i am an island
Author: Mariana Rodrigues Cabral
Our Dance: A Poem
Let’s talk about it
Let’s not talk about it
broken wings, slamming doors, fighting words
a pretty package in the sun
a glass house under moon
Let’s talk about it
Let’s not talk about it
both crossed my lines
you didn’t mean for them to
Let’s talk about it
Let’s not talk about it
And when it’s all said and done
I’ll still look for you
in every hurt
in every high
Because whether we talk about it or not
This is our dance
you and I
Nurturing Your Inner Child: Insights from Angel Gabriel
Let’s do an oracle card deep dive, shall we? Today, I want to introduce you to the first card in my Spiral Alchemy oracle deck: Angel Gabriel. Inspired by my younger brother Gabriel, this oracle card represents the collective inner child — the purest version of ourselves. It serves as a reminder to nurture your sense of wonder and authenticity.
So, if you’re curious about how this oracle card can offer guidance along your path to self-discovery, let’s get started!
The symbolism of Angel Gabriel
If saints are revered for their closeness to God, then Angel Gabriel epitomizes this divine connection. In Hebrew, “Gabriel” translates to “strength of God,” reminding us that to be closer to the divine is to be closer to the truest essence of your soul. Angel Gabriel is also known to be a messenger of God, teaching us that we can always be vessels for divine guidance and insights as long as we reconnect with our inner wisdom and intuition. That’s one of the ways we can find our strength.
Rediscovering the magic of childhood
Children embody the pure essence of joy, wonder, and authenticity, living in the present moment as conduits of love and light. I believe it’s one of our missions in this lifetime to rediscover the magic we felt about being alive as kids: to play for the sake of playing, to lose track of time, to believe in the impossible, and to rekindle the inner strength it takes to be unapologetically you in every unique way that manifests. It’s by nurturing this innocence that we remember why we’re here.
The impact of environment on your inner child
If you look back on what life was like for you as a child, you might remember being so invested in the present moment that getting out of your head and into your heart or trusting your inner knowing came innately. This wild child in all of us that lives sincerely is often beat out of us by the structure adults put in place or the pressure to achieve more, do more, fit in, be better. The truth is, children have it right all along without even trying — they know it’s enough to just be, to play along with life.
Unfortunately, not all childhoods are filled with wonder and magic. Sometimes, the world is cruel, and it can dim our inner light. Angel Gabriel reminds us that the strength and resilience we’re born with live within us and can be accessed when we need it most. To quote one of my childhood favorites…
Practical steps for self-discovery with Angel Gabriel
So, how can you honor Angel Gabriel and integrate his wisdom into your life for more freedom and fulfillment? You can start by rediscovering the things that once excited you as a child without overthinking it — those things that stem from the heart and soul, not the mind. Your mind will try to resist them at first and find “grown-up” reasons for why taking an art class in your forties is impractical or tell you that it’s too late. This is a lie.
Let me explain. Reflecting on my own childhood, I wanted to be a witch and make my dreams manifest into reality. I thought I’d be a pop star like Britney Spears, coming alive on stage. I wanted to draw and write about my life and create magic everywhere I went. While I’m not a pop sensation as an adult —yet (just kidding) — I can understand the essence of these dreams and how I can honor them now. Whether it’s the exhilaration I feel when taking a dance class, or the ways I’ve embraced my own unique witchy spiritual practice to find answers and seek catharsis, the answers were there from the beginning. I wonder if you’d find that yours were, too.
Using oracle cards to nurture your inner child
And there you have it — Angel Gabriel, the first card in my Spiral Alchemy oracle deck, inviting you to rediscover the magic of your inner child and embrace the wisdom of your soul. This card is one piece of a larger puzzle, a journey of self-exploration and transformation that spans across all 27 cards in my deck. In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more about each card and guidance on how to incorporate them into your spiritual practice to harness their power.
So, if you’re willing to follow along with me, please subscribe and stay tuned for more! Until then, maybe you could try something little you would be proud of this week. Let me know what magic you discover. 💫
Blurry Memories
Blizzard road. Red lights paving the way. Pretending to be asleep when we park outside the house. Papa carries my limp body to bed. He smells like cigarettes, pine, and honey.
He tucks me in and kisses my forehead. Later I hear him and Mama talk in the kitchen. The crack of a bottle. Red, blue, and green lights flicker in the living room while songs of chestnuts and reindeer play loud enough to make out some of the words.
