This is the story of my calling:

I've always been in love with love and beauty.

From a young age, I saw beauty all around me.

Even, and perhaps most especially, in places other people did not see beauty.

I lived in a wonderment.

Adults would describe my demeanor as innocent, naive, living in a fairy tale world.

But if we construct our own realities, why would I construct anything other than a magical reality? This was my true nature.

A nature bound tight by a conservative religion

and buried under heartbreak and the hardness of loss.

And yet, there was beauty in that as well.

From all that, I rose, determined to find myself.

It wasn't long after the birth of my child and my divorce that I heard her calling to me.

I had expected someone armed with sword and shield or a great huntress,

forsaking romantic companionship.

But it was her.

She came to me in a dream, so loving and so strong.

Golden hair cascading down her back.

Intricate tattoos winding around her arms.

Eyes bright with knowledge.

A smile that broke over her face like a glorious sunrise.

She cradled my head in her lap and stroked my hair as I cried.

We talked about serious things.

We laughed at silly things.

We enjoyed silence together.

It was all part of living and healing.

Before I woke, she gave me a blue rose and one instruction:

"Own it."

This goddess of love and beauty had chosen me as her priestess.

The value she saw in me was non-negotiable and I must learn to own that worth.

Love, laughter, loss,

they belong to us all.

She understands this and us.

Our challenge is to own it.