Before I left Cabin Number 9, I stood before the sign that was posted near the door. It read: Remember, the Christmas Spirit lives within you. Make sure to Shine it brightly.
I had made that sign a long time ago. As one of the resident artists at Santa’s Magical Realm at the North Pole, it was my appointed task to hand-letter signs and other written materials. Making signs was always one of my favorite things to do. Trying to interpret other signs was another.
Taking a breath, I looked in the mirror next to the sign. It also had a sign above it, painted by yours truly. It read:
Be Whoever You Want To Be
Mirrors show only one reality. They reflect the physical image of our body. We may like what we see or not. We may fall in love with our outside image and create a world of egocentricity, believing that we are more important than others because of our vanity.
If we don’t like what appears in the mirror, we may feel ugly, insignificant and may not want to interact with the rest of the world. This can cause a lot of loneliness and despair.
The magic mirror in Cabin Number 9 doesn’t reflect the starkness of reality. It shows the light shining from within through brilliant colored sparkles. When you look at it, you see the dazzling love of your own heart. When I looked in the mirror today, my sparkles were dimmer than usual, looking a little rusty-brown.
I set out to change that.
Outside I tracked through the snow to the nearby forest of pine trees. I walked between them, creating a winding pathway.
With each step, I grew melancholy, remembering times when I danced among the trees. Today, I did not dance as my body hurt, making movement slow. When I got to the midst of the forest, I looked for a convenient rock that I could sit on.
Here in this Winter Wonderland, as in all realms of Wonderland, things may not be as they are perceived with the five senses.
I asked a large grey rock if I could dust off the snow and sit upon it. When I received no reply. I took it as an “OK, no problem,” and sat down.
Closing my eyes, I breathed in the heavy pine scent of the trees. Deep green energy surrounded me and helped me to open up the power from within.
I began to hear the snow wizards talk. You may call them trees but we call them wizards because of the energy and wisdom that they possess. The winter pines are known as snow wizards because here they are always covered with snow.
Alice! Aliiiice! Allllllice! Aaaaalice! Ali-Ali-Alice! Any which way you can say my name, they said it.
“What took you so long?” the nearest pine asked. “Weren’t you supposed to be back here a few years ago? Maybe 4 years ago? Or is it 24?”
“Actually, probably longer than that,” I answered. “It has been a difficult journey back into remembering.”
“Alice,” another said. “You need to watch what you say. Difficult implies that you put too much Dark Side thinking into a particular situation. When you do this and remember the feeling you had of anger, regret, or guilt to describe something in the past, you bring it into the present moment. A suggestion would be saying something like… interesting.”
“Or amusing,” someone else said.
“You a-moooze me,” someone said to its neighbor. Then another said it to a neighbor, and so on, until everyone was amusing themselves. Within a few minutes, the entire pine forest was amused.
After a while, their musings faded.
“What’s wrong, Alice?” said the tallest and eldest tree known as Earl.
“Dark Side thinking,” I said. “I can’t seem to rid myself of it.”
“This is a start, Alice. Being with your old friends. We can talk about happier things.”
“I can’t dance like I used to,” I said. “My body can’t do things that were once easy. I know that many peeps can’t dance. I feel blessed that I once could.”
“Not true,” said Earl. “All peeps can dance. Look at us. Our roots are planted in the ground, yet we dance as the wind flows through our branches. You need to remember that dancing is an expression of feeling. You can dance with your own mind.”
Then the wind picked up and whistled. The cold made me shiver but I focused on it as energy flowing through me, moving in spirals and curves in my body. I was dancing inside myself.
The trees rejoiced in the wind, the snow blowing off their branches.
“Ahhh!” “Ooooo!” “Wow!” “I feel so light!” “Me too!” One after another, each pine voiced their content.
I felt happiness for the trees. I smiled like I hadn’t in a long time. A warmth grew within me, radiating from my center. I felt a golden light sparkling in my heart.
The snow magically melted on the ground.
I sat there on the rock and looked in amazement. Aside from the Elves’ clothing, I had never seen so much green at the North Pole.
“Alice! You did it!” Earl said. “You did the impossible! You restored us to ourselves!”
“Did I?”
“Yes, Alice, you transformed the feeling within from sadness to joy!”
“Imagine that!” I said. “And you know what?”
“What?” the newly named pine wizards replied in unison.
“It’s the first day of Spring!”
Always,
Alice Always the Elf