Separating Magic, Reunion Magic
Everything is magic. Our very existence is magic, it’s magical, mysterious, marvelous, a slight of hand, a trick of energy, and a play of light. We aren’t permitted to see how the trick is done, but we do get to experience the magic. Magic is movement, and this movement tends to embody a separating movement or a movement of reunion.
"Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream, and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed."
It is an easy thing to only see one side as right and the other as wrong, one magic is good, while another magic is bad. Stinging nettle is bad, while strawberry plants are good. And yet, because it is all magic, it is all sacred, and we get to play within this field of sacred movement. But when playing, there is always a choice and what we choose will produce action that moves us further into separation, or that moves us further into reunion.
"Magic is all in your head, you simpoly have no idea how big your head really is."
These choices can look something like this:
- We can dedicate in our drinking water, or we can compost it.
- We can record songs, or we can sing together.
- We can live in isolation out of fear of spreading disease, or we can hug, dance together, sing in close proximity, hold hands, and accept what comes our way.
- We can produce moncultures, or we can produce polycultures.
- We can get our food from factory plants, or we can get our food from biological plants.
- We can send young children to daycare, or we can raise them at home and in community.
- We can create manicured lawns, or we can create Perma Farms.
- We can drive around in cars, or we can walk around in person.
- We can send our elderly to nursing homes, or we can care for them in our homes till the end.
- We can work towards a quantitative life, or we can work towards a qualitative life.
- We can produce more honey in Langstroth hives, or we can let the bees do what they want in a top bar hive.
- We can gather food from a grocery store, or we can gather food from a food forest.
- We can live a life we are paid to live, or we can do something that makes us come alive.
- We can work towards receiving money, or we can work towards being a gift.
This list could be endless, because our choices are endless. Separating magic is the story of our culture. System designed to compel us towards the choice of moving further into separation. It is almost always the easier choice. But may we never forget the lesson of Faust, seeing only what the devil will give us and being blind to what he will take away.
"The uniformity and ugliness of landscapes resulting from the agro-industrial mode of productiona re the symptoms of a one-dimensional and unbalanced relationship between human beings and a land where they no longer dwell, but which they simply exploit."
Take something as simple as a shoe, the process to make that shoe is dark and separates us from the other; landscapes full of caged animals used to produce mass leather that must be tanned with harsh chemicals. Oil rigs and pumpjacks to make polyester and polyurethane, factories full of machines and machine slaves, shipping containers, cargo trucks, roads, stores, money, and desire. But it is magic, and the trick of how the shoes are made, is always hidden from us. What you see is a veneer, the end product, showcased on a clean shelf. Oh the ease of separating magic, always hiding its heavy footprint, taking far more than it will ever give back.
"“Less possessing – less possessed. More possessing – more possessed. More possessed – less accessed. Less possessed – more accessed. Let us be off my child. The truly high is ever low. The truly swift is ever slow. The highly sensitive is numb. The highly eloquent is dumb. The ebb and flow are but one tide. The guileless has the surest guide. The very great is very small, And he has all who gives his all.”"
But there are other kinds of magic based on reunion, ways to tread lightly and Marshmallow is a plant that brings ideas to the mind of a world that begins waking up to new ways of becoming. For here is a perennial plant that grows each year on its own, with no tilling and no toil, and yet it shows itself to be useful for food, medicine, and clothing.
"Althea, Althea, how your name rings to me. Of days of old when your name meant to heal. Have we forgotten your magical powers? Your healing potential for all our ills? As I gaze at your beauty…. Ahh! I remember now, You’ll sooth my ailing parts and bring health to this poor old body. If only I remember to listen!"
And so, imagine a world that honored plants like Marshmallow, using the leaves, flowers, and roots to heal and to bring happiness. Imagine a world where the long plentiful stalks are harvested after the plant has completed its yearly cycle, using these to make cordage, shoes, paper, and clothes for their family. No mass production of cows, no chemicals, no petroleum, no factories, no slaves, containers, trucks, stores, or money; just time, knowledge, and purposeful art and creativity. And all this, by awakening to the amazing benefits of just one plant.
"There are laws in the village against weeds. The law says a weed is wrong and shall be killed. The weeds say life is a white and lovely thing."
