When I hear the word, \u201cmagic,\u201d I\u00a0think about someone shuffling a deck of 52 cards and randomly pulling out the\u00a0one I chose. I think about a woman in a fancy costume, mesh tights and high\u00a0heels, lying calmly inside a box, smiling, while someone is apparently sawing her\u00a0in half. A bright white scarf turning into a dove and flying away. An elephant\u00a0disappearing into thin air.<\/p>\n
These are common associations but they\u00a0are limited. There is so much more to magic than the bravado of sleight of hand\u00a0and creating illusions. There is a different level altogether where we start
with nothing and watch it become something. Where we see the ordinary transform\u00a0into the extraordinary right before our eyes. No tricks or deceptions.<\/p>\n
The dictionary definition of magic\u00a0refers to a supernatural power that seems to make impossible things happen. But\u00a0I see it differently. I see it as a natural power that makes astonishing things\u00a0possible. I believe that when we are awake and paying attention, our regular
day to day world becomes a much larger and more colorful version of itself. A\u00a0place where real life experience is lifted into a realm of infinite\u00a0possibilities that we can\u2019t explain or understand. But we know they are there.\u00a0I had the privilege of working on a memoir for the late Olivia Newton John who\u00a0sang the wonderful lyric, \u201cWe have to believe we are magic.\u201d And she was.<\/p>\n
I was a child of seven when my\u00a0father woke me up before dawn. We got into the car and he told me we were going\u00a0to see a solar eclipse. \u201cWhen the sun starts to rise,\u201d he said, \u201cthe moon\u2019s\u00a0going to pass in front of it. The sky will get dark for a few minutes and then\u00a0it will light up again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moon is jealous,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u00a0has to disappear every morning when the sun comes out. Today, it wants special\u00a0attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
If my father said so, that was good\u00a0enough for me. We climbed a long hill beside the airport and stopped in a\u00a0vacant lot. My father and I held hands with our faces pointed upwards as the\u00a0sun was starting to rise. A faint glow appeared along the horizon, lighting up\u00a0the edges of the world and in a moment, the darkness descended. I looked at my\u00a0father\u2019s upturned face as it became a dark silhouette against the heavens. I \u00a0was witnessing magic and my father and I were a part of it.<\/p>\n
Today, I see the magic in the pastels\u00a0of a sunset streaking the sky. Turning strands of wool into colorful sweaters.\u00a0Picking up a guitar and making beautiful music. Watching a wound heal. Writing
words that turn into stories. Painting strokes on a canvas that become\u00a0breathtaking works of art. They all unfold in a seamless breath of fresh air\u00a0and we marvel at how we might have missed them if we hadn\u2019t been paying\u00a0attention. When we are awake and alert, it\u2019s reasonable to expect to see the world\u00a0in a much broader and more beautiful perspective.<\/p>\n
Celebrated poet, W. B. Yeats,\u00a0wrote, \u201cThe world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for \u00a0our senses to grow sharper.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the sixties, when my friends\u00a0and I were experimenting with psychedelics, one of the most powerful teachings\u00a0for me was the connectedness I felt with the people around me. I remember\u00a0sitting opposite a friend and looking at his face and suddenly I was looking at\u00a0myself. His face had become my face. It was clear that I was a part of him and\u00a0he was a part of me and that realization has stayed with me. That was pure\u00a0magic and when I have a hard time connecting with someone, I call on that day to\u00a0remind me about what is possible.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the nineteen eighties, I took\u00a0ten trips to the Philippines to study with the world famous faith healers. My\u00a0research became the inspiration for the first book I wrote called, \u201cAwakening\u00a0the Healer Within,\u201d (available on Amazon), when I learned unequivocally that
magic heals. I don\u2019t have enough room in this blog to go into detail, it took a\u00a0whole book to do it, but all I can say is that I witnessed some miraculous\u00a0healers while I was there. I also witnessed fakes, people who were doing some\u00a0kind of hocus pocus that left the patient not only still ill, but suffering\u00a0terrible disappointment. It was hard to see with my eyes what was real, so in\u00a0order to tell the difference, I looked for the feeling of magic in the air. If\u00a0it filled me with joy and made me feel good about myself, that was all the reality\u00a0I needed. If it didn\u2019t, it was time to move on. Celebrated German scientist and
author, Johann Goethe, said,\u201d Magic is believing in yourself. If you can do\u00a0that, you can make anything happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
When someone asks me if I believe\u00a0in God, I start with what I don\u2019t believe. I don\u2019t believe in a patriarch on\u00a0high who watches us and gives us what we want. Or not. I don\u2019t believe in a\u00a0heavenly mediator who tells us what\u2019s okay to do or not do. I don\u2019t believe in\u00a0a separate entity that washes our lives clean if we believe in him. Or her. My
belief is different than that. I believe that God exists in the magical synchronicities\u00a0of life:<\/p>\n
Seeing someone\u2019s face in my mind\u00a0and the phone rings. Running into a friend in a foreign country. Finding out\u00a0that someone I know, bought the very house where I\u2019d lived thirty years prior.\u00a0Spending time with a boyfriend who had his own island in Tahiti where a friend
of mine had visited years before she and I had met. All of these things happened\u00a0to me and I expect you have examples of your own.<\/p>\n
When we are touched with wonder,\u00a0awe and amazement, you and I may see thing differently, we may use our own\u00a0words to describe it, but that doesn\u2019t mean we aren\u2019t moved and uplifted by the\u00a0same kind of magic. Shakespearian actor, Jon Finch, said, \u201cMagic is the brush\u00a0that paints the unseen; the instrument that plays the chords of amazement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I hear the word, \u201cmagic,\u201d I\u00a0think about someone shuffling a deck of 52 cards and randomly pulling out the\u00a0one I chose. I think about a woman in a fancy costume, mesh tights and high\u00a0heels, lying calmly inside a box, smiling, while someone is apparently sawing her\u00a0in half. A bright white scarf turning into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2531,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions\/2531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}