Our Goldendoodle Aidan found a tortoise on our hike. Bill and I would have walked right by him. His shell is the exact color of desert dirt and he is the size of large rocks spilling onto the trail.

As Bill carried him home, I told him, “Be happy. Be happy, as carry him. Your pleasure will calm him.”

Sweet-talking the tortoise Bill stilled his racing feet spinning in the air. At home, in the quarter minus decomposed granite, Bill set our tortoise behind the outdoor fireplace. He scuttled under the shade of the bougainvillea lining the cement block fence.

Research tells us he likes Hibiscus plants, spinach leaves, cactus flowers, and lettuce. He can’t eat too many flowers. The sweetness of overpowers his metabolism. Finding the tortoise was our real world excitement while walking the desert. Flowers dotting the ends of prickly Cholla and sweet elusive scents caught the edges of our awareness.

Earlier, before our hike, at the peak heat of the first one-hundred degree day of the New Year, in my mediations I dreamed of created seminars: The Way of The Fairy Godmother ceremonies. Retreats here in the desert, where the spring nights whisper across our skin with warmth while we hunt what the Fairy Godmother teaches each of us. How do we begin to dream the dream awake? Where do our real and dream worlds meet? Today my worlds gather together with the tortoise and the Fairy Godmother.

Each day we wait for the manuscript, The Way of The fairy Godmother to be returned from the formatters, I’ve felt the power, intimacy and vulnerability growing. Will The Way of The Fairy Godmother construct a readership? A movement? Will Fairy Godmother meditative journeys have an audience? Imagine the infinite variety of messages generated by each Fairy Godmother. Messages designed to meld into a practical application transforming dreams into reality. Think Lady Gaga whispering mind-altering information personal to you in your ear. These are my dreams, the mediations sketched out ready to be developed. It’s okay. You can laugh. I laugh at my wild ideas too.

Native teachings tell us every moment life communicates with us. All that crosses our paths is meaningful. What then is the message of the tortoise in conjunction with the Fairy Godmother?

The tortoise is known across cultures as a symbol of stability and longevity. A creature carrying home and protection, the architecture embedded in its shell in patterns of swirls, geometric squares more beautiful than a stone palace. The tortoise and the Fairy Godmother meet in the mythic realm each teaching us their special brand of beauty and its application in ordinary life.

The tortoise embodies practicality, its shell a shield warding off danger. The Fairy Godmother is the symphony conductor translating dreams into life. Dreams and practicality: A potent combination.