By guest blogger Mary Swanson
When I get in my car & the radio starts playing songs that talk directly to me, I know something’s up. We’ve all experienced hearing a song that really opens the heart, that feels like it’s expressing in words what we can’t say for ourselves. But this is different…
The first few songs I hear as I drive are talking to me about my current situation. Joni Mitchell sings “I wish I were in Love Again”; Tom Waites, “Money’s just somethin’ you throw off the back of the train”; Ray Charles does “Hit the road Jack” and hundreds of others I don’t know the names of tell me “let go & move on” that my “time to go is here” and “nothing really matters but the ones you love.”
There are cycles in our lives. There are times to sow & times to reap as the Bible says. When life starts coming through my car radio, I know it’s a Magical Time of Change & Opportunity.
I love Magic. I love when my life lifts up out of the mundane and becomes charged with serendipitous moments of pure irony. Like when I dreamt about Dragons painted on a Ming Vase– I thought I should go to graduate school and study Chinese but instead got married and moved to San Francisco. (Where I saw that very same vase in a shop in Chinatown.)
Magic is all about getting yourself in tune with the Energy Flow. But we don’t always know what the best course of action is. So, it’s a good thing that all of life is trying to help us take right action.
In his book, Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything, Ervin Laszlo talks about the Akashic Field as a part of our world where everything that has every happened or will happen is recorded & available to us. He cites example after example where people are able to connect with this “field” or guides to this field.
In most “Earth based” spirituality, there is the idea that all physical life is imbued with spirit. Native Americans talk of learning the “song” of a plant or animal so you can communicate with it. The idea that the world of spirit is trying to communicate with our intellectual, cognitive minds has been around for a long time.
In Dreaming the Dark : Magic, Sex, and Politics Starhawk says: “Witches have always known: that matter and energy are not separate forces, but different forms of the same thing.” “The evidence of our senses and our experience is evidence of the divine – the moving energy that unites all beings.”
So how do we work with this “world behind the world”? How do we know what’s trying to be communicated to us if we don’t know how to sit in Trance and ask for information
By Reading The Signs.
In Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals by Luisah Teish, the author reminds us to be careful if something falls out of the garbage can when you’re trying to throw it away. It might just be important to NOT throw it away. What force, being or intent caused it to fall out of the garbage we may never know but PAYING ATTENTION to what happens to you is the number one step in aligning yourself with the natural flow of energy.
“Don’t Push the River” is a phrase that’s popular in Buddhist Circles. Obviously, in the physical world it’s just plain stupid to try to push a river– it’s going to go where it’s going to go no matter what you do. (Even humungous dams only work for a little while.) But if you flow with the river, you can get somewhere.
I read a story about a Tibetan Healer one time. When he was going to visit someone who needed healing he’d start the day by remembering his dreams from the night before, then observing everything that happened to him on the way to the person’s home. All of life was talking to him about the condition of the patient and what was needed to heal.
But in order to hear what “the world behind the world” was telling him, he had to observe in a magical way. This brings us to a discussion of what some people like to call Superstitions. Don’t get me wrong, many people are superstitious. Superstition is not Magic.
It’s not helpful to refuse to cross a bridge because you dreamt once about a bridge falling down. But the core of what is degraded into superstitions has a meaningful reality: Magical Sympathies.
When you study astrology or herb lore or ancient mythologies you soon see the patterns that take a kind of sympathetic shape. For instance:
The flower essence remedy distilled from a Sunflower is used to help someone feel more positive about themselves. Because the gesture of the Sunflower is proud and strong, because it is always turning toward the life giving light, and its essence is imbued with some of that energy.
or
Taurus, the constellation that rises in the spring is said to have a sympathy (affinity) with being grounded, the earth, durability, a love of beauty, a sensual nature.
When you ask a question of the Mystery (God, the Akashic Field, or whatever you feel comfortable calling it) an answer will come. Knowing Magical Sympathies can help you understand the answer. For instance:
You may want to know about the what you should focus on for your job interview tomorrow. You go out into nature and sit in quiet meditation and respectfully ask the question. Then look around. What do you see? What part of the natural world is trying to talk to you? What do you notice? That chattering blue jay? That fox tails by the lake? The clouds passing alternating light with dark shadows?
In order to ‘read’ the answer, you’d need to know that the Magical Sympathies are all pointing you toward: Speak up! Let your natural quick intelligence come to the fore! Speak but also listen! There’s something to be careful of!
In Earth, Air, Fire & Water: More Techniques of Natural Magic (Llewellyn’s Practical Magick Series) by Scott Cunningham says: “Magic is as natural as the Earth, water, fire and air; yes, even as natural as a blade of grass. Within its simple rites many have found answers to the multitude of challenges that life presents to them. Natural Magic (the practice of using the forces of nature coupled with the power of our minds and bodies) has always been a part of the human experience. ”
I know I’m in a Magical Time, a Crossroads where everything is trying to help me. I take my confusions out into Nature and ask for help. Then I observe. What am I being shown when I let myself understand Nature’s Song? Do you Believe in Magic?
Image: Funny Church Signs
Thank you so much for putting words to my beliefs! A genius as always Mz Mary!
Thank you. I fell upon this site and was given a validation.