The Magic of The World

Just had a conversation with witch-partier Kamara about unfurling the Otherwise banner again. I trust her to honor that vision, and it got me thinking about why I started the Otherwise Fair back in Brooklyn some three years ago. So I wrote this piece today as a manifesto of sorts. Hope you like:

I remember a conversation with a former boyfriend, the conversation when I realized that it was never going to work. Hindsight and all that…nevermind that I chose to spend the next three years with him.
I remember the scene, exactly, us sitting there in Washington Square Park, with the concrete circus of the City playing out in the periphery of my vision. It was early summertime, and the mood of everyone else was light and fun. Yet here we were having a heavy conversation.
‘What is this energy that you’re talking about?’ he demanded, his body hunched, his head jutting forward in this linear way. A former Catholic turned rational, scientific with a vengeance. ‘Can you see it? How do you measure it?’
I admitted I was at a loss for words, right then in that moment. I wish I had known a way to explain it that he would understand.
Deep down, I just knew in my heart, that there were things beyond that which presents itself as reality, things that matter a great deal. It was more of a feeling thing. Try explaining a feeling thing to someone like that and you are bound to end up in quite the intellectual tangle.
Still here I am some nearly ten years later, still trying to figure that one out.
I shacked up with said boyfriend for a while, renounced a lot of things that my heart cared for deeply. I’m not sure why – the trade off was for some kind of security I suppose, some kind of acceptance.
When you grow up raised by hippies, there’s a part of you that always feels like a freak, an outsider – from the way I had to explain being a vegetarian to the other six year olds at lunchtime or struggle with answering my school teacher when she asked what my religion was. I wanted to be more normal, sometimes I just wished my name was Samantha or Sara rather than the unpronounceable, brow furrow invoking Calixte.
I’m glad for my upbringing now, because my parents were a little more accepting than most when it comes to believing in the magic of the world. Every child, in some way or another becomes acquainted with the magic of the world. Some are more supported than others in this, but then once they grow up – they’re met with a certain amount of scorn for such things.
There’s been a long journey in between there and here, but I’m glad to say that I still believe in the magic of the world. The way a spider’s web catches the sunlight in that particular way at that particular time of the morning, the way the earth feels a certain way when you spend time in the woods, to those more overt manifestations of some kind of divine movement. And those are the moments that catch your breath a little bit…
I travel back in time now for an example. Must have been elementary school age at the time, we were learning about different kinds of rock formations. I decided that I was going to find a geode in my backyard. I turned over rock after rock, in our backyard (bordering as it was, downtown San Diego) trying to find that sparkle of crystal. And you know what, I did – I found a geode! I was delighted and went running back to the house, crystal encrusted rock in hand, to show my mom. Well, the rational explanation, which I learned later on, was that some weeks earlier, my dad had got it into his head that this geode he had bought once at one of those rock and crystal shops was wanting to be returned to the earth. So he took it out into our backyard, and placed it face down on the ground in a quiet corner, only later to be overturned by my small but earnest young hands. Ok, so that’s the explanation, but really, when you think about it, what are the odds? I had communicated with no one about my wishes to find a geode that day, I just went out, believing that there was a very good chance I would discover one.
Further back in time, now…I was maybe five years old. In that same magical backyard, we had this wonderful guava tree. Guavas are these sweetly tart fruits that grow in warmer climates. I loved guavas and spent many a summer afternoon happily licking the delicious pink flesh from the green skin. So one day, I decided that I was going to sit directly underneath this guava tree and that if I waited long enough, a guava would fall right into my hand. This is again, one of those things some would say only a child would believe, that a guava would choose to fall right into my little clasped hands. Well, it’s true that no guava did fall into my hands that day. Instead, it just so happened - due perhaps to the direction the wind was blowing and which branch a bird decided to land on at just the right moment – that I felt a wet chalky green splat fall directly into my palm. What are the odds of that? Talk about divine humor…There’s a message there, and one I have still been integrating for most of my adult life.
But yes, I stopped believing for a while, because there are a lot of people out there that scorn such believing. If you do believe, they make you feel bad and stupid, naïve. So I chose the path of least resistance. That was a dark existential time for me, with very little beauty or passion for life. I suspect that everyone who eventually chooses this other path – the path of heart, goes through such a time. Maybe it’s some kind of rite of passage.
After a while something changed in me. I realized that I missed the magic of the world, and I wanted it in my life again. And as soon as I opened my eyes to it, I began to see the magic of the world again, happening all around me. I’ve seen and felt things that are so deeply moving to me, things that have touched me in such a way that I am left reeling for days, weeks, years even…And I love it, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I believe that everyone has the choice to believe in something more. I can’t make that choice for anyone else but myself, but I know, I believe that all people carry a hunger inside themselves for just this kind of wonder. To be touched by something greater than themselves. That doesn’t mean booking a one-way ticket for Neverneverland, which is perhaps a whole other article I will save for a whole other day. But I will say this: that it is possible to have your feet on the ground, be engaged with people, with culture and the everyday world and still maintain that wonder and magic. This is a specific choice that’s yours to make when you see that the reality as it is presented ultimately will never satisfy your heart and soul. So you breathe deep, and gather up all your courage – because all adventurers who choose to see differently are going to need a certain kind of courage – and you choose otherwise.