simple magic: how to get what you want
I was watching a Halloween movie with my little monsters the other night. One of the themes that ran through the film was “Magic is simple. All you have to do is want something and then let yourself have it.”
I love this! But… is it really that simple?
The characters in this movie were a lineage of witches living in a nether-place with the subtle name of Halloweentown, so they had distinct magical advantages to us mortals on Earth. Still, it makes you think… How much of the time do I get in the way of my own magic by not allowing myself to have what I want? Even worse: how often do I not even let myself do the wanting to begin with?
In Practical Solitary Magic, Nancy B. Watson addresses goal-setting in the act of magic-making as the first order of business. And, to know your goal, she reminds, you need to know what you want specifically: “…there are an amazing number of people who have, at best, a vague idea of what they want. Vague ideas produce vague results.”
It’s true. In the crazy rush of life, I find it hard to know what I want for dinner, let alone what I want for my life. It’s not that I’m not yearning (like, all the time!). It’s that the feeling of want seems to be spinning me through my life like the silver orb in a pinball machine; sent rebounding against obstacles in my path — needs, obligations, fears, hormones, neuroses, and the banalities of life — I react, get turned around, and feel confused. Attempting to get relief, I find myself grasping at the obvious, or sometimes just the most achievable, goals and then not really getting a sense of satisfaction or completion.
Author Barbara Sher wrote a wonderful and very successful book called Wishcraft: How to Get What you Really Want (celebrating its 30th anniversary this year!). She felt compelled to write a follow-up book to answer her many fans’ needs for more. The second book was called I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was: How to discover what you really want and how to get it. She said so many people loved the first book, but let her know that they were stumped on what they really wanted in the first place.
She gives lots of valuable information and exercises in the second book to help the reader discover that we all do really know what we want in life; it is that simple. According to Barbara Sher, it’s the complexities of our past and the imaginings of our future that keep us from acknowledging our desires and allowing them. ”I’m convinced that if you don’t know what you want, something is stopping you from knowing it. Something — a hidden resistance — is making you hesitate to find your true desire and go after it.”
The best place to begin, she says: “…start listening to the messages from your heart.”
Abraham-Hicks says that we’re all constantly launching “rockets of desire” that are often fueled by what we don’t want. (It’s kind of like eating at a buffet: oh, yuck, braised turnips; oh, yes, steamed broccoli; oh, better, green beans; the best, a baked potato.) The contrast between what we do and don’t want is what directs us along our very personal path, and we should let our feelings be the guides to fulfillment.
Says Abraham-Hicks, “Always, when you know what you don’t want, that’s when the rocket of desire is born of what you do want. That is the fruit of your experience. Now pluck it and savor it and enjoy it. Visualize it, and find the feeling place of it. And live happily ever after, once you get the hang of this.”
Getting clear on what you want, it seems, is magic at its most raw level: simple, basic, essential. As such, it requires a raw approach. Sit yourself down and ask yourself, as author Elizabeth Gilbert advises: “What do I really, really, really want?” (she says “you have to say really, really, really, otherwise you won’t believe it.”) Then, listen. Ask questions. See how you feel. Listen again. Listen more. Allow your heart’s voice to talk and tell its stories. Indulge it like it’s your favorite person in the world. And, let the magic begin.
