Tag: magic

magic

.Reading time 2 minutes.

“You don’t need to believe in magic.
You are magic.
Believe in yourself.”

Emmanuel Dagher

The above quote crossed my path the other day, like an unexpected butterfly or rainbow in the sky. Riveted, I stopped. “Yes!” I thought. “We are indeed magic, and if we just believed in ourselves… no—if we truly knew that we are magic, why anything wonderful, miraculous, and beautiful could be possible!” It is true, don’t you think? That if we arrive, if we show up each day simply as we are—unadorned, messy but real… unafraid to be whatever particular expression of life that we just so happen to be—then our days cannot be anything other than magic and magical. So I was inspired to step out of my personal comfort zone and share this quickly snapped, unfiltered, messy-haired selfie-on-a-whim… to say hello to the world and to you, whoever you may be. We are all, after all, one light and one love.

But, what precisely is magic? 

magic

         maybe magic is, 
     a heart cracked open
   to the tender beauty of the world
                    to be
     raw    open     and real
   and tumbled like broken pieces of sea glass
    worn smooth with the grain of tides
   high and low
    of time
                           to be
               to just be
     in this one world 
   both wounded and wondrous
 allowing the soft edges of shadows
   to dance
          into the light
   like sparkles and glitter of rain
     in the sun
   and finally
             finally and at last
                            to stand on the shore
                                      with arms outstretched to the  wide  open  sea
                                                           and declare
                                              here i am my love
                                              here i am

京のコーヒー

.Reading time 2 minutes.
Kyoto Coffee                                                                            

flowers startle white
in the black night
caffeine-steeped 
 and camouflaged in
e   l e  g a n c  e    
 i awaken 
all  enchanted
the wild blossoms are singing 
light          
into         new   day .

I wrote the original version of this poem about three years ago, after enjoying coffee in an elegant cup at a café in Kyoto. After a long talk with a good friend, the night was late and I cycled back to my small, secluded-away in a quiet and dimly-lit neighborhood near ancient temple grounds in Higashiyama, house. Along the way, I was startled to encounter these white flowers glowing out of the darkness—similar to the white flower on my black coffee cup just a short while earlier. What magic potion had I just consumed, I pondered, in the guise of an elegant Kyoto cup of coffee? Little did I know then, just how truly magical and extraordinary our worlds can be. And I was entirely guileless as to the adventure I’d unknowingly embarked upon. But here I am now, three years later, still traversing these caffeine-steeped nights of enchantment. And what has emerged? Worlds of poetry, beauty, magic, and a precious love—like no other.

So what it the moral of the story?
Surrender to the irrational demands of your heart and of beauty, to this wild world far too vast to be contained within the narrow confines of our minds. And something more magical than you could have ever dreamed of will welcome you, on the other side of night.