Finding the Magic in the Everyday

Magickal Graphics

For the past week or so, I've been slogging through the depression which finally fell over me, after having stalked me for quite a while.  Depression is a funny thing-it comes quietly, sometimes triggered by sad events or other situations that leave me feeling powerless, and sometimes with little or no warning and for no apparent reason at all.  I think that for me it is, in part, a condition inherited from my the maternal side of my family. I've learned to manage it better over the years, knowing that most of the things my mind tells me while I'm under its grip are lies which will be revealed once the condition finally leaves, but it's still difficult when I'm wandering through the dark, using every tool at my disposal to reach that little point of light at the end of proverbial tunnel.  I've learned not to immerse myself too deeply in the daily news, sticking mostly to short clips that I read on the internet or to magazines such as Time and Newsweek, since television tends to sensationalize every single horrible event of the day to maximum, rating raising effect. Our house is painted in bright colors, because even though I love gothic design and dark colors, I also love vibrant colors and they tend to be the ones that lift my spirit. I focus on all of the people, animals, and things I love in my life, on the Great Spirit and nature and everything I see as a blessing.  There are so many blessings hidden (and not so hidden) in every day, and those are the truths in my life, the things that are real.  I write and I create works of art and I play with my daughter and my husband and our dog and our cat, and, yes, even our turtle.  At some point, the fog lifts and my energy comes back, as began to happen today, much to my gratitude and joy.

Tonight, after we ate dinner and the kitchen had been cleaned up, I took our dog for a walk in the muggy night, under the light of a moon about half waxed to full.  A light breeze ruffled the trees and there was a positive, happy energy on the wind.  We crossed the main road to walk alongside the golf course, our path lit by street lamps and our steps accompanied by the music of cars wooshing by.  Surprisingly, on this particular night there was a "fairy feel" about the golf course.  I noticed a knarly melaluca tree, its skin peeling, branches reaching upward into the dark night, and something about it seemed so magical to me.  It appeared to me to belong in the midst of an enchanted wood, a home for fairies and elves.  The white beast sniffed about the base of a thin palm tree and I noticed that the short row of palms we were standing amongst looked like a tiny oasis right there on the side of the road.  The grass bent and whispered as the dog sniffed away, sensing other dogs who'd journeyed past, and the breeze whispered in my ear that, yes, even this place, beside a main road next to a golf course, held some magic and wonder. I would not have been surprised had I seen fairy lights as I gazed across the darkened field, though my eyes were met only with grass, trees, and small, soft hills.

I am humbled by nature, by the power she has to heal and comfort me.  And I am thankful.