Skyla's Magic Box

For my granddaughter's 6th birthday in December, I collaged a special box for her. I call it Skyla's Magic Box. Inside are lots of different paper cutouts, stickers, ribbons, flowers, and various other items to be used for decorating cards, gift tags, and her very own little book. I also included a glue stick. She is now equipped to create and give cards with that special "Skyla" touch.

The box took a very long time to get to California (45 days!--another story for another time). She received it on Thursday and was very pleased with all she discovered in the box as well as with the card and poem I had made for her. I have posted pictures of her box.

I am reminded of when my kidlets were very small. I would buy them the latest and greatest toys for Christmas or their birthdays only to discover that often what gave them the most pleasure and entertained them the longest was the box in which they found the toy. There is no "toy" inside this box. What it does contain is special magic that needs Skyla's imagination, time, and creativity to be manifested in the world.

Happy Birthday, Skyla!

--Vicky :o)

"Skyla's Magic Box"
Collage Box

Copyright © 2008 by Vicky Lynn Macchione

Make your own kind of Magic!

"Magic is something we all secretly wait for, no matter how hard-bitten and cynical we become as the passing years vanquishes our spirit. We hope that somehow, something or someone will arrive and turn that magic wand and our life will flip over.

To create magic we need to do two things:

• Believe in magic.
  
• Be the magician of our life and bluff our way through life's inevitable difficulties.

We must know that the New Year is not a Genie that will bring us all that we have secretly been wishing for. We need to get inside that bottle and be that Genie ourselves." --Nazia Mallick

The above excerpt is from an article that I read recently on Ode Magazine's Readers Blog: "How to create magic in your life this year" by Nazia Mallick. In her article, Ms. Mallick continues with her own formula for creating magic in her life this year.

One of my favorite quotes corresponds quite well with Mallick's first bullet point:

"... for magic to happen in your life, you must believe in magic."
-- Grandmother, quoted by Lynn Andrews

If I don't believe that magic happens, then I certainly won't be seeing any.

As I continued thinking about the idea of making magic, I decided to look up the origin of the word itself. A very early definition (c. 1384) describes magic as the "art of influencing events and producing marvels" (Online Etymology Dictionary).

How well that definition corresponds with Mallick's second bullet. In order to make magic, I have to "be" the magician in my life--the one who influences events and produces marvels, the one who keeps on believing and being even when obstacles show up along the way. Here is what what Rob Brezny had to say about obstacles last week to those born under the sign of Leo:

"Obstacles are a natural part of life, just as boulders are a natural part of the course of a river," notes the ancient Chinese book The I Ching. "The river does not complain or get depressed because there are boulders in its path." I'd go so far to say -- this is not in the original text, but is my 21st-century addition -- that the river gets a sensual thrill as it glides its smooth current over the irregular shapes and hard skin of the rocks. It looks forward to the friction, exults in the intimate touch, loves the drama of the interaction. --Rob Brezny, Freewill Astrology

What a sexy way to look at obstacles! So now the choice is mine--how will I view the challenges that come my way? Will I continue to believe in magic and in my abilities as a magician? Obstacles are only obstacles if I declare them to be.

The collage above is from my Collage Journal and illustrates to me how I can make magic happen in my own life. The pictures and words are my magician's tool kit with its secret messages and magic spells. Now, it's time for me to add the "abracadabra" of believing and being.

--Vicky :o)

"Making Magic"
Collage Journal Page
Copyright © 2007 by Vicky Lynn Macchione

Too much noise in my head!

My goal this year is to "lighten my load." And, this morning I discovered another way I can make that happen: Stop unconditionally believing all the voices in my head.

Today, while I was checking my email, I found myself getting agitated. I was reading a newsletter by someone, considered to be an inspirational person by many, who was advocating a way to be more environmentally conscious. Something snapped inside! I found myself expressing disgust at being given yet another thing to put on my Life's "To Do" list.

Don't get me wrong. I certainly believe it is important to be environmentally conscious. However, I am weary of all the messages coming from emails, television, movies, governments, parents--living or long-dead--religions, friends, families, lovers, and the list goes on forever, AS WELL AS my own list of correct living prerequisites. How much of my life and energy do I spend being concerned over all this noise? WAY TOO MUCH!

