Blue Heron Visions: Chapter 25: Magic Means

This manuscript is both a memoir of sorts and a work of fiction. The stories and events included are based on my life experiences and memories but I have changed names, details, event sequences, and outcomes throughout the work.

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Chapter 25: Magic Means

As the spring equinox edged ever closer, Elizabeth felt an anticipation growing in her, almost as if she, too, were preparing to emerge from her winter bud, breaking forth with new life and vibrant colors. She had sensed the feeling for several days, and today, upon awakening, she felt that the feeling could be described as a quickening—the same word used to characterize when a mother felt the new life moving inside of her.

Elizabeth noticed that on most days as spring approached, she had been arising more quickly. For some reason, today, the idea of quickening captured her attention and she continued to rest in bed as her thoughts took her along that stream.

She remembered during her first pregnancy when she first felt her daughter move. Elizabeth was about four months along and she was sitting on an off-white padded leather rocker that her husband had owned before they met. She had been thinking about the baby and when she would feel her move. And then, as if by magic or as if she had invited the experience, she felt a sensation she had never had before in her abdomen. She felt as if a butterfly was fluttering its wings inside of her. She knew instantly that the baby was moving. The feeling was magical!

She could also recall when her second child moved. She was at a wedding and only about twelve weeks pregnant at the time. She felt the same movement in her lower belly and was sure that she had felt the baby. When she went to her obstetrician and mentioned that she had felt the baby, the doctor looked at her doubtfully. Then, the doctor decided to use the monitor to see if she could detect the baby's heartbeat. She had told Elizabeth that there was a good chance that they wouldn't hear the heartbeat, but almost instantly, they did. Then, the doctor believed that the baby had moved, even if it was quite early in the pregnancy for the movement to have occurred.

Elizabeth didn't recall the quickening experience with her third child. She wondered why. Of course, at the time, she had one school-aged daughter and one preschool-aged son who had been experiencing seizures. Elizabeth remembered being quite consumed with her son's condition, reading about epilepsy and seizure disorders after she had received his diagnosis. Her pregnancy was pushed to the back of her mind while she dealt with her son's medical condition.

Although she didn't have a quickening memory for her third child, she did have the ultrasound experience, which had never happened with her other two children. She had been able to actually see her baby move.

Elizabeth had considered all her pregnancies as magical experiences. She felt the same amazement as each of her babies grew, moved, and kicked, realizing that the life inside of her was made of flesh, blood, and bones just like she was. Yet, somehow that being, although connected to her, was unique—her and yet not her. A few years ago, she had used that idea and image with a friend when discussing the inter-connectivity of all beings and all of existence with All That Is. Once again, she recalled the scripture, “For in him we live and move and have our being.” Elizabeth was astonished at how often that scripture seemed to be coming up in her thoughts. “How appropriate that phrase is in the context of quickening,” Elizabeth noticed.

Elizabeth thoughts hovered on the scripture for a while. She recalled that she had used the scripture when thinking about God/Source/All That Is, Life Energy, Love, and Grace. She knew that the flow of magic she was seeking might also be an addition to that list of concepts. She contemplated that idea.

Thinking back to the pieces of magic she had experienced, she noticed that they often happened when she was just being—not thinking, not worrying, not trying. She was simply being in the moment as it unfolded. She also noticed that pieces of magic occurred when she was creating art. She had experienced magical moments when she assembled a mandala and was amazed and touched by its final appearance. Sometimes she had discovered a light emanating from the mandala, one that she had not added through color or contrast adjustments. The light simply was, waiting for her or someone to notice its existence. Even as Elizabeth considered the idea of waiting, she realized the light wasn't really waiting for anything or anyone; whether noticed or not, it took joy in its existence and it existed. She had somehow aligned with the light when taking the original photo and had been able to capture it in the mandala.

The concept of alignment reminded Elizabeth of a definition of magic that she had found in an etymological dictionary. In the 14^th century, magic had been described as the “art of influencing events and producing marvels using hidden natural forces.” In her mind, she saw the alignment with hidden natural forces—such as energy, life, grace, love—was what influenced events and produced marvels. Elizabeth realized others would not interpret energy, life, grace, and love as “natural” forces—except for energy. But she was coming to the conclusion that all the words she equated with the underlying flow of life were either closely connected or described the same energy, entity, field, substance, essence. “And what could be a more natural force than one that served as the foundation all of existence?” Elizabeth wondered.

Another interesting fact that Elizabeth had discovered in her research was that the word magician came from magi (the plural of magus—Latin; magos—Greek), a word used to describe “one of the members of the learned and priestly class.” Perhaps that's why magic was looked upon as supernatural because its original followers were purported to be spiritual people who believed in God or at least used their knowledge of God and the world to “influence events” and “produce marvels.” She realized, somewhat cynically, that there were always people who used their “special” knowledge to convince the superstitious or weak-minded (she herself had been in this category more than once in her life) to believe in and follow them.

