Aurora lay on the soft ground, grass and white daisies dancing around her, as her eyes soaked in the blue sky and haunting clouds of this sunny day. She was in the field and had been here for some time. It was a moment of peace and tranquility, a moment which Aurora basked in because she knew in her heart that she deserved such peace. Her heart was made for peace, and so her heart radiated peace with every energetic pulse.

She heard rustling next to her in the grass. Turning her head lazily to her right, she saw Owl there…the animal companion who had carried all the voices of love during Aurora’s time of forgetting. Owl’s feathers fluttered in the wind as she spread her wings…it brought Owl joy to watch the wind make her own feathers dance.

Aurora smiled at this. Smiles were hers now. They were things to be seen, without apology or hindrance. They were the embodiment of who she was…the antidotes to the masks from the old lands. She closed her eyes and placed her hands on her chest, breathing deeply in the invigorating air.

A wind rustled by in that moment and it carried a whisper.

“Did you hear that?” Aurora asked Owl.

“No, I did not hear whatever whisper you just heard on the wind.”

“Then how do you know I heard a whisper?”

“This land is known for whispers on the wind, but they are only heard by those who need to hear them,” said Owl.

Aurora stood up slowly, took time to feel more of the wind, and to listen to it. She heard no more whisper. She had not been able to make out what it said, but she knew to keep her heart of listening gently open.

Panther, who had been napping in the sun next to Aurora, stirred, stood up, and stretched. “I did not hear anything,” said Panther, “but I saw a hint of this whisper. It danced liked colors with the wind, but they were muted and I couldn’t make out their shape.”

After standing and listening for a few more moments, Aurora heard no more whispers. She looked to her right, in the direction of the great forest that was her new birthplace. They had traveled too far and long in this field for her to see the forest, but she remembered which direction it was and her heart ever felt the pull of it.

“Where do you think our journeys will take us today?” asked Wolf, who had been keeping watch throughout the night and dawn.

“I don’t know,” said Aurora.

“We seldom know,” said Snake, whose voice flowed from some hidden place in the grasses nearby.

“Yet, I felt some magic stirring in the night,” said Aurora. “The great lights were dancing a quicker dance and Luna was nowhere to be seen.”

“We have seen a lot of magic, daughter of the forest,” said the Owl. “We have helped many lost voices to find themselves…many new names to be spoken…many feral animals freed from their forgetful service.”

A raccoon walked from behind where Owl was, and sat next to Owl. “And I thank all of you for that!” said Raccoon. “My forgetful service lasted so very long…I don’t know how much longer it would have been if all of you hadn’t found us. Those were dull times, but since being with this group, you all have a way of stumbling on new things every day!”

“May the day never come that we bore you,” said Wolf.

“You know, Wolf,” said Raccoon with a smirk, “I can never tell when you’re trying to be funny.” Wolf just looked at Raccoon, face unchanging.

As they talked, along with some of the other animals (for they loved talking ever since they were free), Aurora found herself still wondering on the whisper she heard…the whisper that Panther had apparently seen. “We should be getting on our way,” Aurora said. “There are special things awaiting today, I can feel it.”

Wolf stood, stretched. Gracefully and swiftly she dashed out into the field ahead of them, running circles in the swaying grass, as she often did to start the day. Aurora found herself feeling emotion at the sight of it. And then she caught Owl looking at her thoughtfully, as Owl often did. “She makes you feel alive,” said Owl, “doesn’t she? Watching her be like that.”

Aurora nodded. “I remember what it felt like when the sight of her during the night scared me, before I remembered myself. I remember what it felt like when I was the one who wasn’t free to dance, to run, to frolic freely.” She looked ahead at the field ahead…the field they had taken many journeys through…and she found herself feeling more uncertain than usual. “I feel a trepidation about choosing a path this day. I am not sure which way to go.”

“We usually do not know which way to go,” said Panther.

“Yes, but for some reason,” said Aurora, “I feel anxious about it today.”

Wolf stopped running in circles, and stood staring at Aurora for a moment, then turned round and fixed her gaze on the mountains in the distance. “We must go to the mountains today,” she said.

“You’ve never told us where we should go before,” said Racoon.

“What makes today different?” asked Snake.

“I just saw colors drifting on the wind,” said Panther. “Toward the mountains.”

