Check out my latest for @drunkyoga at the link in my bio, and have a wonderful day! With or without a romantic relationship, love is always around and worth celebrating, especially when it starts with you. ❤️
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#vday #valentines #galentines #love #horoscope #horoscopes #magicisreal
#writer #scflpbhdtr #witch #witchesofinstagram #psychic #reiki #tarot #astrology #healing #wellbeing #selfcare #selflove #spiritual #coach #lifecoach  #wellness #motivation #inspiration
Enlightenment is accessible to all of us all the time. What separates you from enlightenment is your own sense of worthiness and your courage. Over the holidays, I rewatched The Neverending Story and was struck by the scene with the seven oracles. In the movie, there are obstacles you must cross in order to reach the oracles, and you can only cross them if you trust that you are worthy of the knowledge and if you are courageous enough to face your true self. As I watched this, I was like “ahhhh!” because yes, this is so true. The oracles represent enlightened knowledge, access to truth and knowing, and you can only receive their wisdom, this wisdom when you believe that you are worthy of receiving it and when you face all your sh*t. That’s why I work with people one-on-one. Yes, I teach them tarot and Reiki and channeling and crystals and all sorts of spiritual tools - the basics of which could be taught in any group workshop - but at the end of the day, the tools are just tools. Intellectually knowing how to use them doesn’t mean you can use them well. In order to become truly empowered, you have to do the deep shadow work to face yourself and discover your own worth. So while on the surface I’m teaching about all these tools, what I’m really helping you do is face your true self and understand your own worth so you can access the knowledge and become the oracle. It takes courage. Which, for me, is my overarching intention for life. That’s why it’s written on my left wrist, at the base of my hand that receives. We must have the courage to receive truth, love, and all the wonderful things the universe wants to give us. Yes, it can be scary. Life can be scary. The goal is not fearlessness. It’s heart-centered strength. It’s courage. ❤️
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#courage #strength #faith #empath #intuition #oracle #enlightenment #guru  #magicisreal
#writer #scflpbhdtr #witch #witchesofinstagram #psychic #reiki #tarot #astrology #healing #wellbeing #selfcare #selflove #spiritual #coach #lifecoach  #wellness #motivation #inspiration
On Sunday, when I was in the midst of my “I hate this diet I don’t want to continue why am I continuing seriously why?” breakdown, I looked back at February’s Magic Guide, and reread these words, and I was like, “Oh yeah! I said that! How am I doing this to myself?” Granted, in the guide, I was talking about dancing, but really, we trap our bodies in so many ways. We trap them in rigid routines and uncomfortable homes and toxic relationships and windowless offices and too-tight pants, and we trap them in diets. This is exactly what didn’t sit right with me about Whole 30. It’s the thing that made me message my dear friend on day 2 and say “this diet does not align with my spirituality.” Still, I continued. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just dealing with sugar withdrawal. But my soul was clear on day 2, and the longer I stayed on it, the murkier that clarity became. In fact, something REALLY interesting happened. While maintaining the strict Whole 30 diet, my system basically reverted back to who I was when I lived with the mindset of scarcity, when I felt deprived, when I feared I wasn’t enough, and when, as a result, I tried to control things and make them perfect. This, to me, is the energy of Whole 30. And after 1 week of living in that energy, old health problems returned - things I hadn’t dealt with in YEARS - and I felt less connected to myself. I struggled to write, and I found myself thinking that I needed to stay on the diet to please my fiance. And this is NOT our relationship at all. We are fiercely independent people and support each other 100. But on Whole 30, here I was - worried about him, not me - and while that’s not who I am now, it’s very much who I was when I struggled to love myself, when I feared that by fully being myself I would drive people away, and when I was too scared to be the one to walk away myself. The diet’s energy bled into so many parts of my life. An incredible reminder to free your mind by freeing your body. And that’s what I’ve done. I’m sticking to the parts of Whole 30 that I enjoy, but I’m not letting it trap me. If I check in with myself and my body wants some bread, I’m eating the damn bread. ⚡️💪🏼⚡️
THIS WEEK :: SUN ☌ LILITH + MARS ☌ URANUS + MARS ➙  TAURUS :: Were you recently forced to face your doubts, your fears, your self sabotage? Yeah, me too! This was part of last week’s Aquarius new moon. It planted the seeds to help us break free from any external/internal shackles, and now, those seeds are ready to grow. Be WILD, INDEPENDENT, FIERCE. Yesterday, the sun and Lilith perfectly aligned in Aquarius, and they’re still working together today, helping us all identify with our inner wild woman. She knows she deserves to be here as she is. She is unashamed of her desires. She enjoys her body and her life to the utmost. She is free, unfiltered receptive energy, and she supports you. You can be exactly as you are - no limitations - and receive EVERYTHING from the universe. This is ABUNDANCE ENERGY. You are enough in your wild, messy, au naturel state. Expand and take up space. On Wednesday, Mars perfectly aligns with Uranus in Aries. This is BOSS ENERGY. As in, you are your own boss. You do you. 