Tomorrow, Dana turns eighty.
Thirty years ago, we stood together in Zion National Park celebrating her fiftieth birthday. This weekend, we’re going back.
As I prepare for our journey back to Zion, I find myself thinking about the strange ways souls recognize one another.
Many people imagine soulmates arriving with thunder and lightning. They expect romance, passion, or some dramatic declaration from the heavens. Yet one of the deepest soulmate connections of my life began in a far less conventional way.
I met Dana because I fell for her son.
At twenty-three, I was dancing in clubs and just beginning to awaken spiritually. My life was changing so quickly that every day felt touched by miracles. Her son entered my world briefly, played the role he was meant to play, and then just as quickly exited it.
What remained was Dana.
While he slept late in the mornings, she and I would sit together talking for hours. Something in us remembered the other. When the relationship ended, we discovered that we were both grieving the same loss — not the romance, but the friendship that had barely begun.
So, we chose each other.
Over the years, we laughed until we cried. We argued. We drank more than either of us should probably admit. We shared homes, adventures, spiritual discoveries, and countless conversations about the mysteries of life. She became my first student and my first client. Everything I learned about healing, I taught to her. Everything she learned, she embodied so fully that she became one of my greatest teachers.
Looking back now, I see that the greatest gift was not what I taught Dana. It was what happened as I watched her grow.
Wisdom deepens when it is shared.
Love expands when it is witnessed.
And every truth I offered her became more real because I watched it take root in her life.
Thirty years ago, for her fiftieth birthday, we traveled to Zion National Park together. This weekend, for her eightieth, we will return. We will visit old friends from the psychic shop where we worked. We will walk beside the river. We will search for crystals.
And waiting at the end of our journey will be Lyra, carrying the spark of my beloved soul companion Jera — known over the years as Cujo and Minky — forward into yet another chapter of our shared story.
As I reflect on eighty years of Dana’s life and more than three decades of our friendship, I find myself wondering if the question isn’t whether we have shared other lifetimes. I know we have.
Perhaps the greater question is this:
How many times have two souls agreed to find one another again?
Not to rescue.
Not to complete.
Not even to teach.
Simply to walk beside each other through the long adventure of becoming.
Tomorrow, I will celebrate Dana’s birthday.
But what I am truly celebrating is the rare blessing of being known, witnessed, challenged, loved, and accompanied by the same beautiful soul for so much of this journey.
Some souls walk together for a season.
Others return again and again, finding one another across the changing landscapes of many lifetimes.
As I celebrate Dana’s eightieth birthday, my heart is filled with gratitude that ours is one of those friendships.
Once again, we found our way back to each other.