“And I am feeling called by my scents on the wind from that direction,” said Wolf.

 “Yes,” Aurora faintly heard from nowhere in particular.

“And I can feel the currents of the winds flowing yonder toward those mountains as well…making for an easy flight for my wings,” said Owl. “It seems we are all being called with intentionality today.”

Aurora gazed upon the mountains for a few moments, breathing in the soothing winds, her sense of trepidation fading some. “Then that is our journey today.”

They all began to head toward the mountains, Owl flowing between circling and leading the group as they traveled. At times, Aurora would hear whispers again, here and there…words that could not be made out most of the time. She caught hints of words at times, but none that formed into any coherent thoughts. Yet, she noticed, as they got closer to the mountains, that the whispers became gradually louder.

“Owl,” began Aurora. “You seem to know something of whispers in this land. What do you know of them? If they are just meant for me, why am I hearing them? And why do some of the animals seem to be able to also feel called by them with their senses?”

“I don’t know much about them, dear Aurora. I just know that I have heard them spoken of by others from time to time. I have not heard them myself. Come to think of it, I have only heard stories of other people actually hearing whispers, and not the animals. And I have also never heard of animals seeing or smelling or feeling them. Only one other thing have I heard about them. That they come from…beyond.”

“Beyond?” asked Aurora.

“I wish I could offer more. I have only hearsay.”

Aurora and the animals continued their travels for that day, talking and joking with one another and enjoying the beauty of the lands, as they often did. Yet Aurora found herself being distracted…pulled from conversations by the whispers that abruptly spoke to her. She wished she could understand them, and the fact that she did not understand their purpose began to fill her with unease.

The journey was far enough that they traveled into the night. It was another night in which they did not see Luna, the moon. And as the night before, Aurora saw that the northern lights shone and danced more than they usually did. “I can see the colors of the whispers happily dancing toward the mountains,” said Panther. “They are quite clear and vibrant at night, and I see now that they carry the same hues as those in the sky. I think they have come from there. They even dance upon the wind with the same rhythms as those up above.”

“It seems your namesake from the heavens has come down to guide us,” said Owl. “Yet another interesting thing I have never seen before.”

Aurora felt an odd feeling…a sense of embarrassment perhaps.

“Something troubles you, sister,” said Wolf suddenly. Aurora started, not realizing Wolf was walking silently right next to her. “I smell it.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. I am used to us traveling to seek out others to help, together. But on this journey, it seems to revolve around me in a way I am not sure I am worthy of. Only I can hear the whispers, and now the very lights after which I am named have come down to guide us all in taking a long journey. It reminds me of how the moon shone upon me that night, during my forgetting, long ago. I remember wondering how something as magnificent and universal as the moon could shine down just upon me. All of this makes me feel at the center of something in a way that makes me feel…” she could not find the words.

“If I could put a name to the scent your are giving off right now, I think I would call it…undeserving,” said Wolf.

Aurora slowly nodded, realizing she did feel some of that.

“It is an odd scent,” continued Wolf. “It is only one I have smelled coming off of humans. Among us animals, it is a foreign aroma that seems rather nonsensical. Why wouldn’t you deserve any of this?”

“I don’t know,” said Aurora. “Yet the feeling is still here, if I am to be honest.”

The night continued on as their journey continued on. Soon, the deep shadows of the feet of the mountains arose in front of them, the brightness of the aurora lights casting the imposing tips of the mountain peaks into sharp relief. In that moment, Aurora was filled with a sense that these mountains were sentinels…guardians of things she did not know…but could feel in her body.

Aurora and her animal friends all stood together, tiny before the greatness of the mountains of stone and dirt and rivers and trees and snow. The whispers grew in her ears into a small cacophony, Panther exclaimed that the lights were dancing brilliantly every which way, Wolf became overwhelmed with the aromas that lay heavy upon the air, and Owl was forced to walk upon the ground for the greatness of the wind. Raccoon climbed upon the back of Wolf, as he often did for ease or comfort and Snake climbed and crawled around Aurora’s shoulders to rest safely there. The sounds and sights and smells and gusts grew with each moment…until each and everyone of them could smell and see and feel all of it. An unearthly storm unlike any of them had ever seen enveloped this little group of friends…until it seemed in their hearts that all they had for comfort and security in all the world was each other.

