A Kaleidoscope Spirit ~

The first kaleidoscope I was shown was in 1975. 

My Mom was on a bowling team and every time she bowled I got dropped off at the bowling alley’s daycare.  I hated it there.  All the kids seemed to know what to do: play, scream, color, be with each other.  And no one was moving slow enough to tell me how to join in.  I would just wait it out, eat some Saltines and hope that someone would talk to me.

One day after picking me up, she stopped to talk with one of her friends.  Hanging out while listening to adults is pretty standard fare for first-borns.  And that day, surrounded by the moving red pattern of the thick bowling alley carpet didn’t seem like it was going to be different.

Until my Mom’s friend gave me a kaleidoscope to look through.

I held it up to my eye and became transfixed.  Sharp silver stars, dark blues and greens and just a little bit of purple changed their hues as I swung my body around catching the bright light over the shoe dispensary and then to the mild light over the alleys.  My belly became warm and my imagination started seeing not just these beautiful shapes, but all of the little beings who would want to live inside of this tube.

“Kim, you can turn it, too,” my Mom’s friend’s voice had a real smile inside of it and I looked up.

It turned, too?

Looking back inside at the stars and foil shapes, I slowly twisted the kaleidoscope.

Oranges and yellows seemed to fall into place over the first show of colors.  Only they didn’t even line up the same.  My whole world slowed down, as I fell into a spell watching the colors breathe, sparkle and change.  Always falling in a new way.  Always stunning.

This experience is the main reason I named my company Kaleidoscope Spirit.

When I look back at my life, even the painful parts pulse with light.  Love and love lost all shine with their own truth and  I know what has happened to me, what happens to all of us, is an illuminated forest whose map we couldn’t read right away.

Through my work in unraveling myself, releasing pain and committing to living my divinity, I have found that working with my young response to that kaleidoscope actually encapsulates how I see the world.

If we can look back at the past and see that it formed who we are and helped in creating the amazing spirits that we are – can we look at the future this way?

Can we look at this very moment in this way?  Excited by beauty, letting the past complete it’s turn and look forward to the next configuration of energy around us.

To this day, when I look through a kaleidoscope (I own 3) I will shriek at each new layout and try and hold it steady so that I can show my husband that specific moment.

This is what I strive for each day in my life now.  This is what I am here to share with the world.

Today, try and look at your life as a Kaleidoscope Spirit.  Not just a trippy, cool chick from a Beatle’s song who everyone wants to party with.  A Kaleidoscope Spirit looks for the beauty in each moment.  And when some moments are painful, or too much to bear, remember that you are surrounded by beauty.  Look around you to the trees, the stars and this living Earth, let them engage your heart and settle your mind.

Love and clean bowling shoes,

Kim