Claim your Magic
we are not helpless, we have imaginations
Thank you thank you for your wise, feisty, furious comments on my last post - they were the medicine I needed. I keep rereading them! They are good magic.
If you missed that post, here it is:
As the chaos whorls in an effort to exhaust us all into submission, as we are fired because we are women (see Admiral Linda J. Fagan for starters), as the clowns try to take away all federal funding, as we are assaulted by lies, nihilism, and sheer cruelty, we need to call on magic like never before.
All this horror is meant to defeat us, turn us into prey lying on our backs with our throats exposed because we don’t know which way to run.
Magic reminds us — we have power.
We are not helpless.
Magic wakes up.
The novelist
wrote:If we can’t keep our imagination alive we will die.
Imagination sees past the hard boundary and into a different place. Imagination says why not? Imagination doesn’t destroy. Imagination creates.
If we are nothing but life on the outside, then we are nothing. The world right now is all about the outside - money, power, data, control. As yet, till the BCI chip flows down the line, there is no CCTV inside your head. Your imagination isn’t data. Don’t hand it over. It is your secret supply of unquenchable life.
When we read, look at pictures, go to the theatre, listen to real music, take a walk for no purpose, look at the sunset and love it, drift a bit and dream a bit, we are claiming back the right to exist free of the cynical values of Self=Data.
You are not Data. You are a human being and you have an inner life.
Magic is imagination made tangible.
In my novel, the oldest source of magic is wonder. The earth is imbued with wonder until humans murder an entire magical species and take that species’ magic for their own.
As a result, a rift is created, and wonder begins to slowly fade away.
A world without wonder is a cruel world. A world where life doesn’t matter, where people don’t matter, where all that matters is your quest for power.
Like the world we are seeing unfold on our screens and in our communities, up close and often terrifyingly personal.
But it is not a cruel cold world. This is not our truth and we will not let it become our truth. Magic can help us remember that, help us remember the mystery and beauty and goodness of life.
Magic is what elevates us, inspires us, awes us, connects us.
What is your magic?
I’ll go first: I see my magic as believing in other people’s magic. Seeing what makes you you and celebrating it, pointing it out to you when you forget or can’t see it. Having faith in the best parts of you and what you want to create in the world.
Here’s another of mine: putting into words what other people are thinking but haven’t quite articulated for themselves.
Maybe your magic is keeping your family together. Or helping kids at your school feel loved. Maybe your resilience around illness or your anti-racism work or preserving women’s history.
I’d love to hear about your magic because one way we survive these vicious times is by seeing the magic in ourselves and each other. And sharing it.
Just hit the purple button.
Please come back and read as the comments collect and cheer each other on.
Thanks for being here,
Jen
First of all, thank you. I feel this to my core, in my bones. So thank you for the reminder and the fierceness I feel in your Truth Telling. We need Truth now more than ever. My magic comes from what I’ve lived - being able to walk alongside people through the dark and to hold the light of hope, of possibility somehow. My magic is bringing compassion to those who are overlooked, misunderstood, or worse. My magic shines when I show up and help people step back from the chaos to see a bigger picture, take a fresh perspective, and learn to listen to their own hearts and souls.
My magic is my sensitivity. I used to think it was a curse when I was young but one day I realized it is a gift of the highest order. My sensitivity helps me help others because I’m grounded and keyed into them.