What is magic?

(Notes across the Pond)

Since I began this Substack a little over a year ago, I’ve been sharing with you my writing life, particularly my search for magic and meaning. A month or so ago, I was thrilled when

Maia Toll

, who I met via Substack, got in touch and suggested a collaboration. Maia is the author of six award-winning books, including her enchanting memoir (which I read and loved earlier this year), Letting Magic In. Maia’s idea was for us to use Substack to exchange a series of postcards—a written conversation—and magic felt like the obvious topic for us to explore. I am keen to delve into Maia’s knowledge and understanding whilst sharing with her my own search and experiences.

We will be taking it in turns to publish a postcard and response, so you can follow along here and also on Maia’s Substack

{un‧kempt} with Maia Toll

. We have called our collaboration Notes across the Pond, a title that makes me happy because many, many, moons ago, my first ever blog took the form of letters across the Atlantic. I’m excited to get started, and we’re beginning with a question: What is magic?

Here’s Maia…

Dear Laura,

What is magic? 

I’ve been asking myself this question, over and over, since our last exchange. I thought I’d easily come to the end of it: come to a , a conclusion, a definition. But the longer I sat with the question, the more tangled my thoughts became.

Perhaps the breakdown of my easy answers began with listening to an episode of Pulling the Thread, a podcast hosted by

Elise Loehnen

. She was interviewing holistic health expert Lauren Roxburgh about Lauren’s work with fascia. If you don’t know, fascia is the sticky membrane just under the skin that holds our organs in place. I’ve been fascinated with it for years—ever since I did a Craniosacral therapy training—so was listening in to learn the latest research. But it wasn’t the newest science that, in the end, grabbed my attention. Instead it was the way in which Lauren talked about fascia. She spoke of it almost as if it was a sensory organ, a system that was continually dialoguing with both the body and the outside world. Her description reminded me of how I talk about intuition, which most definitely plays into my definition of magic.

Huh, I thought. Well, okay, what if fascia is the mechanism behind intuition? What if it’s the way we sense the web of energy which both includes us and extends beyond us?

I was just adjusting my thoughts, wrapping my head around the idea that this thing I call magic might have a physical home in the body ….when I listened to another podcast!

I’ll tell you about that one in my next note. Meanwhile, I’ve sent an incredible image I snapped on the way to the airport last week. This I know is magical!

xxMaia

Image by Maia Toll

Dear Maia,

I too find magic in the mist, in fact I’m certain this particular kind of magic is one of the reasons for my ongoing obsession with fog. I wanted to write back to you about what magic is, but it’s not a question I feel ready to answer yet. I’m edging my way in, grateful to have you to guide me. I don’t know what magic is, but since we began talking, I’ve been more alert to magic, and I think I have a sense of how it feels.

This summer, I felt magic when I sat on the beach with my smallest, our pockets full of seaglass shards, and a seal emerged from smooth, light-slicked water, just metres away. I felt magic when my brother’s dog—the softest, sweetest sheepadoodle—came padding into my bedroom at midnight to find me, because fog had fallen over the lake and he heard my brother say that I would want to see it. I felt magic when we lit a candle for a precious baby’s first birthday, gathering around him to sing the birthday song—a celebration and a blessing.

In those instants, I felt the fizzing of joy and the softness of peace. I became aware of the richness of the earth and our smallness in the face of it (despite the ways in which we continue to damage the necessary balance). I felt enlivened and connected. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention to the embroidered badge that fell off my denim jacket in the taxi back from the airport (I hope it has found a new home where it was needed). It’s a quote from The Secret Garden, the same words that still hang on my kitchen wall: ‘the magic is in you’, it says.

More soon,

Laura xx

PS: Here is the fog over the lake, which fell at midnight and stayed until breakfast, when I took this photograph.