Playing with Magic
Photo by Content Pixie on Unsplash
I live in a world where magic is real. So do my friends GG and Ephraim. Felicity too. Christine, Salvador, Paulina, Amalia, Fernanda, Matias…well, I guess a lot of my friends.
Liz Gilbert also lives in a world where magic is real. Martha Beck too. In fact, Martha sent out an email last year with the subject line, “Your magic is real and I can teach you how to use it.”
I immediately forwarded it to my friend Phillip because we like to talk about magic being the next mindfulness. Goodness, how I yearn for magic to be the next mindfulness.
Yearn might not be the right word, because that suggests that I hope it’s true when really I know that it’s true. Magic already is the next mindfulness. The shift is happening as I type, as you read, as your coffee brews in the background.
And just what do I mean by that? What is this magic I speak of? Is it witches and wizards waving wands, brewing potions, wiggling their noses?
Perhaps. I’m certainly open to that possibility. Frankly, it’s hard to find a possibility I’m not open to.
However, the concept of magic that I prefer is perhaps a tad more accessible. For me, magic is about believing that things like intention, ceremony and ritual can influence the outcome of actions…especially when the cause and effect aren’t linked by science we currently understand.
Magic is, for me, a belief AND a feeling. I know that I’m playing with magic based on a sparkly, enchanted feeling that comes into the space.
For example, when I write, I rely on magic. Before I begin tapping away at the keyboard, I open sacred space, tap into a feeling of limitless possibility, then set an intention to be of service. To write from a place of devotion, asking to be put to good use. I ask please to co-create with Infinite Intelligence, to dance with ideas that are ready to come to Earth.
I could, very easily, not do that. I could sit down and put my fingers on the keyboard and see what flows. I could trust that consistent effort leads to reliable results and I could see where daily-ish writing takes me.
But I like sprinkling on some magic. The entire process feels different to me when I do that and I’m an oh-dear-god-do-I-love-to-feel-good kinda gal. Personal preference, I suppose. I’d much rather be someone who plays with creativity, who yearns for her daily creating time, than someone who thinks that writing is an uphill, thankless battle. Magic grants me that.
Magic, to me, is the opposite of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is when you begin to believe that your actions can’t influence the outcome.
Children raised in chaotic households often develop learned helplessness, which frequently becomes chronic depression. The tricky thing is that their belief is right – in truly chaotic households, nothing a child does can influence the outcome. They are helpless. They can’t stop the fighting. They can’t stop the screaming. They can’t stop the abuse or the pain or the rage. Their actions really and truly can’t influence the outcome.
So, when they become adults, and circumstances are different, when their actions CAN influence the outcome, they frequently fail to see that. They’ve lived so long in a state of helplessness that it’s their setpoint. Read some of Martin Seligman’s books to learn more about it. It’s really a fascinating topic.
Magic is, to me, a stubborn rebellion against any feeling of learned helplessness. It’s a way of reclaiming your power, of believing that your actions can influence the outcome, of demonstrating that you believe that there’s good in you worth cultivating, that the Universe is willing and able to conspire on your behalf.
Magic is when my brother Shrek sends people my way saying, “See if Keely and her stones can help you,” because shamanic energy medicine transformed his life–without him really knowing HOW it happened.
Magic is the two women I know who learned in their teenage years that they were physically incapable of having children…then they fell pregnant with the child they yearned for after working with Grandmother Ayahuasca.
It’s trust and surrender and hope and faith. And, for me, it’s also a whole lotta fun.
Martha Beck uses science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke’s concept when she teaches magic, saying that, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Elizabeth B. Jenkins, a long-time student of the Q’ero shamans, defines magic as, “a supposed supernatural power that makes impossible things happen.” For context, she shares an example I love: “When my Q’ero friends blow on their coca leaves and we witness the clouds part, they are simply speaking with their friends…a technology we do not understand and therefore consider to be ‘magic.’ When we slide a plastic card into a wall and money comes out, they witness a technology they do not understand and consider this to be ‘magic.’”
I don’t know (or care) if I’ll ever have proof. I don’t crave a double-blind placebo study to tell me if magic is real or if it isn’t. I just like feeling good. And, since believing in magic reliably makes me feel good, I’ll continue to do so.
May you have a magical day, whatever that means to you,
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