Part 4

The Love Spell. An Erotic Memoir of Spiritual Awakening
by Phyllis Curott

(Page 4 of 5)

"It's not about money. It's about his ... energy. I mean, these lists that women make about what they want in a man - it sounds like the same guy: handsome, smart, funny, considerate, successful. Likes long walks on the beach and dinners by candlelight." I wrinkled my nose.

"What's wrong with perfect?"

"I don't want a guy who's perfect. I just want the guy who's perfect for me. I think it's just something you feel - that electricity. The way he'd look at me, you know, really look, deep, without flinching or hiding or pulling back. Like he wants to be right where he is because he knows we're meant for each other. And I want him to kiss me like he means it, like he wants to possess me, not just ... fuck me. Like he knows that it's more than just sex - that it's love. That's hot." I sighed and Gail blew on her blood-red fingertips. "Present and sincere and passionate - those are the most important things." She nodded. "Yeah." She sounded sad, and then the iron breastplate clamped back into place over her heart. "David'll be here any minute. Would you mind if he and I hung out here for a while - alone?"

"No problem. I'll go to the library."

It was cold and clear and the streets were filled with students instead of tourists. I found myself looking at them, searching their faces, even though I knew he wasn't going to appear. Was it possible to find a man like that? Did he even exist?

Other things were beginning to happen that I couldn't explain. I was in the middle of my New York Practice and Procedure class, shifting uncomfortably in my seat, feeling my heart beat a little quicker. It wasn't because of the cute professor; it was because suddenly I knew the answer to the question he was asking. I didn't raise my hand. He would have asked me to explain my reasoning and I couldn't give an explanation. I hadn't reviewed the case he was discussing, and I hadn't reasoned my way to the answer - it had simply come to me. And then I thought, Carol Stewart is going to answer it. Her hand shot up. "Yes, Ms. Stewart." The professor nodded at Carol.

"The court would grant the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment."

"Can you tell me why?"

And she did.

After class, I walked over to Café Reggio for a quick cappuccino to jump-start my statute-saturated brain. And to get a few minutes alone. Instead of reviewing my notes for the next class, I pulled my journal from the knapsack and started jotting down what had happened. And then I found myself rereading other quickly scribbled accounts: "Mom called again today, and I knew the phone was going to ring before it did, and that it would be her." She never called at a fixed time. And yet as I read my notes, I found a dozen different examples over the last few weeks of having known she was about to call.

"I ran into Mrs. Cardozzi today and before she opened her mouth, I knew what she was going to say. It was as if I was reading the words across her forehead right before she said them. She wanted to tell me a story about the Strega who had lived and died in my building. I asked her what a Strega is, and she said it meant Witch. A good Witch, she said. And I thought of Glinda the Good Witch except with black hair like Anna Magnani. And then she gave me this old Italian amulet that she said belonged to the Strega, she called it a cimaruta."

I ran my fingers over the ornament hanging from a silver chain around my neck. It was made of silver, shaped like the branches of a plant with little objects at the end of each branch - a key, a heart, a moon.

There were also dreams that had come true - one about an accident, another about the death of a relative. And there was the mysterious dream I'd had just a few days ago, a dream that I'd had before, of a woman sitting serenely, holding a book in her lap. Her breasts were bare and she wore a necklace with a six-pointed star and an unusual crown. She would appear briefly, sit silently, and then disappear in a flare of light from which I would awaken, wondering.

At first, I thought my odd experiences were happening because I was under too much stress, but I didn't feel stressed. I was enjoying my last year, my job. Since the intuitions, insights and premonitions were frequently right, I knew that I wasn't having a paper chase nervous breakdown. Instead, I was beginning to realize there was more to reality than met the eye.

And I sensed it was all linked to Jimmy, for it had all begun with his arrival. A raw sexual current had coursed into my life, but its power had opened more than my heart. It seemed to have opened something in my mind. It was as if I'd been watching the world on a little black-and-white television, and suddenly I was walking around in a vivid, multidimensional, full-color reality. It was ... magical.

Why were these things happening? It wasn't enough to say I'd had some kind of visitation and it had triggered latent psychic talents. I was a rational person. I wanted, I needed, rational explanations. I wanted a scientific answer. I went to the university library with its tiled floor that looked like an M. C. Escher drawing of infinitely shifting perspectives, and I searched out books on physics - the science that explained the physical laws of the universe. It was in quantum physics that I began to find an understanding of what had been happening and why.

I didn't understand most of the pages I struggled to read, and the mathematical formulas were an alien tongue. But I did understand what was most important: everything is energy; everything is interconnected in that energy field, and the human mind, in various ecstatic states, has the capacity to interact with and affect the outcome of events in that field. It sounded like magic, just like my experiences, but it was real. Just as I answered one question, however, another appeared. I'd moved from physics to metaphysics and I was now confounded, for there were those like Stephen Hawking who claimed that were we to delve deeply enough into the laws of nature, one day we would know the mind of God. The answers lay within, it was argued. There at the deepest levels of the quantum domain, Paradise would be restored once we recognized ourselves as a mirror of God. But I wasn't looking for God. I was looking for James Dean. In the midst of all these odd experiences, and school, and work, I longed for him to reappear - on film or in the flesh as my living, romantic hero. And even though I'd read it scientifically explained in black and white, I didn't realize the power of that longing, nor the full measure of what it had unleashed. But somehow, I sensed it.

I stared down at the image on the cover of The Mutant King. The book was a birthday present from Carla, an old friend from high school.

"I saw you two had the same birthday, so I figured you might enjoy it."

She hadn't known anything about my ... what? My crush? My fascination? I still didn't know what to call it.

"We have the same birthday?" I said quietly, stunned, holding the biography of James Dean gingerly, as if it might crumble to dust in my hands. Synchronicity - it felt like a magic word, as if each time one happened, the two spheres - of my mundane life and one of enchantment - merged.

Copyright © 2006 Phyllis Curott

About the Author

Phyllis Curott is the author of Book of Shadows and Witch Crafting, which top 100,000 copies in combined U.S. sales. She was named one of the Ten Gutsiest Women of the Year by Jane magazine and receives extensive major media attention. New York magazine described Curott as one of the city's hippest and most intellectually cutting-edge speakers, and she regularly lectures and teaches workshops throughout the United States and internationally. A graduate of Brown University and NYU School of Law, she is also a practicing civil liberties attorney.