💯. No compromises. No sacrifices. Total trust in your inner authority. No one else has a say about what you do or how you do it. Be ASSERTIVE while learning how to be RECEPTIVE. You can be both a fierce, free, sexy go-getter AND a wild, receptive, intuitive being. You are balancing the two, and this energy sticks with us even as Mars moves into Taurus on Thursday. This grounds your energy and drives you toward sensual pleasures, but still, Uranus encourages you to let your rebel loose. Perfect since Uranus rules Aquarius, and this is the last week of Aquarius season! As we prepare for the sun’s shift into Pisces next Monday, Sunday throws us A LOT. Venus and Saturn create tension as you learn something new about how to give and receive in order to fulfill your life’s purpose. And Mercury, Neptune, and Jupiter leave you feeling mentally fatigued as you process big TRUTHS courtesy of Chiron in Pisces, which is giving you a final lesson before it leaves Pisces after a 9 year stint. Expect this lesson to be about spirituality and oneness. The full moon arrives next Tuesday. We have a lot to integrate before then! Just be with it. This is when you are free. ♒️✌🏼✨
My fiancé asked to do the Whole 30 diet together, so here I am - Day 7. And while there’ve been times when I’ve chosen to exercise more and eat healthier, I’ve never done any trendy diet because they don’t feel right to me. I resist rigidity and move toward freedom every chance I get, and this doesn’t mesh well with having a strict diet. I want JOY and PLAY, and food is one of the many ways I experience this. I love exploring new foods, fostering an ambience with food (like on cozy, marshmallow-filled hot cocoa days), and indulging in the many sensual pleasures I get to enjoy because I have a body. I. Have. A. Body. And I want to celebrate it, not punish it. And while eating too much sugar/grain/etc. can be used to punish yourself or push away your emotions, I find the extreme of swinging the pendulum the other direction and completely limiting these foods is equally punishing. It feels like a way of pushing away LIGHTNESS and ABUNDANCE, and I think it may be triggering some past life famine memories. But we all experience our bodies differently. While many people have relieved their chronic health issues with dietary changes and found more freedom for themselves by restricting certain foods, I healed mine through prioritizing emotional satisfaction and listening to my intuition, and this week, while restricting my diet, I had a Reynaud’s syndrome episode for the first time in years. And get this - in my astrology, my 6th house of health is ruled by Cancer, which is ruled by the moon, which means my health is ruled by my emotions and intuition. And my 1st house, which rules my body, is ruled by Aquarius. This means I don’t naturally feel at home in my body or here on Earth. I’m more attuned to spiritual planes and crave freedom. So it makes sense that I can shift my health by shifting my emotions and that I long to preserve my freedom and the earthly pleasures that help me feel more at home in this body. If you want to know more about what dictates your health, check out these two houses in your chart. As for me, I’m sticking with the diet for now, but the only why I can find is “commitment.” 🤔
Guess what? When you’re aligned with the universe, you cannot fail. And guess what else? You’re always aligned. You’re always where you’re meant to be, but when you gain awareness of this and trust that the universe always has your back, then magic takes over your life in the form of synchronicities, healing, and things magically coming together. As evidence, I offer my most recent business fail and how it wasn’t a fail at all. In September, I had the a-ha moment that I didn’t want to work with people in person anymore, so I decided to go virtual. Going into 2019, I knew I still had 2 months on my contract for my space in Chelsea, and since I was paying for it, I figured I might as well use it! But for what? I decided to try something new - a group astrology training. The response? A lot of people messaged me from other places in the world, bummed the training wasn’t online. Here I was, trying to go BACKWARDS on my intention to stop in-person work just to make something make sense rationally and the universe was like “Nope!” And no one signed up. The course didn’t happen, which turned out to be a good thing because my mentorship program got booked solid through early March, and between that and wedding planning, the astrology course would have kicked my ass. Then, I learned in January that there’d been a miscommunication and my Chelsea contract was actually ending at the end of January - not February! So I couldn’t have hosted the Jan-Feb training in person anyway! The universe was shaking its head at me like “This isn’t going to work. We’re just going to help you out and have no one sign up, but we’re also going to give you everything you asked for.” And it did. Despite the astro course “fail,” I still made in January the exact figure I’d been holding in my mind as coming from the astro course, and then last night, I ended up hosting a group astro event. Only afterwards did I realize that the universe had just fulfilled my desire to have fun teaching a group of people about astrology! The universe has your back. It rarely fulfills things exactly as you expect, but if you surrender and trust, it will deliver everything you truly desire. 🌟

astrologer-and-columnist-at-horoscope.com

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