Hey everyone! My name is Lauren, and I am Amy’s daughter and a proud #oleshoyster. I am a writer, an avid reader, as well as a world traveler. It only made sense to combine the two when my mom wanted to start a blog on traveling as well as spirituality! I first started on my path towards spirituality as a child. I always marched to the beat of my own drummer, and also I just KNEW certain things, like who would be important to me in my life, or what was the RIGHT choice in a series of options. Some could chalk it up to great luck. I, however never have.
I had a firm belief in magic (long before the Harry Potter obsession) and it literally led me to my first spiritual mentor. When I was six, my favorite uncle Billy met Jane, and decided to make a date out of taking his nieces (Courtney and me) to fly kites. This was literally their first date, and I looked at her during this time together and said “you know if you marry my Uncle Billy, you would be my Aunt Jane.”
She is still my Aunt Jane to this day, and probably the first person to teach me that SHE in turn practiced REAL MAGIC and that she believed me. She believed everything I ever felt about the mysterious, and she let my sister and I use her magic books to teach ourselves from the ages of three and six. Real magic, like totem cards, healing crystals and herbs, even old spells from the days of Salem to cure hiccups.
My mom not only supported this, but took us to New Age stores and bought us books and the means to make everyday magic. In middle school I remember she found her own. She read The Secret by Rhonda Bynes , and began to use the Law of Attraction. She then began to teach this to us, and would even demonstrate this day after day by winning prize after prize on the radio. She won us tickets to the circus (before we knew it was terrible for the animals) the Nutcracker, to Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom Huck Jam (whatever that was) and we were FLOORED. She would wake up in the morning and hear a prize on the radio and ask us if we wanted to go. In the end I don’t know if she CARED if we wanted to go. That wasn’t the point. So she went on to use that same magic to enhance her career, her living situation, and her entire life. She taught me we create magic just from believing.
I grew up and began to write. I was constantly doing this in all my classes in middle school, losing myself in my stories, and high school seemed far away. I wanted to be like Peter Pan and stay in the world of the mysterious forever. I didn’t know where I was going, career wise, but who does, at age 12? But people ask you all the time! It’s absolutely absurd, and as a kid, you feel as if you are supposed to know. Needless to say I felt a little lost in my head, I needed to pin myself to the ground.
But the universe showed me the way. I found a cool program in my freshman and sophomore year called The Expedition Academy, and it combined hiking and camping trips (including the Appalachian Trail) with Socratic Seminars and sociology and made this incredible, Transcendentalist experience. It entirely recreated my life, and I fell in love again with the magic that was the outdoors, and nature itself. We practiced the art of being present and in the moment, and we took journals each night we fell asleep in our tents. Part of our assignment was an overall reflection of our trips and what we learned, saw, and experienced. We had to turn in a trip reflection. In this class we talked about the things about human nature we didn’t know or understand. It tethered magic to the real moments we experience every day that we need only pay attention to.
Today, I believe we are all a part of that miraculous, and that we can observe this simply from the act of being and believing. The animals and the trees, and all of universe speaks to us if we take a moment to listen. I practice little moments of mindfulness every day. It doesn’t matter where you do it! Just take ONE minute of silence and reflection. Something will speak to you, if you listen.
Yesterday, the miraculous was finding an amazing suspension bridge out in the wilderness when we just happen to gaze over a cliff. Today, it was a fantastic massage with lavander essential oil. Nothing is ever completely silent. The world is a miracle, and I plan to share these whenever I can.
Til next time guys!
