Magic is an experience of the heart. It is not just an experience of the mind. This past week I watched a herd of elk in a field at Sunrise Ranch. It was a “WOW!” experience. My heart sped up and I thought, “They’re amazing and they’re right there across the road! They’re in my valley!” There was a feeling of wonder and a sense of privilege in being visited by them. They were so close!
I have that same experience when it is snowing. Everything is quiet; everything is beautiful. There is definitely a magic in my heart with the new-fallen snow, not just in my noggin. You cannot think yourself into magic—at least I can’t.
Yesterday, in our Leadership Course, we were speaking about the constellations of people in our life. Most of us have various circles of people in our life, and each of them contains their own constellation of relationships. Those constellations create fields of energy and the possibility of magic.
I was talking to my sister this morning. She is a kindergarten teacher, and she was excited about a report on the significance of teachers in children’s lives. When parents are not available, or when parents are not participating in their children’s lives, caring teachers have a real impact. They become a significant part of a child’s constellation of support. She was mentioning the impact of the love and support a teacher can offer a child when the child is naturally hungry for it and not receiving it. It brings magic to the heart of the child.
When you consider the constellation of relationships in your own life, you may notice the power of someone being there to provide a blessing. This report magnified the significance of our relationships and the impact you can have in another person’s life. When you are in touch with that possibility, you are invoking the magic of your own presence. In the constellation of relationships in that circle of your life, you may be providing something no one else is. You may be loving a certain person in a way that opens them up to what is possible. You may not know whether or not someone else sees that person for the perfection of who they are. You might think that was supposed to be Mom and Dad’s job, or the job of someone else in their life. But as you get to know people at a depth, you realize that it often does not happen. How many people do you know who were raised by parents who told them how wonderful and perfect they are? Some were, but it is rare, and eventually a person may need to hear it from others who see them as someone other than their child.
In a home, when parents are tired or upset with each other it affects the atmosphere, and children often need to find a sense of safety or security elsewhere. After all, they deserve it and they thrive in the midst of that kind of atmosphere. Often, without that kind of love, children learn how to survive in the midst of a limited or challenging environment. And in the miracle of the way life works, magic may find its way to the child anyway. Whatever love reaches their heart allows them to grow into themselves and learn how to love their world.
As my sister was saying this morning, in many families, parents are barely there. This may not be their choice—sometimes it is because of financial need. For whatever reason, a child may have a deficit in their family constellation. But it is not just children who need the magic of love and support in their life. Everyone does. And you do not need to have a special relationship with them to extend it. Whatever your unique relationship is with that person, you can provide them with that magic in all kinds of ways, large and small, appropriate to the unique relationship you have with them.
Magic is an experience of the heart. Thinking alone does not allow there to be what is needed. Creative thinking is important but it only connects you to the wonder and joy of life when the heart is engaged. And if the heart is engaged, that magic naturally emanates from you.
What I have found is the need to soften and to open up to a larger experience of possibility. I am having the experience more and more that when I have that feeling of magic, love is cracking my heart open and I am seeing something new is possible. I am seeing God the Possible.I am experiencing the wonder of the potential that is present in every person I am with and in every circumstance. And I am connecting deeply to that potential. I am deliberately greasing the wheels that allow God the Possible to manifest.
This is from Jennifer Deischer’s blog, Grow the Garden :
Give me your shame and we will plant a seed of Compassion. Tell me your secrets along the rambling river. Show me resentment and I will show you how to grow Forgiveness. Feel my Light coming through the trees. Let me show you where to plant denial so you will blossom with Truth and Light. Climb my mountain. Let me feel where you are weary and you will see how you have Persevered.
These things can happen when a heart is cracked open and able to receive the magic of love, allowing things to be transformed.
Yesterday, in my Creative Field Small Group call, we considered how we could open up to possibility and how we could continue to open to it in our life. I think there is practice involved. Some people pray, take a moment to be still and say words that bring them into that open space. Some people enter silence and have moments where they just focus on keeping their mind still. For me, the magic is more palpable and available when I am with people who know that it is possible. There is something juicy about the atmosphere when everybody in that constellation of people is interested in what is possible. There is something much more fertile. And that is a great word for what is in the invisible world of potential—fertile ground. There are all kinds of magic trying to be born through you, but if you are not keeping your heart open to it, magical things do not have a place to grow.
Many years ago I had a space in the front of my house, between the street and the sidewalk. And I had a package of zucchini seeds. Every backyard gardener knows to plant one, maybe two seeds. They are prolific. I planted the whole package. I just stirred up the dirt and I planted the whole package. The significance of the story is that not a single plant grew. Now with zucchini, that is nearly impossible. Here is the lesson I learned from the experience. I did not do anything to prepare the soil; the package of seeds was probably three years old and I planted them because I did not want them to go to waste. So is that the way I want to create? No preparation, use old seed, and then hope for the best? For a garden to grow, there must be vital seed and fertile ground.
I am interested in paying attention to what it is that will allow the possible to manifest through me. I want to focus on what is full of love in the Invisible and allow it to come into my world. How am I going to pay attention to creating a really fertile, open, holy space for it to come and live? I have found it is important to focus on wholeness and to extend a blessing. This creates an atmosphere of safety and welcome for the new to come. This is the magic that lets the garden grow. It is the magic that lets people thrive.
Relationships are the proving ground for this. Do you see the wholeness in people or their flaws? Do you own the feelings that come to you or do you blame others for the way you feel? Maintaining a pristine space for the possible allows the magic to come. That magic will create things and repair things that have not been loved.
Teachers often go into the field of teaching because they love seeing the possible in children and they love to assist in their coming forth. Many of us had a favorite teacher, maybe more than one. That special person saw something in you and drew it out of you. I had two teachers that put me in positions of leadership in the class because they had faith in me.
In the ninth grade I was a math whiz. One day, when the teacher was sick, the principal handed me a note as I entered the school and said, “You’re going to teach the class.” I was in ninth grade. But my teacher knew that I knew the material well enough and that I could entertain the class and teach them something. That level of trust and intimacy changed my life.
Later, in college, my organic chemistry teacher walked up to me and said, “I need someone to be my lab assistant, and you’re it.” I took the class, wondering how I could possibly assist him. But he trusted me. He trusted the possibility that I could hold his class and learn and grow in the process.
These experiences changed my life. Life provides and magic happens. We can do that with each other. Magic is a matter of the heart. How we love our worlds and our friends makes all the difference.