My Definition of Magic

An excerpt from my book, "Word Magic: The Power of Writing to Reframe Your Story & Reclaim Your Intuition"

I believe magic is everywhere, in everyone, at every moment—even when I can’t perceive it.

Magic is the sun that shines through substance, the light refracting through leaves and eyes and oceans. Magic is the “om” inside every tree, the hum that lives in every seed, and the friend who nods and says, “I get it.” Magic is the story, the poem, the painting, the movie, the music that shakes you awake and restarts your heart. Magic is sitting upon the Earth and feeling the boom of that magnetic drum, crackling at the center. Magic is the spark inside every one of us, unprecedented in all of time and space. Magic is the word you said that soothed my soul, and the voice of my soul I found inside in my own messy writing.

Magic is my faith in a mysterious and miraculous universe, where everything is alive and imbued with intelligence: every invisible molecule inside of me and around me and all the light pretending to be dark. Magic is eternal and indestructible, which is why it doesn’t matter what words we use to describe it or what we do or don’t believe. Even when we lose our way, the magic still believes in us.

I have lost my magic at least a million times, but only because I got so beat down, I closed my eyes and turned away. People standing in dark rooms mistake their choices for their certainty, and then they tell others that that is All There Is. But we must never confuse All There Is with All That We Can See — which is really very little. And we must never forget that All That We Can See is constrained by All We Dare Believe.

I believe the magic is inside us. But it’s up to us to claim it, to decide whether or not to cover our eyes in the cleansing light of the sun. For myself, I choose to look. I want to be healed. And I need to write about it. Magic knows the secret, that what was broken can be mended, what was severed can be remembered, what was buried can be reborn. The darkness is a womb and what looks like nothing is pregnant with everything. It is the place where the magic is present—and waiting for us to see it.