No animals on the labyrinth today. Last time I came to walk this same labyrinth, I had three deer and a fox for company. It had been magical. So when I entered the labyrinth again, I found myself constantly scanning the woods for companions. Not one showed up. After I got over my sadness at the absence of forest friends, I realized how truly rare my first day on the labyrinth had actually been.
What is it about humans that makes us obsessed with recreating the magical moments in our lives? When we’ve eaten that perfect meal, felt truly loved, or had an amazing adventure, we immediately plan to go back to the spot where it occurred and try to recreate it. But we can’t. When we go back to the same place, the experience is never the same.
Magic cannot be planned. Buried in it is the element of surprise since it can only exist in a place of unknowing.
Magic sneaks up behind us with a mischievous smirk on its face, drops a little celestial dust on our human experience, and then scampers off quickly before we have the chance to get it in our grasp. For if we could catch it, we would immediately take Magic home with us and build it a tiny room, decorated with a coordinating star-themed bedding set. Then we’d dress it in sensible clothes and take it out to meet our friends. After a nice game of charades, we’d ask Magic to perform for us. Maybe it could do a soft-shoe number, and we’d all clap. But instead, it shyly retreats from the room to be alone. Later, our friends would all murmur about how they didn’t see what was so special about Magic after all. It was actually down-right boring. It couldn’t even play charades.
Or, maybe we simply smothered the magic out of Magic.
It’s normal to want to relive moments that brought us some sense of happiness. But, maybe we would encounter the elusive feeling more often if we quit trying to create it and simply remained open to recognizing the Magic that already surrounds us. It might do us well to understand Magic for what it is: an instant when time, space, circumstance and stardust aligned for a moment and we crossed paths with the mesmerizing beauty of life.
That’s the moment I want to inhabit. Instead of trying to recreate a flimsy illusion of some past magic, I want to stumble headfirst into the surprise of new Magic. And as I’m lying there splayed on the ground, dazed and wondering what just happened, I hope to look up and see that wild and mischievous, star-studded, smirk staring back at me (free from even one article of sensible clothing).