Living from your magic within
I recently found myself in an airport bookstore having a mystical revelation right there in the fiction section. I certainly didn’t have any beams shooting out of my head, angels singing, or an owl suddenly bringing me an invite. Just a quiet realization that left me gobsmacked…or should I say God-smacked.
In a bookstore, which is always a mystical and magical place that fills my seeker’s heart, I am attracted as usual to books about books…that words are magical, potent, and poetic. When put together just right, they capture the soul, enliven the heart, and transform lives. And, I am attracted to books about hidden magic. The unlikeliest person has a special spark within that gets recognized, developed, honored, and launched to impact the world with his/her inner power and genius.
It dawned on me that I keep on reading these same two storylines over and over, perhaps because I feel like it is my story or at least I want it to be. I’m that protagonist who doesn’t quite fit in but has a passion, a deep power within, a bright light just waiting for permission to shine. I remember the innumerable times I was told while growing up that I was too loud, too chatty, too energetic, too enthusiastic, just too much. And so my wings were clipped and clipped and clipped until I didn’t even remember that I had wings. My light dimmed to a mere pilot light hidden behind the armor.
All of this caused me to remember my favorite childhood book, “The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches.” The main character was a little girl with two older sisters who were powerful witches, but she was practically invisible to them, a nuisance, useless. As the story proceeds, she finds her own way of casting spells and even flying on a dumb-old kitchen broom, none of which should work but it does for her. She becomes her own person and finds her power. She lives into her full expression and then her older sisters truly see and respect her. Her words are just as magical and her being just as powerful.
Yes, I liked that story because I was born near Halloween, so I’m all about witches, but I also resonate with allowing myself to be fully me, doing things my way, and living into my power. I love that storyline and realize that my bookshelves are filled with that story over and over.
In fact, my favorite book in my adulthood is Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, written in my favorite style of magical realism. This book also includes a “witch,” or curandera…healing woman, who is passing her wisdom and skills on to Antonio, a little boy who thinks deep thoughts (as I did) and connects from the heart (as I hope to). He is thrilled when he finally gets to go to school and learn to read and write because he knows there’s magic in the words. This book is so poetically written and captures my belief that we do live with magic in this very real world of ours, and that magic happens when we realize our power within such as Ultima and Antonio did.
So imagine my surprise standing in that airport bookstore finding at least three books about the magic within, the power of words, and books changing lives and then being repelled by them. In that instant, a thought dropped into the bottom of my stomach that I’m tired of reading about magical people finding and then living freely into their power; I want to live that story. It is my story. It is your story. It is the life we have come here to live, to remember who and what we are as expressions of the Divine in the here and now.
Let’s stop pretending like that person who realizes their magic is the exception and has to be hidden at first and then given permission to share their magic with the world, a story that can only be fiction. This is a nonfiction reality! Every person has that inner power and needs no permission or justification to show up fully realized in the world. We are witches and warlocks already. The exception is really the people who don’t allow themselves to be what they are because they justify playing small and dimming their light for fear of getting burnt.
It’s time to shift from telling this story over and over again and just live it. Shine…be glorious, witches and warlocks. Your magic is transforming the world and so is mine.