When I met my first spiritual (non-religious) teachers, I was 18. Seventy miles from home attending college in what felt to me to be the smallest town ever. Greeley, Colorado, which depending on the wind and season, either smelled like the feedlot outside of town on one side or the meat processing plant just inside town on the other side. EWW if you don’t know what that smells like, lucky you. It stinks. Sometimes when spiritual awakening knocks, it doesn’t look or smell anything like you think it will.
My soon to be roommate and friend, Dawn, wanted me to check out a cool bookstore in downtown Greeley she had fallen in love with. Downtown was literally a 2 block by 2 block area. The bookstore was called Kaleidoscope. Even now I remember feeling a little conflicted as we walked in. It wasn’t a ‘regular’ bookstore. It was a Metaphysical bookstore. A movie I had watched in 8th grade at church had warned me in very certain terms about the dangers of crystals, how meditation could open you up to bad thoughts, and the trickery of psychics. My mind was warning me, but my body felt completely at ease. Before I could ask Dawn what this place was, the owner of the store came from around the counter, looked at me and said, There you are. I’m Rosemary. Welcome.
At the time, I just thought my friend had told her about me. I came to find out much later that Spirit (her term for the divine) had come to her in a dream. Spirit told her that she was going to meet a young woman and to teach her everything she knew. So she did. She first invited me to attend the weekly meditation group that met in the store or someone’s home. The small group was made up of 5 women and 2 men. I was the youngest person by 20+ years or more. They invited me to everything and shared their wisdom generously. Rosemary lent me books that as long as I returned them without damage, I could borrow another. In that store, I took my first Tarot class, learned to use a pendulum, learned to read Auras, had some lively debates with John Paul about UFOs, began to hone my intuitive gifts, and I met my first spirit guide, Daniel. The group I met there supported me until I graduated from college and left Greeley 5 years later.
My friend Dawn who originally took me to that store. She had said I had a feeling you would love it. She had no idea what following that feeling would ultimately lead to for me. Dawn herself never attended the meditation group or became friends with the Kaleidoscope crew. It wasn’t her thing. Part of this metaphysical origin story is a lesson. We have no idea what sort of impact or difference that listening to our intuition can make for others. I have many stories over my lifetime about people who just listened to that gut instinct or knew me. If it hadn’t been for Rosemary initially and then Wendy, Donna, Mike, John Paul, and the others taking me under their wing, I don’t know what would have happened. It was with them that I first learned how to quiet the noise of the outside world and turn up the volume on my intuition. I am doubtful that this blog will ever make it to Rosemary physically. However, I know that she knows I am eternally grateful for that safe haven, sanctuary of metaphysical love she created Kaleidoscope.