But the magic Elizabeth was desiring had nothing to do with convincing others to believe that she possessed special knowledge or capabilities. What she was looking for was that feeling of flow, of seeing life with new eyes, of being present in the moment from which all of life expanded. For some reason, an image of the Big Bang popped into her mind's eye and a vision of all creation stretching forth from that one point, that one instant.

Elizabeth also realized the magic she wanted already existed so what she really wanted was the awareness of it, just not in the bits and pieces she had experienced so far in her life. She wanted the awareness to be the substantial and essential part of her life. But she still didn't know how to make that happen. Elizabeth felt befuddled in her thinking. She felt that the answer she was seeking already existed, she just wasn't seeing it clearly.

Feeling frustrated, Elizabeth arose from her bed and began her day. She had decided that she would take her befuddlement to the salon and sit with it for a while. First, though, she went through her morning preparations, including posting her mandala and writing her morning pages. She could feel the thoughts and ideas from earlier that morning going round and round in her mind, serving as a backdrop to all of her regular activities. She sighed deeply as she realized how weary she was growing because of this unfulfilled desire that seemed to have been with her for much longer than last October when she became more fully aware of it.

Finally done with her morning rituals, she settled herself in the green chair, her sitting chair. She took some deep breaths and then focused on her breathing. Her thoughts came barreling through her mind, today. And the feeling of frustration she had experienced earlier continued to grow. She felt that she had no control over her thoughts and kept following them wherever they tempted her attention to wander. She realized that she wasn't actually focusing on her breathing. She was trying to force an answer to surface. Her frustration and lack of patience had only given life to her racing thoughts. She decided to sit with her confusion and just let it be while she again focused on her breathing.

Elizabeth struggled with allowing the confusion because for her it meant that she was not in control. She always felt the need to know and understand each and every event that came her way so she could file it under the correct category. Confusion made her uncomfortable. She took another breath and sat with the discomfort, noticing that the feeling didn't hurt her or cause her pain. She breathed again and felt the discomfort lessen. She took some more breaths. The confusion was still with her but the discomfort had almost dissipated. She continued her breathing and sitting for a few more minutes.

Eventually Elizabeth realized that she felt more at peace. The moment stretched out before her. She remembered the feelings of quickening and anticipated emerging she had had when she awoke this morning. She thought of how a baby moved when it was ready not just when the prescribed timetable said it should. She considered how a caterpillar entered the chrysalis in one state of being and actually completely changed its structure and state before emerging from its tomb of transformation. She realized that for the caterpillar, the chrysalis was a tomb because almost every part of what made it a caterpillar either died or transformed before it could emerge as a butterfly.

Elizabeth could see a connection between the quickening of a baby and the emerging of the butterfly. The caterpillar must feel a quickening that inspires it to build its chrysalis, constructing the very habitation of its coming destruction. Once inside, the caterpillar relinquishes all control whether it wants to or not. Life in the form of Nature takes over, rearranging and recreating the caterpillar's remains, turning the tomb into a womb, from which new life will emerge. Then, the newly formed butterfly must feel a quickening that inspires it to break free from the womb of its creation, to be born as an entirely new creature in the world. And this magical drama gets repeated many times each year.

Elizabeth's attention was drawn again to the idea of alignment. Thinking about a flow of magic, made her think of a river. When people align themselves with the river's current, they experience the struggle-free and effortless flow. When people position themselves against the flow, they are guaranteed to experience intense struggle and need to exercise valiant efforts to get where they desire to go.

Elizabeth asked herself, “How can I learn to align myself with magic?” One answer came immediately: Stop resisting what comes! She realized she had heard that answer before and had not acted on it. Elizabeth needed to adjust her belief system about how Life presented itself to her. She had tools to help her to embrace Life, using Stacy's mirror technique, sitting in silence each day, finding and expressing gratitude. If she took the time to use these tools, she believed she would find the open door that led to awareness and allowed the flow of magic, grace, love, and All That Is in her life. She would experience the canvas underneath all the paint she applied.

Elizabeth felt a quiet joy in her heart. As she had long suspected, the answer had always been within her grasp. The key word in that thought was “within.” The answer had always been within.

Elizabeth arose from her sitting chair, grateful for the peace and understanding she felt. She decided that later she would go back and listen to some of the recordings of her conversations with Stacy to get more clear on the mirror technique. But first, she would go outside and focus her attention on the quickening that was happening all around her as Nature prepared for the emergence of spring.