I was happy I pulled this fairy from my Bluebird Fairy Deck on July 8th because I’ve been wanting to make an announcement about it.
Yes, ‘The Fairy of Wearing Another’s Shoes’ and I have been at such big odds with each other I wanted to change her name!
Luckily, the day after it was selected to be the star of this blog post I had an incredible, terrible day at work. You know the kind. Great growth happens during them but, oh, doesn’t it hurt all the while its happening?
It happens that my supervisor, the director of the Way2Work Program which houses the Bridging Program I coordinate here at Champlain Community Services has a Bluebird Fairy Deck that lives on her desk. Every day she picks a “fairy of the day”.
Towards the end of my “incredible, terrible day” she picked ‘The Fairy of Wearing Another’s Shoes”. I said “Oh, Michelle, I want to change her. I think people who come to the Fairy Booth are already super compassionate and they need to stop thinking about other people and start wearing their own shoes.” Michelle looked me squarely in the eyes and said “You created this deck for a reason, don’t change it!”
And, then it hit me. Just that morning she had sat and listened to a problem that’s been brewing in my life for a while. It felt so incredibly good to feel her stretching her mind to understand what I was feeling and how my life experience had brought me to the predicament I was currently in.
I’ve been mulling all of this over for a few weeks. A few days ago I was happy to find in Mark Nepo’s fabulous “The Book of Awakening”-
“It seems the ancient Medicine Men understood that listening to another’s story somehow gives us the strength of example to carry on, as well as showing us aspects of ourselves we can’t easily see. For listening to the stories of others- not to their precautions or personal commandments- is a drop of water that breaks the fever of our isolation. If we listen closely enough, we are soothed into remembering our common name.”
I think of this “sharing of shoes” as a dance we, hopefully, do all day. Checking in with ourselves and then moving out and checking in with the others we come in contact with daily, infrequently or just for this one time in our life. Back and forth. Weaving our days and lives with this in and out, back and forth as we grow in the forest of life together.
On we go!
Have fun!
Fondly,
Emily and the Bluebird Fairies
On Tuesday July 19th I had the exciting pleasure of offering two short presentations for Enrichment Night at the Women’s Correctional Facility in S. Burlington. This is something Vermont Works for Women coordinates monthly
The night was a success! I got to fully share the story of how the creation my demons and fairies developed Bluebird Fairies while allowing me to shift the energy of my life into a positive place. The women then got a chance to do that too.
I’ll be offering a version of this presentation during the Saturday and Sundays of Art Hop 2016. Stay Tuned!!!
