Kept up by the bright winter moon, a message came through the spiritual hours of the night

A spotlight beamed down on me. My mind swirled like it was on mushrooms, yet, I’ve been sober for half a year. Vivid dreams of irritable situations with irritable people played in my dreams between the endless hours of internal music playlists in my wake. What the hell is going on? I thought as I relentlessly tried to get back to sleep during the spiritual hours of the night. There was no controlling this. No matter how many deep breaths and cycles of counting to ten I’d do, it was no use. I was not getting to sleep, and someone was trying to get me up to listen to them.

In a mad flurry, I flung the layers of blankets from me as the camper vibrated with my stomps to the bathroom and through the squeaky door. Getting around was easy with no light because the waning gibbous moon was literally blinding me through the air vents and curtains. All became still inside once I cuddled under my blanket on the bench dinette seat. I opened my Morning Pages journal and turned my phone screen on to light the page.

Oh my god. I fucking hate the moon this time of year, I started out. Being mad at the moon was personal to the moon. For years, I’d engage in magical moon ceremonies to bring intentions to life and to let go of old things in my life. I’d check the sign the moon was in like clockwork so I’d know the energies I was working with.

Astrology was my guidepost for everything in my life and I gave my power away to it. On a blue moon in August, I decided I was done with this flim-flam and I’d never look into astrology or the moon cycles again. I was not going to let an external source of some mystical “science” dictate how I felt and functioned in my life, especially since it got me nowhere in my endeavors as a writer and artist.

After a page of hate monologue to the moon and mysticism, I calmed down a bit. I asked the page, “Who is here with me right now? Who keeps waking me up in the night?”

Your Magic, I miss you and cannot come out during the day because you no longer want me a part of your life, responded.

My mind swirled into the vortex of trauma the New Age movement brought me to after practicing the teachings in it religiously for more than a few years. Coming out of the cult-like trance the online teachers and ritualistic practices had on me wasn’t a New-Age to-Jesus experience, it was more of a New-Age-to-Myself one. I felt battered, confused, and totally lost my sense of authenticity once I decided to get out of New Age and come back to myself.

I accidentally found out when Mercury Retrograde was ending 2023, the last three weeks of December, and I haven’t been able to shake the thoughts about it since. Oh, it’s Mercury Retrograde, must be the reason I’m feeling so blocked in my art life! types of thoughts replayed in my mind as I continued on with the Artist’s Way blocked artist recovery course.

Giving my power away to astrology and new ageism were two things that blocked me in my art and writing life. I put too much emphasis on the mysticism and magic rather than the actual doing of the art work, expecting the magic to do the work for me. Magic hasn’t been sitting well with me lately, but being grounded and taking action has. Taking action has helped me work through my blocks, unlike all those rituals I did that were supposed to do it for me.

Sometime during this Mercury Retrograde period, I decided to read an entire novel in a day. I had no idea what it was about, but the title came into my mind on another one of those sleepless nights. The title Regrettably, I’m About to Cause Trouble by Amie McNee replayed in my head over and over as I tried to sleep. It was a book about a woman of nobility in the 1500’s getting disowned by her family for having a witch’s mark and how she had to accept her true (but unwanted) self as a witch and create a whole new life.

Besides the book being so entertaining I couldn’t put it down, I kept on reading because it reminded me of myself. I never considered myself a witch, but I did enjoy making herbal projects and having a deep spiritual relationship with nature. What I could relate to from the book was about letting go of my old identity to bloom and emerge as my true self. Ironically, it wasn’t into new ageism, it was more out of it and back to who I was before it, but also connecting to the parts of me that could fall into that New Age umbrella that I do feel authenticity about. Like experiencing spirituality with nature and playing with herbs. Oh, and gardening & foraging!

I continued on, “Okay Magic, what do you want to say now that you have my attention?” (As I type this, ravens circle overhead my camper. Oh what joy.)

You deemed me unnecessary when you decided to scatter your herbs in the forest and bury your crystals. You decided I wasn’t practical anymore because I hurt you. I went too far and took over your life. I’m sorry, I just wanted you to believe in me. Please forgive me. I want to be in your life again. You need me. We don’t have to practice spells or rituals or follow astrology.

This surprised me. Never has an inner voice been so… open, honest, non-defensive, and apologetic. Yet I was still skeptical. I’m learning to relate to these inner voices rather than relate as them.

Magic is important. It is a form of hope that makes life more beautiful and enjoyable. If you can open your heart and trust me, the Universe and I will show you that having us in your life can be a good experience.

Still feeling irritable but open, I decided to forgive this part of myself, for now, and to hit the sack to try and sleep. I was able to catch some Z’s until I woke in the morning to my dog regurgitating. Again, I sprang from the bed, set him on the floor so he could puke, and got dressed to take an early morning walk.

I contemplated all this magic nonsense on my walk through puffy clouds of pastels, the sun beaming through and gently lighting up certain mountains in the distance, so grandiose and prominent. The rays also lit up the mountain range tucked next to the campground in warm shades of gold. This is magic, I thought.

Although I am still a bit skeptical of this inner part of me and deciding whether or not to trust it, I took her message to heart. The world these days is confusing and bleak. I don’t know if there is any escaping the underlying feeling that something is wrong within the collective.

Whether it is over-dependence of electronics, the internet, and digital-land, or the waning desire to form in-person communities and activities to participate in, I think that humans’ belief in magic is fading away too. Like Magic said in the spiritual hour of the night, “Having me in your life is having hope in something, to believe in the beautiful, and for a better world to emerge.” Most definitely, friend.

Perhaps it is time to allow magic back into our lives, friends. Maybe magic is what the world needs right now. The type of magic that we believed in and experienced as kids. Discovering lady bugs scurrying in the pine needles of a desert tree in December. The colors of a sunrise. Or even those moments when you’re thinking of something and it happens almost instantly. The magic of growing our own food and watching it go from seed to plate. Or what about an antique house that had every little detail crafted by the hands of an imaginative? The magic of feeling like an unconditionally loving force is looking out for you and bringing you breadcrumbs of joy to unfold your most fulfilling life.

Magic says, “Everything is going to be okay in the end, no matter what. Let’s enjoy the moment and feel what it’s like being a tiny person on a huge planet floating through space in a millisecond of eternal time.”

Magic inspires beauty, and beauty inspires hope. Beauty makes us smile and appreciate what is in front of us in the moment. Magic makes us smile. Magic connects us to one another in awe. Magic is love.

We rounded the corners, tossed the poop in the dumpster, and headed back home. I slid my sandals off, unleashed Ollie into the camper and thought about the simple pleasures of breakfast. Looking at the rainbows cast on the walls of the camper by the prisms hanging in the windows, I deemed magic and beauty to certainly be important in life, even if it makes me smile through my grogginess. By the end of this inner escapade, I decided that yeah, I’ll forgive Magic for taking me off the deep end.

Magic is what creates art, isn’t it?

I’ll let her back into my life. I’ll drop my bout of skepticism. Just… no more woowoo okay?

Much love,

Ashley