Thunderous lightning echoed and flashed throughout the vast mountains, bringing the animals low to the ground. The fierceness of the wind began to tear tears from Aurora’s eyes and she felt a welling up of emotions until they hummed throughout her body and overflowed out of her mouth as she cried: “Why have I been called here?”

If the great and ancient Earth could be heard to inhale all that lay upon her, such was the sound that filled the world in that moment. As though the entire scene was but a reflection upon a mirror, it all shattered into a trillion reflective pieces…pulling all the shattered world inward in a dazzling display of sparks and shadows. Every sound, every sensation, every thing seen…collapsed in upon itself into a singularity of silence, a sparkling seed of light hanging just before Aurora’s face—more silent than the void between stars.

In a moment outside time, that spark flashed into a crystalline being of light…a woman dazzling as lightning with more colors than there were names for.

The celestial woman of light placed her hands upon Aurora’s cheeks and held her face as their eyes locked.

The woman spoke.

“Beloved Aurora. Let go…and trust.”

Then the woman flashed away as quickly as the lightning she was made of.

All the world became as it was before the otherworldly storm. And the whispers ceased…for they had become voices.

“It is time, dear woman.”

“You have arrived, beloved daughter.”

“You are enough, mother of your soul.”

All the animals had been waiting, silently watching Aurora, since the storm passed and the world quieted. Wolf stood up and she padded over to Aurora, looking up into her eyes. “I shall lead the way, sister.”

Aurora looked to Owl, who was on her shoulder, as Owl often liked to do. “The rest of us will stay behind,” said Owl. “We shall see you again.”

Aurora nodded and Owl fluttered to alight on the ground. Aurora then started walking toward the mountain trail that lay ahead, Wolf walking next to her. Aurora turned her head to look back as she was walking, wondering what all of this meant, and yet feeling as though now was not a time for questions.

The two of them hiked up this mountain path for some time, a silence between them that was comfortable. “I cannot tell, Wolf, if you are following me or if I am following you.”

“I am not sure, either, Aurora,” Wolf replied. “Perhaps it is both.”

They walked on further, several hours passing. Though they had been walking in the dark of night, the shimmering lights of the sky had been enough for them to see. And soon, the light of the morn began to hint its arrival upon the horizon that stretch behind them. Soon, they came to a fork in the path. “Which way do we go?” asked Aurora.

“It feels as though decisions upon this mountain are for you to make,” said Wolf.

Aurora felt into her heart and began walking down the path to the right. It wasn’t long until they came to a flat, sprawling ledge. Wolf and Aurora carefully walked together to its edge and they both sat…Aurora’s legs hanging over the edge, Wolf next to her. “The sun should be rising, soon,” said Aurora.

“I have seen many sunrises and many moonrises with my wolf eyes, and the light that is quietly gathering on that horizon does not look like a sunrise to me.”

Aurora was confused for a moment, then looked at the horizon more closely. She had assumed, but now that she truly looked, the light was dim and silver and was not growing into the warm yellow of the sun. “But it has been a full night, it is time for the dawn.”

“You are not ready for the dawn,” came a voice upon the wind.

“The dawn has not yet heard its call,” came another ethereal voice.

Wolf turned to look at Aurora. “The whispers have returned, haven’t they? The wind carries those scents again.”

Aurora nodded uncertainly. “Though they are no longer faint. I hear them clearly and yet I am not sure their meaning.”

“It is interesting that you can’t discern their meaning,” said Wolf, “because these scents remind me of your scent. Not quite the same, but almost.”

They continued to sit together, letting the vista seep into their eyes and souls. It was vast and grand. The silvery light was growing, coalescing in front of them as though the horizon was pushing light from its depths. Aurora knew that horizon held the forest of her awakening, somewhere out there. And she could see the outline of pointed peaks, much sharper than the ones they had been hiking among this night. The northern lights cast their glow across the great field toward those distant peaks. A river in the distance split through the land, beginning to reflect the silver of that growing mysterious light that was not the dawn. The wind pulled at Aurora’s long reddish-blonde hair and Wolf’s fur danced with her hair, reflecting the unity of soul they both felt with each other in that moment.

“I wonder why it is that of all our friends, you are the one that was called to join me up here,” said Aurora.

