Rarity Season

On getting blown off course

Before we turn to February's theme of enchantment, I want to share something about where Functional Magic came from and what’s shaping where it goes from here. It starts with a phrase I discovered in November: Rarity Season.

The Audubon Society describes it as a time in late fall when:

Migrating birds will sometimes make mistakes: getting blown off course by a storm or simply flying off in the wrong direction. Sometimes species found on one coast will show up on the other. And sometimes—some incredible times—birds from other continents will show up in the United States. Birders hunt for these wayward birds with zeal, crunching through the dying grass and falling leaves until it’s too frigid to go out.

Charley Harper, https://www.charleyharper.com/nuthatch.html

Last spring, I realized I too had gotten blown off course, career-wise. I quit my job and, in a panic over money, found a less stressful version of the same type of work. Different neighborhood, same city - still not home. That's when I started Functional Magic, hoping to write my way into my internal homing device and find community with some other wayward birds out there.

My 3-Act Story

In storytelling, there's a simple three-act structure I learned from author Mary Adkins:

Act 1 - I have a problem

Act 2 = I have a plan

Act 3 = I was wrong

And here I am in Act 3. I had a plan. I’d get a good enough job that allowed me more space and energy to write and that would guide me back on course. But, I was wrong. Not wrong about focusing on rest and release this January - that was spot on. Wrong in thinking I was moving out of my brief rarity season when I was really only beginning.

Two weeks after planning to write about rest over resolutions, I learned I have breast cancer. It's going to be ok - we caught it early, it's very treatable, and I have good insurance and even better support. But it's complicated, challenging, and brings a new level of uncertainty. I've been blown off course to an environment that looks like my regular life, but feels like I have wound up on the opposite coast.

A Pre-January Resolution

When I created a rarity season of my own choosing by quitting my job, I made a resolution:

I am no longer trying to be good. I am trying to be true.

Now, in this new rarity season that I didn’t choose, those words feel like roots, supporting me in all manner of awkward and uncomfortable choices and conversations, where I need to trust my intuition alongside expert advice, to claim the quiet and space I need even when it means appearing less "on top of things." In rarity seasons, when everything feels uncertain and unfamiliar, what else can we rely on but our intuition, our ability to hunt and peck to find the seeds and signs that point us to our true north?

Functional Magic in Act 3

Not much will change with Functional Magic except you may notice more references to doctor's appointments since I use bits and pieces of my life to tell stories that relate to the functional magic that’s hidden in plain sight for all of us to connect to.

I'll still post 1-2x weekly - except for the week of my surgery (tbd) - on monthly themes connecting to frameworks about how we function without losing being true in service of being good.These frameworks are grown-up versions of the pillars from my book for students.* When speaking about it last year, teachers and parents would ask if it could work for them too. The answer is yes. Here they are:

- All the way to heaven is heaven (The fun is in the trying)

Credit to St. Catherine of Siena for that first part, by the way.

- Curiosity is more effective than control

- The purpose of functioning is fulfillment

- There are no straight lines in nature

- Imagination is the first step to a great plan

- Live like an artist (Create and connect, paintbrush optional)

- There's wisdom in our senses

When I write here, it’s to share what these frameworks could look like practically in our daily, full lives and to connect with you on how to function in rare and ordinary seasons in ways that leave our sweet, true spirits intact.

With love,

Tricia

*(still available wherever books are sold. I bet you’d love it!)

p.s. Now for the serious question I really need your feedback on: Is it delusional to think I can try this face yoga that’s being heavily marketed to me during the week or so I’ll be laid up in bed recovering from surgery and emerge looking 10 years younger, rather than like someone who's barely showered for weeks? Scam or worth trying? Maybe both?