17. The Magic River

Living in harmony with my Spirit.

Blog Overview: Magic / Alignment / Homecoming

(Digital Art Credits- Nat Girsberger)

Rather listen to Riddle read the post to you? Click PLAY on SoundCloud!

“You’ve got the magic touch,” she told me.

An hour prior, another friend introduced me to new faces: “This is Riddle. She’s pure magic.”

I gushed inwardly, feeling the truth of my assigned attribute.

To me, magic is alignment - being in the right place at the right time with gratitude and receptivity. And more than anything, it’s not at all based in the ego. Magic is the soul’s fullest expression in real-time. It’s moving WITH the flow, leaping into the unknown with a kind of laughable trust. It’s doing things differently just because you get a gut feeling. It’s listening and moving with guidance even though there’s nothing necessarily logical about it. Magic is so much more than bells and whistles. It’s oriented around a timeline that is of the Highest order.

Magic is being high on MDMA on my 27th birthday at Envision Festival in Costa Rica (an impulsive gift to myself) and a grasshopper telling me to travel to Kaua’i. So, I did…and on that 6-day trip, Kaua’i called me home. She guided me to move back by the June Full Moon. By happenstance and due to alignment, I got a 1.5-month housesitting opportunity (with a free car) on that exact date.

Magic is having 6 suitcases, a 100lb keyboard, a honu shell/breastplate, a trombone, long freediving fins, etc. etc. to move interisland and only having to pay $200 total as opposed to $480 due to so many inexplicable synchronicities.

Magic is making a new friend on Big Island just weeks before my departure…and truly showing up for one another in service. Her name is Annie and she’s a gem. I frequently met Annie at Kehena Beach to support her in overcoming belief systems and fears, which prevented her from getting into the Ocean. After about one moon cycle of working together, she not only found play in the foamy shore waters, but she even swam beyond the break into deeper Ocean…a huge feat for her! I had been wanting to share my gifts as “Ocean Mentor” with one more person in the community before I left and she was guided to me. And I to her. In exchange, Annie shared her shamanic dreaming wisdom with me, a process called “Lightening Dream-Work” wherein I document, analyze, and honor the messages given during sleep. From her support, I’ve literally shifted timelines by making decisions based on dream-messages and gut-feelings, each one setting me more directly on my Highest path. The mutual support was so aligned. I needed her and she needed me.

Magic is posting my “Ocean Mentorship” flyer on the Kilauea bulletin board and finding a free admission ticket to an upcoming concert pinned next to the promotion flyer!

Magic is randomly checking my Instagram, which I literally never use, and finding a message from a woman who once participated in a Titty Art event requesting I host a private bachelorette workshop on Kaua'i for 20 sisters just 1.5 weeks after I arrived...talk about perfect timing. This I’ve requested from the universe for years! On top of that, it was the first event I’ve hosted with financial reciprocity that kept my cup overfull.

Magic is having a plan and letting go of it when Spirit moves me elsewhere. Like last Saturday, during my first outing on Kaua’i. I planned to run errands and just bump into friends, my way of making a soft return into community after a week of hermiting and resting. I didn’t do a single one of those errands that day. Instead, I gravitated to an annual Wahine (women’s) Fair and walked around aimlessly buying myself soaps and sourdough, so in my Omega with no agenda, just loving being. I met three beautiful kanaka maoli (Hawaiians) who were running a raffle to support Kalauokekahuli – their non-profit doula service to kanaka wahine across all islands. I placed many bids on raffle items to support them even though my bank account was like WTF you doing?!? There was one item I had to have: stationary things like post-its and notebooks adorned with flower leis and ‘olelo (Hawaiian language). I had been wanting a specific journal to expand on my ‘olelo lexicon. Well, the coordinator just gave it to me. She handed me a gift bag with all the stationary things inside for free just because I was there in bliss state genuinely wanting to support them. I found a friend in her and she found one in me. Resonance is quite simple. No frivolity. No agendas. It’s a full-body YES. Anyway, the day continued with unplanned perfection. I ended up at the Wailua river surfing the wake behind a boat. Totally unplanned! And to top it all off, my night cap was a dance/sauna gathering at a sanctuary where I received such a warm homecoming from friends I had no expectations of seeing that day.

Magic is working at Kalalea Juice Hale, my favorite food joint on Kaua’i owned by the warmest, most welcoming Hawaiian family….an establishment of utmost integrity and the winner of the Rotary Club’s 2022-2023 Employer of the Year award. Never did I think I’d work at a juice/smoothie/acai shack, but guidance drew me there. They clearly needed extra hands during the summer swell of tourists and I needed all financial exchanges to be in integrity with my values. The food is as local as possible and prepared with love. They care about the community and are fierce advocates of Hawaiian culture, but in a way of unity. Values – CHECK!

