Everyday enchantment

The closest thing I have ever seen to magic

In a community I am part of, we had a co-working session where we were given a writing prompt. What is the closest thing I have ever seen to magic? 

It may have been the fact it was 7am (though I had done all my trying-to-be-a-healthy-human routine of walking, meditating, showering, two cups of tea prior), but I was stumped. My brain no work. Magic? What is magic really anyway? {Looks up four different definitions}. What did the ancient philosophers think of magic? {researching…}. What is the closest thing I have ever seen to magic?

What is the closest thing I have ever seen to magic?

What is the closest thing I have ever seen to magic?

What is the closest thing I have ever seen to magic?

What is the closest thing I have ever seen to magic?

Then of course comes the flashes of fear and self doubt and that niggling little voice that said see, I told you you aren’t a writer and the cockie was asking for more sunflowers (third breakfast?) and that distraction seemed like a much better use of my time, and then I told myself to stop being silly and concentrate and then I felt like magic in question had to be HUGE and EPIC and I had to write about things HUGE and EPIC and I got to thinking about the moments of utter awe on the big trips I have taken and perhaps that was worthy of this now apparently full-of-pressure-to-write-something-Pulitzer-worthy post and my heart started beating a little harder, my vision was narrowing, pressure man I mean the pressure to make something perfect in this short window of time and show the exact global definition of magic that would feel relevant to everyone, my jaw is hurting, stop clenching your jaw so hard, but magic is SO BIG and I am so small and I can’t even define magic for myself this morning how can I write about it and this sentence is really long because this is how my brain was at that moment…and breathe.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Again.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

I have written about magic so many times.

So.

Many.

Times.

Because magic is everywhere, in everything, all at once.

It was absolutely at the Sun Gate at Machu Picchu at 6am after walking for 3 hours that morning and 3 full days before that. It was most definitely at the top of Gokyo Ri overlooking Mt Everest in Nepal after 9 days walking uphill on an adventure I couldn’t have even imagined I would be on. And even more-so when I shared a moment of eye-to-eye contact with a golden eagle coasting on thermals while I sat overlooking the highest mountains in the world and wondering how this was even possible. Magic was everywhere when I hiked up the Quiraing in Scotland and stood among a literally cinematic landscape that looked like dinosaurs could appear at any moment, and I wondered how many people stood here and felt so profoundly full of awe that they trembled like I did, their breath stolen, their entire body abuzz with the enormity of existing among such wonder. Magic.

But, for me, magic is mostly in the intimate. It is in the tiny things, the details we overlook when we are not walking slowly, gently, through life. It is inherent in the colour and markings of an owl's feather. Of the pinks and purples of my Seraphina’s nose. In the wild landscape reflected in a wolf’s eye.

What is the closest thing I have ever seen to magic?

I think my brain panicked with this prompt because a) perfectionism, and b) because ever seen is too large to comprehend, when I see magic in everything. Acknowledging the inherent, divine, magic in every natural thing keeps me grounded and wanting to be here. For me, the artificial and industrial is exhausting and detaching.

Before my fingers started skipping across the keyboard, in the middle of my moment (that felt like an epoch) of overwhelm, I turned my head to the side to look out my studio window. This is something I do often throughout my days in this little room. I need to see green to let my brain pause. If you have been here for long you will have heard me talk about this window before. It is nothing spectacular, a simple window in a small bedroom in a house that looks like so many others. But it is my window to the tiny bit of wild planted outside. There is a murraya bush right against two thirds of the window that keeps the harshest of summer sun out (as best as it can), and a lemon scented tea tree further back against the fence, and above that the sky, blue this morning. 

And now there is a snow white orchid in a pot on top of the pencil boxes at the window, a gift from my aunt when Seraphina passed. I have put it where she sat, on those pencil boxes, the blooms the colour of her fur bask in the soft sun that she adored. A bud is cracking open this morning, the green casing split down one side, and the beauty inside will unfurl throughout the day, a new expression of the utter elegance and grace and artistry of nature. In a day or two the sun will shine through those delicate new petals, outlining veins and the tender structure of these butterfly-like flowers. Just as it does for the flowers lower down who have been enchanting me for a couple of weeks now. They glow in the sun, the same way Seraphina’s fluffy coat did. Magic. 

There are dew and rain drops on the tiny pointed leaves of the tea-tree that glisten in the early morning sun like diamonds. They are the definition of sparkly magic - fleeting and profound and heart-achingly exquisite if you allow yourself a moment to really see them. I am entranced by them, by the tiny weight of them, the way they pull the leaves towards the earth, the way they bob in the slight breeze, the way they drop to the ground or slowly shrink, absorbed into the heat of the air to become rain or dew or the warm in-breath of passing raven. Magic.

What is the closest thing I have ever seen to magic?

It changes, moment to moment. To say nothing of feeling, smelling, touching magic.

It is in the huge and epic, sure. It is in the tiny and ordinary, absolutely. It is in the mundane and marvellous and everything in between, and it is when I forget to look for it, to be open hearted enough to be able to see it, that the world feels smaller and darker.

Tell me, where do you find magic, wild one?