I’m a huge fan of author Tamora Pierce. Her powerful female characters serve as role models for younger readers and older ones alike. Her young adult series, The Circle of Magic — Sandry’s Book (Circle of Magic, Book 1) (No. 2)
–features a finicky older mage, (gosh, about my age) a brilliant and educated seer and foreteller, Master Niklaren Goldeye, (Niko), who has a visioning gift for seeing so deeply that he can uncover magical gifts where other — more traditional mages — have never detected magic. Tamora Pierce on Amazon
As the series opens, Niko’s “foretellings” have sent him hither and yon to rescue four young, undiscovered mages just in the nick of time and right from death’s door. Niko, as one of the teachers of the young mages, plays a prominent role in the Circle of Magic Quartet. He personally mentors one of the students, and the other three connect with teachers who specialize in their particular brand of magic.
I’ve discovered that the truths and insights from fiction can shed uncommon light on our own situations. I realize that what I do for my clients is not unlike the magic embodied by the fictional Niklaren Goldeye. As implied in his taking Goldeye as his mage name, Niko is a seer who recognizes the deeply hidden and buried gifts and gold of these four young mages even when the children themselves or their families do not.
Sometimes we have to be the “seers of gifts” within ourselves, being the Niko to our own hidden greatness. Tamora Pierce develops this character (and so many others) in a way that allows the gifts of the characters to resonate within readers like a gong’s reverberations shiver right into the bones.
Recognizing a fellow traveler in Niko, I am strengthened in myself. Recognizing myself in Pierce’s telling of his gifts, I can acknowledge similar gifts within myself. Part of the magic I bring into client collaborations and conversations is an uncanny (some might say magical) gift of seeing (and hearing) from deep within them the gifts they don’t always fully understand nor yet embrace for themselves.
What is the magic within you that you are not owning? What gifts and greatness and contributions have so far gone unexpressed?
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