Do you believe in magic?

I do… sort of.

Not a magic than can be controlled or manipulated, or one that demands slavish devotion or servitude.

But I believe that there is mystery in the world. There’s a lot that is incomprehensible, and while I’m not saying that I think we shouldn’t try to understand it, I think it’s okay to appreciate that it’s a mystery right now, without feeling like you need to assign a logical explanation to it.

Sometimes we can experience magic that is explainable: baking, for example, or airplanes, or bumblebees, or studying something so hard you can’t see straight, giving up in frustration and then going to sleep, and then waking up to discover that you do understand. I mean… wow. Knowing why some things happen doesn’t take away from their magic — it is possible to be in awe of things you can explain or understand.

Artist Thomas Dambo creates giant trolls from reclaimed materials and places them in whimsical settings. This photo is of Jakob Two Trees, in Issaquah, WA. Jakob is real in some profound ways, and I suspect I would weep in his presence while I admire the work it took to create him. At the very least I would want to sit at the base of one of his trees and rest for a while. I think there’s some pretty potent magic there.

Part of what made last year so difficult was that it was necessary to keep a very tight focus, even when life circumstances were really distracting (and infuriating, and sad, and chaotic). I did it, but I’m not better for it. I haven’t discovered inner strength, or the power of discipline; I am burned out.

In search of a little bit of magic, I participated in a new-to-me ritual: Rauhnächte (here’s a lovely explanation of it from Anja Poehlmann). I wrote 13 intentions (not resolutions) on slips of paper, and then every day for 12 days — starting at the solstice — I burned one of the slips of paper (outside, in a container that isn’t flammable). The idea, apparently, is that by writing your intentions and then burning them, you internalize them and then release most of them. By keeping one, you’re able to direct your attention and effort toward it.

I’ve seen a couple of different explanations for the timing of this ritual: solstice to Jan. 2 (which I did), or the span from Christmas to Epiphany (Dec. 25 – Jan. 6). I didn’t follow all of the “rules.” I did not burn every one of them after sunset (some days because I was busy or forgot, and sometimes because there was weather I didn’t want to be outside in). And as I was writing the intentions, I chose the final intention to keep, because it is deeply personal and important, and I want to focus primarily on that one.

Maybe these deviations invalidated the exercise, maybe they didn’t — it wouldn’t really matter to me if they did. My goal was to acknowledge that magic is there, and in a very small way, align myself with it.