Page of Pentacles — Spiritual Message of the Day
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle. — Walt Whitman
Children see so much magic in the world around them, but we adults see everything as being oh so mundane. We think that we are smarter than they are, but could it be that we are just jaded? Have we gained knowledge about the world at the price of our sense of the miraculous? It’s not an inevitable or necessary trade-off, but it seems to be almost universal.
Perhaps we lost our fascination with magic though the disappointment we felt when we discovered that the more obvious examples of it (such as Santa Claus) turned out not to be true. Or it may have been that the adults around us scoffed at our dreams and imagination, squelching our perception of the miraculous just as we often do with our children. And so, like Jackie Paper in the song “Puff the Magic Dragon” we grow up and lose interest in a miraculous life, leaving the magic to languish, deprived of our love.
But maybe if we let our children hold onto magic as long as possible, they’ll be able to bring more of it into our world. Or perhaps if we start looking for it again we’ll find it on our own. After all, there is magic in the touch of a loved one, enchantment in a beautiful song, mystical personality in a forest, and a miracle in a smile we may bring to someone who is sad. You may wonder if any of that is really magic, though. The answer is both yes and no. It’s all in your perspective.
This is so true! We let people tell us that we have to be “realistic” and give up all the magic and spiritual aspects of nature. How realistic is it to deny what is plain to the senses of every child? And to most people throughout history? There are unfortunate people who are blind and other unfortunates who are deaf either from birth or through accident or disease. But they can’t help that. There may also be people who are naturally blind, deaf, and numb to the way spirit and magic moves in our lives, Sadly, there are far more people who are willfully self-blinded through denial and a wish to conform to the sad state of louder people around them. So-called “science” is used as a bludgeon to brow-beat everyone who senses the magic, but how on earth is it Real Science to deny something that can, in the present state of our knowledge, be neither proven to exist or not exist. Pure prejudice that is! You can tell — I get excited about this! I also think that a lot of what is wrong with the world is that too many of us have forgotten our magical connection with spirit, with nature, and with each other. Thanks for writing this, James!