In the month following my birthday, I have been thinking a lot about magic.
Do you believe in magic?
I think you'll find that you do. Even if that is not the term you would use.
The Chinese call it chi; the energy or life force that is in everything. Catholics call it the work of miracles ( and yes, a virgin birth would be that indeed). Jung wrapped it up in his theory of synchronicity. Pagan traditions found that mysticism and nature were one and the same.
Whatever you choose to call it, whatever framework you decide to put it in, when magic happens, you know.
As adults, many of us try to rationalise what we see as extraordinairy or inexplicable events. It's tough being an "adult" to live with the openness that most of us are born with. With bills, mortgages, housework and all the other daily concerns that we must endure; it is hard to remain unblinkered. It is hard to do as William Blake says:
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man[sic] as it is; infinite. For man [sic] has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
Blake was considered a bit mad in his time. But I think most visionaries who are ahead of their time are. As Groucho Marx said:
Blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light.
Another well known crackpot who we now revere, said:
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He [sic] to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his[ sic] eyes are closed. - Einstein
As a child, magic was everywhere for me. I think it must be like this for most children unless they are dissuaded by their elders and taught to repress it.
Either that or you just forget. You "grow up".
What a shame that we allow that to happen. Some adults manage to hang onto it though. Some go on to do very well. Someone who did very well out of it was the fellow below:
It's true isn't it? If you don't want to see it, you won't.
But isn't life much more marvellous when you do?
Do you believe in magic?
I think you'll find that you do. Even if that is not the term you would use.
The Chinese call it chi; the energy or life force that is in everything. Catholics call it the work of miracles ( and yes, a virgin birth would be that indeed). Jung wrapped it up in his theory of synchronicity. Pagan traditions found that mysticism and nature were one and the same.
Whatever you choose to call it, whatever framework you decide to put it in, when magic happens, you know.
As adults, many of us try to rationalise what we see as extraordinairy or inexplicable events. It's tough being an "adult" to live with the openness that most of us are born with. With bills, mortgages, housework and all the other daily concerns that we must endure; it is hard to remain unblinkered. It is hard to do as William Blake says:
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man[sic] as it is; infinite. For man [sic] has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
Blake was considered a bit mad in his time. But I think most visionaries who are ahead of their time are. As Groucho Marx said:
Blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light.
Another well known crackpot who we now revere, said:
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He [sic] to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his[ sic] eyes are closed. - Einstein
As a child, magic was everywhere for me. I think it must be like this for most children unless they are dissuaded by their elders and taught to repress it.
Either that or you just forget. You "grow up".
What a shame that we allow that to happen. Some adults manage to hang onto it though. Some go on to do very well. Someone who did very well out of it was the fellow below:
It's true isn't it? If you don't want to see it, you won't.
But isn't life much more marvellous when you do?
