I believe in magic

  “You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.

 After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theater the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm.

That’s what I believe.

The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. It’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” It just happens.

These memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I’m going to be when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic if I am ever going to conjure magic again. I need to know and remember, and I want to tell you.” 

                                                                      -Robert McCammon, Boy's Life

 

 I came across this sterling piece of truth last week and have been reading it over and over again. It resonates with me on every level so I printed it up and pinned it on my studio wall. I always want to be reminded of the magic that lives inside of us...to harness this magic, revel in it and claim it as my birthright. I want Tara to always know her magic...deep and true...on every level of her precious being. I see how my magic (as for so many of us) has been lost, discarded and devalued as we stepping into other people's ideas of who we should be, of how we should act, live and exist.  

And so...we are practicing living in magic...breathing it, painting it, reading it and believing in it. Magic is what we are made of, I am deeply convinced. It is that thing called courage + spirit + hope all mixed in together with our stories to create the deepest parts of who we are.

start where you are

 "The road of change is before you always: the only line stitching this world's scattered parts."
                  - Ghalib
 There have been so many changes around here lately (both internally and externally) that it's so easy to get overwhelmed...and I have been. With Tara starting school full time...we have all had to do some major adjusting, changing... recalibrating. I am starting to discover who I am now, present day, and...who I want to be. I have been journaling, going on photowalks, painting + reading, reigniting my love of cooking + poetry...healing the deepest parts of my broken self and facing truth without flinching. There has been immense pain, vulnerability, tenderness and anger...and it is all liberating me, strengthening me. To share my truths, to forge my journey and to continue on this journey of soul mending and truthtelling. Of thriving + blooming. Of reaching for my best self while accepting all of mySELF. I am giving mySELF permission to change, evolve + grow...what a beautiful thing!!! Not to say that it isn't terrifying and painful...this casting off of old selves and skins...this shedding of untruths that you were forced to claim and accept as your own...this  writing of your own stories. This standing at the chasm of your past + your future...bridging the self you were with the self yet to be birthed. It's terrifying + exhilarating all at once. "I wouldn't give nothing for my journey now".

And when I falter + fail and become afraid...as I often do...I remind myself of these truths: Once you start seeing, you can't "unsee". Once you open your eyes to the beauty, gifts + frailty that lie within...you can't ignore them or throw them away. Once you embark on the journey...you can't turn back for even if you do...you are already a changed person. Start where you are, I hear. And I am listening dear friends...I'm listening. With a wide open heart claiming all of my humanness.