“I have wondered that myself, sister. But my heart feels as though it has something to do with the kind of connection we have. Every connection is different, unique as the flakes of the driven snow. Every connection carries an energy all its own and my nose and my heart can see this everywhere I go, as clearly as you can see the sun shining on a green field.”

“You have never told me this before,” said Aurora. “You always do seem as though you see more than you say.”

“Many things that are seen are not ready to be said. And sometimes, many things need to be said that one is not ready to see.”

“What do you see between us?” asked Aurora.

Wolf gazed into Aurora’s eyes for a moment, then closed her eyes and breathed in deeply the air mingling between them. “What connection do you feel between you and Panther?” asked Wolf.

Aurora was not ready for that question, but she saw that she knew the answer right away. “Before I knew who Panther was, he represented, most of all, the parts of me that I felt ashamed of.”

“Yes,” answered Wolf. “Your connection with Panther has been to reflect what you were afraid would be seen, would be judged, would be bad, would be rejected, and was not enough. But with me,” she continued, “part of our connection represents your fear that you will be too much…your fear that you would take up too much space, too much attention, too much voice, too much love, too much joy. For I am she who contains boundless energy, ready to burst forth without notice or apology…no matter how serene or peaceful I may seem in my quiet moments…nothing stops me from dancing through the fields and running circles of joy around my friends…that they may be encircled with this life energy…that I may show them through the dancing of my feet how much I have to give and to take and to share.”

“I had no idea you see so much and your words seem to carry more than I yet see,” said Aurora, “though the fluttering in my chest tells me you probably speak truth. But I still don’t understand why now…why just you and I here now?”

“What I sense shows me what the connection is, but not why,” said Wolf. “I suspect that is for you to discover.”

As they spoke, Aurora could see that the horizon light was on the verge of bursting. She knew it must be the brightly lit moon ready to rise, though it made no sense to her logical mind when it was time for dawn. Yet, she also knew this was a land of magic…the kind of magic that reflected a reality that could not be constrained by any rules written from survival fear. Here, the rules of the land were written for the needs of souls who knew that the courage of living was more important than the fear of dying.

“The smells I am sensing on the winds are becoming stronger,” said Wolf.

Sounds of whispers swirled around Aurora, suddenly excited in their energy.

“Dawn witch…” many of them said in unison. “Witch of the dawn is here,” she heard whispered dozens of times.

As they spoke, Luna the moon broke above the horizon, her white face carrying a brilliance that reminded Aurora of the crystalline light woman. Luna shimmered and she cast a silver hue upon these beautiful lands like Aurora had never seen before.

“I can feel now why we have come here,” said Wolf. “We have come here that Luna might speak to you again, like she did the night of your remembering.”

As she listened to Wolf, gratitude and awe began to rise in Aurora and she then focused on the moon. “Aurora, clear of soul,” began the moon. “It is good to speak with you again.”

As Luna spoke, Aurora felt Wolf shift closer to Aurora, until she was pressed close, side by side.

“Why are we here?” asked Aurora.

“I have come to be a clear witness, a reflection of light during the night when you do your magic best,” said Luna. “Look into Wolf’s eyes.” Aurora turned toward Wolf, even as Wolf turned to look at Aurora. “Tell me what you see.”

“I see light…no…fire. I see fire in her eyes. A life force burning that is like fire. I see a fierce mother. I see boundless energy… and loyalty that does not sleep. I see strength…quiet strength that comes from love.”

“Now look with your inner eyes, the eyes of your heart,” said Luna. “What do you see reflected?”

Aurora listened inward as she looked at Wolf. “I see memories. They are Wolf’s memories—no—they are our memories. Memories that Wolf and I shared before I woke! Memories that we shared before I ever even came to this land.” Tears began to run down Aurora’s cheeks. “Memories that we shared when I was hidden, forgotten, inside the role that was called Christopher.” Aurora turned abruptly toward the moon. “But how can this be? How do Wolf and I share these memories? I did not know her then. She did not live there, in that land on the other side of the bridge I built! She lives here, in these lands of magic and awakening. I do not understand.”

“You have not finished looking into Wolf’s eyes. I am not here to answer,” said Luna. “I am here to witness, just as I witnessed the day of both your first birth and your rebirth. I am here bearing gifts of clarity for you as you feel into the connection you have with Wolf.” Aurora turned and continued feeling into what she saw in Wolf’s eyes. “What else do you see?”

