It’s easy to fall into the trap of testing our “beliefs”. This holds true for people of all walks of life, but can be especially seductive for us witches, who often feel we should be able to make miracles. It’s true that as extensions of the Universe, we can harness its power, but we often forget that the Universe doesn’t work for us. It works with us. So making demands and harboring ultimatums (“if magick is real, prove it to me now”) often ends in disappointment and frustration with our practice. But if we’re willing to still our minds and pay attention, Magick grants signs of its presence in our lives. We just need to be open to receiving them.
It’s not unusual for me to see birds of pray on my commute home from the office. I live in west Michigan which, despite the tireless spread of industrialized civilization, has managed to remain quite wild. The highways are largely lined with forests that serve as home to hawks, falcons and kestrels. Hawks have a tendency to find me anyway. I’ve long considered the Red Tailed Hawk to be my spirit animal, and regard its frequent presence in my life as a sign that I’m on the right path. However, despite the frequency of these sightings, there are some feathered messengers that I do not often see, like the Bald Eagle. But that’s what I saw on my way home yesterday!
Magick is everywhere. It’s in finding a feather on the ground when you’re having a hard day. It’s in a storm clearing just before nightfall so we have a view of the full moon. It’s in the inexplicable synchronicity of events in our lives, and in the shifts in our perception(s) as the wheel of the year turns.
I was lucky yesterday to have experienced several such signs, and would love to share them with you.
1. The Eagle.
It’s not unusual for me to see birds of pray on my commute home from the office. I live in west Michigan which, despite the tireless spread of industrialized civilization, has managed to remain quite wild. The highways are largely lined with forests that serve as home to hawks, falcons and kestrels. Hawks have a tendency to find me anyway. I’ve long considered the Red Tailed Hawk to be my spirit animal, and regard its frequent presence in my life as a sign that I’m on the right path. However, despite the frequency of these sightings, there are some feathered messengers that I do not often see, like the Bald Eagle. But that’s what I saw on my way home yesterday!
He was perched on a high, bare branch, and was so large I saw him from quite a ways off. At first I assumed him to be vulture, as those are also common during the summer months. But as I approached him, I noticed the crown of white feathers. This sighting alone was exciting enough for me - I’m a nerd who has considered taking up falconry more than once in my life, so I’ve got a soft spot for raptors - but that wasn’t the Eagle’s only appearance yesterday.
Last night while conducting my full moon ritual, I pulled a card from my oracle deck (the Druid Animal Oracle, for anyone wondering), and pulled, you guessed it, the Eagle.
Now, my ancestral guide is Native American (Wampanoag, specifically), so I often look to applicable symbolism. I know that in his culture, both the golden and bald eagles were considered sacred, as they are the highest flying birds, and therefore thought to be closer to the creator. But I have yet to see the true weight of this messenger in my life, and am excited to see how this all unfolds.
2. The Sustained Flame.
It’s part of my monthly full moon ritual to write a list of things to release, read them aloud, then burn it in my cauldron. I use the same notepad every month, and am familiar with how this paper “behaves” when burned. It ignites, stays lit for approximately ten seconds, extinguishes, smolders for about fifteen seconds, then turns to ash. There is nothing in my cauldron besides the ashes of bay leaves and other similar lists. And yet last night, those lifeless ashes sustained a single flame for over a half an hour. There was nothing in the cauldron that could serve as fuel for this fire, and still it burned until the very end of my ritual.
3. The Morning Rainbow.
I went to sleep after my ritual feeling amazing. I felt empowered, content, relaxed, and soon fell into a deep sleep. That alone is unusual, as I’ve struggled with intense insomnia since I was a small child.
I slept through the night, then woke feeling just as great as I had the night before. I dressed in the half light, burned some sage at my altar, then made my way to the bathroom and discovered something unexpected. A full rainbow had appeared outside my bathroom window. At this point it was approximately 7:15am. The sun hadn’t yet fully risen. You can see how strange the light was in the pictures I took. It seemed as though that rainbow shouldn’t be there. How could the sunlight that early in the morning shine bright enough to create a prismatic effect of such intensity? Yet there it was.
Is there a scientific explanation for this unlikely rainbow? Of course! Does that make it any less magickal? Absolutely not.
This is the essence of what I mean by finding Magick in the mundane. Magick and logic do not have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, it’s by recognizing the link between the two that we invite more Magick into our lives.
Thanks for reading, Kin. Until next time, love and light.
Title: The Magic of Trees
