Practical Magic, Coincidences, Small Miracles, Etc.

with Jenna Newell Hiott

Oliver, carefully tending my Ancestor altar

I have a game I like to play with the Universe. I throw open the shutters of my heart and ask for wonder to come find me. I say, “Okay, Universe, here I am! Show me what you’ve  got! Show me GRACE! Show me something AWESOME! Give me all the amazement this lady can TAKE!” Then I walk around all day expecting miracles.

This is a very fun game.

At first, it’s subtle. I notice trees more than usual.  The light from the windows makes the flowers on my desk so vibrant I can’t stop looking at them. I make it to the grocery store without any gas.

Then the Universe takes it up a notch. A woman at the grocery store shouts at me across the aisle. She has Down’s syndrome and is wearing a pair of orange and green striped socks and a party dress. “Hey!” she says. “You’re pretty!” I take this as a very high compliment because I have just gotten over Co-Vid and am wearing a mask. “Thank you!” I say. “I love your dress and your socks!” She beams and tears come to my eyes. Why? I don’t know—because I feel seen by a beautiful stranger.

I buy some soup and a salad and go to eat my lunch at the café.

An elderly gentleman is working there. He is tall, with thick, wild curls and a brown mustache. When I get up to look for a fork he says loudly, and with good humor, “TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR, AND I’LL HELP YOU!”

What a sentence! It’s as though a genie has spoken.

A million bucks! I want to say. A way to take all those lobsters in the tank downstairs back to the sea! To hear my mother’s voice one more time. A way to end all these wars! For my children to be safe and happy! For everyone’s children, including the polar bears', to be safe and happy.

“A fork!” I say.

With finesse and pizzazz, he whips the utensil dispenser around and hands me a fork, a magician giving me a wand. Our eyes are smiling. His are bright, pale, and very alive, the skin around them wrinkled like an elephant’s. I don’t know what mine look like, who cares? The woman downstairs says I’m pretty.

By now I feel like I’m walking on air. I can’t believe how gorgeous the world is! I can’t wait to see what’s next. I write everything down in the notebook I carry with me, like the main character in one of my favorite children’s books from the seventies, Harriet the Spy.

I call it my “Wow!” notebook. It is almost full.

I’ve known thousand miracles in this life, and still, I keep wanting more.

And more.

And they keep being revealed to me! Tucked into envelopes made of sentences, yellow leaves, water so excited it leaps from the creek running over a rock and sparkles in the sun.

It doesn’t matter to me what any of this means. The mystery of not knowing is one my greatest joys.

When I finish eating at the cafe, I call my father to see if he needs groceries. He doesn’t pick up, but instead of the mechanical answering machine message I usually get, my call somehow gets routed to an old voicemail box my parents stopped using years ago. I hear my mother’s voice. “You have reached the Barry’s…” My throat closes. I almost drop the phone.

“Thank you Universe,” I say on the way out of the store. “Keep ‘em coming.”

Oh Sweetie, I hear. We’re just getting started.

On the way back to my car, I watch a bearded, graceful man in a hoodie ride his shopping cart to his truck. He glides through the parking lot, his body curved, one elegant arm reaching to the sky, as if he were in a ballet.

          * * *

I was inspired to write this piece by one of my favorite Tarot writers on substack, Jenna Newell Hiott.

Jenna is a healer who lives in New Mexico and does spiritual work with the ancestors. I love the way she writes about tarot and our connection to magic—both in ourselves and nature. I always think of her as “Jewel.”

It’s not a wild jump--looking at her name you can see how I might make that up. Still, my brain will not be convinced that she has any other name. When I tell friends about her column, I say, “You would like this woman Jewel on substack who writes about Tarot.”

This isn’t especially helpful, since her name is Jenna.

One day, I was leaving a comment on a post she wrote about the power of earth, water, air and fire in rituals. As I was writing, I got an intuitive nudge to tell her that I think of her as Jewel. I ignored it at first. I didn’t know her personally, and it’s a kind of intimate thing to say to a stranger. But the nudge was so strong, I gave in and at the end of my comment wrote, “PS: I just realized that in my head I have been combining your two first names and thinking of you as Jewel for a long time. I’m handing this to you as a gift, because of course, it’s an apt name.”

I almost erased it. Who was I to say it was a gift? What if she hated the name Jewel? (Unlikely, but you never know.) In fact that last sentence didn’t even sound like me. (Although I do a lot of channeled writing, so that didn’t surprise me too much.) I sent it anyway. If she blocked me for being a weirdo, it would go in the file that lives in my head labeled “Times My Intuition was Wrong” —otherwise known as my “Oops! Don’t do that again,” file.

A few hours later a breathless note arrived from Jenna.

“Rebecca, I can't thank you enough for this gift!” she wrote.

Hooray! I thought, followed by Phew!

She went on to say that she had been out on her morning walk, listening to a playlist of her favorite songs. A few of her deceased grandmothers were walking with her. (Because of her ancestral work this wasn’t unusual for her.) That morning, however, they were REALLY with her—she could see, hear, and feel them. (So cool!) As she was walking, feeling her grandmothers and listening to her favorite music, she got a notification on her phone.

“Every other day,” she wrote, “I ignore all notifications while walking, but for some reason, I took my phone out of my pocket and looked at it. It was a notification for your comment. I read it and it filled my heart to read the name Jewel. I continued walking and my grandmothers were there again. I was telling them of this name Jewel, and then I remembered that one of them had had the middle name Pearl. Right at that moment, the playlist I'd been listening to, made of my favorite "thumbs up" songs, began playing a song I didn't recognize. This was odd since it was supposed to be a list of my favorites. I took my phone out of my pocket again, and when I looked at the screen it said, "Pearls" by MaMuse. I couldn't believe it! Needless to say, I cried tears of love and gratitude all the way home. I never cease to be wholly amazed by the Magic that comes into life when we choose to listen to those whispers and nudges from Spirit. THANK YOU, for extending this gift to me and for opening a portal through which my ancestors could speak of their love so directly. ❤️❤️❤️❤️”

YES!! It thought, and put it in the file in my head labeled, “Times my intuition was 100% correct!”—also known as the “Rebecca!! TRUST YOURSELF!” file. Also also known as the “Ta-Dah! I’m a GENIUS!” folder.

Now Jenna and I are friends.

I still think of her as Jewel, though.

All this is to say: it’s October! The BEST month! If you get a strong intuitive nudge to share something heartfelt with a stranger, do it! Make some magic. Expect a miracle.

If it doesn’t go well, you can file it in a “Don’t listen to Rebecca!” folder.

I hope you get a miracle. And another. And more. In fact, I hope you experience so many, you feel like dancing on the Halloween moon.

Hi Mom-come visit!