Synchronicity

When I was pregnant with River I walked every day around the neighborhood. One day I went a bit farther and ended up right in front of this house. Something about it made me stop and stare - it had soul. I was captured by a beautiful dakini fountain tucked beside the front garden.
Keeping her company, two sphynx flanking the front steps.
I've never done this before - I knocked on the front door just to tell the owners how much I loved their house, and I knew they must be people I would want to know. Three different times I tried but no one ever answered. This house became my daily destination. I brought family, friends, and out of town visitors to see it. Then I had a baby.

Months went by and I no longer took my walks. I eventually decided to join a mother's group and drove to the first meeting. Heading up the hill I began to feel strange. I already knew. It was at the that house. I couldn't believe it!

I entered the side gate and walked up the sidewalk.

Inside, I carried River up the staircase and was stunned to find a large photo of a Mexican shaman on the wall, a (rather obscure) medicine woman whose teachings I knew intimately. At the top of the stairs, a table/altar filled with icons and symbols that were close to my heart. Two women shared this house, medicine women in their own right, and I laughed to myself: Uh huh, of course I would be called to walk to this house day after day.

We were looking for a house to buy and had already been turned down on three or four offers. The market was crazy in Berkeley and people were paying 50% over asking price. A few weeks into our search, the facilitator of my mom's group asked how the house hunting was going. We were sitting in circle. I was quiet for a moment, "What I want is this house." She looked at me, jaw dropped, and said, "How strange that you say that....we just decided today that we are moving, out of the blue. We feel called to take our work to another place, and we'll find out for sure in a few days."

In that moment I knew the house had always been mine, and like all relationships, had waited for me to see and affirm it. The owner asked me to call my husband over and when he arrived I finally got to see the back yard.
And so we bought the house before it went to market, in a good faith arrangement that had less to do with buying a house and more to do with the exchange of positions to caretake a sacred place. They left the dakini out front, and I found gifted feathers here and there over the next few years.

Sometimes I see people stop out front and gaze at the house. Now, in admiration for the love and care of how each rock was placed out back; or following the tiled angels and protectors around the periphery of the outside walls...

I silently put the word out to the wind, calling out to the next caretakers. May they hear that call and start walking.