Moon Shadow Magic…
When I was a kid, and my parents wanted me to go to ‘another’ garden centre … or for a ‘boring old’ walk… or to visit one of their friends, or go to an antiques fair ..
( I can almost feel my eyes rolling now)…
My dear old Dad used to tell me that, even if I really don’t think there is any reason to want to go…there’ll always be something..
something interesting to see..
some kind of magic…
..even if its just a piece of cake.
Now, this may sound as though he was bribing me with cake, which, since he was such a huge cake fan himself, he probably was …I mean, it was pretty much a given that at 4pm every day the world would just have to wait while he stopped for tea and cake.
(NB…. I asked him once at 3.45pm if he’d like a cup of tea and he politely refused because it wasn’t 4pm.)
My Dad had the ability to create a world for me that no-one else saw…all these people hustling and bustling past at a frantic pace didn’t see the tiny mushrooms growing on the wall, or the little gang of long tailed tits that had arrived in the cherry tree and were beeping their stories to each other. They didn’t notice the lines in the pavement that you mustn’t EVER tread on (coz, you know…lions!!) or even the cat that came running if my Dad squeaked at it in just the exact right way.
We would walk in the new Forest and see magic in the nature around us - a rabbit hole wasn’t just a rabbit hole, it was Rabbit’s Hole and it was always worth checking to see if the New Forest donkeys tails were attached with pin tacks like Eeyore’s. An owl was a Wol and bridges were for Pooh Sticks or trolls and billy goats.
Bits of flint were clearly all ancient arrow heads and bows and arrows were made from bamboo and string from the garden. Mermaids were ‘probably’ real and the noise of the ocean you hear in shells?… actually was the ocean …like a little telephone that connected you to the sea .. I often wondered if a seahorse might pick up one day. (They never did …..yet).
My Pops taught me that magic is everywhere … as long as you’re open to seeing it.
One of the biggest gifts he passed on to me, was the ability to find your magic no matter where you find yourself.
As someone who walks with anxiety as a constant companion this ability to ‘see my magic’ has always been invaluable to me.
For example, when I was younger, and stepping wildly out of any conceivable comfort zone to go to college in London I found I could calm myself by seeking out the birds nesting on the buildings, or the flocks of starlings taking over power lines, or plants growing in grubby window frames and families of tiny Muntjac deer chewing grass quietly in the fields as the train hurtled by.
It gave me a sense of reality, a sense of ‘normal’ in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable place.
My Dad was born in 1920, I honestly have no idea whether he ever read about or heard about mindfulness.. or even thought about it in that way. But now, in hindsight, I see that this theory of ‘finding the magic’ is a form of mindful living.
When the world feels overwhelming, try looking for your magic. Find your calm in whatever makes you feel at peace.
Take a breath
Look up…..always look up…
there are surprises up there.
Last night, Al and I walked through our local ancient woods at dusk. Always our favourite time to visit as this is when the rooks arrive back from their daily adventures and gossip loudly to their friends like noisy school kids in an echoey canteen.
Above us, as we walked, there shone a bright white waxing gibbous moon in a totally clear, inky blue sky. With the moon behind us we looked down at the path ahead and saw we had a moon shadow!
How beautiful is that?
A moon shadow..!!
.. a cool, white light with our figures standing on the ground like something out of Peter Pan… and if you look closely at the photo… the moon was reflecting off..I don’t even know what… and we have tiny little glistening stars all over our shadowy forms.
There…
Right there…
Magic.
On the theme of cake bribery ….I leave you with a vegan variation of my Mum’s super famous rock cakes.
Eat them..and look up.
From my heart to yours,
J x
