Be very careful what you set your heart upon, for you will surely have it.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Just last week my turquoise ring was lost again, this time in a mud pit. I was leading a Sisters of the Forest camp for young girls in Carrboro, NC and we got to experience the mud together. I couldn't help but do a handstand in the fun of it all, and there went my ring with it! My friend Rachel persisted in searching for it, so the ring was not missing for long, but it made me remember with fondness the last time this ring was found, three years ago, and that this story needs to be kept alive. If nothing else as a reminder for me that miracles are always happening.

In the past several years there has been an increase in both the simple and complex co-incidents happening daily in my life, so much so that I came to believe they would be better described as ‘cosmincidents’- the flawless arrangement or flow of the Divinely Ordered Cosmos. At first I began writing down all the cosmincidents that would happen in a day, but quickly there grew to be so many that I could not find the time to record them all. The days often read like fairy tales. The serendipitous flow of daily life is there for any and all of us who are willing to pay attention and appreciate. The universe loves to be recognized for its splendor and for us to surrender and allow it to take us on an amazing ride. Where do you want to go? You are the co-creator.

A remarkable reminder of Source magically at work(or play) has happened over and over again with my favorite piece of turquoise jewelry, as if to say, “Dare you doubt?"

This story is a remarkable example of cosmic incidents.

When I was 19 years old and living in Bellingham, Washington, I met a street vender who had a turquoise ring for sale that kept drawing me back to his table day after day. I finally came up with the $20 to buy it and felt so thrilled to have it on my finger. It did not remain there well, however, as over the years I would lose it periodically only to find it again in the strangest of places. Sometimes I could not remember where or when I lost it, as though it had just vanished. When I would notice that it was no longer on my finger, I would wonder, “Was it gone yesterday as well, and the day before…when did it take missing?”

The stone itself had started to fall out of its silver setting and would disappear for weeks at a time. Once, I found it lying in the yard, a turquoise glow catching my eye. Another time someone found it in an auditorium after it had been missing for months. When I met a jewelry maker at a Nanci Griffith concert and asked if she could fix the ring, she agreed to put the stone into a new setting that would embrace it better, as well as fit my finger more securely.

So I left the ring, my address, and $50 with her, along with complete faith in its return. Three months later I received it in the mail, looking beautiful in its new band.

I wore it for a couple months, and then it disappeared again. This time it took missing for one and a half years. I knew it would turn up again at some point. On the spring equinox of 2006, I completed my seasonal ritual of harvesting ‘black gold’, my worm castings compost pile. The months of kitchen waste had been transformed into three 5-gallon bucket-fulls of beautiful soil. As I stored the buckets away for later use, I scooped out a quart of it to dress my houseplants.

As I spread the finished compost on my beloved ficus tree (ficus is the tree under which Buddah became enlightenend), the ring peaked out of the ‘black gold’. I stared in awe, then grabbed the ring and lie down in my yard under the silver maple tree and just cried with the magnificence of the moment. The ring had spent a year and a half in the transformation process of turning plant matter back into rich earth, which is some of the most basic, important work there is to a healthy planet, and so I felt like I had been crowned a queen to wear this ring again after what it had been through.

But when I put the ring on that evening, my hand started buzzing. It was uncomfortable to wear it for long, almost like I had an electrical charge running through my hand that was too distracting.  I had to wear it for several short intervals before I could keep it on fully again.

It stayed on for six months until that autumn when it went away again. It was during the garlic-planting season at the farm where I worked when I noticed it missing.  But again, it could have fallen off anywhere, for when I realized it was not on my finger, I was in that spellbound place of wondering how long it had been gone.

About nine months later, I started thinking about my lovely turquoise ring strongly. I said a prayer to the Almighty, “If this ring shows up again, I will never doubt your hand of Grace that rules my life. There will be no more room for worries or fears if this comes back to me yet another time.” Big statement, I know.

I have a gold journal that I call Ceridwyn’s Cauldron in which I write down things that I wish to do or have; things that I do not have time to do currently in my life but hope to some day, or things I cannot yet afford, and other things that are beyond my control. I delegate these matters to the Universe, where magic and miracles are always unfolding. I wrote down ‘The Ring’.

A couple days later, in June, I was harvesting the quarter acre or more of the fall-planted garlic at the farm with a group of women. One of the women pulled up a garlic plant and gasped, for there was a ring at its base. I walked over and saw that it was the ring, my turquoise ring, attached at the base of the leaves and the head of the bulb. I asked to hold the stalk and immediately began trembling with such a powerful knowing of Divine love and the respect of being heard, that all I could do was cry with joy and in humbleness and lift it in my arms to the heavens in praises. We were all in amazement!

The ring must have fallen off while I was planting the garlic cloves in the field!  Apparently a clove sprouted in the center of the ring and kept it underground for nine months, the garlic fully developing into its potential, bringing back the ring to light with the harvest.

I began to strongly reflect on the energy and vibration of minerals and metals mined from the earth. The intelligence connected within all of life on this planet is far beyond our comprehension. I believe when we wear jewelry it gives forth its own vibration onto our bodies and it is well worth paying attention to what that vibration is. Turquoise comes from the earth body and evidently this piece in particular liked to commune inside the depths of dark earth frequently. Yet I have a connection to it as well and so the ring keeps returning, perhaps to remind me of faith and trust in the Divine Order.

I kept the ring, garlic and all, on my altar for a month before I cut the garlic stalk and took it off to wear again. This time it fit with ease and more perfectly than ever. It was with me as I traveled through Costa Rica on a vision quest. Some friends and I were sitting up in a tree house that overlooked San Jose and the Central Valley, talking about the myriad of possibilities and choices in life. That evening, a man I did not know joined us and in less than five minutes of conversing we deduced that, from his home in Oklahoma, he had received an email from a friend about my turquoise ring story a while back! He was delighted to see the actual ring and I said, “The magic of this ring does not stop!” What a small, connected world, indeed.

A few people have said that I need to tape the ring to my finger less I lose it yet again. But that is not the way I believe in approaching life. One of the greatest lessons I am learning in this life is that of detachment, of letting go, and trusting that all that is real and true will circle back in perfect time. And to lift our voices in gratitude for the unique and personal ways we get to experience the Holy Spirit everyday, if we are paying attention, for we are swimming in a sea of cosmincidents.