I love history. And people watching. And the beauty of simplicity.
I love reading. And looking at art. Watching seedlings pop up from the ground, helping kids learn, and tracking the moon across the sky.
I love thinking about how things work.
And all the things we can’t explain.
In a nutshell, I love magic.
No the pull-a-rabbit-out-of-a-hat, mirrors and deception and lies kind.
The real kind.
The kind of everyday magic that you miss if you aren’t looking for it.
The magic of a fairytale love, a soldier marching into battle against all odds, a plant curing and illness, a tiny flower popping through the snow. The magic of a mother’s love, a first kiss, a shooting star.
The magic that begins in darkness and brings life and beauty and hope.
The magic that lives in all of us.
The magic that the modern world wants us to forget.
Our ancestors believed in gods that interacted with us mortals.
There were dragons in caves, witches with spells that could cure us, and far-away princes that were kind (and really hot). They could tell the future with bones, grow better crops with blood, and protect their homes with spices and smoke.
They tracked the sun and moon. Watched as baby animals grew into life-sustaining meat. Took adventures into unknown lands and seas. Planted seeds with faith that they would grow.
They understood the seasons. They worked all summer and prayed all through the winter.
The roles of motherhood, fatherhood, spouse, farmer, builder- were all magical roles that commanded respect and honor.
They found joy in music, morals in stories, and protection in fire.
Direction in stars, comfort in nature, and purpose in family.
They built homes, birthed children, welcomed seasons, celebrated, grieved, and lived by rituals that they couldn’t explain.
They sat outside at night and listened to everything that made life work.
Water running, bugs crawling, wind blowing, animals moving.
They could identify birds from their calls, plants from their leaves, and danger from footprints.
And they found that, even though there was little they could control, they could rely on magic.
On the rituals and rhythms that were the constant, steady calendar of their lives.
They understood their place in the wonder of it all and tried to survive the worst and enjoy the best.
Their faith in something bigger than themselves was more than whimsy.
Magic was a way of life.
But over time, magic got replaced by humans.
Science.
Reason.
Explanations about why it worked rather than just belief that it would.
Suddenly, humans had all the answers.
And magic didn’t fit in anymore.
If we couldn’t explain it, we decided it didn’t exist.
Synthetic medications replaced herbs and plants.
Manufactured fertilizers replaced animal sacrifices.
Love became a duty, rather than a dream. A chemical reaction in our brains, rather than something that supported and sustained us.
Monsters disappeared into reality, and with them, many of the heroes we needed.
Celestial bodies became rocks, planting became a trip to the grocery store, and baby animals were cute pets rather than beings that sustained life.
Time was no longer measured by moon cycles and the movement of stars, but by boring squares on a paper on the wall.
Jobs moved outside the home and families began to spend more and more time apart.
Motherhood and fatherhood was replaced by schools and daycares.
Friendship and campfire discussions were replaced by therapy sessions.
And working to build a life became a 9-5 job that worked against nature and our own bodies.
Yes, life got easier. There was less hard labor for most of us, less thinking that had to be done, and less to worry about.
Someone else had all the answers. Someone else would grow the food. Someone else would worry about how our bodies work. Someone else would teach our children. Someone else would take care of our neighbor. Someone else would be there if our marriage failed, if we couldn’t do our work anymore, or if we met a challenge.
As long as we punched keys and worked on assembly lines, as long as we did our one job, someone else would do everything else.
So we stopped looking for magic.
Hunkered down and got our one job done. Took breaks in between when we could. And tried to tell ourselves we were happy; we had everything we needed. Everyday magic wasn’t real, heroes weren’t needed, god was dead, and true love was just a story.
We stopped believing in the whimsical and the unexplainable.
Stopped telling stories. Stopped looking for fairies. Stopped believing in happily ever after. Stopped growing our own food and working our own land. Stopped creating art. Stopped admiring workmanship. Stopped honoring the work that kept families going and made it a thing you did if you had time, rather than the purpose of living.
Our world taught us from infancy that women always have their makeup done perfectly, men are always pure muscle, children always behave, foods should always be exactly the same as last time, farming is a cute side-hobby, children are optional, marriage is easy, and everything is cheap and replaceable.
Instagram. McDonalds. Walmart. Pinterest.
Videos show us hours of work done in seconds. Pictures show us smiling families instead of the chaos that happened right before. Movies tell us the good guys always win, the hero always lives, and the bad guy is always punished.
Death is a far-away thing that happens to other people and arrives neatly wrapped in a box.
Food comes perfectly shaped and perfectly ripe packaged in Styrofoam and plastic.
Our houses stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer and there’s never a reason to go outside.
Seasons determine recreation more than anything life-sustaining.
Gardens are always weeded, the lawn is always mowed, and the dishes are always done.
We have police to keep us safe, farmers to work in the sun, doctors so we never get sick, welfare if our jobs fail, schools in case we don’t know how to teach our kids, therapy if our families fail us, and charities to care about the poor.
There is a plan, a system for everything.
Who needs magic?
Who needs to look for fairies and witches when we have humans who went to school for those things? Who needs the quiet of nature when we have headphones and music? Who needs to plant seeds when food is already prepared? Who needs to plan for the future when we don’t have to think more than a few hours ahead?
