Butterflies for transformation

It’s been a big week for me.  Casting came out largely satisfactorily…I am in Winter’s Tale!  I’m not Perdita, I’m Third Shepherdess from the Left (well, actually Lady 2/Shepherdess 2, close enough), but still — I’m in a Mainstage Show!  Hurrah!  So that was good.  I was called back for three roles in Our Town, but Danny did not cast me — he said my auditions were all beautiful and he has no doubt that I could do any of the roles in the show and that I will do them all over the years, but he couldn’t cast me, even though he couldn’t tell me why.  So oh well.  I did get to spend a lot of time with him, which was, I found, what I really wanted.

I also got to spend time with Alex H—–, a friend from first semester last year who I never really had much time with.  We’re hoping to hang out lots.  One of those things where it was obvious from day one that we ought to be best friends.  So that will be good.

I don’t know if I mentioned that I have a play in the New Playwrites’ Festival again this year.  So that’s cool.  It’s more than cool, actually, it’s really exciting.  I don’t have a director, yet, though, so of course I don’t have a cast yet either.  Ah well.  There’s still, um, a little time….

At SPIRAL last week, on a meditation journey, I was visited by a massive swarm of butterflies.  Apparently butterflies represent the final stage of metamorphosis.  Butterflies for transformation.  A massive, dark swarm of them to tell me that I can go no further unless I take that step and jump in the rest of the way.  I had a big talk with Barry about this (Barry is the other leader of our group, other than Mary), and he says that I don’t need to wait for more knowledge, I don’t need to wait for more experience, everyone and everything is waiting for me to decide whether I’m going to stay where it’s comfortable or go where it’s exciting.  And I said, I am going to go, I will be here, I will be this, I am this, I always have been this.  And he said, good, good, then be this.  Don’t give up everything you grew up with, he said, but you have to cross the threshold before you can walk into the room.

So, with permission, with invitation, from Barry, from Mary, from the spirit world, I now claim this.  I am Pagan.

Saturday, SPIRAL ran a fundraiser for the family who owns the local New Age bookshop — their house burned down recently and they lost everything.  I spent most of Saturday meeting the Pagan community of the area, hanging out with the other SPIRAL members, learning as much as I could.  It was great.  I got a tarot reading from Mary, too, and it was very impressive — this woman can look at the cards and tell me about my family, my history, what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, what they’re thinking and feeling.  We talked about the same things I had talked about with Barry, the new acceptance of change, and about what my family will think and say.  She asked me at one point whether I had a boyfriend, and I said no; she asked if I had done recently, and I said no.  Then I remembered that just the previous day I had heard from Tyler for the first time in months, and I said that, and she laughed and promised that she doesn’t go and seek out this information before she starts.  And then she looked back at the cards, laughed again, and said that she keeps wanting to talk about Adam J.  Said, you’re good friends, aren’t you?  And I said, no, we’re quite close but we’re not good friends.  And she said, ahhhh, that makes so much sense with what I’m seeing here.  I didn’t think of it until later, but in the time period that she said the cards were referencing, I had wanted a relationship with Adam…that might have been part of what she was picking up on.

Speaking of which, I am more or less over him.  Thankfully.  It’s unexpected, but it’s better this way.  Hearing from KK that he did have something of a thing for her was helpful, but when I found out recently that she’s not, in fact, the girl he’s been talking about — and I found out who the girl is, someone I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned here, so there’s no need to give a name — all my interest in him fell away.  I guess it was a gradual process, from KK to the way his ex talks about him now to this other girl…somewhere along the way that faded for me.  And I’m not really thinking about him that way anymore.  I still wouldn’t turn him down, but the same way that I wouldn’t turn down any number of guys I know for a date.  Not with wishing and wanting.  It’s quite nice.

I had dinner with Rachel tonight (Remember her? New friend from Hillel?  With the wonderful boyfriend who plays Celtic music and is all-around awesome?), and she told me that she thinks she and Max will break up soon.  Because she knows that, as much as she enjoys him, he’s not the one, and she doesn’t really see any point in staying with him knowing it isn’t going anywhere.  But we ran out of time to talk about it, because who should turn up unexpectedly, but Max!  And he came and sat with us and talked with us and it was very nice.  And if they do break up and he gets over her…I can see that working out well.  I can see that actually happening.  That would be a good thing.  Even though he is very young.  He’s a junior, but he’s younger than my brother.  Wow.

Speaking of age, I turn 22 on Thursday.  How wack is that.

–Stephanie