Somehow, I’d created a home—and a lifestyle—that supported everyone in the family in their creative work except me.Is there no room for me in my own life? I wondered.

Chapter Nine. Re-reading Sea of Miracles Together.

Happy Easter, to those who celebrate.
To all . . . I wish you an easy week of dogwood and magnolia blossoms. Of green springing up to remind you that while the human world is churning through something hard right now, the natural world is quietly performing millions of miracles.

Life is bursting forward. And I hope you can get outside into it. Let it remind you to stop and pay attention to what is also happening in this world. To let the wind blow your hair around. To let spring in all her glory, color and bud, capture your attention, even for a moment. Let it all be a sign to remind you that you, too, are a part of it - the movement and bloom, the surge and flow, the unfolding miracle of life.

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We are now on Chapter Nine of our shared project: re-reading my book, Sea of Miracles, together.

I’ve skipped over Chapter Eight for now (I promise we’ll come back to it) because I want to bring you one of the most practical concepts in the book—and in all of my work: Symbolic Sight.

In this chapter, I tell the story of a very plain, everyday object—a refrigerator magnet—which, because I was able to read it symbolically, helped transform a painful argument with my husband into a healing moment in our marriage.

It also helped me remember—and begin to reintegrate—a childhood wound I didn’t even realize was still living in me.

After the chapter, I’ll invite you into reflection with me - with some prompts and questions to get you started on your own symbolic reading of real events.

Here’s the chapter.

Interpreting Guidance with Symbolic Sight

When my children were in middle school, I began to feel unsettled. Caught between work and family, between wanting to please everyone and needing—desperately—to express myself, I felt trapped.

In our small, crowded house, there was only one available space—the kitchen table. And every time I found the time to sit down to write (or just to think), someone would walk through needing my attention.

Somehow, I’d created a home—and a lifestyle—that supported everyone in the family in their creative work except me.
Is there no room for me in my own life? I wondered.

My marriage felt strained. My husband and I, both artists, wrestled for the freedom to pursue our creative work, each blaming the other for the lack of support.

Frustrated, we scheduled a couples’ counseling session to help us sort out our feelings. But on the way there, we began to argue so bitterly that I asked—well, really, I demanded—that he pull the car over so I could walk the rest of the way.

Emotions swirling, head down, I walked slowly, hoping to calm down before arriving. I had gone maybe a quarter mile when—What’s that? I wondered.

With so much on my mind, I don’t know what made me notice it: a small piece of roadside debris, half-buried in snow and mud. But something about it caught my attention.

What’s this? I thought, bending to pick it up.

It was one of those flat refrigerator magnets—pink and white, shaped like a ballerina. One of its feet had broken off. It was scuffed and scratched.

And the moment I saw it, tears filled my eyes as I remembered . . .

I was ten years old. I was going to be a ballerina.

I loved everything about ballet—my black leotard and powder-pink tights, my soft leather slippers, the way my body felt as I leapt across the polished floor of the studio.

Most of all, I loved my teacher: Misha. A real ballerina, who pronounced the exotic new language of ballet—tour jeté, plié, arabesque—with a clipped Russian accent.

It was the day we would graduate to toe shoes, and I could barely contain my excitement. For days, I’d been practicing—standing on my toes at home, on the sidewalk all the way to school.

But first, we had a test—a little review of the steps we’d learned that year.

I knew them cold. We lined up at the barre. Then it was my turn. I leapt. I spun—joy bursting from my body like sunlight.

Misha smiled. “Excellent!” she said, clapping her hands.

After each girl had danced, Misha examined our feet. One by one, we sat beside her on a long wooden bench while she turned and bent them gently in her hands.

I waited, scanning the stack of pink boxes filled with satin toe shoes. I loved the sound of them—the chalky thump-thump-thump against the wood floor as the older girls danced. I couldn’t wait to lace the pink satin ribbons up my calves.

But when it was my turn, Misha said simply,
“Your feet are deformed. You’ll never be a ballerina.”

I felt as if I had been set on fire.

Shattered, I walked back to the barre. There was no arguing. Nothing could be done. The next little girl took my place on the bench.

Even now, remembering it, my throat tightens with sorrow as if it’s happening again.

