Tag Archives: Magic

Fairytale Wedding

I’ve listened to many couples talk about just what they envision for their wedding experience.  Those dreams are as varied as the individuals involved.  But when I began to hear about the plans for this wedding from the Mother of the Groom, it was obvious to me  that this couple had made a conscious choice to listen to their hearts and their hearts dictated fun, travel and magic.

I believe looking for fun is the natural God-given state-of-being we are born into as enfants.  It’s probably the most important state to which we could aspire.  But it often appears to some as a state of selfishness or childishness…..to which I say…..Hey!  Hey!  (to get your attention)  We all want happiness.  No one can give it to you.  You have to take it…..that’s what looking for fun is all about.  And, once you have it, it spreads to everyone lucky enough to be around you.

I believe travelling is so exciting because it takes us out of our comfortable routines.  Just seeing new places and people and adjusting to new experiences opens our eyes a little wider to the beauty that surrounds us, sharpens our ears to take in new sounds, expands our ability to love and be loved and increases our zest for life.

I believe in magic!  I see it everyday!  I experienced magic in a concentrated dose over several days spending time with the family and friends of two talented, genius visionaries as they pledged their love and began their lives together.

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The spanish moss hanging from the huge oak trees created the perfect backdrop for the ceremony.  The late afternoon sunlight added the perfect, soft, magical atmosphere.  The Jekyll Island Club Hotel provided it all.  Everyone there was bathed in gold and we basked in every delicious moment.

That’s how it was in Georgia…..a fun, extraordinary, magical experience.   I love knowing that it wasn’t an accident.  They planned it that way.   I’m sending out my love and appreciation to everyone involved and especially to the newlyweds!

 

Words Are…..Magic

I read J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and thoroughly enjoyed them.  I enjoyed her use of words and her imagination.  I loved all the places and scenes she created.  I enjoyed being carried along on one adventure after another.  I enjoyed the innocent and uninitiated being educated by their mentors.   I held on to my seat in fear and anticipation as they experimented with words and actions to realize their full power.

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But it was in reading The Casual Vacancy that I really came to appreciate the way she developed her characters.  There were places where I had to get up and do something else or fall asleep.  But that happened with Harry Potter too.  So…..maybe it had more to do me that her writing ability.

When she says that words are our most inexhaustible source of magic,  I agree with her.  I’ve read what she had created with her imagination and words.  She’s transported me to a magical world paralleling ours and to village life in England.

I believe the words we speak and write to each other are magic.  They can create all kinds of things.  Words can create warm fuzzy feelings.  They can create proud moments.    They can turn hard hearts to mush.

The words we speak and write to ourselves can change our day to day existence into a happy, exciting place to live.  We can be kind and gentle to ourselves.  It is all in our minds, after all.  I’m thankful that our minds can do that for us.

 

Magic Is Believing In Yourself

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is quoted as saying ”  Magic is believing in yourself.  If you can do that, you can make anything happen.”

Through the years, I’ve read lots of wonderful, uplifting quotes about belief.  Some had to do with religion, others alchemy and even science.  I’ve read them and pondered the basis of my beliefs.  Most of them have been handed down through my english, swedish and irish ancestors.

My Mom and Dad very carefully taught me what they had been taught.  And I believed.  I believed not only them but also my teachers in school and church.  For that matter, I believed what every authority figure in my life had to say.

I do have to admit that many of these people are great in my eyes.  My english teacher in high school inspired my love of words and books.  My seminary teacher, a couple of college professors and several art teachers achieved a measure of success  in their own lives and inspired my love of learning.  However, as I’ve grown older and become aware of them as human beings with frailties, I realize that all they could give me was their own best guess.

I accepted the values of others verbatim.  What does that say about my intuition and judgement?  It would have made more sense to accept them as input, accumulate them, weigh them against what I saw in my life around me and come to my own conclusions.  Because, as I look back, there was a lot of “do as I say, not as I do” going on.

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I love the quote from Napoleon Hill:  “Do your own thinking on all occasions.  The fact that the human beings are given complete control over nothing save the power to think their own thoughts is laden with significance.”

This sculpture, The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin is a image of a man thinking…..lost in thought.  His muscular body suggests a great capacity for action. It was commissioned to be part of an intricate monument:  The Gates of Hell.  I like to think he was contemplating his beliefs:  which values are worth living for and then what was he going to do about it.

For years I made resolutions in the spirit of  ringing in  the New Year.  Some I kept longer than others, but for the most part, they were quickly forgotten.

I asked my husband if he planned to make any this year.  Not surprisingly, he said no.  But then he added that he makes resolutions almost every day and that as he reaches goals or milestones toward goals, they invariably spawn new ones.  It’s an ongoing process for him that has evolved over the years.  He is a thinker and a doer.

So, I’ve come up with this:  I resolve to learn more, to think more and to do more in 2015!   Let’s make MAGIC!  Let’s learn to BELIEVE IN OURSELVES!