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Posts Tagged ‘Magic’

The fact is, I write every day – I journal – but I miss writing. I want to say “real writing”, the kind that isn’t just one’s personal ups and downs, the efforts to figure things out, the daydreams and fantasies. (Because none of that is real, right? Haha.)

Maybe a year ago, needing to become more active on social media to promote my children’s book, I discovered Instagram. I love IG because it feeds the visual aspects of my heart, my mind, my soul in a very different way than writing does. So I’ve been hunkered down over there for a bit. (Please come visit me on Instagram @jeannebalsam )

An extremely simple example of AI art using Midjourney and the prompt “A swimming pool filled with stars on a moonlit night.” Image courtesy Wikipedia

And what have I found? A community of children’s book people, an immense amount of positivity, and an endless treasure trove of art that is firing up my brain. Some of it is illustration, some is videos/reels, but a great source of fascination is the AI art (Artificial Intelligence) – see above. People using programs such as Midjourney are creating often fantastical images, but to my mind, I see magic.

I love that in every way – art, writing, music – and it seems that some magic is calling to me. I want to be where the magic is, for it to take me and my art to some new, unexpected places. It sparkles.

Still, I miss writing. I feel like I am being readied for some new union between word and image. After being absent for a bit, I also miss my friends here on WP who inspire me, too. (But I’m getting to you …)

Where is your magic? Is it dancing? Is it calling you?

A little inspiration of late – 51 minutes of uninterrupted beautiful music that fills me with dreams. Maybe you, too.

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Maybe this should be titled Finding the Unicorn Within. I’m not sure. I do know we all have that uniqueness inside us, that thing that makes us special and rare. Even while we know that at our most essential level, we are all the same.

Adapting to leaving an organization to whom one has devoted so much of her time, life, and energy after 35 years has proven a very different change than I expected. From the still-getting-used-to my not needing to be at my desk at 9 a.m. to the fact that my day is completely mine to structure, to the alarmingly slow realization that my creativity is completely mine to unearth and explore … it’s been a sea change.

I began sorting through years of accumulated work samples, tossing most, saving some, all in the interest of making my work space reflect where I am now and where I am going now. I rediscovered an Inspiration folder that I’d created for ideas, and inside it was a quote that I have always loved. So, as I continue to evolve daily into a newer and brighter self, I share the quote with you, from The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.

1495-1505 – “The Unicorn Is in Captivity”, one of the “Hunt for the Unicorn” tapestries, housed in The Cloisters, NYC

“It’s a rare man who is taken for what he truly is. There is much misjudgment in the world. Now I took you for a unicorn when I first saw you, and I know that I am your friend. Yet you took me for a clown, a clod, or a betrayer, and so I must be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will vanish as soon as you are free, but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes.

“We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream. Still, I have read, or heard it sung, that unicorns when time was young, could tell the difference `twixt the two – the false shining and the true, the lips’ laugh and the heart’s rue.”

~ Schmendrick the Magician
The Last Unicorn

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It’s so easy to do … losing the magic. But because it’s so easy is exactly why it’s so important that we hold on to it.

FairyLight-LivingRoom2

I walked into my living room late yesterday afternoon, and there in one corner was this amazing scatter of brilliant little lights. White, yellow, blue. They were enchanting. Magical. For a moment I allowed myself to believe I was visited by fairies.

Now those of you grounded in reality can quickly surmise where those little lights came from, as I soon figured out myself, but for that one moment, I saw magic.

Our lives are too often so crazy-busy that we can let that sense of magic, our sense of wonder, slip through our hands if we’re not careful. No matter how much we love what we do, and are happy with much in our lives, there is still – for just about everyone I know, unfortunately – a boatload of stress. Magic is a wonderful antidote.

Look for a little in your life. I’m sure it’s there.

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Full Moon

Always curled up by my door, I wonder …

KittyTracks2

does she stroll about when the moon is full?

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Enchanted, entranced …. swept away … by such a lovely piece of music by Mike Rowland, who I am just now discovering. Entitled “Magic Moment,” the added visuals, (by truus 1949), are just that – simply magical, a reminder of such moments – so often in our lives and not noticed, or just a star’s breath ahead of us – and a reminder of how beautiful we actually are. Watch and summon your own true beauty. Feel the magic always in our lives if we just let ourselves be.

 

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indigo-alicehoffmanAlthough I’ve said this before, I like Alice Hoffman. I like what she writes about – essentially, magic – and how she writes about it.

Indigo, like Green Angel, is ultimately a story about healing. Written for middle grade readers, Indigo is also a story about friendship, devotion, and love of all kinds. As with Green Angel, my only complaint is that the story is over too soon. More like a novella or short story than a novel,  (how it’s promoted), it’s 84 pages in paperback.

Back to the magic – one of the main characters, Martha Glimmer, is more an ordinary girl, but who was touched by a certain magic in her mother. Her mother has recently passed away, leaving Martha feeling unsure, adrift and missing the spark in her life that was her mom. The two other main characters, Trevor and Eli McGill, nicknamed Trout and Eel for fine webbing between their fingers and toes, long to see the ocean. All three, stuck in a dry, dusty town which has all but banished water due to destructive floods in the past, yearn for something beyond what they know.

Fiercely devoted friends in search of dreams, they set out on a journey. Magic is revealed in more ways than one as Martha, Trout and Eel discover their truths, reclaim their pasts and find richer futures. It’s a lot to accomplish in 84 pages, and I love how Alice Hoffman does it. For a fast but rewarding read, Indigo is a great way to go.

p.s. I feel like I’m cheating on Andrew Weil, the book I’m currently reading, but I hit the Hunterdon County Library’s big annual book sale this past Sunday, made out like a bandit, and couldn’t resist this fast read.

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