I decided today that I can no longer put off determining what is and what is not important to me in my Life. I can no longer let others tell me how to live my Life. It's time for me to stop the Noise Madness. For as long as I listen to and unconditionally believe what others say, I cannot hear the "still, small voice" that resides within each of us.

In the last few months, I had started taking my name off inspirational newsletter email lists. I was being overwhelmed by inspiration! Now, I see that I am still too involved in all the wisdom everyone else seems to have. It's time to listen to the wisdom within. My Life, My Way. This collage from my Collage Journal illustrates clearly the message of this post. How interesting that I made the collage over 2 years ago.

--Vicky :o)

P.S.After I wrote this post, I discovered this short passage by Rumi, very appropriate to what I have written here:

"All my talk was madness,
filled with dos and don’ts.

For ages I knocked on a door—
when it opened I found

I was knocking from the inside!" --Rumi

"Start Within"
Collage Journal Page
Copyright © 20o6 by Vicky Lynn Macchione

"People see only what they are prepared to see."

I put this collage on the inside of a birthday card for a friend that celebrates her birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Rola!

You will notice that on my previous posted collage and on this one, I used the same quotation. In fact, I used the quotation as the title of this post as well. This quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

What I find most interesting is yesterday I received an email that illustrated this quote for me. The email came from someone I have known for several years but with whom I am not in frequent contact. She had known me somewhat intimately in the past but we have not spoken in person for at least 4 years, and we rarely exchange emails. In her email, she assumes that I am exactly the same as I was when she knew me--and that my reactions to situations could not change and certainly have not changed.

As I read her email, I realized that everyone tends to categorize people in their lives and, likewise, everyone tends to keep those people boxed in by those categories. And that's one possible interpretation of the Emerson quote. We can't possibly see changes in people if we are only prepared to see what we have always seen, if we wear the blinders of our categorizations and definitions.

I am grateful that I received this woman's email because it confirmed the importance of this quote. Since I used it both on my Vision Collage and the collage I posted here and then received this email that illumined the quote, I believe the Universe is sending me a message: In what areas are you (meaning me, of course) unprepared to see changes or unusual vistas or challenging thoughts and ideas?

That's the question that will on the "front burner" of my life as I go through 2009.

--Vicky :o)

Collage: "The Key to Change"

Copyright © 2009 by Vicky Lynn Macchione

New Year, New Vision!

For the last couple of years I have tried to write in a journal each day--Morning Pages as Julia Cameron calls them. Lately, I have been having trouble making my daily 3 pages. So I have been rethinking those pages and how I really want to use them. In the midst of this Morning Pages reinvention, I got the idea to make a collage to mark the shift from 2008 to 2009. This new collage is posted here.

Many people like to make vision boards as a way to direct their visions and fulfill their dreams for the new year. That's what this collage is all about for me. Two phrases I particularly love are these: "Don't be a spectator on this trip" and "There's no death worse than just waiting around." Both of these phrases come from Michael Green's The Illuminated Rumi 2008 calendar. The poem goes like this:

Don't be a spectator on this trip.
There's no death worse than waiting around.
Set your heart on the hero's gold.
And go. --Rumi

Last year I often found myself feeling like I was waiting. If I had to describe what it was I was waiting for, I would say it was Life or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I was waiting for something I thought needed to happen so I could live my life. I would often have thoughts like: "When this or that happens, then I'll do this or then I'll feel that way." I was experiencing "delayed living," which in Rumi's view is the worst type of death. And as the days of 2008 went by, I realized more and more that whether I spent those days waiting, spectating, or actually living them right NOW, time continued to pass and days disappeared!

In 2009 I want to hang up my spectator glasses, end the "waiting-around-death" experience, and GO for the "hero's gold" of living each day as full and as well as I possibly can. I am using this collage to inspire me to remember and live my vision.

--Vicky :o)

Vision Collage: 2009
Copyright © 2009 by Vicky Lynn Macchione