The mountains shake my magic fortress and leave me shimmering golden in the snow. I warm from within now. Don’t get me wrong—I still feel the temperature drops and might freeze to death along with the next person, and yet the glow seems most real and permeates everything.

Water Ice Frost Nature Winter Stream Rock Glow

Magic trolls us in this way: We wake up giggling. The cold and the darkness seem a sudden joke. Oh, hark, my skin peels off from this weekend’s scalding over a ginormous pot of artichokes. It blisters and boils and sprouts brand new, red skin.

Last night in bed I stared at twin crimson candles gleaming in our bedroom window. I breathed in and out with a deep sense of peace. I just read that to dare is to momentarily lose our footing. Well then, this move has been a dare in truth. I never expected so many demon dragons to rear their heads. I look them all in the eyes.

I feel boring, like I’ve nothing to add to the conversation. But it’s quiet I hear. Peace also. Maybe I don’t need to be heard or loud to make a difference. Maybe it helps to simply be. I hope so, because that’s what I have the energy for.

Sugar plum fairies dance. I slough off of myself like my dead skin cells. I watch myself both shed and new. I am in both places: I float

Wound Healing in Process-NIH

down into the water in the gutter from my neighbor’s sprinklers. And I look up and see that beautiful aging woman glowing and smile to have been part of her coming to be. I did think I’d get to have more of an active role (than being her skin cells lying in the gutter.) But in the end, we cannot really take credit, not even for ourselves.

Marie Forleo has a video I should watch. In it, she’s going to say we should take credit for our work. But what if the self ceases to be? It’s going to be a little harder to stand and take credit, that Emmy in my hands, as the sun evaporates my pool of splendor and I blow away to lie dormant through the coming winter.

I don’t begrudge anyone their success. In fact, I finally truly cheer them, cheer them all. Any one person’s success and happiness is a joy to this planet, our shared mother, so long as one’s success doesn’t cause suffering for other people, animals, or the Earth.

The sky looms. It’s breathtaking. Beautiful. She is off somewhere, that glowing woman. I can feel her dancing soon. All her joy still flows into me. I try to shake off her stress the way she, too, tries to shake it off as unhelpful, illusory, and even dangerous. Do you know most health challenges are either caused or made worse by that stuff? I beam her some peace. Remember, remember that you glow so warmly in the snow, my dear. And she smiles back at me. And it’s all I ever wanted and I can surrender this firmament of consciousness, at peace. A few skin cells evaporating and flying in the warm air swallowed by the great mother, lost for all time, and found. Me in her is like her in you, dear God. May we all vibrate in our membranes with the memory of warmth.