Unquiet
Things

The heart wants what it wants, and sometimes it makes spontaneous decisions to purchase something kinda weird that it has been subconsciously been looking for, for a very long time.

To back up, just a bit: it’s true that instagram can be kind of not great for me (and my wallet); I’m always finding beautiful jewelry or makeup or other frivolities to fall in love with, and with which I desperately desire to fill my greedy hands. But then, when I peek over to see what @phantasmaphile (the luminous witch and wise woman Pam Grossman) is up to, I am always reminded of the things my heart wants….and these things usually have nothing at all do to with that itchy need to continuously fill my hands and closets and shelves with more More MORE.

This thing in particular, if you go by Amazon’s listing, is a “Dewi Rice Goddess Flying Hanging Mermaid Lady“, and I remember seeing their weird, wild likenesses flying from the ceilings of a store in St. Augustine, Florida thirty years ago. I’m sure I didn’t have the money to pay for one at the time, and I probably couldn’t have articulated to my grandparents why I even wanted it, I just knew that it looked beautiful, felt magical, and belonged close to me. I had forgotten all about it, or so I thought, until I saw a little carved wooden lady in one of @phantasmaphile’s instagram stories earlier this week. Her unblinking, expectant gaze immediately sparked this recollection for me, and over the next few hours my mind drifted back in time, to when I was eleven years old, wandering idly through a gift shop, trying not to break anything, and finally settling upon the first time I locked eyes with this representation of something far older and more wondrous than the tourist baubles I had expected to find.

What Pam shared in her instagram stories wasn’t the same exact thing I held dear in my memory, and I wasn’t even sure how to go looking for it. However, my Google search for “carved wooden mermaid flying goddess” eventually lead me to this Dewi rice goddess, and to be quite honest, I am not even sure if this if she is the right one. I think the flying mermaid goddess in my memory held a mirror and a comb, and now that I look again, I think mayhaps I purchased the wrong one. Too late to second guess now!
Well, but I mean, really, is it? I could always get her a friend…

Dewi Sri is the Balinese goddess of rice and prosperity and is believed to have dominion over the underworld and the Moon. I am not sure where or how she becomes a mermaid or a winged creature, but hey, she’s a goddess. They do what they want.

It’s a funny thing when you set out to track down and procure for yourself the things that have been haunting your dreams for over half your life, isn’t it? Are they at all the way we’ve perceived them when we finally get them? My goddess’ wing is not cut the right size for her wing slot, and so it sits a little crooked. I suppose that gives her a jaunty sort of charm. She seems to think so, if her arch smile is any indication. And she may already be bringing bringing me prosperity! She arrived yesterday, and just today we finally closed on the sale of my late grandparent’s house. Coincidence? Well…it was scheduled before I even ordered her.

What does your heart remember, and long for through the years? Did you eventually receive it/retrieve it, and was it all you had dreamed?