"Do not recite the deep magic to me, witch. I was there when it was written"
There is something about CS Lewis’s work that sinks deep into my bones. I never felt like he was trying to preach at me or tell me something I don’t already know. Instead, he lends himself to the mystery of it all and asks if I too would like to come along.
I would.
I would like to see for myself what this is all about. I have given myself relentlessly to the unfolding of mystery all around me. Nothing is too bizarre or obscure if I feel in my heart that it wants to take me there. I have found countless treasures in these places that I cannot speak of, not for some mysterious mystical reason, but because most of them mean nothing to those who have not felt them in every cell of their being. They remain for those who thirst to catch a glimpse of their glorious secrets.
It is now winter and I cannot think of anything I like less than cold dark days. There is a sadness that creeps in this time of year that I have never been able to fight off. It comes and reminds me that my once infinite potential is fading more and more into the finite.
The little girl who could be anything is becoming the woman who is choosing her path, leaving hundreds of potentials behind. It is a scary thing to choose when the ever ferocious longing wants everything at all times. I want to be enormous, but I am small. I want to taste it all, but my time is finite.
As I become more and more the woman that I am, I become less and less all the things that I could be. There is no pill that I find more repulsive to swallow than the truth that I am average. Another winter comes to remind me of this, that one more of my years has been cemented into time.
I get drunk on ideas of grandeur. I have spent many years of my life chasing all that is elusive. To embrace life as it is just so hard to bear. However, there is a truth that I keep close to me. One that comforts me in my longing. A fairy gave it to me in a dream one dreary winter’s evening. (How wonderfully ethereal.) We crossed paths and she turned to me and said, “sweetheart, you must remember this, the bravest thing you can do is embrace your ordinary life.”
I woke up that morning like I had the key to joy sitting on my chest. The idea of leaving a mark on this world has haunted me like the plague. To be free from that indictment has let all the joy back in again. I do think that in some cases lofty titles and impressive accolades are just different ways that humans run from themselves. That in some respects, the bravest way to be human is truly to embrace this ordinary life.
However, I think we expect life to be a grand exciting adventure because that is the truth that lies inside of us. We are remarkable beings, the extent of which, one life span could never uncover. We are infinite potential hardwired into a finite vessel. The deep magic calls to me because it is who I am and where I came from. I was there when it was written. I cannot expect life to deliver to me what I am to deliver to it. The knowledge of who I am, who we all are, is not found in this life, nor carved in it. This knowledge is felt. It is experienced. It is remembered.
Let no one recite it to you. You do not need their cheap observations. Find it yourself. Find it in yourself. Find it in the depths of all that you hold dear.
Feel the resounding truth of who you are in your beating heart and go out bravely into your wonderful, dreary, delightful, terribly ordinary life.
