Tag: magic

Words Are Magic

Words are magic.

I knew this from a very young age.

When I was five, I started learning Spanish. I was jealous of my friends who got to go to Hebrew school.

I remember watching my dad read the newspaper and wondering how he could do that in his head.

When I was seven or eight, I decided my life goal was to speak seven languages. When I was seventeen, I discovered a life-long passion, linguistics—the science of language.

But I had always known the magic of language.

I’m sure it’s no surprise that my pet peeve is people who don’t choose their words carefully. Or who have no respect for what words mean. Prodigal does not mean returned. There’s a difference between phase and faze, between jibe and jive. Don’t get me started on there, their, and they’re.

Every word we utter, or even think can have profound consequences. Every sentence is a magical spell.

Affirmations, of course. Every day, in every way, my joyous prosperity grows and grows. My life is an adventure taking me wonderful new places. I choose to see the beauty and love that surround me.

And self-talk. I’ve written about that before, about how seemingly little things like “I’ll never figure this out” become self-fulfilling prophecies. How self-deprecation does us no favors.

Look at the emotions these sentences create:

I want to kiss your elbow.
What was that noise downstairs?
He ruined listening to my favorite album for me.
You‘re going to have twins!
Let’s play Twister.
I brought you a cup of coffee.
It’s stage 4 cancer.
I trust you with my secrets.

How about word superstitions? Voldemort, or He-who-must-not-be-named (speak of the devil and he shall appear). Saying “God bless you” after someone sneezes (but never after someone coughs). Using euphemisms for death. Saying “dead” doesn’t bring it about any more than saying “pregnant” makes that happen.

Authors create magic every time they write. They draw us into another world, introduce us to new people, change our mood, our outlook, or our mind all with words.

I challenge you to create a little bit of your own magic, to write a story in one sentence.

It can be as simple as “When he walked into the room, I knew my life would never be the same.”

Or as clunky as, “Cass sighed and called for the jaws of life to release the man from the car that was upside down on her front lawn, blaring INXS.”

Or finish this sentence, “What if…”

What can you create with those two words? What do they offer? What spell can they cast? Where can they take you?

What if… you believed in magic?

The Power of Magic

When my daughter was little, Santa brought her a magic kit. She was so excited about it. We sat down on the floor of my parents’ family room (which probably still had gold shag carpet, impeccably raked) and opened the box. A box of magic!

We pulled everything out and I said, “Let’s see what the instructions say.”

I saw her face fall. It wasn’t a box full of magic after all. It was instructions and adult involvement.

I still feel guilty about shattering her belief in magic. I wish I could go back and say something to make it right. Something like, “There is definitely magic in the world—Santa simply misunderstood what you asked for.” I wish I would have thought to show her how both real magic and stage magic work.

I love both kinds of magic. My husband and I went to the Magic Lounge in Chicago last Friday. He likes to try to figure out how the tricks are done. I prefer to be astounded. And magic, either kind, should astound.

Years ago, I was out with my friend Jean. From seemingly out of nowhere I started talking about my old buddy JR. I finished my anecdotes saying, “I wonder what that old JR is up to!” I went home, dug around online, found him, and sent him a message. It felt so out of the blue. I wasn’t even sure he would remember me since I hadn’t seen him in over twenty years.

It turned out that JR had been looking for people who had been in Estes Park during the summer when a horrible flood killed close to 150 people. At that time, that’s where I lived. In a sense, he conjured my email to him.

When my husband and I were looking to move out of Oak Park, we were originally looking in a city called Huntley. We had settled on a subdivision and a builder and were in the process of designing our house. While driving in the area, I kept seeing billboards that said, “Bigger Is Better!” I didn’t pay them any mind.

Around the same time, I went to get my hair done, but my regular stylist, Petra, was sick. I was chatting with the woman filling in for Petra, telling her how we were planning to move to Huntley. Even though Huntley is fifty miles away from the salon, that stylist lived in the exact subdivision we were looking at. She said, “Don’t move there! Move to Crystal Lake.”

