Magic(k): An Observation
Fri 2009-01-30 11:32:40 (in context)
Forgetting how to believe in magic is not the first tragedy of growing up. It is the second tragedy. As effect follows cause, it follows the first tragedy, which is this: forgetting to believe in magic.
When I was much younger--in high school, in college--I was obsessed with all things occult. I discovered Wicca, and began practicing ritual in observance of the seasons and the phases of the moon with the devoutness of the new convert. I had my first lucid dream, and devoted great amounts of energy toward learning to reproduce the experience. I read exhaustively on astral projection. I loaned my friends books and scared my friends' parents. I'd cast spells. And they'd work.
And as I grew in my writing apprenticeship, I saw that too through a religiomagickal lens. I developed the belief that when we humans feel a vocational calling, what we are feeling is the Universe's need for us to perform that role. My desire to be a writer was proof that Writer was the function I was designed for. And I offered up my writing on the altar of the Goddess.
I'm not sure when that stopped. Some time after college; some time after marriage; some time after acquiring pets, buying a house, working a full time job. It didn't automatically restart after I quit the job, either.
I don't resent the people in my life or regret the turns my life has taken thus far. But I do regret having forgotten to make room in my new life for those things important to my old life. Maybe I saw my new life as being the end result of magic, wishing, and prayer, for which there was no more use now that the goals were achieved.
But as long as life continues, there are further goals. Even if the goal is only "More of that, please," there's a goal to be worked for, because you don't get "more of that" by sitting on your butt in a pool of stagnation. Happiness takes continuous work. So does love. So does career fulfillment, contentment, peace. It isn't something you reach and rest on; it's something you run to keep up with, forever, and that's OK, because you love it.
Where was I going with this? I'm not sure. I'm sort of just babbling here. I think I'm just putting the world on notice that I've remembered about magic now.