“If we open our eyes, if we open our minds, if we open our hearts, will find that this world is a magical place. It is magical not because it tricks us or changes unexpectedly into something else, but because it can be so vividly and brilliantly.”--Chogyam Trungpa

When I was a child, I longed for magic: actively, forcefully, wistfully. I spent thousands of hours reading books about witches and wizards and fairies and everyday objects endowed with supernatural powers, I read about kids who time-traveled or fell into other dimensions or discovered secret portals to other lives. I always wanted to be one of those characters from the story, happening on magic that would transport me from my problems, my boredom, my malaise (French translation: being poorly-at-ease) with life.

As I grew older, I stopped believing. So wrapped up did I become in my personal challenges, cultural indoctrination, and societal obligations, that I began to forget even the magic from the childhood stories. And as I moved faster and faster through linear time, running from one responsibility to the next, rushing to grow up, get a job, and join the rat race, I became a part of the greatest disappearing acts of all creation; a part of me began to vanish. And, unlike like the lovely magician’s assistant in modern-day magic acts, once I was sawed in two, the pieces never came together again, dropping away instead and getting lost along with the magic in the chaos around me.

Our ancestors had far more contact with magic. They lived life closer to nature, a force larger than life. They saw themselves as an intrinsic part of a pattern that happened around them and to them and in them and through them, an ongoing dialogue with equals. Rather than placing themselves above the objects we see as inanimate, everything they saw and experienced in the...(Read the full post--including a poem from Mary Oliver)

ABOUT THE HOSTS/PRESENTERS
BONNIE BRIGHT, Ph.D.,(Founder of Depth Psychology Alliance), is a Transpersonal Soul-Centered Coach certified via Alef Trust/Middlesex University, and a certified Archetypal Pattern Analyst®, and has trained extensively in Holotropic Breathwork™ and the Enneagram. She has trained with African elder, Malidoma Some'; with Transpersonal Pioneer Stan Grof; and with Jungian analyst, Jerome Bernstein, among others.Her dissertation focused on a symbolic look at Colony Collapse Disorder and what the mass vanishing of honeybees means to us both personally and as a collective. Bonnie’s path to soul began with a spontaneous mystical experience in 2006, and she continues her quest for awakening each day with a sense of joy, freedom, and gratitude at the magic afoot in the world.

JAMES R. NEWELL, Ph.D., MTS, (Director of Depth Psychology Alliance) earned his Ph.D. in History and Critical Theories of Religion from Vanderbilt University (2007), and holds a master's degree in pastoral counseling and theology from the Vanderbilt University Divinity School (2001). James is also the director of the Depth Psychology Academy, offering college-level courses in Jungian and depth psychology. James has spent much of his working life as a professional musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist with interests in jazz, blues, folk, world, and devotional music. Since his youth, James has worked with a variety of blues greats including John Lee Hooker, James Cotton, Jr. Wells, Hubert Sumlin, Big Joe Turner, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and others.