As a young child growing up Catholic, celebration of Mass
was mystical, magical experience. My earliest memories of those Masses were
when I was three or four. Listening to the priest chant in Latin, I felt the
energy of the words resonate in my spirit, my heart, my mind, and even in my
body. I remember chanting the Latin prayers in tandem with the priest.
During one of those times, one of my sisters, I am not sure
which one, jabbed me in the side. I was jerked out of that magical, mystical,
peace-filled space. Now, almost 50 years later, I still have a full body memory
of that time. Even now the memory has the potential to push all of my senses
into hyperawareness. I see, hear, smell, taste, and feel that experience.
Starhawk wrote in one of her books magic is the art of changing consciousness at will. The above
memory is of a time that I was drawn unaware into the magic of the moment and
then unceremoniously pulled into the mundane. It was only when I was not longer
in the magic that I recognized the mystical, magical moment.
I ask myself how can I invite the mystical magic — the
source of limitless possibility — into my mundane life? How can the mystical
energy of magic shift me from the ordinary into the extraordinary? How can I
regularly and intuitively shift my consciousness at will to this place of
wonder?
Each time I step into nature, I listen with the ears of my
heart. This multi-sensory way of experiencing necessitates that I am in the
moment. I am fully awake, fully aware, and vibrantly alive. During my initial
forays into nature, I would ask myself how I was experiencing with all of my
senses the flight of a bird or the gentle sway of the flower in the breeze.
Now, through practice, the full body listening has become an intuitive response
when I am in nature.
Connecting with nature is easy; engaging with humans, not so
much. There is a rhythm in nature that makes connection simple. The nature dance
resonates with me, and I resonate with it. For me, the dance with humans is
synthetic and has a plastic feel. In order to sense the magic and connect with
the ordinary, I must dive below the synthetic and connect with the natural, the
Sacred strand that is present in all. This connection is possible through my
belief in each person’s mystical connection to others, the Sacred, and all of
creation.
As I remember that time of magic so many years ago, I move
within the dialogue of listening and speaking. I dance within the understanding
that lies underneath the mundane and is present in the extraordinary world of
mystical magic.
What magic reveals it self to you today?
Vanessa
www.healingwillow
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