Giving

I hear a little voice I recognize and then another, of her younger brother calling me from down the street. Alicia! Alicia!

It is so sweet when these little kids call my name.

“Hi” I say joyfully. “Hi” says the radiant little girl who is just about to turn seven.

One year she spontaneously invited me to her birthday party - her fifth - and it so happened that I had on hand a statue of a young maiden and a unicorn that I’d been led to by years earlier and had been inspired to take out of its books weeks before the birthday. The maiden reminds of how this child will look when she grows up, but I had no idea it was for her or who it was for at all except that it wasn’t for me until she invited me to her birthday that fresh day almost two years ago.

The girl admires my jewelry, noticing I have a new bracelet. It’s a fair trade silver one I recently bought and its been clanging on my wrist ever since it arrived. I ask her how she is and she says, “Good!” She says she was going to go to swimming but her swim teacher wasn’t able to make it. She doesn’t seem too devastated. We soon get talking about colors. Her favorites are magenta, pink, purple and red.

I tell her magenta was my favorite color was magenta when I was her age. She asks me if I like red. I tell her how it was the last color I came to really appreciate and that I went through a phase in my life where someone wise told me I needed to get everything red!

I ask her what she feels about red.

“Red is for brave” she answers.

Not long ago this kid was dealing with an older boy that was saying some inappropriate things. Shortly after I heard about it, when she asked me to chalk a word for her, I asked her what word is for when you have to say something uncomfortable that is a little ackward but it’s really important to do it, to speak your truth and stand up for yourself or someone else. She suggested superhero. I wrote it for her on the her driveway, and then she in turn wrote the word her little brother requested on his behalf, showing how we all help one another find our inner superhero - or in her brother’s case, he just wanted straight up plain and simple “super.”

The little girl asks about my favorite colors now, and I tell her they are violet, white, magenta and a few other colors that that I like when the moment just feels right for them, like aqua.

At first there is a lot of energy around the little girl and her brother both admiring and yearning for my jewelry. They are perfectly honest. “I like your bracelet. I want that.” ironically, at that moment, Bill, my engineer neighbor pulls into his driveway. I tell him we are talking about jewelry. “I don’t know anything about jewelry,” he says. Then the little girl asks me about the chalking situation. She looks toward the sidewalk from which I have just come. She asks, “Have you been writing?”

Me: “Yes.”

Her: What did you write?”

Me: “I forget” (Laughing.)

HerLittle brother interjects, announcing, “I saw you wrote “love.”

The older sister been admiring my Jewelry, including my Kwan Yin mala. At first she is focused on wanting my jewelry. I remind her that she probably has many pretty things that I do not have and I also mention that the bracelet she has her eye on she could probably afford if she saved up or asked for it for a holiday; then we could even be matching. I tell her about Ten Thousand Villages, where I got it.I have given both star children crystals and I am all for giving things away when I feels right inside, regardless of how much I love a crystal or other object. I gave a different little boy down the street my favorite selenite one Halloween when he expressed that he wanted it and it felt so good. When I told him it wasn’t my favorite he even said, “Oh I can’t accept it if it is your favorite. I told him it made me very happy for him to have it and it did. And he gave me one of the most heart-expanding hugs in gratitude. In this instance, giving my things away doesn’t feel right. hold my Kwan Yin Mala close to me as I tell them it is special to me because it helps me pray. The little girl observes,

“You wear that all the time. Do you even sleep with it?”

“Yes,” I say. This is Kwon Yin’s mala. I use it to pray. It is not just for looking pretty. You can choose a word like love and pray for everyone to know love with each bead.”

Who is Kwan Yin? The little girls asks me.

I reply, “Kwan Yin is known for her compassion and for being basically like a superhero of love.”

“You mean like the sort of things you do?” she asks?

I tell her a bit more after her response is to give me such a very nice compliment. “You’re sweet,” I say.

I explain my understanding that Kwan Yin is an ascended Master.

“Do you know what an ascended master is? It’s basically like a superhero whose super power is love. Kwan Yin learned how to love herself when she felt the most sad and the most hurt and the most afraid and the most broken. And then she learned to love everyone else like that too. Her colors are rose quarts pink, aqua and a gentle pure white light carried in water that pierces all darkness. Also she got superpowers.”

The little girl asks where I got the Kwan Yin mala. I tell her I got it from a woman who is one of my superheroes.

Her book The Sophia Code is my favorite of all spiritual books. But the story of its author is truly heroic. You can find her book and her work at www.kaiara.com

In the times coming, all of us have the chances to be heroes through our compassion, through our gentleness, through our courage. And we have the opportunity to remember that as we love ourselves, we get better at loving others, including those we’d otherwise consider enemies.

Om Mani Padme Hum