I was in the kitchen, making myself some kind of tofu-related meat sandwich, when I heard the voice that did not come through my ears but nevertheless landed in the place where I hear sound. It said to me, "You aren't writing this story".

It is late. The winds rise and fall outside my window and there is a distant wail of passenger trains. My heart is racing from pedaling the bike that goes nowhere. An airplane falls down through the cloud layer with a whine and rockets off to return people to loved ones or to take them away.

This last week has been a blur of symbols racing through my open fingers, across my aching arms. In the evenings I have sat and watched the progress meters gain altitude, flipped disks and bathed, unshaven, in the glow of the television.

But the words linger and the clairaudience is crucial. The other evening I had a conversation with Mickie, a forced communication of some length, and afterwards went into the world. Everything was illuminated. The cat sat in the middle of the road watching me, and the crows lit upon the hoods of cars and spoke. The bridge seemed to shimmer against the horizon, buffeted by energy that breathed and buckled. This is the way I want to see the world every day.

There are so many impending things this summer for me that they threaten to weigh me down and crush my bones like matchsticks and straw men. I could easily let them. But I see finally that I am not writing this story. I am not in control of where it goes or how it will end. I am experiencing the story. I am the decider of moments. It's not my job to set it all down, to figure it all out. It's not my duty to be complete or scheme for completion. It's only my job to walk through it, to marvel at where it shifts and wiggles, to wonder which paths to take, but to realize the vast unknowingness of any outcome, of all outcomes.

I've been living my life sometimes as if I am writing my mythic journey, as if I can foresee each minuscule section and can weave together disaparate plots, as if I am both actor and sole creator. I've been living my life sometimes with the tremendous stress of having to explain, of having to make sense not only of my life but having to make sense of myself to myself and others.

I've been asked to stop doing this, and so I'm going to try to. When I think about it, I see it's really what I want now out of life. I don't want to be the keeper of the book of tales. I want to be inside Story. I want to engage and participate, not figure out the ending. But more than this, I want to go a little crazy.

I am realizing that fun and enjoyment are not owed to you. Sometimes fun must be ripped from the heart of living. It must be fought for and held tight. It must be chased down and ensnared, chewed and eaten and worn like a coat. Its up to me to find it in whatever I do. It will never be given. It must be found. And sometimes, it must be hunted.

Tomorrow is Midsummer, a magical sabbat. It marks the beginning of summer for the Gregorians, and the middle of summer for the Celts. For me, it marks the pinnacle of my energy and the beginning of the return back towards Samhain. And it reminds me of where I am and from where I've come. In my life, I've seen and experienced things that I'll never be able to understand, unless I allow for the fact that in general, understanding is much wider than it is believed to be, and that maybe things are exactly as they seem.

I think I'm finally ready to do that.