The Shiny 25cent Piece and Helen Keller

I'm not sure if any living soul knows this about me but Helen Keller is incredibly dear to me. She is one of the people I have felt drawn to since childhood; she inspires me, moves me, ignites me. When the quarter bearing her image was released in '03 I began to keep one of these coins in my art materials box as a token of endurance and persistence and commitment to finding my own way through... (as a side note, when I draw I often "paint myself into a corner" and I'm always looking for the way out of it in my work:))

That being said... I was done working today quite early, it was like having another day off after a wonderful Samhain weekend. It's been a beautiful, sunny and windy day and whoa nelly am I glad I was not buried in the basement of Hell's Kitchen all day! Normally, to get home I catch a bus that drops me off right in front of my house but today I was on another route which meant that I had to walk five blocks to get home... half way there, lying on the sidewalk and glinting in the sunshine was a radiant new quarter; it was heads up! This quarter had my name all over it. (By the way, I love finding pennies that are tails up so that I can flip them over for the next passerby as a way of spreading a little luck and funny joy.) When I flipped it over and saw Ms. Helen Keller flashing in the light I nearly gasped. This was no small treasure for me to find but a token, an omen, a sign and an acknowledgment of the path I'm on right now.

I know it seems like small change but how often do you find a quarter on the pavement? The only other time in my life that I've found anything larger than a dime was when I was about nine years old - I found a twenty dollar bill curled up in the gutter in Chicago after my first ride on a motorcycle with my Aunt Tinkie's boyfriend, Mean Gene. What kind of Jungian metaphor is this? Ha ha ha:)

As of May 30th of this year I made a promise to myself and this coin showing up about six months into my journey seems like an extraordinary and fortuitous affirmation.