thread: 2009-04-30 : Magical Magic
On 2009-05-08, Marshall Burns wrote:
So, Marshall, lets say this drunken quasi-mage's BROTHER has the same experience. Does the same thing happen to HIS cheating wife?
Nope. Nothing ever happens the same way twice. Fairy Tales 101. (Fairy tales being one of the most explicitly magical genres, starting with day-to-day material—even though we often forget that, due to the time period of most fairy tales—and injecting an element of the unknowable, unpredictable, and magical. No explanations. The creature in the cave tells the girl that the city is sick because there is a toad under the fountain; if she removes the toad, the plague will depart. Why does this work? How does this work? Nobody tells us this, because it's not knowable. It works in this circumstance, at this time, when this girl does it, after this magical creature tells her to.
Part of this is because the personal has a lot to do with it. With the guy in my example, it wasn't just the act of molding the clay with his sweat and memories and semen; it was what he was feeling at the time—mostly drunken anger and anguish.
Also, circumstances. Where he fell at the river. What time it was. The fact that he was drunk. These mean things.
Magic's gotta be in the moment. It's a matter of knowing what you want, and then listening to your bones for instruction on how to do something about it. Your bones know more than your brain does. Of course, they can never tell you the whole picture. There is no clarity; only a gitchy feeling. Follow it if you dare, and the magic will come—along with a ruthless wave of consequence that you must be prepared to ride out.
