Postponed Equals Too Late

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Passion to the Third Degree.

On the way home from work, I got stuck in traffic. Bumper to bumper. I couldn’t see anything ahead but cars blocking my view. But looking in the side mirror….

Looking in the side mirror at the road behind me, I didn’t see the two lanes of bumper-to-bumper cars but rather, the clear path between them. Looking back, it seemed like a road of its own, even though it was only the “negative space” between the lanes of cars. I could look back and so clearly see how I’d gotten to this place.

I found an email today that I’d forgotten about. One of my lawyer-engineers (scary combination) was reviewing a document prior to handing it off to me to bleed red ink over, and I was looking for a template I’d had last Thanksgiving when we’d last discussed this project. And there it was.

There are several people who are “under my protection,” meaning I routinely do work to keep them safe—or at the very least, to lighten their burdens when they can’t be protected completely. They are all aware that I “do work” for them. Imagine a sword-carrying Goddess standing between them and harm, and my guard is almost always up.

Almost. Not always.

This email was a warning from a friend who does similar work and sometimes works with me on spiritual efforts. She warned me that one of those under my “veil of protection” needed extra help, and that in December, there would be “devil’s play.” Someone trying to take control when I was otherwise occupied and that I needed to do some very serious extra “work.” Her words are very specific, and I remember them now. I remember the sense of truth in them, and how concerned I was.

I had agreed that I would do the additional work, but I was too busy that week to schedule time “in ritual” that I wanted. I was looking for the perfect moment, the right astrological correspondences, the correct moon phase. I don’t normally do all that. Sure, it gives an extra punch to the magick, but for some reason I cannot now fathom, I just didn’t do the extra work immediately as I normally would have. Yes, there were some rough issues at work diverting my attention and Daddy was in the hospital at the time but still… I seldom delay leaping into ritual when I get the message to do so.

I could feel Death hovering near Daddy at that time and then he died a few days later and I never did the extra protection work for someone else as promised. I never did what I’d said I’d do to stop the devil’s play or lighten it. My focus was elsewhere, and much of it on protecting my mom from money-grubbing family members.

I know I can’t hold myself responsible for the devil’s play that happened, but it was something I might have averted or weakened. I’d been warned in advance, and prophecies fulfilled are prophecies failed. I can look back now and see the clear path between the paths that were taken.

And I wonder how things might have been if I’d answered that email and gone straight to ritual. All I can do now is ask that the outcome of the devil’s play be transmuted to something higher for a better outcome.