Today, this day that is called the Sabbath in the faith I was brought up in, I thought I’d express my profound gratitude for those things which are beyond the ordinary.

Have you ever known something before it happened?  Have you ever had an encounter with someone you loved after they passed?  Have you ever had a dream which felt so real that you were surprised to find yourself in bed when you awoke?  Have you ever seen an angel?  Have you ever heard bells, chimes, or rattles when none were near?  Have you ever smelled the beautiful scent of flowers when none were anywhere around?  Have you ever felt a hand on your shoulder when there was no one near you?

I have had several of these experiences myself.  For instance, there was a plant that I loved.  I found it to be very beautiful and every time I walked by it I would admire the new growth, the unfurling bright green leaves, the health and hardiness of this plant.  And then one magical moment when I watered the plant, I saw a wisp of smoke/vapor dance for just a moment amidst the leaves.  I was astonished.  It was a moment of magic in an otherwise completely ordinary day.  It was one of the most magical, fascinating things I’d experienced to that date.  Grace.  I feel, to this day, that the plant responded to my love and wanted to show me a visible manifestation of its spirit.

Interestingly, a girlfriend reported a similar experience that year, but it wasn’t with a plant.  It was a little mobile I’d created – a wire sculpture of a dancing woman with a crystal imbedded in her belly.  My friend had hung this figure from the ceiling and one day she reported seeing a spirit much like what I’d experienced.  Whether this was from the love I’d imbued it with during its creation, or the love and appreciation my friend had for it, I don’t know.  All I know is that she and I both experienced magic around something that we loved.

Some of us may never have moments like these.  Others of us may have them and then try to explain them away because they don’t fit in with our understanding of reality/science/natural laws.  And many of us may have had sacred experiences that move us to the depths of our soul and then felt unable to ever share them with anyone.

I have a few friends who claim to have seen fairies.  I have at least two friends who’ve had encounters with UFO’s.  Some of you may be thinking I have a lot of crazy friends.  But consider this:   In one survey, over half of all Icelandic people said they believed in elves. *  And belief in fairies is still widespread in the British Isles.  (Yeats often spoke of his interaction with them.)  In Africa and elsewhere, traditional people certainly interact with forces not part of the everyday American’s reality.  And many spiritual traditions in Latin America and Native America work with deities and spirits beyond the realm of ordinary physical reality.

Other people have been blessed to have really transcendent experiences – long moments when they felt connected to everyone and everything, when they floated in a state of omniscience and exquisite bliss.  Others have had near death experiences when they’ve encountered a Being of great Love and Light.  They have felt so immersed in unconditional and ineffable Love they never wanted to return to this sad earthly plane.

Believe it or not, there is much evidence that this is indeed a mystical, magical world.   If you have not been blessed to have had any of these experiences, read biographies about shamans, Christian mystics, spiritual adepts from the Himalayas, spiritual masters from India, and channelers.  Even the most hardened cynic knows the stories of Jesus’ miracles.  Many of us have been taught that those miracles were specific to him and  that time.   But what if those same miracles could be performed by other spiritual masters?  This is not blasphemous.  Many sources say that during those years unrecorded in the gospels, Jesus was wandering the globe being taught by other powerful and knowledgeable teachers – in the Himalayas and elsewhere.  There is literature, for instance, that speaks of Jesus (Yeshua) meeting Gautama (the Buddha.)

If one opens one’s mind to the possibility that magic exists, there is ample evidence that it is so.  And why not?  If God is all powerful, all loving, omnipresent, and if the Earth is His creation, then why  should this Earth be so ordinary?  Could it not be a mystical, magical place if we simply give it permission to be so?

I celebrate Magic.  I celebrate Miracles.  I celebrate the Great Mystery.

* http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/why-so-many-icelanders-still-believe-in-invisible-elves/280783/