Magical Thinking

Those who don’t believe in magic, will never find it

Photo by Sean Thomas on Unsplash

Many years ago, when driving my kids to elementary school, I heard my son let out a long sigh and turn to his sister and say, “You know what’s sad?  Pokémon aren’t real.” They both commiserated on that subject and the unfairness of a world without real Pokémon all the way to school.

Kids crave magic and make-believe, and adults are more than willing to feed it to them. Why else do we have the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus, not to mention all the other stories they devour about dragons, wizards, and elves? My mother, one of the nicest people to ever walk the earth, told us when we were older that she always felt bad about lying to us about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

Not me! As our kids grew up my wife and I were more than complicit in the magical deception. We wouldn’t just leave money under the pillow for a lost tooth, but made sure they were shiny new coins or crisp bills (depending on the tooth), complete with a tiny note carefully written by our off-hand so as not to be recognizable handwriting.

We went to great lengths to perpetuate the myth of Santa Claus. We took bites out of the cookies and drank the milk left behind. We knocked aside the hearth cover, put my boots into the ashes of the fireplace, and then made footprints from the fireplace to the tree and back.

And then we have Easter, a magical holiday for many reasons. First, do you know how they determine when Easter is? It’s the first Sunday following the first full moon following the spring equinox. That seems like a recipe for something magical in and of itself. Second, the Christian version is that Easter is all about the son of a god rising from the dead; tell me that’s not magical! Finally, if we want to go back further, the origins of Easter involved the celebration of the spring equinox with the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of Spring, Eostre, or Ostara. There are many different stories connecting this fertility goddess to Easter one involving a magical hare that lays eggs because it used to be a bird! So now we have this legend of a giant rabbit that, for some reason, hides eggs. See what I mean? A magical holiday!

It’s awesome, we hid eggs for our kids all through High School.  Our egg hunts were major events, many times involving their friends or other families, and sometimes we hid over 200 eggs. Many eggs had candy, some had broccoli, some had dog food (oh yes, we had everybody involved), and others had money in them. Most of the cash was coins, but there were always a couple of little cryptic eggs that had $20 bills in them.

There is an art to hiding eggs. One trick is to place a brightly colored egg in relatively plain sight, but then place a camouflage egg nearby in a more hidden spot. The eye is drawn to the obvious one, and the camo one escapes detection.  Oh yes, we had several plastic eggs that were actually camo pattern, - cruel I know, but so fun.

Now, keep in mind the kids didn’t believe in the Easter Bunny for that long. I think they may have stopped believing the year when I told the kids that it looked like the Easter bunny had come because not only were eggs hidden but there was Easter Bunny poop all over the house.  I took raisins and rolled them up to look like rabbit poop.  When the kids discovered them I explained that the Easter bunny is a magical creature and as such his poop was magical and edible too! Then I proceeded to eat some. From the looks on their faces, I think I may have gone too far.

Unfortunately, as children age, their belief in magic fades. My son devoured each Harry Potter book as they came out and loved other fantasy novels, games, and dragons, but one day, as a teenager, he told us he was disappointed because there was just no magic in the world. But there is magic, we informed him it’s just not supernatural, it is natural.

Photo by Herbert Goetsch on Unsplash

Water is magic, the wind is magic, dancing bees are magic, fungal relationships are magic, and who can deny the power and potential of a tiny seed that comes from a giant tree? In my mind, it’s magic. It’s everywhere.

Perhaps that is what Rachel Carson was alluding to when she wrote:

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement…If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world would be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against boredom and disenchantments of later years…”

“Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.  …  Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.  There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for spring.  There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

There IS magic out there. 

As Roald Dahl said, “Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.  Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”.

It’s springtime. Get out. Go. Find some magic.