But then, a magical thing happened.
Something came along and reminded us that we weren’t in control.
And the world stopped.
Jobs went remote.
Schools kicked out kids.
Churches closed.
Doctors didn’t have answers.
Cities didn’t have clean water.
Stores didn’t have food.
And we realized….
We live in a fake world.
A manufactured reality.
A place where everything glitters on the outside and is rotten on the inside.
Nothing is ever out of place, uncomfortable, or less than perfect.
And something is very wrong with that.
Medicines are not a cure-all. Artificially ripened fruits and animals that never saw grass are not how we want to eat. Foods that never mold and never rot aren’t giving us the nutrition we need. Sidewalks and gray walls don’t make us happier. Families splitting up every morning and not seeing each other again until evening aren’t healthy. Children aren’t meant to sit in a classroom, quiet and still for most of their earliest years. Yards weren’t supposed to be all grass and no flowers. Kitchens weren’t sanitized versions of fast food, but places where families gathered. Our homes were never meant to be display pieces, but rather workshops where we learned how to live life and comfortable nests where we recharge.
So many of us started to learn. We searched for answers. For control. For anything that was real. For something that would keep us sane. Safe.
With our free time we planted gardens, raised chickens, and learned to bake bread from scratch.
We got our homes in order and made treats and cooked our own meals.
We let our kids sleep in, play outside, and create their own projects.
We looked at our jobs and how they were sucking up our entire lives.
We started to feel the words of Emilie Autumn when she wrote “You,” he said, “are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world, and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain.” (The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls)
We realized that the magical way our ancestors looked at the world and lived their lives was, in fact, more real than anything we had ever lived.
That the sun, moon, and stars were still there- steady as ever. And there was a magic in taking time to watch them move across our sky.
That sitting down and playing games, watching a play, or reading a book brought magic into our lives in more than one way.
That the plants that we were told to avoid were cures that helped our bodies work better.
That the water we drank, the food we ate, and the air we breathed were contaminated by the real monsters and there was a magic that happened when we started to listen to our bodies.
That planting and growing our own food had a soul-healing effect that couldn’t be matched by sitting in a cubicle.
That gathering together to celebrate, to grieve, to sing, or to worship had a power we took for granted.
That we had a connection to the land and the animals that provided food for us. And that they deserved a good life, too.
That real love still exists, but the fairy tale takes time and communication and real work rather than pictures and short posts on social media.
That everyone else will fail our kids, but the power in parenthood is doing whatever it takes to make sure they are safe and healthy, despite the odds.
We started to notice the red in fall leaves, the tiny pink flowers coming through the snow, and the warmth of summer again.
We looked for fairies, fought away dragons, and prayed to the gods.
We asked witches for healing potions and protective spells and pondered the magical world that talked to us when our machines fell silent.
We took up art again, told stories, painted pictures, and looked for what made our souls happy.
We went to bed with fewer answers, but more peace.
It took the world stopping for us to realize- everyday magic still exists. It never left us. It was waiting there all along.
So here I am- a millennial who wants to be a witch when she grows up. Who lives in a (possibly haunted) Victorian house, paints hobbit holes, and feeds baby pigs in my pajamas. Who hatches eggs, composts scraps, and sings Viking songs while doing it. Who homeschools, homesteads, talks to the moon, and watches the rain fall. Who protects bees in my garden and nurses baby chicks back to health in my bathtub. Who reads too many stories about the gods, heroes, monsters, and everyday people who make up the past trying to learn how to protect the future.
A once-tomboy learning how to be feminine in a world that tells me that being a woman is a weakness. Learning to honor the power that women bring because they are women and not men.
A wife that stands with her husband, and fights through life’s battles with his hand in mine.
A mother of children who forge metal, build houses for fairies, and create worlds on paper while the rest of the world watches TV.
A woman who knows that homes are where the important things happen. The reason everything else exists.
That the ones who do the laundry and the cleaning and the cooking and the building and the fixing and the caring- those are the ones who keep the world going.
Those are the ones who bring everyday magic to it all.
Not a girl boss, not a tradwife, but something in between.
Something real.
Something messy and slightly crazy.
Something that cries in the closet with bars of chocolate some days and sings Broadway songs in the kitchen with her kids other days.
Not fit for the sanitized world of social media, but perfect for real life.
Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours. (Hermann Hesse)
Because real life has magic.
And that’s enough.
So- I’ve started this blog. To record what I learn, teach my kids the things I’ve discovered, and maybe find like-minded women around the world. Women who don’t fit in with the fake. Women who work, women who stay home, women who balance both.
Women who watch caterpillars turn into butterflies, listen to babies laugh, and tell stories. Women who look at the stars at night, can tell time by the sun, and know exactly when to pick a peach from a tree. Women who see magic in birth, holidays, and everyday rituals.
Shieldmaidens who know that women are warriors, mothers, wives, homemakers, teachers, and record keepers all at once.
Married women, single women, city women, and country women.
Women who want something more for their families.
(And the men who support them)
Women who know real life is messy….and MAGICAL.