Out with lanterns
eerie lighthouse lantern, it wouldn’t let me take video, this was the best I could get
On the night of July 3, the fireworks around us were noisy and bothering the kid – okay, throwing the kid into chaos, this tiny nervous system that does not tolerate unexpected, uncontrollable noise, and my dysregulated nervous system holding space for that chaos only poorly. We ended up outside, to see if we could at least see the source of the booms – we could not. Instead we saw something as magical as I’ve ever seen, the trees surrounding us filled, absolutely filled, with fireflies, blinking in staccato harmony, talking to each other with light over the din. It was enchanting, and we stood out there a long while to watch and marvel.
And then of course I went to get the camera to show Instagram. And the camera and the fireflies laughed and said nope, you will not be able to capture this, this is just for us, here, now. I gave up and took the kid back inside and started (finally) the bedtime routine.
After the kid was asleep, I went out again with the camera, because I am stubborn. Again, it was too dark, my tech couldn’t do it. I got the other, more powerful camera. The fireflies disappeared, nope – and as they did, the small solar lantern by the edge of the patio started somehow turning its light like a lighthouse, around and around, slowly.
These lanterns are not mechanical. They have no way of turning. All my hair stood on end. It was night and dark and I was alone outside and the lantern was doing something it should not have been able to do.
It took all of my courage not to shriek and run back inside. Somehow, I stood my ground and managed to say “okay, I’m going to stay with this, show me, I want to know.” The light swung around again and my brain gave me a line from Emily Dickenson – “I am out with lanterns looking for myself.”
I laughed, and the light slowed to a stop. I stood there and boggled, and then thanked…something, and went back inside and freaked out at my husband about OMFG you will not BELIEVE what just happened.
Was it a bug inside the light? Was it the fairies I talk to the kid about? Was it ancestors talking to me through the lights, like they do sometimes? I have no idea. It doesn’t matter. It hasn’t happened again.
I am out with lanterns looking for myself.
Today, over a month later, when I dropped in to talk to spirit guides, this came up again. Don’t get caught up in the narrative they said (they always say). You know your path; the stories are guide posts, they are not the path themselves. The path is you, walking. Lighthouses keep coming up to remind you of this.
This is relevant for all of us. We have these stories that we tell about ourselves, our lives. Those stories are guide posts on a path, but it may just be the familiar path that we’ve been walking unconsciously. It may not be the path we meant to walk in this life. Does this make sense?
The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves shape who we think we are, and who we think we can be.
My toolkit, evolutionary astrology, can give us some awesome, clear stories – lanterns that light the path we did mean to walk in this life. Once we can see that path, we can choose whether we want to stay with the stories we’re used to telling ourselves about ourselves, or we can choose to open ourselves to new stories. I’ve found, for myself, that the new stories help me make sense of myself in a way that’s clearer than I’ve had in decades, before I let other humans tell me what path to get on. But the stories are guide posts, they are not the path themselves. The path is me, walking. I have to walk to make the path.