Family parties full of noise and energy. The buzz of anticipation and infinite play. Bacalhau, baked potatoes, the smell of garlic and wine.
Fifty different conversations happening all at once, a low hum you want to live inside forever. Those days are gone. But I remember them like they still live on separately.
I can’t see them anymore, but I know they’re there.
Writing Freely From the Heart
At dusk, when the neighbors’ lights turn on, you can hear football in the living room and smell dinner on the table. They’re laughing about something you’ll never know, but it feels like you’re there. I take comfort in walking past the intimate moments of someone else’s life. It’s like I’m home even when I couldn’t be farther from it. Whether I’m here or not, home never dies. It’s in the sounds and warm hues of the apartments come to life on a Monday night.
Isn’t it beautiful how comfortable we can be with the unfamiliar? Strangers don’t feel strange when you see them in their homes. You can picture yourself there, watching the game. Serving a glass. Warm.
How many times have people walked past our apartment and felt at home there? What would they see? Our bodies dancing wildly under Christmas lights, our laughter, our cries, our conversations which wouldn’t make sense out of context — but what might they sound like to a stranger? Hues of green within a concrete hug in the spring, brick memories of molasses in the summer. I wonder if our essence follows them.
If there is a sixth sense and we can feel it sometimes, I think it’s when we feel connection with what’s unfamiliar. That would explain why we can adapt so quickly. Why two lonely islands can be brothers once they’ve met. Home follows. It doesn’t choose. It runs through time with you.
I think that’s why I love stories about time travel. Shows like Outlander fascinate me because characters find themselves hundreds of years in the past and manage to adapt because the fundamentals of connection don’t change. If we each have incarnated as energy or souls time and time again, it would explain why it’s the most natural things that make me feel the most. Flame, flower, fog. Books, beer, bumble bee. Music, mother, magic. I could find beauty in any time after a while. In the unfamiliar, which eventually becomes home.
Right now I see the flicker of my mystic rose candle, my stone goddess and buddha head. I see the tree that greeted me when we moved here and the cinnamon roof of the neighbor’s house across the street. I wonder how many times they’ve seen us naked. How many times they’ve seen us in general. I’ve only seen them a few times behind the blinds. The sky is a muted blue, somber as a blanket. The grass is never quite green enough, always a light dusting of death to remind us of the fires. But it’s home now.
#bloganuary #bloganuary2023
The Price of Success: An Honest Reflection on Achievement
Is there a word for always falling short of extraordinary? When you’re pretty, but not the most beautiful person in the room. When your art is nice, but not timeless. Is there a word for that?
Jack of all trades, master of none. That’s kind of what I mean, but it’s missing the feeling of longing like the world owes you an epic main character plot. If there’s one thing we probably all have in common it’s that we’ve each felt more special than anyone else, like we were meant for more than an ordinary life. I’ve always felt this way if I’m being 100% transparent, but it was more visceral as a kid.
I guess I’ve always romanticized things: memories, myself, and my relationships mostly. I wonder sometimes if that’s a coping mechanism we rely on to get through this human experience. Because if we believe we’re meant for something extraordinary, we bounce back from setbacks faster. We have something to look forward to. It’s like this feeling of being special is a survival instinct we’ve evolved with. It tells us we’re meant for more, so we have the fuel to keep going.
Being special meant something specific to me when I was younger. It meant that my life was full of adventure, that all eyes were on me, and that I’d show them. It was driven by a need to impress, which is why everything I did had to be on display. Because if it wasn’t, then how could I measure my success? And until the day comes that I’m actually content with never sharing my life on an app or getting lots of likes on a selfie doesn’t immediately fill me with serotonin, I can’t pretend I don’t still want to be special in that specific way that traps us all. I still think the universe owes me a prize.
But the truth is, there isn’t a prize or milestone that sets you apart from everyone else. We think there is because we put celebrities on pedestals and treat them like gods. Surely, they’ve touched what it means to be special — they figured it out. If that’s the case, why do we see famous actors longing for private and simple intimate moments with their loved ones as soon as the allure of fame passes? Why do we see people launch the project of their dreams and feel empty after? It’s because no amount of success is ever enough.
I spent so much of my youth obsessed with this idea that one day I would do something remarkable, but I never took a second to think about what my definition of that was. If I limited it to being rich or famous, it seemed shallow. But if I limited it to leading a simple life, it seemed dishonest. Now I realize you can find a sweet spot that satisfies aspects of both of those seemingly opposite desires.
