There are stories I tell about the presence of angels in my world. Perhaps others might call these events kismet or grace and still others, coincidence … poor darlings. I say poor darlings because I can’t imagine myself ignoring the fact that my life has been magical. It seems to me that if you ignore or deny the spiritual happenings of your life, you are missing the greater part of it. At any rate, I am no stranger to mystical events. Of course I can’t explain these events because if I could it would no longer be a mystery.
At an early age I was aware of a presence, not that I had a name for it but the predominate characteristic would have been described as comfort. This supernatural presence is second nature to me now having been part of my daily life for more than 60 years. Some think of angels as winged beings of brilliant light who are messengers or helpers in times of trouble but I experience angels as companions, ever present, always comforting and part of the whole package of my human and spiritual existence. They were there before I was in form and with me throughout all transmutations of form, from life to death, from death to rebirth and in the deep spiritual rests between.
So when I contemplate what was being formed in the womb of my mother during the time of my gestation what I think about most is how many angels it must have taken to get me here. The odds were seemingly against it. Yet, here I am.
My mother was convinced she had to have a daughter to replace the one she lost. So after my brother was born, she got pregnant as soon as possible against the advice of her doctor. Fourteen months later I was born after her doctor agreed to deliver me if she consented to a tubal ligation at the time of the cesarean section. Still, she hemorrhaged and was unconscious and near death for three days after I was born. I was born with 6 toes on my left foot. In many ancient cultures polydactyls were considered touched by God. Early pictograms of several ancient cultures show people with six toes and six fingers on each hand. Archeologists have found genetic links to the Pueblo and Anasazi in the southwest. People with the most frequent occurrence of extra toes or fingers are of African American decent. I have no known genetic links to either the Native Americans or African Americans but I do feel touched by God.
Excerpt: Sanctified Body, “Cutting the Clouds, a Bayou Mystic’s poems, Musings and Imaginings”
“Warm, slippery hands
End the journey to that
Special, malformed toe on the left foot
Where scars tell about a soul’s longing to
Ancient DNA with six toes and webbed feet
Professing still
My affinity with the southern marshland
And the beauty of all that lives there.”
© 2015 Bessie Adams Senette
THE BAYOU MYSTIC 