For years I carried a tin can, sort of like an Altoids can but not- full of powdery sand from the well in the chapel at Chimayo (click title.) I didn't necessarily believe it had magical properties, but I did not disbelieve either. Magic is rare in this life and I felt like a handful of dust was as likely as anything to contain it.
Now I can't find it anywhere, and I could really use it right now. a little dust from the desert of New Mexico, out of the saddlebag of my personal history.
All throughout my twenties I worked the themes of LOVE, SPACE, MAGIC, and FREEDOM in journal after journal trying to distill some life theory that would see me through. I assigned values to things and placed them on this scale. A dead of night campus ride was magic. A 25 hour work week was freedom. Passing a bottle around a campfire with friends was love. A curtain of hot spring water was space. I would bargain for and measure success by compromising the presence of two as maintaining, the presence of three as achieving, the presence of all four at any given time, that was known as arriving.
Right now I would settle for that little bit of magic. I am certain it would help me conjure up the others.
Just passing through,
Juancho
12 comments:
Love, space, magic and freedom. They can all be found in the daydreams that transform you...
I really likes this post. It made me stop and think.
Thanks for sharing.
Mmmm. Sounds like you need to light a few candles.
We missed you. We're glad you're back.
Maybe you've had the magic of the powdery sand within you all along-like Dorothy.
Time to throw some things out of the balloon?
definitely time to dump some ballast.
That's probably what happened to the original tin of magic.
No, I think I used it all up trying to put a curse on you.
Once someone (who is not my friend anymore, sigh) handed me a magic box of sand and said, in the telling of the story "part of the magic is that no one can open it. Go ahead, try" so I did and of course it opened and magic sand flew all over me and the floor and her couch. She looked down and said in this tiny little voice "oh well, so much for magic sand" and I felt so bad, like I'd killed her magic.
But maybe, like the Highlander, I just absorbed all her magic and now I am SUPER MAGICAL! HA HA HA!
Nice reference to Highlander, May!
We all have our box of magic sand, and we are afraid to open it, it's a scary and risky step.
I wish I could just lose mine also.
I have some chili powder from one of the vendors outside the Santuario. Will that tide you over 'til you get back to Chimayo?
Actually that would do fine.
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