The more pleasure I feel inside my body, the more magic I experience in the world around me. Pleasure is the muse of magic.
When I first moved to Santa Barbara I would run every day on the beach. And for seven days in a row at the same spot on the beach, where I would stop to rest mid-run, there would be a sand dollar waiting for me.
At the time, I had just gotten divorced, lost my job and my daughter moved across the country to live with her father. These dollars from the ocean were symbols of faith-that I was in the right place and that a new life of happiness and abundance was on its way. I gathered the sand dollars each day and made a little alter for them, along with a vision board and other things that had meaning for me.
Though I’ve found pieces, I haven’t seen another whole sand dollar on any Santa Barbara beach since then. Until now.
At the very same spot on the beach over ten years later, I have been finding sand dollars! Not every day-more like once a week. Only these sand dollars don’t come directly from the ocean. They’ve already been found by somebody, who places them on a rock.
I need to add sand dollars are also symbols of innocence for me. When I was a little girl, I found one on the beach and considered it to be a great treasure! So much so, my mother made it into a necklace for me, which I wore for years until it broke.
A few years ago when I started having memories of being molested by a close male relative when I was a little girl, I smashed the original sand dollars with a hammer as a ritual of smashing my false concepts of innocence and illusion of a happy childhood.
So when I saw the beautiful round white shell with the star of David in the middle, my heart flew open! Though the ocean hadn’t brought it directly to my feet, it was definitely left by someone who I was guessing was leaving it for someone else. And because of my relationship with sand dollars at this specific beach spot, which is less traveled than other easier access spots, I thought, “Maybe I am the someone this sand dollar is for.”
I picked it up and held it to my heart, then to my cheek. It was like holding a love letter from God. I took the sand dollar home and placed it on the night stand beside my bed.
As if God Himself was watching and listening, the very next week, I found another sand dollar on the same rock at the same beach spot.
This time I knew for sure the sand dollar was left for someone. But this time I was more curious about who the someone was who was leaving the sand dollars. I looked up, but couldn’t see beyond the top of the bluffs. I looked around, but no one was sight in either direction. I took off my clothes, went for a swim and did naked qi gong. But still no sign of the sand dollar bearer.
Again, I questioned whether this gift was for me, to which a voice inside answered, “Why not?”
So I carried the second sand dollar home, singing to it all the way down the beach.
“Something is returning,” I say to myself, with tears in my eyes. “Some lost faith, some piece of innocence,” kissing the sand dollar and placing it on the night stand next to its twin and other precious stones.
I love my morning pleasure practice. It helps me to feel happy inside my body.It helps me to reconnect my feminine sexuality and pleasure with my innocence. It helps me to have faith that I can have a second childhood, where I get to feel the joy of being a little girl and wise woman at the same time. It helps me to release old wounds from the past and open again and again to the magic of life.
This morning, in acknowledgement of my healing and readiness to give back, I am bringing a tiny lemurite crystal wand with me on my beach run. I’ll let you know what happens.
-To be continued
Beautiful..