The next time I saw the Bigger Is Better billboard, I noticed it was for a neighborhood in Crystal Lake. With the same builder we were working with. I drove over to look. There was one house available. The very model house we were designing. With all the upgrades we had chosen. On a much bigger lot. For a lot less than we were going to be paying in Huntley.

That’s magic.

I have a top hat full of stories like that. Hearing from a friend I hadn’t spoken to in over twenty years after seeing a photo of him the week before. Being magically unscathed from car accidents that should have killed me. Having jobs, jobs I was sure I wasn’t qualified for, even jobs I never applied for, fall into my lap. Books that had the information I needed appear. Teachers. Healers. Friends.

The secret is in believing that powerful magic swirls around you. In knowing that you can conjure, that you can co-create with the Universe. In never giving up on the childlike wonder that allows the magic to be real.

The Society of Business Witchery

Buckle up. This is a wild ride.

I’m in a group called the Society of Business Witchery. It’s a class for people who have metaphysical businesses and there’s a corresponding Facebook group, led by Sara Walka of the Sisters Enchanted.

You don’t have to identify as a witch to participate but believing in your magical self certainly helps.

A member, Lindsay, posted that she was looking for volunteers to practice her mediumship on. I’m always game for a reading, so I raised my virtual hand.

We met on Zoom. Lindsay seemed a little nervous. I remembered that feeling. When I was starting out, I’d feel anxious before each intuitive reading or energy clearing because the craziest stuff has a way of surfacing.

I felt like an idiot saying things like, “It’s a sunshiny day, there are diapers—outside–and you are SO happy.” Or “What do Chili Cheese Fritos mean to you?”

Despite her anxiety, Lindsay jumped right in.

“Jennifer,” she said. “It’s a woman named Jennifer. She’s holding a megaphone YELLING Jennifer. You went swimming or boating with her. She’s holding a green crystal. She’s showing me the Red Cross cross. There’s a winding road…”

I told Lindsay I’d do some digging and see what I could find out about the Jennifer I suspected it was.

I always thought I’d make a great private detective. If I can’t solve the mystery, I like to think it can’t be solved. The game was afoot.

I asked my high school graduating class if anyone knew where Jennifer was. I struck out.

I searched the internet. I googled some more. I dug a little deeper. I pulled out a booklet from a class reunion twenty years ago found an old email address. Would it work?

Bingo! I sent an email to see if she was alive. She was and sent a tentative reply. I then wrote to her hoping she wouldn’t think I was too far out there.

I sent another message.

“A woman in a group I’m in, it’s for people starting metaphysical-type businesses, asked for volunteers so she could develop her mediumship. I said she could practice on me. We got on the zoom call and she (Lindsay) said a woman named Jennifer was coming through. We weren’t born during the Jennifer epidemic, so I don’t know a ton of women named Jennifer, and especially not many (any?) who would be dead. Lindsay said it was someone I went boating or swimming with. It wasn’t ringing a bell. Lindsay said she was showing her a green crystal—which we both assumed meant healing of some sort. This Jennifer showed her the Red Cross cross, which seemed to confirm the healing. There was also a winding road and a blockage of the throat or throat chakra—Lindsay thought that might have been how she died. The only person I could think of that it could be was you because you’re Jennifer, we lived not too far from the lake AND went to Lakeshore Middle School, and you’re a nurse. The only problem is that you’re not dead. And that there’s no reason for you to be hanging around me if you were dead. I mean, I always liked you, even admired you, but we weren’t terribly close.”

Would Jennifer think I was a kook? I mean, everything fit except the being dead part.

Here’s what she wrote back.

“Well, this is not at all weird to me.

I am a channeler, and have been receiving dictations for many years. I live in a very small community in northern MN and don’t have many contacts with intuitive peers.

One of my Spirit Teachers told me to make a space, invite some friends, and she would invite some friends too. I’ve started a gathering at my house, we’ve only met a few times.

I think the Teacher might have invited you, too. XOX 

It sure seems that we could be working together in another domain? I would love to make more direct contact.”

This would all seem bizarre and inexplicable, except it’s not the first time something like this has happened to me.

When we’re willing to open the door to the mystical, we never know what will fly in. But we can expect it to be from the realm of magic.

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