Thinking of my sister this morning while making breakfast, the word conundrum popped into my mind. Curious, I went to my laptop and called up the definition on freedictionary.com. It means either “a riddle in which a fanciful question is answered by a pun,” or “a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma.” Since she’s my sister and not a problem to be solved, I’m choosing the “fanciful question” option.
Many times I have thought about who she is and why she makes the choices she does. I think of her sometimes in a state of frustration (mine), and other times with acceptance, appreciation, and love. There were times growing up, especially in high school, when I was embarrassed by her words or actions. Other times, such as being a child with the best big sister in the world, I blessed the ground she walked on. At night she would make up stories to tell me as we drifted off to sleep. Not stories she’d read, but new stories she created then and there. She looked out for me and later, when my brother was born, looked out for him too. She seemed always intent on giving me and my brother the best moment to moment experience of life.
As I began my spiritual awakening in my 28
th year (after my Saturn return), I re-evaluated my relationship with my sister. As I learned of devas, spiritual beings, fairies and the like, and experienced the light, love, and sound of my awakening heart, I realized I had misjudged my sister and called to tell her so. I wrote a song about her too, and titled it “Wildflower,” the name she used to sign her poems. She seemed a gift from another time and space, not unlike a “mistaken zygote” from Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s book of archetypes and myths, “Women Who Run With the Wolves.”
In my current studies with
Abraham-Hicks and
Landmark Education, I am learning that I have a choice to see only the good in people and situations. I’m striving to put aside any misguided attempts at fixing her (nothing’s broken), teaching her (it’s not my job), and instead, choose to simply love her. The way she is, right here, right now, doing whatever it is that’s going on at the moment. When I remember my job is not to judge, or get tangled in her life, and remember my only job in her regard is to see the good in her, I make lists of her positive aspects: What do I love about her? What is it about her that stirs my soul? When I think of her, I put aside thoughts of confusion or judgment that may arise, and focus my thoughts only on the good times, the magic we’ve shared, the joy she’s brought to my life by her presence in this time-space reality.
My sister is all of these things: a conundrum, a fanciful question, a fairy creature, a gypsy, a fabulous storyteller, a teacher of children, a writer, a free spirit, a poet, and simply magical. As long as I stay away from trying to figure her out, fixing her, or rescuing her, I can step back and simply love her for the beautiful person she is, wherever she came from.
