“I Find Moments Of Triumph, Hope, And Justice Every Day”

In an increasingly onlight world that thrives on sharing misery, it’s important seek out stories to remind us that there is real good in this world. That’s what this sigil speaks to.

“Our Love Allows Us To Thrive”

Not to get too poetic about it, but there’s a good reason that so many people throughout history have compared falling in love to the blooming of a rose bush. It’s this glorious burst of color that seemingly appears from nowhere. It intoxicates with its sweet perfume, and and dazzles with its delicate touch. When the colors fade and the petals dry up at the end of the season, we can’t help but feel that something perfect has left this world. But here’s the thing: The flowers aren’t the rose bush. The real magic is the deep roots that allow those flowers to return year after year.

Romantic love works in a similar way. The passion and heat and thrill of love in bloom is captivating, and it’s not surprising that it’s what most people think of when they imagine the feeling of being in love. When the seasons change and the colors fade, it’s easy to mistake this change for the death of that addictive, bright, and sweet feeling. It’s only when you’ve spent some time cultivating your emotional garden that you realize that all is not as it may seem. If the soil is fertile, and the roots are dug deep, those impermanently perfect flowers will return. With the right keeping, a little nourishing, some weeding, and perhaps even a little pruning where appropriate, the next bloom will be even bigger than the last.

That’s what this sigil speaks to.

“What’s past is prologue” – The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I

In Act 2, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, our shipwrecked noble conspirators discuss whether or not what has happened in the past — the prologue of their current circumstance — is a reasonable justification for committing a politically expedient murder. That may seem like a strange thing to make into a sigil, but as is often the case with the words of the Bard of Avon, the villains tend to get the best lines. The scheming Antonio is wrong about the whole killing thing, obviously, but he’s dead right about the past. It’s the choices we make in the here and now that matter. Everything that happened before this moment is simply backstory and context for the decisions that will define us in the days ahead.

We aren’t bound by the past. In a very real way, the past is just a story we tell ourselves to make sense of the present. If that past we’ve lived is traumatic, filled with regret, or simply just not a good reflection of the people we want to be, we can always chose to leave it behind. It becomes the prologue to a new story — perhaps a truly grand and epic one — that starts right here, and right now.

That’s the core concept that this sigil speaks to.

“I Live A Fit And Healthy Lifestyle.”

We often receive sigil requests from those seeking to live a healthier lifestyle. Many of these are understandably focused around weight loss, but there’s more to being healthy than simply having a lower number on the scale. Health and fitness are a complex topic, and even at the ultra-elite level of athletics the two concepts have almost no correlation. The best NFL linebackers and Olympic-level powerlifters don’t look a thing like top-tier marathon runners or competitive gymnasts, and they never have.

We all want to have great health, to feel good, and to have bodies that enjoy moving around in. We even want other people to appreciate them — the right people, of course — and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying that kind of attention. So instead of getting hung up on weight, this sigil speaks to something a bit more fundamental.

“I Am Respected, Supported And Protected At Work.”

One of the truly unexpected silver linings to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic has been the cultural re-negotiation of the workplace status quo. For the first time in living memory, millions of people were able to experience a lifestyle that wasn’t centered around commuting to work, dealing with workplace politics, and managing entitled customers. While this experience came at the cost of millions of layoffs, furloughs, permanently closed businesses, and other economically traumatic nightmares, there’s no getting around the fact that the cultural expectations around work have changed dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic. Workers across all industries now expect more. Not just more money — although that part is important — but also more in terms of respect, support, and protection.

A company that enables an abusive boss or manager will now lose workers. Plenty of places are hiring, after all. If customers are disrespectful of their employees, managers now have to decide what they value more, a good worker or a bad customer. The customer isn’t always right, particularly if the customer won’t meet the basic standards of common courtesy, such as wearing a mask or observing social distancing rules. This plague has reminded us that everyone deserves respect, support and protection from their employers. Not receiving these basic minimums is a perfectly good reason to leave a job immediately, even in the middle of a shift if need be. Loyalty is a two-way street.

Still, some employers don’t yet understand the new paradigm, and many workers aren’t yet comfortable exercising their right to be treated with dignity by their employers, coworkers, and customers. This sigil is for them.

For all the glorious and infuriating complexity of the world we’ve created for ourselves, at an individual level most people have pretty simple desires. Almost none of us desire great fame and limitless power at any cost. The vast majority of us don’t even want to be absurdly wealthy or live lives of unyielding luxury. Almost everyone just want to live a good life, with as little stress and heartache as possible, surrounded by people that love us. For a species that cracked the atom and landed on the moon, that’s really not a lot to ask for.

Not surprisingly, most of the sigil requests we get here at Sigil Daily tend to fall into just a handful of categories. People want wealth, but mostly they seem to mean that they want to stop worrying about not having enough money. They want health, not to win the Olympics or become a star athlete, but because they are tired of constant pain and suffering. They want love, not because they want a harem of devotees to fill in the gaping hole in their spirits, but because we are social creatures designed to care and be cared for. They want security because … I mean, have you seen the state of the world recently?

And most of all, they want happiness. They aren’t seeking a life of constant bliss. They just want to feel the warmth of a sunny day again, and to capture that feeling of relief of being hugged by someone that loves them.

These desires aren’t just understandable, they’re also entirely reasonable things to expect out of life. We all deserve them. While making these desires a daily reality for the global population is a bit much to ask from a work of art, there’s no harm in giving it a shot.