My life partner Dennis Hartigan and I spent 10 days in late June 2019 with my middle sister Anne and her husband Al Kanters in Southampton, Ontario, Canada, where my family has a summer cottage on the shores of Lake Huron. My mother began taking my twin sister Malinda and myself there when we were first born while my father worked at law in Cincinnati. We spent every summer there with our friends, swimming from rock to rock, playing tennis, creating games on the beach with complete freedom. We were a pack of wonderful seagulls who flitted around the beach just as joyfully. Seagulls are definitely one of my power animals and they help me because I fed them stale bread so many evenings as the sun went down over the lake.
This visit was tremendously affirming. I journeyed in my imagination with Malinda into the upper world where I transmigrated into a seagull and joined her in ascending to the highest point of light where angels greeted us. I sat on the beach where we had created imaginary families in the sand and near the rocky point where we had imagined driftwood families in the crevices where the water flowed. My mother’s creations were preserved by Anne intact. She honors her memory in every action. The lake is as vast and deep as ever and the water is crystal clear. We took a boat and climbed to the top of the island lighthouse. I left with a sense of integration and gratitude for my childhood there. I am now encouraged to continue writing the book The Tao of Twins.