I remember my mother picking me up. I remember pushing past her, running to the car, choking back tears.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” she kept asking.

But I couldn’t speak. I sat frozen, silent.

I never wore my ballet clothes again. Never returned to class.

Though later I tried other forms of movement—jazz, modern, disco—something inside me had broken.

A body-soul connection I wouldn’t reclaim until forty years later, standing at the side of a busy road with a broken, mud-covered ballerina magnet in my hand.

And in that moment, I received a message of healing:
You’ve left your dreams by the side of the road too long. Let yourself dance.

I took the magnet—and the story it had given me—into our counseling session.

That was the day my marriage began to heal. The day I told my husband, “I have to dance,” and he said, “Of course you do.”

(This happened 20 years ago but I still have that ballerina magnet. I keep it on the frig - a reminder to little me to remember to dance. Today, taking her into the palm of my hand, I notice things I hadn’t seen before: that both feet are missing, and so is her right hand. There is a crack between her head the rest of her body. A message (and reminder) to come out of my head into my limbs. To regrow my feet - planting them on the ground. Doing those ankle flexes I keep forgetting to do. And what is the message of the missing right hand? I don’t know. Do you have a suggestion to share? There is always something to see. Even when we revisit an object we thought we knew. )

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Most people are aware that symbols show up in dreams. But did you know that symbolic messages also cross into our waking lives?

When a client brings me a story like this, we examine the details as if it were a dream. This helps us bring the symbolic elements into focus.

We take every object in the story and ask, Why is this here?—and let it speak.

In my story, we might explore the car, the snowy road, the ballerina magnet that triggered a cascade of memory and healing. In a kind of story alchemy, each object we encounter in the physical world can act as a prompt for spiritual unfolding that is trying to emerge.

Reading the world this way opens a new eye—one that sees with all your senses.

Now, the rush of wind through the trees might remind you to refresh a relationship. The falling autumn leaves may symbolize a life cycle or the passage of time. Each snowflake melting on your windshield could become a symbol of your own precious, unique beauty.

The symbols I see help me put words to the subtle impressions I receive, offering imagery that my clients can use to build their own understanding.

Once, in a counseling session, a woman was telling me about her strict father. As she spoke, my attention was drawn to a tree bending in the wind outside the window.

I said, “Could you imagine yourself bending away from his anger without breaking? Would a more pliable, flexible stance help him become less rigid with you?”

She nodded. “It might,” she said.

In another session, a man was describing a difficult situation at work. I noticed the leaves clogging a curbside drain, causing a flood. I mentioned the image and remarked that water often symbolizes emotion.

The man began to weep.

He told me how overwhelmed he felt. The work piling up on his desk each day was “spilling over” into his relationship with his wife and son. The pressure, he said, was backing up in other areas, too. It was blocking the flow of his creative energy—just as those leaves were blocking the flow of the rainwater.

That simple metaphor—a blocked drain—allowed him to acknowledge and release his pent-up emotions. Because he saw his situation—because he understood it—he was able to begin moving toward healing.

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Photo by Jingxi Lau on Unsplash

Reflect + Journal

Let’s turn this lens toward your life.

• Can you recall a moment when something small—a found object, a fleeting image, a word overheard—seemed to speak to you?

• When a glimpse of a photo or a stream of music stopped you in your tracks: remembering?

• What was the memory? What was the feeling? What was the message, if any, it carried for you?

Try this:

Return to that memory or another story from your life that has stayed with you—especially one you return to often. Now, read it symbolically:

• What were the key objects or images in the story? Let yourself see it - as if you were watching a photograph develop in your mind’s eye? What’s in the room? What’s nearby? Were there other people there? Who? What were they doing, wearing?

• Now, imagine the entire experience was a dream - and you are just waking up, remembering it. Imagine you are sorting through the objects and people and colors and sounds in the ‘dream’ memory. What stands out?

• Take one object and imagine it’s a symbol of something meaningful - something you are ready to see or understand.

• Let it speak to you. What message might it be offering you now?

As with any exercise I offer, these are just guidelines. Invent your own way. Make up your own steps. Make the work your own.

If you notice anything interesting (or amazing!) I’d love to hear about it. Share your experience, your thoughts, your wisdom, in the comments.

Blessings and big love
xxoo
Amy