Trains as Spiritual Practice: A Love Story
To finally, formally introduce someone to you all...
Clad in an oversized and weathered leather jacket, I should have known.
Staring wistfully out of a window on a train to Chicago, I should have known.
At twelve, I fell in love with trains that day in 2007, though I grew up less than a mile from one—filling me with awe and fear.
But what should I have known from all this?
That I was a walking sapphic stereotype in that moment.
But all I knew then was that I felt at home and like I’d tapped into some deep forthcoming rumbling, like an engine on tracks, chugging me forward into some unknown but exciting future.
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Christmas Eve 2024, 11:54 PM, a city center in the Midwest
“Do you want to see if we can catch it?”
I looked over at my girlfriend, Sam. We were going to see if we could see the train, coming back from Chicago, rumble in to welcome Christmas.
We found a quiet space for the two of us to see it come in, giggling with awe and wonder when it did. Welcoming in Christmas as two secular-ish humans.
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Early 2025, Chicago
After a delightful train ride to the city, Sam and I looked in awe at the massive train model set before us at the Museum of Science and Industry. This was also the day that Sam had us take a picture in front of one of the trains to tell her family about me.
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Present Day
Dear readers, this is Sam, my nesting and serious life partner. I love her dearly, and our mutual love of trains is only one special interest of many that we share. We also share in co-parenting my stepdoggo, Tiggy.
All I can say is that I am grateful for this love and connection that Sam and I share. In it, I see something spiritual,1 divine,2 and magickal.3
A little gushy sapphic wonder for Pride month.
Love is love is love.
In Wonder,
Ivy Zeller (she/they)
Thanks for reading! I’m a queer, disabled writer/editor, and what I do is made possible by readers like you. You can support me in this journey in a number of ways:
When I describe or experience any tool/practices as spiritual, I want to acknowledge that that is not everyone’s experience. Any practice/tool I share is meant for all, regardless of spiritual label (or lack of label) or whether you experience these tools as spiritual or as some other adjective(s). Labels, while helpful in describing our experiences, are ultimately insufficient, so I want to hold space for that tension here.
My understanding of how god expresses godself is expansive. Basically, I conceive of spirituality as our experience with divine love and connection. But even that feels a little religious-y. Put another way, I believe spirituality is the place where we as individuals and communities connect with the “force of love that holds up the universe” (in words sometimes attributed to Julian of Norwich), whether we conceive of that love as divine or as the love shared between fellow humans/other creatures or some combination of both loves. It is the place within our bodies and our communities where we find love and connection with all who have come before and who will come after.
I consider witchcraft to be “spicy placebo,” and my practice is very secular. I love the definition of magick laid out in this article: “action taken to bring about internal transformation or external change.”