I rarely wear makeup.

I’m not sure why, I just never added it to the list of rituals I perform each day.

Although, I often wish I would. Just to feel fabulous all the time.

As a treat, I decided to hire a makeup artist to make me look like a doll for the eve of my 40th birthday. She was amazing, and as she painted her beautiful swirls and swooshes of art all over my face, I told her about a recent trip I had taken to a very special place that sits in the middle of my state about four hours north of me. It’s sacred land, and has been since the early 1800’s. It has attracted mystics and spirits and ghosts and perfectly imperfect people who have a special gift for knowing and attracting those who are meant to stay, even if just for a few days. The conversation went on as she continued to create her own kind of magic, and I brought up the idea of past lives and how I was certain I had reconnected with at least two of the souls I had traveled with before on a different realm.

I have a tendency to do this. To find the souls, so very easily.

The beautiful girl who was doing my makeup asked me how I knew. How I was so very certain that these people were in fact meat suits for the souls who have brought me here to this very moment in space and time.

And I guess, this is my response to her.

The best way I can describe it in this language, is I see something in them immediately. Most of the time, from afar. I see in. And instantly, there’s a deep longing. Like a hunger that pulls at your physical body as the excitement you feel when you’re about to walk in to Madison Square Garden to watch the Foo Fighters (or insert favorite band here) play. I just know that whatever interaction I have with these people in the here and now will rock my soul. Will remind me of who I am, at my core. And once there’s that, there’s no stopping what comes next.

A day, a night, a moment of pure unfiltered no bullshit magic. Or sometimes, I even get the gift of a full lifetime!

Hits you like a freight train and doesn’t stop, because the soul knows it has become part of the ether once again.

These interactions, are what I live for. They are what fill my cup and bring me back to life. They are my medicine.

And then she asked about the people.

I explained, I can see magick in their eyes. In a startled look, almost as if they immediately recognize me too. They are beautiful, even from afar. Hair wild, unafraid to show themselves. Funny. Kind. Oh so kind, in a way that they don’t even need to speak for me to know that love exudes from their skin and out into the world.

It’s the holding of a hand full of electricity so strong you have to release it quickly.

Its the curly hair and beautiful voice and knowing she’s a witch like you.

It’s the tree in the middle of the forest that you can’t resist to touch and hold your face against.

It’s the dog that comes back to you and sits with you in silence.

It’s the child that screams your name without even opening his mouth.

The moth that comes to visit you even inside a brewery.

It’s the synchronicities between lives, partners, friends, elements.

It’s the knowing that you belong to them and them to you and it has nothing to do with time.

It’s the moment you look back and see them and you just know.

And as she finished her work and was ready to show me her master piece in the mirror, she asked me one last question.

“Do you ever recognize it in yourself?”

She flipped the mirror around, and I saw myself. I was beautiful. Free. Full of magick and art and love.

And the only thought that came to mind was :

“I know you, from before.”