Change is Coming
by Jarandhel Dreamsinger
"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." -T.E. Lawrence [1888-1935]
Change is coming. How many times have we heard those words before, in the kin community? It is a common prophecy, stated by both the newly awakened and those who have been awakened for some time. Often it is interpreted to mean that magic is coming back. Sometimes it is interpreted to mean that a magical war is coming. Sometimes it's just interpreted to mean that those of us who came from Elsewhere will be going Home. But always, those words are spoken in one form or another. Change is coming.
This time those words are right.
And, like most such prophecies, the true fulfillment of it involves all of these older interpretations, though perhaps not in the way that they were first conceived. Change is coming. It will be a truly magical transformation for our community, and it will bring more magic into this world in the process. It will be fought for, though in a battle of wills and weal rather than of weapons and woe. It will let us both experience and display more of our true selves than we have yet been afforded in this world. And it does hold the promise of Home, for all of us... though a home we will have made for ourselves here, with our own toil, rather than one we may remember from the past.
Change is coming. I can't emphasize those words enough. They have long been the mantra of the newly awakened, the watch-phrase of those who have become aware of the magical and otherworldly in everyday life. Now, they are an invocation. An evocation. Summoning from both without and within new dreams of the future for our community. One that will be, indeed must be, acted with open eyes if we are to make it possible.
And what dream will we make possible? That is yet to be seen, of course. I have my own personal dream, my own vision for what the future of our community could be. This dream will guide my own actions and contributions to this community. But mine is not the only dream. I am not the only dreamer within our community. Ultimately, I believe that the dream we will make possible will be a blending of all our dreams, a symbiotic synthesis that will create a richer whole than we can yet imagine singly. I believe that living dream is waiting for us, hidden in the hearts and minds of every person who is a member of this community. Waiting for us to acknowledge our own dreams, and begin working to find the common ground by which we may work for them together. This is my dream.
What's yours?
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -Mahatma Gandhi