“I see that Wolf was there…always there, in those lands where I slept, feeling trapped inside a false role. She was there, in the forests…watching quietly from the trees as we walked all those paths until the day the bridge into these lands was finished. We share memories from those days, though not the exact same memories. She remembers watching me, with love, keeping an eye on me. But I remember something I have forgotten until this moment. During the times of my slumber, I saw her eyes in the trees. She had the power to walk in my dream world, for she is a walker in both worlds. She is a traveler between night and day and between dreams and waking.” Aurora started crying. “Though I had a mother that named me Christopher and raised me as though I were a boy, Wolf was there in my dreams to carry the energy of the mother for me…for Aurora…as long as was needed until the world was ready to see the whole me. Her loyalty never faded, her love never tired. Alone Wolf wandered in those lands, unable to show herself…always keeping company with none but the trees. But our eyes found each other in dreams.”

“And we ran and danced together in the fields, in your dreams,” said Wolf suddenly. “Do you remember?”

“I cannot recall the images, but I remember the feeling. I remember there was always a place I could go and I was not alone. I remember that there were many eyes of judgment, along with voices of judgment, in those days…but that your eyes, though I did not know who you were, always felt safe and full of love. Your eyes told me that I was not alone. That somebody saw the real me underneath the mask. And it was enough to help me keep hope when I awoke each day.” Aurora then had questions. “But how were you there? How did you get there? How did you know me and to come into those lands?”

“Not all is as it seems in this world,” said Luna. “But from what I have seen from watching Wolf, there is not much that can stop her when her heart feels called.”

“Yes, Luna speaks truth,” said Wolf. “I am not afraid to admit it. There were no bridges for you into this world at the time, and therefore no bridge for me to come to you. But I did feel called. I smelled you upon the wind and it was familiar in a way I have never been able to answer. My mind did not know why I was called, but my heart knew it was a true call. And as I, too, sensed the call to this mountain, I sensed the call many years ago into the lands where you had not been yet reborn. I paced along the canyon edge that separated these lands. Too deep to ever traverse and too wide for me to jump…almost. I followed the scents and though I tired many times…I never stopped patrolling the chasm near and far. Until, one day, I found myself at a place where the canyon seemed narrow enough that I might possibly be able to jump. Yet, I had no guarantee that I could. My eyes told me that I might fall to my death. But my heart told me that it would not have called me if I could not have done it. And so I ran with more speed than I ever had before…and I jumped.”

“But why?” said Aurora as tears covered her cheeks. “Why risk your life for me? You did not even know me!”

“You question that you deserve such a sacrifice?” asked Wolf.

“It is hard to see how I could deserve such a thing.”

“There is much that you deserve that you have a hard time accepting,” said Wolf. “You were raised to think that you were not enough, for how could a person not feel as you did, when their entire being and true personality had to stay hidden and forgotten? For those who were told they are not worthy to even be recognized for existing…then to give yourself permission to simply exist seems like more than you deserve to ask for. And so, anything more than just existing seems like great selfishness.” Wolf leaned in closer and touched her nose to Aurora’s nose, eyes still connected. “But your right to exist and be seen is just the beginning of what you deserve, beloved Aurora…not the end.”

Aurora threw her arms around Wolf’s neck in an embrace, sobbing. “What you say feels true, but it also feels too great to be true. The time you spent looking for a way across the canyon, the years you spent alone waiting in the forest and supporting me in my dreams…the way the entire forest spoke to me and the way Luna shines just for me and the northern lights hear my call and the animals all sacrificed their memories to help me remember and they follow me loyally…” her words rushed faster and faster as she spoke. “…and the winds that guide me and the lady of light who visited me in a flash of wonders and the miracle of this moonlit dawn! It’s just all so much and I don’t know what I have done to deserve the very fabric of reality seeming to bend around me!”

Wolf smiled a loving and knowing smile. “You forgot another gift you received.”

“What?” asked Aurora, confused.

“It was I who helped Christopher find the narrowest spot in the canyon, where you built the bridge on which you first awoke. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to build it…I wanted you to not have to wait any longer than was necessary to finally be you. Christopher did not know I helped lead the way, but it was me who left clues to that spot.”

“You did?” asked Aurora.

“I did,” said Wolf.

“And it was deserved,” declared Luna with a calm firmness.

