When you think of unicorns, you might think of child fantasies, rainbows, sweetened swirls of candy fluff, and silliness. Those are good and valid things that can lead to lots of happiness, but these fabled creatures are about much more than that! And soon you’ll find that out for yourself, with this compact guide to embracing the magic of unicorns.
On the surface, this is a simple book about unicorns, but at its core, it’s a guide to rediscovering wonder and happiness. It’s a breadcrumb trail leading you to the things that make you shine so you can get to a place of authentic joy, even in dark times. Here you’ll learn what unicorns are all about as independent mythological creatures, but more significantly, you’ll also learn what it means to welcome and embody unicorn energy for higher levels of everyday magic. Finding inspiration, heightened creativity, and all the things in life that leave you vibrating and make you sparkle is what this book is all about.
My mom likes to say I loved unicorns before they were cool. I’ve always had an interest in them, but even as a kid I kept it relatively secret. I didn’t want to be perceived as childish or immature, and I felt like my quirky interest was something I needed to hide about myself in order to fit in. The irony of this is that unicorns are a symbol of standing out in all your uniqueness, and being loved for that. Even if there are haters, unicorns don’t care! They’re too busy being fabulous to pay any mind. Maybe this was part of my attraction to them in the first place.
As I got older and I let go of unicorns, whispers of them still remained. I can recall being at a fair when I was around twelve and putting money into a quarter pusher game. A mini-bulldozer blade moved toward and away from me; between us was a layer of quarters. My goal was to drop a quarter and try to position it so that when it landed, the bulldozer would push it into the rest of the money, causing the coins to drop. A token for a small ceramic unicorn was riding along the wave of metal, and I silently urged it on. I tried to act nonchalant about it as my friends crowded around and talked excitedly to the coins as if they would listen. “Come on!” “Oh, it’s so close. Try one more.” The truth is, I really wanted to win that unicorn figure, and if I’d let myself, I would have been shouting along with them. The token hovered just over the edge, taunting us. With a silent wish, in went the last quarter and … no win. One friend hit the glass in exasperation and—plunk—down came the token.
I never let go of that ceramic figure. It’s been tucked away in drawers and stored in boxes, but it’s always remained somewhere in my presence. I now realize that it was a physical symbol of magic that spoke to my heart. Eventually, I brought it back out.
It wasn’t until unicorns reemerged and gained mainstream appeal in a powerful way that I finally came back around to my love for these creatures, even prominently displaying that old figurine in my workspace. I saw that others were fascinated by them in the same way I always have been. Since you’re reading this book, you’re obviously one of these people as well. I’m glad to be in this unicorn tribe with you! But why are we so interested in them in the first place? I’d never been able to put my finger on what the appeal was exactly. I was never particularly fascinated with horses. So why did the addition of a single horn suddenly turn it into something that made me light up?
This book has given me the chance to address that question in a very thorough, fun, and fascinating way. It also made me realize that while I thought I’d let go of unicorns for a long period of time, they were always present in my life in a myriad of ways. My hope is that by reading this book, you too will find how they’re supporting and leading you toward your inner magic.
To understand our fascination with unicorns, we first need to understand the history of how we came to know of them in the first place. In chapter 1, we’ll learn about their historical significance and their various forms, and how that relates to you personally. We’ll also take a look at why there’s such an explosion of interest in them at the present time. Then we’ll cover two forms of unicorn encounters: seeing the unicorn versus living the unicorn.
In chapter 2 and chapter 3, you’ll get the chance to understand different ways that unicorn energy tries to get your attention. These include things like synchronicity, where you find beauty, messages in dreams, the special “unicorn people” in your life, and your imagination, passions, and personal quirks. The power of color also fits in this list. Rainbows are especially associated with the unicorn, and for good reason. We’ll explore why that is and also consider nature’s material rainbow that you can hold right in your hand in the form of crystals and stones. To cap off chapter 3, you’ll get the chance to make your very own unicorn energy mist.
In chapter 4, we’ll cover ways that you can make sure you’re awake to all the magic that’s trying to get your attention. Mindfulness practice can be a helpful support for that purpose. Another effective strategy is removing physical things that are making it harder for you to see the source of what makes you shine. Sometimes our beliefs (or lack of belief ) can get in the way too. All of this will be covered on our way to awakening our awareness.
