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It is said that long ago, human lives were full of magic. We could perceive it all around us. It was in everything we saw. It inspired our songs and our legends. The land around us was alive and every part of it contained the palpable legends and living history of that place. Magic sparkled forth from the people themselves: The rippling beauty of a baby's first laugh; the miracle of new life through birth; the otherworldly wisdom sought from revered elders. Almost like a drifting in and out of consciousness, humans were always only a blink away from the magic world, the dream world.
As time went on, people became focused on other things that were less real than the magic: money, power, ownership of things, dominance over other people and other forms of life, utilizing the Earth's resources to increase wealth. Our reality is our perception, and so these things became dominant in our lives and we slowly forgot about our magic.
We began to deny the existence of the fairies; we drowned out the voices of our ancestors; we stopped conversing with the swaying trees. We filled our lives with to-do lists and worries that there might not be enough to go around. Money came to dominate us. And ever so slowly, without anyone really noticing that it happened, the scarcity became our new reality. We lost our ability to perceive the magic that is inherent in all creation; we lost the boundless abundance of the magical Earth.
Now the only way that most people hear of magic is in old songs and stories, and we think these are just make-believe tales, fiction, nothing more. Now, we have forgotten how to pass the magic along to the new generations; the children grow up more indoors than out-of-doors; we no longer hear the voices of the stones and the trees; we barely remember how to use the magic in plants and herbs to heal ourselves.
But the magic is still all around us, even when we cannot perceive it, just as the stars are still burning brightly even when it is daytime. There are clues to the magic everywhere, if we would just look for them.
Written by Jocelyn Mercado, based on ancient teachings from the indigenous peoples of North America, South America, and Australia
Rediscovering What We Knew Long Ago
Science seeks to explain the world in mechanical terms, based on the general assumption that we can take things apart (or view them at a smaller/closer level) to figure them out. When viewed through the lens of the scientific method, plants, animals, atoms, and gravity follow certain natural laws.
Over the centuries we have tended to embrace science over and above the innate knowledge that comes from deep within our hearts and bodies. In modern culture, our belief in the wisdom of intuition, dreams, intentions, and energy has diminished, replaced by mathematical proofs and research papers. Of course, great advances in science and technology have improved our lives in countless ways, but our over-reliance on quantitative ways of knowing has created imbalance.
But more recent discoveries in science reveal in breathtaking fashion that this mechanistic view of the world is becoming outdated. The new theories favor surprisingly holistic models based on unseen forces such as vibrations and energy, which ancient and indigenous wisdom have always held to be true.
1. We are surrounded by invisible magical forces.
Scientists are learning that something called dark matter is what holds the universe together. It is the scaffolding of the galaxies. It slows cosmic expansion, keeping us and everything from hurtling off into nothingness. It was first postulated in the 1930’s, and has since been confirmed as new studies indicate that galaxies would never have been able to form in the first place if dark matter hadn’t been there to hold them all together. But because dark matter interacts so weakly, or not at all, with other matter and even with light, we can’t see it or measure it. We don’t yet know what it’s made of or even where it’s located.
Dark energy, first named in 1998, is even more mysterious. It has been called “a general label for what we do not know about the large-scale properties of our universe.” It is believed to be the force that is accelerating the rate at which the cosmos expands. Dark energy is such a mystery that “explaining it may require something new: a quantum theory of space and gravitation.”
A recent National Geographic article states that “What we can see is only a tiny fraction of what exists.” Additionally, “Scientists are confronted by the embarrassing fact that they don’t know just how much energy, dark or otherwise, space contains.” This leads me to wonder … just how much is there that is missing from our science textbooks because it’s beyond what we as humans, in our limited physical bodies, can readily perceive? It’s beyond the perception of the instruments that we designed with our limited knowledge of the universe.
2. We are all one.
Every single living and non-living thing on the planet is made of stardust. The atoms in all of our bodies, as well as in the trees, rivers, rocks, animals, and the planet Earth, were created in previous generations of stars over 4.5 billion years ago. When those stars grew old and exploded, their material was expelled into space, and a portion of that spun into the Earth, creating the billions of living and non-living forms that are so familiar to us today.
The indigenous worldview is based in the belief that everything has a name and a spirit: Trees, rivers, the Earth, lightning, insects, rocks, animals, flowers … everything. Each living and non-living being has a personality and its own energy that it lends to the health and wholeness of the planet. When we harm one of these beings, we are all harmed, because we are all interconnected. When we as humans do the work to consciously cultivate a relationship with everything, reaching out with strong personal intention toward all aspects of life and nature, we transformationally enhance our ability to connect with the fullness of life, heal ourselves, and achieve our greatest potential.
