It’s early — or late — depending on how you view time.

I’ve been dealing with bronchitis a few short weeks after recovering from a sinus infection that turned into pneumonia. I’m tired of coughing. Tired of hearing the rattle within my chest. Just tired.

But I wake up coughing, and after taking a drag from my inhaler, I find myself jittery and awake. I do what most do these days when faced with insomnia: I scroll TikTok.

I stumble on a video of a woman in the woods, in front of a massive tree. Something about her smile has me pause the scroll. As I listen to her message, I feel my heart rate quickening.

This video was for me. It’s too coincidental to not be relevant and the messages are clear.

I close the app, sit up in my bed, and breathe deep once, twice, three times.

I call all of my power back to me now, I whisper.
I say it again, and again.

In my mind, I see tendrils of gold flying toward me and embracing my limbs. I’m glowing, my sacral on fire. I feel the fire in my hands and I smile. I know this invitation. I’ve come to recognize it as part of my magic.

I activate the power lying dormant within me, I say. My voice echoes on the air around me and I feel a chill down my spine. My hands tingle.

That’s when the meditation begins.

I find myself at the beach I know so well, the cottage to my right, the beach grass swaying in the breeze and lining the path. I walk my way toward the water, my feet feeling the sand beneath me. I assume I am headed toward the cottage with the redwood tree in the entrance, but instead, I see Him standing there leaning against the cliff.

“Hi.” I whisper.

He smiles at me and takes my hand.

“Hi, love.”

“I’m tired,” I lean my head against His shoulder and He kisses the top of my head.

“I know” He says.

I stand up then, facing HIm. I feel my chest rise and fall with frustration and I open up my arms waving around me. Suddenly, it’s as if everything I’ve walked through has come up to the surface and I feel the confusion and fight the disassociation. His eyes study me, always kind, always a hint of a fire hidden in the depths.

“So…what am I supposed to do with all of this? How am I supposed to move forward?”

He leans in and pushes some hair behind my ear.

“Tell them I sent you.”

I swallow. That seems like a tall order, and I feel myself shrinking all over again.

Surely you don’t mean me.

But He does. I hear it in His voice, and I know this version of Him. He continues, telling me I have targets on my back. That others are beginning to notice my power, and that they don’t like it. He takes His hands and outlines my field of energy and I feel contained.

He looks at me again and His eyes are blazing.

“They will not reach you, though. You are protected.”

We sit there for a moment, studying the waves crashing against the shore, holding hands and resting in each other’s presence. And then I hear footsteps and look up, seeing her walking toward us, the red robe blowing behind her. She’s smiling, and beckoning me toward her.

I look at Jesus and He smiles, nodding toward Mary Magdalene.

“Go, love. It’s okay. I sent her to you.”

So I walk toward her, noticing a fire burning. She sits next to the flame, and reaches for my hand. She tells me secrets of my lineage — of the ones who circle me and provide protection. Of the ones who are meant to witness. Of the one who is my mirror.

“You have been a fierce protector of so many people for so long — now it’s time for you to experience that for yourself. The power within you is awakening, and within that power is a need to rest on the ones who can hold you.”

And as we named the ones who are in my circle, I saw them in my peripheral vision begin to circle around us — their skirts and hair blowing in the wind, the thrum of magic channeling between all of us, like golden threads weaving in and out and connecting us.

A sacred circle; a chord of three strands.

And as I scanned the areas of my own energy needing a dose of that golden threaded power, I heard her whispering over me your breath is your knowing.