And if you were to ask me | After all that we’ve been through | Still believe in magic? | Yes, I do | Of course I do – Coldplay, Magic
Do you believe in magic?
When I was being interviewed by the sparkling Sas Petherick, she asked me about what I thought about magic. I remember laughing and teasing her about what a big question it was. Some people might not agree, but for me it is one of the biggest questions.
In the movie Willow, the shamanic character says: “Magic is the bloodstream of the universe. Forget all you know, or think you know. All that you require is your intuition.” I must have seen that movie when I was about 15, but that quote has stuck with me ever since.
When I am talking about magic, I am not talking about card tricks and pulling rabbits out of hats. I am talking about the moment, the space in time when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is more at play here than you can possibly comprehend. I am talking about the second that holds the intake of breath – and the sound/spirit you let out – when you experience complete connection. Magic is the sparkle in your eye when you have glimpsed the numinous, the synchronous, or the mystical.
Magic, for me, is in the moments when we know we are a part of something wondrous.
But if magic isn’t hocus pocus, how do we make it practical? How do we actively participate in it? In her wonderful book, Making the Gods Work for You, Caroline W. Casey invites us to, “Believe nothing, entertain possibilities.” She says that, “through honouring the invisible, we gain a strategic power: we need never be daunted by the limited logic of the visible again.”
Can I get a hell, yes?
So the answer is: magic requires our active participation. Magic is the dance that happens between us and God, the universe, and everything, but we have to be looking, imagining, cultivating and courting it. We need to use our intuition, follow the nudges, listen to our instincts. What is here and around and within us is so much bigger that we can imagine, and it is so willing to play with us.
We just have to pay attention.
Oh, and we also need to believe.
xo
YES! I’ve been trying to write a post about this for AGES but haven’t yet been able to find the words that others can hear… I’ve been calling this “Ordinary Magick” for years, after having had an experience that left me in absolute wonder, and watching for it ever since (and seeing it on the regular). It’s this sense that there is more here than meets the (outer) eye. This sense that Life will interact with us if we only pay attention. I even had an offer called “Life as a Mirror” that was all about using what one notices, and one’s own experiences as practical ways of connecting with that Ordinary Magick. I’m so glad you wrote about this! <3