Recently, I returned to the Motown singing group that I participated in nearly 20 years ago, when a member was being treated for cancer. I asked how she was doing; her reply, “Good, knock on wood,” as she knocks on the wall panel. A pagan belief of benevolent spirits residing in trees.
This past week as spring sprung, I was hiking in the woods where tree roots often try to trip me but usually stay afloat in my 79-year-old skin. This day, I lifted my foot to the boardwalk, my shoe tripping me forward, hitting my right shin on the sharp edge, no blood, a black and blue arising for the occasion to which I rub for several moments to increase circulation and comfort.
That same day, I must walk outside to retrieve my laundry in the basement. A light rain caused me to slip on a large rock, falling backwards, my right elbow and lower back receiving the blows. I am able to raise back up easily and greatfully, asking myself why I fall two times the same day. Then, remembering how my car hit a deer in 2023, and then again, a deer hit my car in 2024. Twos.
A common superstition is the belief that bad luck comes in threes; is it good luck to have these come in twos?
Having recovered from a religious addiction, fear of hell, I’m happy to read the definition by numerology, including “emotional depth and partnership”, which I’ve decided to call the DOU, Design Of the Universe as a spiritual “supernatural causality”, however superstitions try to provide comfort and control amidst uncertainty.
My emotional depth has grown a deeper love for myself, and therefore compassion for others, in partnership with tears, grieving losses such as my Dad, garnering growing loving appreciation of him, in partnership with loving myself. Both superstition and supernatural contain a surprising partnership beginning with SUPER. Their contrast being that superstition involves irrational fears, while the supernatural teaches us connection to love releasing fears. Our truest nature.
Now, I sense that the universal energies which keep planet earth spinning is the force of love and comfort evolving. Fear being uprooted into trust in the DOU. A loving force.
Today is April Fool’s Day just after returning from a week’s vacation to waterfalls heaven. Adding a new National Park (to 50 I have hiked and camped in): Sandstone Falls in New River Gorge in West Virginia. In addition to exploring Blackwater Falls State Park in Maryland and Pennsylvania’s World’s End State Park, where I find Double Run Falls. Really, World’s End?
My last hike was in Pennsylvania’s Rickett’s Glen State Park, new to me as well, although it is only two hours south of my home in Brooktondale, NY. As always, I look for heart rocks at the foot of every waterfall I visit, and I find one that is a purple hue early on of my long hike ahead. So, I laid it aside to retrieve on my return. I hike on to two more large unique waterfalls, finding a heart rock at each that are of dinner dish size, one for each arm to lift up and down for enlarging my biceps, I smile to myself. On my return, I unconsciously bypassed the first heart rock I had left behind, before I realized I was too far along to backtrack. At first, I am disappointed, then realize I have two in my hands, remembering the significance of the number two! Wahoo!
Today is the last day for submission of this reader’s write, when I park in the lot for the WIDE-AWAKE BAKERY. I open my jeep’s door and see only TWO pennies on the ground! I promptly pick them up, grinning with supernatural superstition.