Reflection

I am a morning person who lives on the northwest corner of my condo building. My views of the sunset are spectacular, if often blistering in the summer months, and the north wind plays its symphony at my windows when ushering in winter fronts.

Sunrise happens behind the buildings perpendicular to mine, golden swaths paint the rooftops to the west a bit later in the morning. If I’m lucky and timely, I can watch the mid-morning sun climb the sky in the reflection of the skyscraper at the end of my street from the window in my tarot nook. It’s a bit like Alice through the looking glass and very much how I move through life as an urban mystic.

I’m a daoist monk. I’m a witch. I follow the cycles of nature and do my level best to align myself accordingly in a world one step removed from ‘actual’ nature. I feed the wild birds from my balcony. I watch the squirrels get on with their important squirrel business in the trees that surround the outer corners of my house.

I don't get out much right now, arthritis in my hip is causing me some pain and mobility trouble, but I’m still keenly aware of the lingering sunset and waxing and waning of the moon through my bedroom window (west-facing so the waning moon is my pre-dawn companion). City lights block out most of the stars but Venus and Mercury and Mars still turn up, along with Orion’s Belt. My large and beautiful cat, shedding fur in black fluffs that dance across the floor, is letting me know that the last of the ‘cold’ fronts have passed. Our abbreviated springtime is here and the summer is not far behind.

A red tailed hawk settles in the oak tree outside of my workstation for his mid-afternoon meal (squirrel? dove? I don’t really want to know), reminding me how close I am through both space and time to the wild of the bayou that’s run through the city since before anyone can remember. It pre-dates the city itself. The ancestors of that hawk have been hunting here for generations with each one adapting as necessary.

And so, I’m adapting. From the rhythm of a life that required a daily commute to a small square of office space 46 stories in the sky. One in which time off was sacred and never long enough. One where the existential dread of Sunday evening took a real and physical toll on my body and my psyche.  I now have more time, more flexibility, and more responsibility for the way I use these precious resources. The covid pandemic was/is a terrifying and horrible event but I was one of the lucky ones. My office just ‘went home’ and continued to work.

Another unrelated, but synchronicitous event at the same time as the start of the pandemic led to a change in lifestyle that is healthier for my body and my bank account and two years later I’ve saved enough money to stop working full time. I probably can’t become a ‘lady of leisure’ just yet but I no longer have to remain connected to the whims of my job 24/7. I’m still figuring out how to do this; it’s definitely taking some time. My inner urban mystic is in yet another period of realignment.

Life is neither good, nor bad. It just is. Our perception frames how we see the world. I’m eternally grateful for my life, right now. I hope the same is true for all of you.

Thank you for allowing me some space in your inbox. Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I must go see what new bird is making that unusual call at my feeder!