Wow.

Hello wonderful community,

How are you?

As we come into this last stretch of the year, I’d love to share a personal story with you from last May.

It was a regular weekday morning. I was sitting on the couch reading – still in my sweats, sipping my lukewarm coffee – when my two year old daughter, Mia, climbed into my lap.

She was almost two at the time and had started doing this thing where she would put her tiny hands on my cheeks, lean in really really close, and just look at my face. Sometimes she would look straight into my eyes, sometimes she would gently touch my forehead or my eyebrows. She’d just take me in. 

And then, she’d whisper, “Wow.”

These were moments of pure reverence.

Like she was seeing something profoundly beautiful.

And worthy.

And magical.

It was a spontaneous offering of love and adoration that I can still feel in my bones.

This memory keeps coming back to me again and again as we explore this month’s practice theme of MAGIC. 

Why is it so hard to see our own goodness? Our own sparkle? Like most of you, I lived from that sparkle as a very small child, and then somewhere along the way, I lost touch with it. Mia’s moments of reverence reminded me, in a piercingly beautiful and direct way, that it’s still in there, in all its fullness.

There’s something in this experience for me that’s also about grace…and how even though I’ve stumbled a thousand times as a mom, she still sees my most magical, brilliant self. 

So, I guess as I sit here, on this eve of December 22, this is the message that is coming through in my heart for you. However, it can touch you or enter your being, even in the smallest way….I hope you can hear it:You are magical. 

If I could hold your cheeks and look into your eyes right now (with your consent 😉) I would do it and I would tell you. Because it's true. Out of the roughly eight billion people on this planet, not a single other person has your fingerprints. Your color or pattern or shape of eyes. Your smile. Your voice. Your pain. Your joy. Your story. Not one.

And that is something to behold with utmost wonder.

So I'm asking you (and myself) to please, starting right now, choose to feel and open to the magic and beauty inside of your own being.

And once you have, go out and see it in all of the other beings you love.

❤️✨

xoxo

Rena

Rena Satre Meloy

Pause Cofounder