Practical Everyday Magic

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
 —Albert Einstein

One morning while getting ready for the day, I pondered the concept of bending reality and adding a little more practical magic to my life. A moment later, my neighbor knocked on the door to ask if he could use my garage and said that he would bring by the $150 later. In a writer’s life, that’s a bit of manna from heaven.

When I was a child, I believed fervently in magic. I was captivated by the idea of creating things from some secret power within. I was 11 when we moved from Saskatoon to the big city of Edmonton and I befriended a quiet girl whose parents seemed rather stodgy and elderly and their lives were as sensible and boring as one could imagine. She too was taken with the idea of magic and we toyed with the notion that we could become sorceresses (much to my sister’s amusement and ridicule). It was all fun and games until we freaked ourselves out by casting a “spell” on the arse who taught our Language Arts class and he came in the next day with a broken ankle.

My life has been an odd blend of crisis and magic. In spite of the many challenges I’ve faced, I believe myself to have good luck and the ability to create magic and miracles now and then. I have had friends ask me, “how do you do it?” at times that I have manifested incredible deals, new cars, vacations, and money out of the blue, when my circumstances appear quite the contrary. They do not believe me when I say it’s pure magic and miracles!

I once worked for a wicked, despotic corporation. Although it was a Canadian company, my regional sales managers were always based in the USA. When my fourth manager in under two years was to visit me, I wished and visualized him to be waylaid someplace. I was tired of breaking in new managers who would inevitably leave in short order. He was waylaid and never made it to Calgary. When the fifth one was scheduled to meet me, I did the same and willed it hard. It was right down to the wire—Monday morning, two hours before he was to arrive at the airport—when I received a message that he had already quit! I left the job before I had to endure the next new manager, but I felt like I had somehow generated a little bit of magic.

Late one autumn heading into winter, I realized that the coffers were empty and the possibility of my annual winter vacation looked bleak. I went to the library in search of some inspiration and found a little book called How to Make the Impossible Possible. I decided to practice the visualization as instructed in the book. I focused on the smells, the sounds, the tastes, the views and vistas, and the feel of the sand and sun in my Mexico. Within two weeks, I received an email from a friend of a friend. By early December, I was sitting at the exact café on the beach that I’d envisioned on an all-expenses-paid trip to Vallarta with that friend of a friend.

One of the hardest things for a human being to do is hold a vision of something better when shite is all that’s in front of us. When we are swirling in the cesspool, we don’t have the power to create from that stinky space. But when we can crawl out of it and hang on to a bigger, better picture, we’re able to access that sweet spot of manifestation.

The next hardest thing is remembering and disciplining ourselves to actually do the work, diligently. We can be somewhat lazy, especially about doing something on speculation.

We are taught that matter is solid and time unalterable. But we are now learning, as humans did when they found out that the earth was, in fact, not flat, that the Newtonian physics we were indoctrinated with is now not exactly accurate. It’s the stuff we learned in our science classes and that our parents and grandparents taught us. Under those laws, life has been—for eons—very rigid, linear, and logical.

The “real” world drags us down into the illusion that we are powerless to affect and bend our reality. People will pee on your parade when you begin to think bigger than your life. I have had many a scoffing laugh at my ideas.

Looking back, the ’80s and early ’90s was an exceptionally carefree era. Imagine that on a flight back from Italy, I sat in the cockpit with two handsome Italian pilots drinking Campari and soda. In less than 20 years, the world has become a place where you can kiss that kind of frivolous freedom behind. But can we still inject our lives with a daily dose of magic and live a in a space of more joy?

I’ve pondered the idea of everyday magic a lot since a visit with my dad in Edmonton a few weeks ago. He religiously listens to a nightly radio program that delves into all types of things, but has a focus on the negative aspects of what’s going on in the world, such as the scary Orwellian tactics that we don’t even realize we’re immersed in and the things that “they” are doing to us behind the scenes.

Even if we think we can filter and remain impervious when we watch or listen to a barrage of bad news and negativity, I don’t believe that’s so. I believe that what we think about, watch a lot of, or focus on has a direct effect on our reality.

So, I thought, what if I could convince my dad to do an experiment with me? What if he (and I) were to fast from this type of information and instead make a concerted effort to focus, as best as possible, on the beauty, serendipity and synchronicity in the world?

How?

Firstly, by noticing and appreciating the small miracles and gifts. They’re there every single day.

Secondly, by adding a dose of wonder. What would you like to experience in your life that seems a bit improbable?

I wonder … what if this job could become a dream job?

I wonder … how can I get in better shape and enjoy it?

I wonder … can I get to Greece this summer?

I wonder … how could my husband and I spice up our love life?

I wonder … how I could I de-age myself and feel awesome?

Obsess about the most wonderful thing that could happen to you.

You could put a picture in your mind of something better and spend a few minutes a day visualizing it. (The condo I’m now in after a three month flood displacement is exactly what I placed in my mind’s eye a couple of years ago. And let me tell you, it’s nothing short of a miracle that I’m in it.)

Next, just allow. Open your figurative arms to allow something fun and unexpected and a little mystical to enter. Invite magic.

Lastly, you’ve heard it a hundred times. Practice gratitude daily. I’ve been playing with the technique this extraordinary little girl uses and it’s hilarious!

I don’t say this from a Pollyanna point of view. I’ve had life knock me on my ass more times than I care to remember, so I know planet Earth can be a harsh place, especially in this epoch. I say this because I have learned that life is fleeting.

Whether you believe only in logic or have an inkling that there is the possibility of magic and miracles in the world we live in, would you rather hunker down into a life of quiet desperation and pragmatism, or would you prefer to spend the rest of your days, weeks, months, and years with a little enchantment?

When the going gets dull, the dull need a dusting of practical magic. Life is either a bitch and then you die, or it’s an opportunity to Merlin-ize. And the fun part is, we get to choose!

Did you know I have a free e-card service? Yup.
You can find it at www.wandasthilaire.com

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