Today I am watching my grandson, who has been with me for care since his mommy went back to work. I first watched him every day, but now I trade off with the other grandmother. We are different in wonderful ways, and my grandson will have a richer life because we are.
One way we are different is that I’m a witch, and she doesn’t declare herself as one, although I’ve seen the magick she does in the kitchen and in her home. So, some day, when my baby boy is old enough to start noticing such things, he will ask about the goddess statues in my house, or the altars I have set up in various places. I will have to explain what a witch is. And I think the next question will be whether I can do majick.
The easy answer is yes, of course I can do majick. The more important answer is that everyone who wants to can do majick. You see, for a cottage witch like me, majick is creativity. It’s a form of majick to be able to make art, to write poetry and stories, to score music, and so on. But the arts aren’t the only way people do majick. Creativity is found in many things–the business report that concisely and elegantly explains the solution to a problem, the perfect configuration of processes to accomplish a goal, a parsimonious mathematical equation, and so on.
Majick is in the ordinary, but the reason people miss it is because they think only the extraordinary matters. Right now, my ordinary grandson is rearranging the lightweight metal tables on the patio. He’s not even two yet, but he’s the size of a 3-4 year old (tall people in his background). He doesn’t talk much but makes himself understood. This is a child who arrived 6 weeks early and spent three of his first weeks of life in an incubator. I’ve watched him problem-solve many things with his toys, working at a task until he conquered it. Just now, he managed to climb up the slide rather than use the stairs, and laughed brightly at his success. That is a form of majick.
I live in a desert, essentially, made livable by water brought to us. And yet there are all kinds of plants here that prosper without it. A green guava tree grows near the fence without any help from me. The California Live Oak doesn’t like water much. Succulents and cacti, of course, do well with very little at all. Isn’t that a kind of majick, that a living thing might find a way to prosper in the soil where it grows?
Majick is all around us. It’s the hummingbird knowing which flowers give the sweetest nectar. It’s my grandson exploring his world and the wonder he finds in the ordinary things of my household. It’s the comfortable love between two people who have been together a long time. It’s the feel of growing grass on bare feet, a drink of water on a hot day, a fire in the winter. Majick is all the beautiful things that manage to work together so that this earth keeps turning and we keep living.
Majick is also candles, spells, and what not. But that’s a story for another day. Blessed be.
Aine Summermoon
Witchy by Aine 