I like to think of myself as a magical person. I always have been. As a child, I saw fairies playing in the flowers and flying around with the butterflies. Now I’m an older, retired woman and I still see the fairies, but I see magic in many other places now. In our skeptical, polarized society, we have collectively lost the ability to believe in such things and instead focus on “reality” and in behaving like a grown-up. Why does being an adult automatically mean one can’t believe in magic anymore? Why is this deemed only for kids? I’ve never understood that. As parents, you read stories to kids and play Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy and other things, but as the adult, you cannot believe in the thing you are telling your child about. That makes no sense to me.

Adults are required to think in a linear way in order to work, earn money, provide for your family and go about the adult day with no consideration for the magic happening right around you. It’s there, if you are open to it. As a yournger adult, I admit to missing out on it too. I worked in the healthcare field, magic has no place there I’m told. But that’s where I started seeing it. I admit, most people wouldn’t think of it as “magic” pre se, but part of being open to it means expanding the definition of magic too. It’s not only in the stories. Broaden the definition, then look around and you will.

My examples of magic might make you wonder about me, but consider what I’m saying and then think on it. It’s ok if you still think I’m nuts.

Working in healthcare, I learned a lot about the human body and how it works. I learned too that, even though we all work basically the same, we work differently. I spent 5 years working in Labor & Delivery, watching little magical miracles come into the world. It’s a place of high highs and low lows. You know what though? We still don’t know what triggers the actual birth process to begin. There’s an alchemy between the mother’s body and the baby that happens when ready that starts the process. Magic.

An easy example is creative projects of all kinds, like movies. Think of them as a spell recipe. There are steps involved, maybe ingrediants to get if there’s a potion or incense to make. There are movies that can never be made the same way again. For example, Casablanca. Every single person who was involved in that project was an ingrediant in the spell. The result is a completed spell now turned into a piece of magic out there in the universe, never to be replicated. That’s magical. Think about actors BORN to play a certain role; you cannot see anyone else in that role. Magic.

I’ve sung in various choruses throughout my life and there have been concert nights where everything was perfection. And the energy released at the end was amazing! Magic. What concert have you heard that was simply perfection that night? Yup, magic. Cooking is magic. Art is magic.

Magic is energy focused in a way that aims for a certain outcome. The universe is filled with energy waiting to be directed for a purpose. Think about the magic you have seen with this expanded lens. Once you open up the definition of what magic is, you will see it eveywhere. My examples are but a few. Living in Upper Michigan, I see it everywhere. In nature, in my community. We are all magical beings, even our very existence here is a bit of magic.

Let me know where you see it in your lives.