Where Do You Stand?

I’ve been a tree hugger since before I entered Ms. Aster’s Kindergarten classroom. I used to play tag with a palm tree in our front lawn on Occidental Street during the powerful and warm Santa Ana Winds. I got sap stuck to my cheeks when I embraced the pines next to our cabin in the mountains of Idyllwild. In Eisenhower Park, I sat on pepper tree branches high above the ground, pretending to be Kelly Garret (Jaclyn Smith) from Charlie’s Angels or climbed my favorite sycamore, crying desperate tears when they cut it down – just like in Shel Silverstein’s book The Giving Tree. I attempted to reach my fingertips around massive oak trees and stared up at the elephant blue sky through leafy willow trees of Irvine Park. I breathed the eucalyptus trees scent in Santiago Park and later made love for the first time amongst the leaves and blossoms of an orange orchard. I knew beyond a doubt that a BEING lived in every tree I have ever loved. And yet I figured it was something only a child could relate to.

You can imagine my joy when I watched the tree spirits come to life in Shirley Temple’s movie Blue Bird. Soon afterwards I read C.S. Lewis. He knew and loved the dryads as much as I did. Since an adult or two confirmed what I believed to be true – nature possesses a consciousness – I decided that I would find others of like mind. I spent many years looking for a tribe of tree huggers. Everywhere I looked I ran into dead ends. I grew up behind the Orange Curtain and there weren’t many free spirited, nature sprites in my neck of the woods, mostly a lot of conformity.

When I was eleven years old, my parents put my sister and I on a train to Vista to stay with our aunt and uncle for two weeks. And there was barefoot Aunt Sadie, practicing yoga, eating only fruit, skinny dipping in her black-bottom pool, feeding her roosters and chickens on a hugely overgrown two acre garden, getting high with her friends and drinking red wine. And she had a humongous closet full of scarves and colorful, free flowing clothes that I could wear whenever I liked.

Sadie came from Scotland when she was nine years old. She told me stories of seeing and talking with faeries and simply danced with the sunlight. She was the epitome of a Sagittarian gypsy, and finally I had an example I could emulate. Part of being with Sadie made me want to be Scottish.

Therefore, it came as no real surprise that the first tribe to help me deepen my tree hugging experience and explain magic would be found in Celtic traditions. I wrote The Wicca Cookbook at Tea & Sympathy – an English tea shoppe in Costa Mesa, California. They had a traveling store that sold Celtic wares at Celtic faires/festivals and Scottish Highland Games and thus hosted me for my first ever booksigning. I signed books next to Historical Romance Writers for the Celtic regions, such as Amanda Scott and Kathleen Givens. Even though my great grandfather’s surname was Cooper (a good Scottish name), I felt a bit like I didn’t belong, since I had long associated with my Latina roots.

Then one day, we were set up near the opening ceremony at the Vista Scottish Highland Games. The first song sent shivers down my back and the most intense feeling of a homecoming. Tears streamed down my face and I closed my eyes against the powerful emotions surging through me. There I saw myself on a boat, sailing south with my beloved country and a burning village drifting out of sight to my port side. The water was blue black and mist filled the air. At that point Kathleen turned to me and said sarcastically, “Oh yeah, you’re not Scottish one bit.” “What is that song?” I stammered. “It’s the Scottish National Anthem.” The Celtic traditions not only gave me a foundation for discovery into my magical inclination, it also helped establish me as an author.

So by association, I call myself Scottish as well as Mexican. I just got back from the KVMR Celtic Festival and felt like I really wanted to explain my connection to these Celtic roots. I just love being around the Celtic history. Long ago my nana, who was a psychic, said that we chose our families. I don’t believe that stops short of bloodline. I believe you can choose your tribe regardless of blood. Maybe there is unfinished business of a past life or a DNA thread that holds strong or a favorite past life. Who knows? To me, that’s what the Aquarian Age is all about – having the confidence to declare your autonomy and affiliation based on desire rather than old patterns of what they say.

Evolve and choose where you stand because that is where you want to be.