“But I still don’t understand why I deserve all this?” asked Aurora. “What makes me so special?”

“Was four decades of hiding not enough suffering to be worthy of some extra gifts?” asked Wolf with a grin. “Nevertheless, suffering is not what makes you deserve.” Wolf then turned her head to look at the moon and let out a long, beautiful howl.

“The ritual has begun,” said Luna.

“The time has come,” ethereal voices spoke on the wind again, “Dawn witch is here…she is here…it is time.”

“It is time to work your magic, Aurora,” said the moon. “Dawn is waiting and now is your time.”

“But I don’t know what magic you are talking about,” said Aurora. “I don’t know what I am supposed to do.”

“That is the power of your magic,” said Luna. “It is strongest when you do not know.”

“Why? “asked Aurora. “It feels overwhelming and scary.”

A clear, beautiful woman’s voice sounded from all around, clearer than the other whispers: “Because that is the moment when all you are left with is to let go and trust, Aurora.”

With the sharpness of clarity, the memory of that moment when the world shattered and collapsed into the woman of light, came into Aurora’s mind. Aurora knew. She knew it was time to stop the questions and to trust. For the questions were as stones upon her shoulders and ropes around her wrists. She stood up upon the ledge, on that special night bathed in silver moonlight where shades of aurora colors danced above mountains and voices of inspiration were in the very winds.

“It is time for a spell,” said Aurora. Behind her, she heard the sounds of many steps. She turned and saw her other friends: Owl, Panther, Racoon and Snake. And also there were many people, friends and family that she was with when she was not on adventurous journeys of finding with her animal friends. They had all come here up the mountain, to this ledge overlooking the world. Luna had risen further though she was the light of the night, it seemed warm upon Aurora’s skin somehow.

Memories filled Aurora’s mind. They were specific memories…memories of all the times she had doubted herself. Years of doubting her right to exist…doubting whether she would ever be seen…doubting her goodness…doubting her worthiness…her loveability…doubting her right for forgiveness, her right to move on…doubting her right to be loved and receive gifts…so many more doubts, like a never-ending flood washing over her soul. More doubts came, too many to name. So many doubts rooted in her deep conditioned belief that she must earn all that is good in her life…that she must earn belonging and safety and rest and joy and smiles and laughter and friends and freedom. Most of all, memories of thinking she never deserved to be free of shame…the shame of not being good enough and making too many mistakes…the shame of not being brave enough to let herself be seen sooner…the shame of letting her womanhood be seen in a world that insisted she be a man…even the shame of having doubts at all about who she was.

These doubts fragmented her world. These doubts had been a tapestry of her existence in years past. These doubts were always lingering in the background, reflecting away the myriad gifts of love that were ever seeking to flow unto Aurora. Doubts of self. Doubts that fragmented the heart and her ability to truly see herself as she actually was. Doubts that tried to force her to wear mirrored glasses of shame and smallness, lest she be free to see with true eyes of love and the whole mirrored illusion shatter.

For shatter it must if the doubts were to persist without her magic to intervene. All of creation…from the mother trees to the grandmother ferns to the moon to the mountains to the fields to the animals to the northern lights to her family to the Wolf that sacrificed as only a mother could…was conspiring to bring Aurora gifts of love and freedom and joy. The gifts were in every blade of grass and in every color and every breeze and every sight. The very world in which she walked was woven out of gifts for Aurora…a never-ending journey of gifts rooted in love that was not ashamed to speak the language of deserving.

But the doubts were as a great mirror and they threatened to reflect and reflect and reflect, until the end of time, until a soul became lost in outward questions instead of becoming their own inward answers.

And Aurora knew. She knew that the Age of Self-Doubt had come to its end…that it needed to end for the world that was built for Aurora to be able to continue. Not because Aurora did not deserve this world without effort…but because she was so powerful now that even her own illusions could take on too much of a deceptive life of their own if she did not cast the spell.

“It is time for magic,” Aurora declared. “It is time for Dawn magic…the magic of the light that pulls its power from transforming the dark.” She looked toward Luna. “Thank you for your light and magic this night.”

“You are ever welcome and deserving,” answered Luna as her light flowed into Aurora’s hands. Then Luna was gone, returned to her regular rhythms of dancing around the earth, to make space for the dawn whose time it was.

