By Kat Clark Art by Robin Ator
Molly was very pleased with her progress. For the past six months, ever since she turned twelve, her mom and dad had been instructing her, in earnest, in the Craft of the Wise. She had always loved their seasonal rituals, but now she was learning the ways of spell-crafting, elemental work, wort cunning, and much, much more. She enjoyed and embraced all this new knowledge with gusto, but the thing she loved the most was meditation.
When she sat in her quiet room, wind chimes gently ringing in the breeze outside her open window, she could close her eyes and enter another realm. Not only could she calm and center herself, but snipets and pieces of her past lives started to pass before her mind like brief scenes of a hazy movie. The more she meditated and relaxed, the more fragments of her other lives came to her--places, faces, even voices--stronger and clearer than before. It was fascinating.
In fact, one particular evening it was so fascinating that she completely ignored Hazel, the family lab, when she brought Molly her food dish and whined in hunger. It was so fascinating that she forgot that it was her turn to take out the garbage bag for the morning pick-up.
While Molly sat crossed-legged on the bedroom floor, watching her former self dance among the standing stones of Avery, her homework and study materials for tomorrow’s test sat in her backpack, untouched. Also untouched was her supper, stone cold on the kitchen table downstairs. She had been enjoying a memory of her life as a gondolier in Venice when her mom finally gave up calling her to come and eat.
It wasn’t until her tummy started to cramp with emptiness that Molly reluctantly stretched her arms and legs and decided to go to the kitchen. Dreamily, she moseyed down the stairs, past the grandfather clock in the hall (did its hands really point to 10 o’clock?) and into the kitchen, where she came face to face with Mom.
Mom did not look happy. She stood with her arms crossed, resting her back against the kitchen sink. On the floor at her feet was the garbage bag Molly should have taken out. It was ripped to shreds and strewn around by Hazel, in a frantic search for food. The empty dog dish sat on the kitchen counter, next to a plate of congealed mashed potatoes and gravy, and slowly graying meat.
“Hi, Mom” Molly said, innocently. “Is there anything to eat? I need something that’s fast because I still have to go study for tomorrow. I was meditating on past lives…”
“First of all” Mom said slowly, but deliberately, “You will feed Hazel her food. Next, you will clean up this mess, put the garbage and your supper in a new bag, and take it to the curb. Then, once you swipe the floor and wash your dish, you may go to bed.”
“But, Mom!” Molly exclaimed. “I’m hungry and I have a TEST tomorrow!”
“But nothing” Mom replied. “Molly, meditating and recalling past lives are fine, but you have a present life as well, and responsibilities here and now. What good are past lives if you aren’t living THIS one? Try meditating on that for a while. Now, see to your chores and then off to bed.”
It was a very hungry Molly the next morning, cramming for her exam on the bus to school.
“Life was easier as a gondolier” she sighed to herself.
Moral: All things, even the magical arts, need to be done in moderation. We should strive to keep a balance between this world and the spiritual. After all, this is the life you may remember next time!
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