Moving Magic: Why i moved from Dallas to Wimberley

To watch a video version of this story click here. 

Please note: This short essay is NOT edited. Which means there may be typos and many other grammatical errors. Perfection is not the point. Radically honest from the heart sharing is. Enjoy this unedited piece of storytelling magic.  

A year ago today at 10:15 am, 9 hours after the moon shifted into Sagittarius and Mercury was still in Retrograde, my wife and i signed the lease on our new way (and area) of life. 

With my natal Jupiter in Pisces sextiling my Capricorn Sun, i made a leap i had never done alone, let alone in tandem with someone. 

i had spent almost 20 years calling North Texas my home. 15 of those in Dallas. 13 years with my wife. Together, the longest stretch of time i had ever committed to anything and anyone.

And now, with the flick of a pen, it was all about to change. 

This moment was the result of a conversation that happened back on November 20, 2022 when my wife and i were in an Airbnb by Padre Island Beach in Corpus Christi visiting my family. We had made the trip because i had just been “diagnosed” with Hypothyroidism and Graves Disease and i needed to be on my homeland with my family. 

Later that night over a bottle a wine and beach bay views, we talked about our future. What we wanted, wished, and foresaw. And then she asked the question that set off the energetic snowball, “Are you serious about moving?”

“Yes, i am.”

“Well, okay then, i’ll start looking.”

As we sat watching the storm roll in, White Barn Owl flew over us. It was the first time either of us had seen an owl, let alone the most mysterious one. 

And later, two coyotes crossing the sand dunes, unknown guides at the time ushering in for both of us the sacred nightly pack howl medicine of our future residence. 

❤️‍🔥

Everything became a whirlwind after that. 

Job interviews. Symbolic sporadic packing to show the Universe we were serious. Health obstacles that would foretell of an even more erratic, heartbreaking future. COVID. 

And yet, there was always an ease about it all. A deeper shade of knowing, of being and feeling held throughout the process. 

And then a random nonchalant exchange between my wife and i that went like this:

Brandi: Picks up C’s phone to look at some of the houses in Wimberley she had saved for us to look at. 

Brandi: Finds new listing and clicks on it. Reads silently: 960 sq ft. 5 acres. February 2022 move-in date. 

Brandi: Shows the pic of the house to C and says disappointedly, “Too bad it’s too small.”

C: Takes phone from Brandi’s hand hits the Message now button, types frantically and says, “They have an open house on Saturday. But I told them we’d be in town tomorrow and they said we could see it.”

B: Takes the phone back and looking at the picture again thinks to herself, It’s just waaaay too small.

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It was the first house we looked at and as soon as we drove up, i knew. i knew we would end up there. 

As we pulled up to the gate my resistance grew. C drove down the winding road to get this 1975 house anyway. 

As soon as we stepped out of the car and onto the land we both knew. 

As we looked inside, everything appeared larger than it seemed in the picture. 

As we drove away and off to see another house, our conversation told the story of two folxs who already know their destiny was written as strongly as the Oak trees woven around the land. 

As we sat on our Airbnb porch pláticaing at night, together our hearts made the decision to say yes to the leap. 

Even though no job was found. Even though we would have to pay double rent to make it happen. Even though we we were sacred (correction i was scared). Even though C had never lived anywhere else than Dallas. Even though my heart was racing and the butterflies were migrating from my belly to my head to my chest and back again. We said yes anyway.

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Everyone i told couldn’t believe it. 

YOU? IN THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY?!?!? NO FUCKING WAY. i was even repeating this shock in my head on a loop over and over.

I, who had wanted to be Madonna and hail a taxi to drop me in the center of everything, choosing to land here…in the middle of nowhere?

It was a shock to the system of the folxs in my outer landscape, but to my inner one it was a choice that had been at least ½ a decade in the making. 

A few years prior to us signing the lease, my friend Richard Curtain made the move from Dallas to Alpine, TX just as i was beginning to take a serious look at the home and private lives of the folxs whose art i most admired. They all had one thing in common…They didn’t live smack dab in the city. 

In fact, they didn’t live smack dab in the middle of anything. 

 As i bore witness to my friend’s artistry blossom and bloom and become more pronounced with details and depth the longer he was Alpine, i began to see how my favorite writer, Dani Shapiro’s words were woven and written in the silence expanse between the snow on their land and the pine populated property line of others. 

i began to really see how the folxs i admired made space, peace, calm, and expansion central to their creativity. 

i had given up and said yes to a variety of different things for my art, magic, and creativity…but never this. 

Never yes to forgo the ego of a performer for the shadow side of words and the longing of poetry. 

Never yes to closing down dreams of being a superstar for walking into the darkness to dance under a blanket of them.  dark sky community free of skyscrapers and overpopulation sounds and light

Never yes to nature’s wildlife over the humxn kind. 

Never yes to the empty hum of nothing over the gay heartbeat, the drumming, and pacing of the city life.

But this is what my art and magic craved and carried me to do. 

And it was the whole and only reason, i was able and ready to say yes.

❤️‍🔥

The day after we signed the lease i wrote this in my WOKE MAGIC Grimoire:

“i did something under a Sagittarius moon. We signed the lease under The Star week. We went to Wimberley and really PLANTED, rooted our course & direction of our life for the next 17 months…in Wimberley. A land that is so lush and beautiful. We chose a destination and are navigating toward it. 

i wanted a card to ease my nerves. Serve as a guide to this next phase of my life, this new Wimberley adventure, and to be a friend as we walk this. 

As i was shuffling a card flipped itself over. It was The Empress. Like i really couldn’t have asked for a more poetic companion on this journey. 

But there was also a card left in the box that didn’t get shuffled. 

It was The Chariot—and that holds meaning too. 

i’m about to feel & really experience my capacity. Stretch it. Embrace my polymath.” 

Today, one year later, i wrote this in my WOKE MAGIC Grimoire:

“Uncage your heart, free your heart, let it be wild.” Medicine messages from my daily cup of tea tapped right next to today’s date. 

And then this, 

“As this first Empress cycle in Wimberley comes to a close, who and what wants to show up as my guide for my 2 year?“

The answer:

XIV. Temperance: Radical Balance. The Sun’s elixir and the Moon’s nectar being poured into a single cup. A person straddling two worlds that represent all worlds. 

A dancer. A creator. A both/and/also/all. 

And these potent words written by Musawa, “She enters a deep state of awareness so keen that she is able to cross the blade-edge bridge between the worlds to transmute the elements within and withouth, through mindfulness on all levels of being. Her bold, dynamic stance reaffirms the root meaning fo radical: Roots. Temperance asks us to uproot systemic sources of oppression, and challenges us to stay balanced and centered in the face of a polarized world.”

And then … two cards turned sideways left amid the 75 still in the deck facing upright. 

5 of Air: “Inspiration”

And underneath, XI. Strength “holding us together.” 

Strength. The same card i pulled yesterday as i came home and wrote about a new leap i had just taken in saying yes to a piece of jewelry that called me. 

Strength. Who’s avatar here in this deck is a brown womxn opening up her coat to reveal a wigwam, home, and fire in her belly with the word “sanctuary” written over her heart. 

Strength. The same gentle lesion that brought me here. 

And the same undeniable force and energy calling me to begin and write this cycle anew, again. 

❤️‍🔥