Seasonal Magic

Magic. It’s what this time of the year is about. The winter solstice turning of darkness to light; the Christmas story; the making of magic for children with fairy lights, baubles, reindeer and gifts brought down chimneys by a jolly Santa. There is the magic of gatherings where kindness, goodwill and merriment are the main agenda. There’s the magic of pause, time off the work-a-day to attend to each other and to our selves.

Sitting at my son’s family Christmas table this year the magic of life itself sparkled as baby and children giggled and wriggled. There was poignancy, too, as we remembered those no longer with us, the magic of their having been among us something to be honoured.

Watching my grandchildren grow into thinking, conversing, competent beings I marvel at our species. Seeing my grand-daughter leap suddenly from labouring over words on a page to reading fluently boggles my mind. The fact, too, of my being able to formulate these thoughts into patterns that others can read is nothing short of miraculous, as is the technology I’m using to compose it. What an evolutionary achievement!  What an incredible animal we are! Some of us have even succeeded in getting off this planet to explore the moon! And it does not denigrate the concentrated efforts of scientists and engineers to describe such achievements as magical and miraculous.

I love being a creature that can look at the world and see it’s magic, even though I can as easily succumb to world-weariness, as so many of us do in adulthood when the pressures to keep one’s own and others’ body and soul together pile on. We humans have the mental capacity to reflect on our own being - to step outside ourselves, look back and appreciate the wonderment of our arrival into consciousness, into life. I so admire those who can find that appreciation even in the face of life’s difficulties.

When I’m struggling to summon the magic my go-to is very likely to be the sea. There is something about the sea’s constancy while yet ebbing, flowing, rising, crashing, rock-and-shingle-grinding, sand-tickling, lapping, spraying, booming. I love it in all its moods, but I love it best when it reflects all the colours of a rising or a setting sun, meeting the sky at the horizon and gratifying my eyes with an expanse of colour. I am so grateful for my ability to see such magic.

I’m grateful, too, for my body’s other capabilities, even if there has been some erosion of them over time. I marvel at how it does so much without me consciously telling it to, like my immune system helping me to recover from an assault by some bacteria or virus. And, when it struggles, there is the miracle of medicines, natural or derived, again thanks to others of my species who discovered them. There’s also the miracle of our species being capable of compassion and selflessness the apogee of which is a health service (long may it continue, please God and Tories).

And so as the year turns, I give thanks - to family, friends, my fellow humans, to Nature and Life for the Magic. My little prayer is that Magic will prevail over fear and despair to fuel our advancement towards being the very best that we are capable of as a species and as stewards for this fragile little blue and stunningly beautiful planet.