Magic Done Well Looks A Lot Like Coincidence

Recently, I was struggling to write about an incident, a pivotal incident, in my life. I had already offered up a (very) rough version to one of my Writer’s Circles. It had been decisively rejected. “Sophia, you can write better than this! If this is a ‘magical’ piece, use magical language! Let your lyrical style to amaze us!”” Was the response.

I had to admit that it was a very rough draft. Just get the main points down on the page. Get the flow of events. You’ll fill it in later, I had told myself.

But when later came, I continued to struggle, not with the memory, but with the language. 

As I wrote, filling in the details of my, admittedly sketchy draft, my mind continued to stray into the mundane character of each aspect of the story. Humph, I thought, this wants ordinary language. Grandiose language won’t make it any more important, it’ll just distract from the actual magic of the story. Describe it simply and the story will amaze by itself…
‘Sometimes magic done well looks a lot like coincidence!”

The thought appeared out of nowhere, as if by magic, tee hee! Isn’t that, I thought, a Granny Weatherwax* quote?

Look at me, thinking that I was inventing magical wisdom when it was Granny Weatherwax all along.

So then I looked it up, just to be sure. And you know what, I was me, not Granny after all!

But Granny could have said that.

Because. It’s true!

Consider, if you will, the magics that have seen you through your life, all of the magics you have made. Just by getting from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ takes enormous magic some times.

Consider a time when you have set an intention for yourself. 

Looking back, how did you get from there to here? What seeming coincidences marked your way?

What other choices might you have made? And how might your life be different today had you made those other choices?

It’s sort of amusing, at times intimidating and most certainly awesome (in the true meaning of the word!) to realize that any single step we take along our path changes our trajectory. Completely.

That step we take, in courage or in trepidation, sends us off in a new direction. 

The single step we take today sets us a new trajectory which leads to many new steps down the road. 

Each of those steps, while they follow one from the last, leads us far afield from our starting point.

But each step was just that. 

A single step.

The magic takes shape when we look back and see how the steps connected to something larger. Something we might not have imagined. Except in the deepest parts of our imagination. Some place we might have called ‘hope’ or if we are truly paying attention, ‘intentions’.

* Granny Weatherwax is an invention of Terry Prachett, author of the Discworld Series. Granny is the boss witch, dispenser of wisdom; mundane and arcane, pithy and true.