Wishes on the wind

I’ve been looking to simplify my surroundings. Outer calm brings inner calm. Everyone needs as much calm as they can get, right? So I’ve been looking hard at the stuff that fills my space. I found a box with various ephemera of creative bursts gone by. I have inclinations, randomly, to do more creative descriptive writing. I used to really enjoy sitting somewhere and watching. I’d catch snippets of conversation on the wind, or someone going about their daily dailies, and that gives me the grain of sand I needed to make my literary pearl.

In those bits of paper and abused noteboooks, I found this, observed at the beach a several summers ago:

As darkness falls, two wishes float by: one in the form of a dandelion or thistle fluff, and the other in the form of a downy feather. I hope they find those who need a wish fulfilled.

It’s easy to feel jaded at this part of the year. I’ve de-Christmas-ified my house. It’s overcast more often than not. Even at 8am, the night’s gloom hasn’t fully dissipated from my bedroom. Some days it just never does before the day’s light is gone again. I’ve been making a point of going outside every day, even if it’s breathtakingly cold out. And especially if there’s a even a sliver of blue sky to see. I get what seasonal affective disorder can do to you, and I hedge my bets during daylight hours. Everything feels muted and cold-bleached and grey.

But back to the wishes in search of wishers.

I’m an RC kid, and that means that (some) people think I’m an idiot because how can a rational person believe in some human-created folklore and think it’s truth. I return to this:

“If you want to understand the Creator, seek to understand created things.” – St Columbanus

If you don’t look for God, you won’t find God. Just like if you don’t look for magic, you won’t find magic*. *Your definition of magic may vary to mean whimsy, luck, or truly, the magic of nature. I’m not judgy on the semantics.

To be sure, I don’t believe that if that little downy feather went blowing along until it alighted, Forrest Gump-style against the side of someone’s shoe, and became someone’s touchstone. But maybe it did. Maybe the thistle and dandelion fluff already had a wish attached to it. The spiritual symbolism of dandelions is that if a dandelion fluff comes towards you, it’s a message from a guiding spirit or an angel. If you blow on a dandelion puffball and some seeds remain attached to the stem, your beloved is not loyal – same with the LovesMe-LovesMeNot daisy destroying game of yore. On the other hand, if you blow on a puffball and some seeds remain, it tells you the number of children you have, or maybe the number of years you have left in your life (Yikes!) Some people believe that a cardinal in your garden or finding a penny also means something. Or that if you tell your secrets to the bees, they will protect your prosperity. Or that a stone with an unbroken ring of quartz can grant a wish.

If you need a message and you see a fluff or bird or coin, and that makes you feel comforted, then the message is received. And really, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

My grandmother told me that finding blue beach glass was good luck. I’m 97% sure she said that because she wanted to keep me occupied so I wasn’t underfoot. Kind of like setting a child loose in a field to find a 4 leaf clover. Many would be familiar with this latter search; perhaps no one except me is familiar with the former. In any case, I have two tiny bottles of blue beach glass that I keep separate from my other glass – one’s on my desk in my office, sequestered these long 10 months, and one is here, on a shelf in my living room. Because you never know…

So, when you look at a field of dandelions in various states between golden yellow flowers and perfect round puff balls, do you see weeds, or wishes? Your answer to that will tell you everything you need to know about your definition of magic. But personally, I hope they always find those who need a wish fulfilled.