Why is it magical that I’m working there, you may wonder? Well, because Kaua’i is divisive. The tension between kanaka and transient, rich, white people is thick…gentrification at its finest. I prayed to be led where I could be of service in community simply by being my naturally kind and down-to-earth self. Kalalea Juice Hale is that for me. In just one week working with this ‘ohana, I feel a kind of responsibility toward their well-being that I’ve only ever felt for my own blood relatives. I have white skin, but that doesn’t matter. We meet in the spirit of aloha and it's as simple as that. My perception and experience are inundated with unity. To me, this is magic because it feels so natural, so right. I sense my part in bringing this divisiveness into unity.

I feel challenged stating that publicly. My mind reels: Will people think I’m being pretentious? Overly eager? Arrogant?

The scariest voice says: Do the kanaka accept me? Why would they? I’ve only lived on the islands for four years? What do I know about this land and culture? Aren’t you playing out some white savior complex?!?

But then I remember who I truly am and where I intentionally direct my energy. I’m just sensitive to the cultural division on Hawai’i and have a role in bringing awareness and opportunity to unifying. I have a foot in both doors: one door leads to a posh, white, and “spiritual community”; the other is a true community, native, and rooted in this land, like how I grew up in rural Goochland, Virginia. I say all of this because I know in the depths of my heart that I’m meant to be here.

Kaua’i whispers to me: “Yes, yes you are.”

When I moved to Big Island, this same whispering voice told me I was going into a “leadership training.” I had no clue what this meant, but two years later after closing that chapter and returning home to Kaua’i, it clicked. Everything I was learning on Big Island was to prepare me to step into a more service-oriented leadership role to bring the community together via the arts and the Ocean.

My “training” involved countless workshops on intimacy energetics, embodiment work via dance, tantra, co-regulation, breath work, prayerformance, contact improv, authentic relating, heart-centered agreements, space-holding, etc. This prepared me to host an ecstatic dance on Big Island for six months. I held the opening/closings circles, ran the door, set the space, the full-shebang. Sounds fun, yea? It certainly was, but it’s worth noting that the only reason I was facilitating this dance was because the two original hosts broke up, which led to the most repulsive and manipulative drama amongst the community wherein regular dancers boycotted the venue because the owners didn’t side with the slanderer whose vengeful crusade tried time and time again to hook anyone into the war. Not once did I bite that hook nor did I growl or scratch back no matter how much shade was thrown my way. For the love of dance, I remained neutral and brought in a much more ceremonial touch to the container. In other words, I kept the spirit of dance alive when very dark energies were constantly trying to put an end to this movement ritual out of some egoic battle of "who owns the dance". Reflections poured in around my immense grace and knack for hosting the container during such tumultuous times. I was a natural. More importantly, the role came to me organically and just in time for me to offer everything I learned to the Kaua’i dance community, where it’s quite frankly lacking. (No offense…it just isn’t at the level of Big Island’s dances!)

On top of all that, I was training in the Ocean. Kehena beach became my best friend and greatest teacher on Big Island. She reminded me that I’m but a drop in the Ocean, but an integral one. I learned to commune with her like I would an every-changing human being with a unique soul. In my last weeks with Kehena, she spoke to me directly telling me that she’d “miss me” and that I’m “doing a great job as an Ocean Mentor.” I used to deny my ability to commune with the Great Mother in this way, but no longer do I indulge in such stupidity. Listening to the whispers have always led me to my magic.

These days the whispers tell me to host an ecstatic dance. They say that there are several people who will greatly benefit from my mentorship in the Ocean, especially now that I have intentionally deepened my connection with Honu medicine. And they tell of a wandering to a valley later this summer… a very special valley. My muse, in fact.

The first day I touched down on Kaua’i, I kept noticing how my “inner-waters” felt so much more at ease. “I can feel the river energy moving through me,” I told my friend.

Then just the other day a sister asked me how it feels being back and I said that “I don’t know how else to describe it other than to say, I feel like a river.”

She grinned at me and said: “You know. I have a tattoo of this Maya Angelou quote that goes: A Woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing."

So, yes, I am magic, a pillar of bliss, and a river ever flowing.

Huge shifts ahead...

Love,

Riddlez

To continue following my journey, subscribe to my email list! Each New and Full Moon, I'll send you a newsletter with a link to the newly released blog as well as an intimate look at my recent projects and life experience.

IMAGE CREDITS TO NAT GIRSBERGER