“Do you ever get the feeling that you’re looking for something but you’re not sure what?”

Those words escaped my mouth literally two seconds before my eyes alighted on the shelf and saw the book pictured above in a used book store, one I'd frequented before.

Let me explain a little bit why this was miraculous, truly magical, and definitely falling under the definition of kismet.

When I was 16, the National Gallery of Canada hosted the exhibit, “A Primal Spirit,” work by ten contemporary Japanese sculptors. At this point in my life, my creativity was beginning to blossom, and going to see this exhibit was one of the formative experiences that I remember happening at this time. There was a beautiful energy in the work, a connection to the natural world, to the power of the elements—fire, air, earth, water—and this spoke to me.

I hesitated to purchase the exhibition catalogue, and by the time I decided I really did want a copy of it, it was out of print. I was deeply disappointed, and searched for it for years to no avail.

I’ve recently embarked on a process of personal transformation sparked by a series of events that happened when I was 16, that started in 1991, the very year I saw this exhibit, and for a long time, it’s seemed to me as if returning to this exhibit is part of understanding that period in time for myself. But the only place I found that would have a copy of this catalogue to peruse was in the National Gallery of Canada Library, which meant I could go and have a look at it, at best.

I have looked for this book for 34 years. Never found one anywhere, not online, and not in my hometown.

Something is happening for me to have found it today, at this moment, right now. And right after I said to my companion the above line. 

Maybe it’s just showing me that anything, even the seemingly impossible, is possible, and to believe. Of course I was also saying earlier that to achieve anything in life, you have to have the level of self belief that many people—before you prove them all categorically wrong—will consider to be utter delusion. 

I believe in the power of delusion. I believe the Universe is always listening, and always putting out energies to us. The world is full of sorrow and all manner of unspeakable, inexcusable horror, but it is also full of beauty and wonder and many many things that are miraculous and magical. We have to hold space for both, because we will never defeat the former if we don’t believe in the latter.