Aurora pulled the moonlight into herself. She looked around her and saw her friends and the animals still standing with her on the ledge. And down below, far below at the base of the mountain where it met the grand fields, stood others. The innumerable self-doubts still flowed as endless visions through Aurora and she held them like a storm inside her. The light of the moon was infused into these swirling doubts and she held it as knowingness filled her soul. The doubts were the kind of reflections that had the power of illusion…the power to create great mirrors to confuse a soul…to lead a soul away from their innate power and light.

And far below, at the foot of the mountain, she saw who those others were. She saw herself, and her animal friends, standing at the head of the mountain trail, illusion swirling around them. They were Aurora’s Whispers and the whispers were many. Aurora could see into the past…into that moment when she and her friends were caught in the storm of whispers. And Aurora saw now how her past self was becoming overwhelmed with the confusion of whispers that battled with one another…the doubts battling the hope and the belief and the love. The Aurora of this moment saw how her past self was so tired of these quiet battling whispers and she saw how the doubts were crafting a great mirror of illusion that had taken on a life of its own…had taken on a power so great that even the animals around her were beginning to sense the whispers and to be overwhelmed by them.

Aurora saw what she needed. She knew what the Dawn spell was to be. She saw the great story of her own life that had led up to this point. She saw how she had been equipped, from the beginning, to be her true self…to be a strong and colorful and magical woman in the world. She saw how she had been born to be this world…sent from the colors in the heavens to be lost…and then to find herself…for the power of Dawn magic is in the bursting of light after a night of darkness. She saw how she had slumbered for years in darkness and had found herself. She saw how she had remembered her true name and claimed herself.

And she saw how the doubts had come swirling to create one last great illusion…the illusion of ever seeking for approval and questions from others, so that she never found the answers that had been in her soul and personality and womanhood all along. The world did not have these answers. The world could not have these answers.

The time for an answer had come…an answer from herself…to herself. So Aurora of this moment cast a spell for her past self. She cast it at that moment when the world of doubtful illusion was poised to completely overwhelm Aurora into an eternity of ever wondering why she deserved.

As Aurora cast the spell, all the world shattered into a trillion pieces. She gathered up all the pieces of the shattered world and filled herself with all the light of the moon and asked the northern lights of the sky to carry her to her past self. In an instant, she appeared in front of her past self, filled with endless love for herself in a way she had never felt deserving of before. So overcome with love was she, that she placed her hands gently on her past self’s cheeks. She summoned all the light of the moon and the aurora lights and transformed the overwhelming power of the great illusion…taking them all into her being until she was nothing but light.

The illusion was forever broken. Shattered…collapsed…infused…transformed…with the powers of love and light that no power of war or force can ever overcome.

“Beloved Aurora,” she said to her past self as she gazed with oceans of love at herself. She then said the final words of the spell. “Let go…and trust.”

 

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Aurora awoke again, in the soft green grass, on a sunlit day of blue sky, daises dancing all around. She sat up quickly. Wolf was sitting to her left. Owl was standing to her right.

“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” said Racoon.

“I just had…a dream…I think?” Aurora said.

“You know,” began Owl. “Worlds are an interesting thing. We all share connections with each other as we walk these worlds. You and I are real…and our connections are real.” Owl turned and looked intently at Aurora. “But do we each walk in the same world, I wonder?”

Aurora was about to ask a question, but she didn’t. Another part of her felt as though she already knew what Owl was getting at.

“We each are at the center of our own world,” Owl continued. “A world nested within our soul…for a soul is bigger than a world. Most people have that idea backwards, you know, thinking it is the other way around. Worlds apart, yet we are always connected to one another’s worlds. We touch each other. We need each other. We influence each other. But we never stop deserving all that is good from all that we see around us. It is we who have the power to get in the way of what we have always deserved. It is for each of us to find the unique magic we need to get out of our own way…and perhaps sometimes…as we find our true selves, we can shine a bit of light for those around us who are lost in their own worldly illusions.”

“Who are you, really?” Aurora asked Owl.

Owl didn’t answer, only hooted a kind of laugh, eyes twinkling.

“I am still not certain if what I just experienced was a dream,” she said, “or real magic”. She looked to Wolf, eyes searching.

Wolf smiled. “Is there a difference, dear Witch of the Dawn?”

Aurora smiled. “Perhaps not.”