Chapter Twenty-Six: The Lion’s Gate Portal
Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash
August 10, 2021
Dear Diary,
Oh what joy it is to awaken and learn that I became an aunt whilst I slept! Just like that, I have two perfect babies to love and care for, to hold and snuggle as much as I want, and the whole process could not have been easier for me!
Even before this godawful pandemic, I can’t remember the last time I was able to experience the sublime joy of holding a newborn baby. I can’t remember when I was last able to rock a teeny-tiny swaddled baby, or feed her a bottle, while gushing over her perfect little dimpled hand wrapped around my index finger. Nine long years have passed since Olivia was born, and a big part of me worries that I won’t be able to give my sister any good advice because everything feels like such a distant, sleep-deprived blur. Not to mention, whatever helpful advice I may have still within me pertained to caring for one tiny human at a time, so I have no clue what it’s like to have two simultaneously.
When I close my eyes, however, and try to picture my sister at this very moment, I feel all the butterflies, all the tingles, all over again. When I close my eyes, I picture what a supercharged time this is for her: the intense rush of love at first sight; the exhaustion; the relief in their first embrace; the sense of belonging; the profound gravity of this precious new love; the fears; the realization that she will feel all the things, all the time, from here on out.
My little sister is now a mother! My niece and nephew have instantly and forever transformed her. My heart feels like it could explode.
Astrologically speaking, my gorgeous niece and nephew have arrived during the Lion’s Gate portal, a supernatural force that fills up the sky from July 28 to August 12, when the sky’s brightest blue star, Sirius, is most visible. I’d never heard of the Lion’s Gate portal before this past weekend, when a girlfriend of mine schooled me and she suggested we celebrate the new moon and write down our goals, so they manifest themselves during this extra powerful, life-changing time.
What serendipity that the twins have arrived during this time! I believe in my perfect niece and nephew, and in their transformative powers, and pray that they are the healing force our world needs.
I hope that their arrival manifests the immediate shift we all need to take to combat the existential crises we currently face. I hope their arrival helps us heed the majority of scientists, instead of listening to the fringe conspiracy theorists. I hope they help us learn to think critically, and to reject the concept of alternative facts. If we can’t find it within us to have humanity for humanity’s sake, let us care about the health of every person on this planet AND our planet, because this pandemic has revealed just how intricately we are all connected AND because there is no Planet B. Don’t we want there to be a generation that follows Generation Z, goddammit?! Although, as I type that, I wonder how fatalistic we are to call them Z, sheesh.
More than anything, though, please let us check our privilege and stop fixating on some supposed individual right to live our lives without regard for others. I honestly don’t understand how we have gotten to the point where we have mainstreamed sociopathic personalities like Ron DeathSantis and Marjorie Taylor Greene, or how Americans have politicized a virus which has infected nearly every country on the planet regardless of their respective political institutions, but that shall have to be a question for another, less joyous day.
Indeed, Diary, back to my perfect, brand-new baby lioness niece and lion nephew! Sweet babes, I hope that I can snuggle you in my arms and smother you with kisses, without any Delta variant concerns for our safety, as quickly as freaking possible. And, if someone could invent some highly efficient, solar-powered vessel to transport me to you as quickly as freaking possible, that would be great, too. In the meantime, please know that your Auntie will always love you to Sirius and back.
Very truly yours,
Maya