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 14th
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.
Copyright © 2011-2012 by Vicky
Lynn Macchione.
All Rights Reserved.
No
reproduction of this text is allowed without the written permission
of the author.
