My skin is cold as I type this. The night is dark, and my thoughts circle around this time of year, seeking out a memory that is neither old nor firm in my grasp. The threads of what took place have already begun unraveling faster than some of the memories of my childhood. Only a year has passed since one of the most magical events of my life, where everything changed, yet I cannot hold on. I must move on.

My belly stretched my shirts, pregnant as I was. Tired. Exhausted. She is fire! I kept saying this about my unborn daughter, even though I was not yet aware that she would indeed be born as a fire sign. Fire kicking within, fire draining me, fire ungrounded. The day finally arrived, the one that turned into the night when she would see the light of a flickering candle and the clock that marked the moment of her birth.

The moment she was born, we smelled something burning. The flame grew higher before it was doused. A pillow had caught fire, an omen for this new life. With this flame, my own transformation was called into being, one where, deep in my bones, I came to know that all of us are capable of far more than we think we are, and that magic is as real as my breath, as real as the ignition of my car.

The events that preceded the birth still seem surreal. Ancestors appeared to me. Dreams were lucid. Smoke filled the house. Flame arose. Pain flowed through my body before the birth, as my body processed what my mind could not yet understand. All my work and all my studies of the last decades of my life came together in one great magical act: a pain-free birth that I never believed in until it happened.

It was never my plan to give birth at home. I was following the call of magic, the hints of spirit, the gift of my whimsy, down a path of reverence and faith.

And now, in the longest nights of winter, I remember as I celebrate what happened a little over a year ago.

I know you can do more than you think you can. We all can.

I know, without a doubt, that magic is real.

Much love,
Pipaluk