3. Intuition and extrasensory perception are real, they are available to all of us, and they can reveal a deeper, more meaningful life.
The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) was founded in 1973 by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell. It is dedicated to exploring the idea that “reality is more complex, subtle, and mysterious than conventional science leads us to believe.” IONS studies apply scientific rigor to phenomena that do not fit conventional scientific models, including the “potentials and power of consciousness” and the “realization of our human potential.” They are on the leading edge in providing science-based training programs and tools to assist people in shifting consciousness and awareness toward a new vision of reality.
In the book First Intelligence, Simone Wright recounts her experiences as an intuitive who assists the police and aids in criminal investigations by connecting with the unseen world. She has had immense success in finding missing children, locating criminals in hiding, and providing precisely accurate physical descriptions of crimes including the sequence of events, the weapons used, the appearance of victims and shooters, getaway vehicles involved, and so on. She now trains others on how to access their intuition, and she asserts that “Anyone can do it. We are born to do it. Everyone can develop their natural skills to use in life.”
Furthermore, we use this ability every day without knowing it. We have déjà vu. We experience synchronicity. We think of a person and then they call. Our dreams give us access to an alternate reality. We see a beautiful sunset or hike to the top of a mountain and feel a deep peace within. When we come up with a new solution to a difficult problem, or come up with a new invention, or create a work of art, where does the idea come from? It comes from nowhere. It comes from another place, a place of flow and interconnection, that we are only beginning to understand.
Indigenous cultures are actively engaged with the unseen world through shamanic journeying, connecting with spirit animals, dreaming, and opening up to communicate with nature including trees, rocks, animals, plants, the moon, sun, and stars. Some cultures, such as the Sng’oi people of Malaysia, believe that the unseen or dream world is reality and the waking world is an illusion. Who is to say for sure that they are wrong? Perception is reality. When we open our lives up to perceiving more than meets the eye, we make a connection with a richer, more incredible world than we ever knew possible.
4. People and all creation are composed of energy and vibration.
Superstring theory states that, as we go to smaller and smaller levels of matter, the smallest elements are not particles of matter, but instead they are vibrations of extremely small strings of energy.
The vibrations that make up our universe range from the microscopic to the infinitely huge. Electrons and protons, we now know, are not fixed objects in space but rather vibrating energy. The wavelengths of the colors we see are vibrations. Our heartbeat, the annual migration of birds, the tides, the orbits of planets around their stars, and even the expansion and contraction of the universe … all are vibrations on an increasingly larger scale.
Indigenous wisdom has held since the beginning of time that we are all made of vibrational energy, and that the strength and quality of our energy determines our health, success, and power in the world. When someone becomes ill in an indigenous community, the shaman first seeks to cure them by healing the mind of the person. When a person’s perceptions or thoughts have negative energy, it will affect their entire body. We need to pay closer attention to our vibrational energy every day, cultivating positive thoughts and positive actions, and over the long term this will help us to increase our health and feeling of well-being far more than any medication.
How Can We Find the Magic Again?
Charles Eisenstein said: “A miracle is something that is not possible from the old story, but is possible from the new story.” New scientific discoveries are giving us a point of entry to a new reality, a new way of perceiving the universe, that may be more incredible than we can possibly imagine, given our species’ current world concept.
Let us open our minds to new possibilities, new perspectives that might seem far-fetched. Everything was impossible before it was done for the first time. So we should try to see life in a new way, and expect greatness. Expect miracles. Expect for the known to be unknown, and for the unknown to lead us to a new and brighter existence.
Explore these possibilities within yourself by taking the Discover Your Magic online course. This inspiring and motivating six-week course will guide you step-by-step on a journey to discover your true purpose in this lifetime. The course will help you to open up to your feelings, rediscover the power and energies of nature, and perceive what the deep, innate intelligence of your body has been trying to tell you for years. It will take you on a journey of connecting with your deeper purpose and uncovering your most meaningful and joyful life: The life you were born to live.
Introducing a new global online event:
The Interplay of Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science: Illuminating Our Path for the Future, a global online summit airing from July 11 to July 22, 2016. Free of charge. The summit will feature 24 speakers on topics including Shamanism, Intuition, Ancient Sacred Sites, Women's Holistic Health, Energy Healing, Power Animals, Dreams & the Subconscious Mind, Imaginal Psychology, and much more! Learn more and register by clicking here.
Read more from Jocelyn Mercado on the Sacred Planet blog.