At 28 (and I’m sure this will keep evolving), my idea of success is finding balance in work, relationships and self-care. It’s working a job that challenges you creatively but also gives you the freedom to focus on other things outside of it. It’s achieving flexibility in your work life and finding time for the things you care about. It’s putting your foot down when your time is being taken advantage of. With this extra time, it’s filling your heart with authentic interactions and creativity. Would it be cool if thousands of people loved and shared your work? Sure. But that will never come close to the feeling of making something because your soul is bursting to or getting lost in a conversation with a dear friend. Why do you think so many actors love working but hate press tours? It’s not the “success” that keeps them in love with what they do.
Success is spending time with the people you love, paying attention to life’s simple moments that are calling you to be awake and present. It’s being in tune with everything all at once. It’s sharing and receiving love in all of the ways that it manifests. If this leads you down a path of our society’s traditional definition of success, fantastic. But if instead, you find yourself dancing with the spontaneous rhythm of the universe in that sweet spot where we all connect, you’ve already found your prize.
A Look Inside My Grimoire
A Piece of Me
From my insides you will find a tenderness so sweet
it rots the marrow of my bones.
Saudades for all that was and all that could be,
Tendons full of music, bursting, waiting to dance.
I can feel your heart.
I can see your spirit.
When the wind cries, when the moon shines, when the world is still
I know all is well.
make it better
ungrounded, unmotivated, unmoving.
walking in squares and hitting dead ends just to repeat it again.
i don’t know what’s happened to me
or to my dearest.
all tangled in electric knots, in mounds of pity
and I wish to whoever’s god that I could start over
try on a new avatar
leave it behind
without adding more sorrow or sinking the ship further.
so naturally, i’ll have to stay
one more day
and probably the rest too if that’ll make it better for them.
Bloganuary: Look at the stars…
“…look how they shine for you. And everything you do…”
I’ve always been enamored with the sky. I’ve looked up to the stars and to the moon for answers in moments of crisis and felt held by the infiniteness of our universe more times than I can count. I think of the stars as a reminder of how connected we are to something far greater than us — even if we don’t understand it — there’s visual evidence of that above us. It can be scary to picture the vastness of it all, but oddly comforting too. The mystery keeps the magic alive.
When I look at the stars, I see limitless potential. I see millions of galaxies and planets, the possibility that other intelligent life forms are looking up from their worlds and thinking about us too. I see the perplexing beauty that has inspired the greatest artists for thousands of years, all of the poets who’ve tried to find words to capture our universe. I see how the stars guide my hand when I’m painting and reveal pieces of my subconscious when I need it most, like there’s always something bigger at play showing me the way.
I don’t subscribe to one religion or god, but I believe in the power of the universe and the love that bonds living things together. I feel that love from the stars, from the trees, the ocean, the birds, everything. I know there is something we’re not supposed to know until it’s our time, but I can feel our part in it when I look up at the sky and manifest. I feel it when I see synchronicities or the inexplicable happens, like when I dream something and it appears in front of me in my waking life. When there’s no logical explanation for something, I think of our universe. We don’t have all of the answers, and that’s okay.
. . .
P.S. I’d just like to say how much this #bloganuary challenge has meant to me. I’m genuinely sad that it’s over. I haven’t committed to writing daily in a very long time, and I’ve learned so much from these prompts and everyone’s answers. Thank you to everyone who’s been stopping by, leaving a like and a comment. It’s been such a boost of confidence I didn’t know I needed and I’m so grateful. Wishing you all the best and all of the writing inspo you desire moving forward.
Bloganuary: Willow Tree
Describe yourself as a tree
I’m all hair and moodiness like a willow tree. With deep roots known for their toughness and tenacity to live, I’m still standing.
I remember the first time I ever saw a weeping willow. I must’ve been five years old. I thought those long tangled branches could open like a curtain into a magic portal where the fairies and elves lived. There was a charge of energy that vibrated around them. People thought they were sad, but I just thought they were misunderstood. Secretive. Thinking.
Have you ever stood beside a willow tree’s trunk and sat where you could see it’s branches circle around you? It feels like a shield. A place where time stands still. With symbolic references to new life, hope and stability, they offer comfort to so many just by being themselves.
#bloganuary #bloganuary2022 #dailyprompt
Art Alchemy 