With that newfound awareness, we’ll continue on in chapter 5 by finding what specifically makes us light up from the inside out. We’ll dive into how you can rediscover your sense of play and identify the things that set your sparkle afire. Sometimes this can be difficult to pin down, but with a little guidance and personal investigation, you’ll be able to find them in no time.
If all of this is sounding great but maybe just a little too good to be true, rest assured that you’re still in the right place. Unicorns aren’t shallow creatures, and we’ll follow them beyond the surface level, into the depths of the darkened forest. To help support you in darker times or even bring you back out of the woods, you’ll get the chance to try an energy practice for healing and letting go of what’s no longer serving you.
Finally, in chapter 6, we’ll cover the various steps of calling in the unicorn as part of a personal and spiritual practice. Through ritual, prayer, mantra, or affirmation, we send out our requests and help attract what we’re seeking. With meditation, we learn to listen and allow for a response to our requests. And with mindfulness, we’re able to receive our answer.
Listening is such an important step here. Because of this, we’ll learn more about psychic senses as tools that help us receive and hear messages that are being sent our way.
Throughout this book, there are exercises for you to make use of immediately. These are included because I want you to develop a personal practice that leads you back to your own magic. Reading about something is one thing, but engaging with the material is another. Make sure you take an active role and play with these practices. It can also be helpful to keep a journal or some kind of record to track your progress. Doing so may lead to unexpected insights.
As you can see, we’ll be covering a lot in a short time! I’m glad to have the opportunity to share this information and my insights with you. Some of the information in this book comes from research and various course studies, while the rest is based on my own experience and intuition. Over the last two decades, I’ve been an avid student of spiritual and natural energy and have studied a wide range of practices, including intuitive and psychic development, energy healing, and bodywork. For a time, I was a massage therapist and energy healing practitioner. Since then, I’ve supported authors through the development of nearly two hundred metaphysical and mind-body-spirit books, and I’ve learned a lot from them along the way.
With that said, I’m not writing this book because I have life all figured out. Much of what I share here is a reminder of things I do to help come back into balance when the pendulum swings too far to the gloomy side of things. We are all constantly faced with challenges, and the shadow side can certainly take over at times. The goal, then, is to guide the light back in.
Shortly before I started writing this book, I was rushing through the yard and came across a butterfly slowly opening and closing its wings in rhythm. I stopped in my tracks and stared, confused at first because the butterfly was showing off all its beauty while sitting on a pile of poop. Eventually I burst out laughing. It was the best metaphor I’d ever seen or heard, and it was like it was being shouted at me:
This is life: one big, huge, stinking mess. Now go out into it all and look for as much beauty as you can possibly find.
After spending so many years prior to that moment focusing on learning everything I could about the darker aspects of life (such as challenges with chronic illness), I realized that the pendulum needed to swing back into the light. I needed to find my unicorns. I needed to figure out once again what made me vibrantly happy. These are the things that inspire us to the point of making us feel like we’re expanding and vibrating. They light us up and cause us to lose all sense of time.
It can be hard to find these happy things along the way on our bumpy roads because so often they’re butterflies sitting on poop instead of flowers. But if we focus on finding beauty wherever it may be (even in spite of all the crap), maybe we’ll be able to recognize it when we stumble upon it.
I don’t have it all perfect. When people express this sentiment, sometimes they say something like, “It’s not all unicorns and rainbows!” In this way, we tend to associate unicorns with an easy happiness or joy that comes unbidden, but I see it a bit differently. Legend tells us that unicorns are evasive creatures, and we all know that a rainbow is a rare sighting that usually arrives only at the end of a storm. They’re the magic that we must always have our ears and eyes open for. We can lay a trail of our own glitter to lead them our way, planting seeds as we go through our days. We can learn what beckons them into our realm and cultivate those pleasures. And we can acknowledge their presence when it graces us, whether through hard work and planning on our part or by surprise.
Even amid all the messy mess of life, we can still find wonder, beauty, and awe-inspiring moments. I hope the things I share here will support you on your way to discovering the unicorns you’ve come in search of.
