Find the Magic
Two Rituals & Three Questions for the Holidays
Dear Fellow Dreamer,
Last December, as I was preparing my planner for the New Year, I asked myself what my chosen word or sentence would be for 2024. At the time, I was flipping through sticker books and fastening some to the front of my day timer. First came a sticker of a great old tree. Then a star, a starfish, and a shell. Also, a heart, a waxing crescent moon, a sun, and a bee. Those adhesive images, along with the number 24, three butterflies, and a dancer in a steampunk tutu and top hat, each found a place on the cover.
Symbolically, deciding for the edgy dancer had felt daring, because since early in the pandemic, mostly I’d been living in “hag mode,” writing a novel inside the cave of my office. Seated at a small wicker desk, or at my bigger desk, where I type, I’d been anything but on stage. The talks and workshops I’d given for years had fallen away. My social media participation had become intermittent. Daily life with my husband, and a few virtual meetings each week—those things made up the bulk of my contact with the human world. And so, yes. Embracing the dancer felt bold and a little scary, too. And also, fun. Yet for as much as that sticker had caught my glance like an invitation from the universe, in my current state, it also seemed like an ironic wink. When the words “Find the Magic” appeared on a new page in one of my collections, I peeled that message and stuck it to the front of my agenda. I had my sentence for 2024.
Holiday Ritual 1: What’s your chosen word, phrase or sentence for the New Year?
Certain words can become divining rods for us. Each time I decide to give a new year a name, allowing intuition to guide me in determining that moniker, I also commit to discovering the deeper messages inside my chosen statement. It’s up to me to live into those words.
And when it comes to planning, feeling relaxed and playful always yields the best returns. Using pictures invokes in me a child’s sense of joy. Maybe working with young people for many years is what’s left me an inveterate sticker lover.
But I also love evocative card decks, art books, scenic magazines, Pinterest, and other visuals. Making collages and vision boards can be clarifying and uplifting, too. And powerful.
Through rest and play, we connect with the feminine side of our nature—a vital aspect that our mainstream culture often forgets. One essential to our well being.
What helps you to be playful as you plan and dream?
Relaxing and enjoying ourselves, slipping away from the ticking clock, we open ourselves to new directions. And you might say, to magic.
Another Glance Back
During that same final month of last year, I realized it would be possible for me to finish my second novel in time for the late-February submission deadline set by my publisher. As writers know, even though we may have published with a certain press in the past, unless we have a multiple-book contract, there’s no guarantee of a future “yes” from anyone. While part of me believed that finishing the project in time was possible, another part balked. But mostly, the idea of being done—oh my God, it felt marvellous.
My last meeting with my teacher-editor took place in January of 2024. By February, I had a list of things left to do in the manuscript—a list that felt incredibly long, but also somehow (for the first time) achievable. My husband and I were on our way to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico for a month, a trip we’d planned ages before I’d realized that my stay there would be given over to meeting a deadline.
But San Miguel has magic.
We hadn’t been back since the start of the pandemic. Our journey was an opportunity for my photographer husband to take street shots and environmental portraits, and for me to take part, once again, in the San Miguel Writers Conference. But things had changed. Due to the looming submission date, I had to release the pre-conference poetry workshop I’d wanted to attend. I did not, however, let go of the whole conference. One of the bright silver linings of that event was being asked to read selections from my new poetry at a special annual gathering. For the first time in a while, among fellow authors, I stepped onto a stage.
Mostly, during February, our small rented apartment became the birthing chamber for my “completed” manuscript. (I’m using quotation marks, since books are never done until they’ve gone to print.) At that point, I was volleying sections back and forth with my copyeditor in Canada, someone I’ve worked with many times, whose enthusiasm for the project buoyed me. I also walked through the streets of San Miguel, doing basic things like buying office supplies and sitting in the warm shadows of a Calle Núñez print shop where owner Cristóbal let me wait on a chair by his desk, while he ate a lunch of tortillas and River of Dreams materialized in a plastic tray.
My husband and I walked at night. We held hands in the Jardin.
Holiday Ritual 2: Cast a grateful gaze over the year that’s been
Borrowing words from Robert Moss, I suggest, “To find magic around you, you must carry magic inside you.” One of the ways I’ve learned to carry magic inside me is by cherishing chosen memories and their gifts. Nothing is too small. Perception is everything.
It's taken me a lifetime to value this dark stretch of the year as an invitation to go deep—not to jump ahead into plans just yet, but to stay a moment, right here, savouring recollections. When we do that, we generate a state of gratitude for what has passed. Feeling appreciation for simply being here is a way of finding magic and also tuning to the frequency of true prosperity. As we all know, while money is important, prosperity isn’t only about our finances. It’s about our health, relationships, and creativity. Our soul. Generating a state of gratitude for what’s gone before helps to create conditions for beautiful new experiences and fresh ways of seeing.
As you reflect on the highs, lows, and learning in 2024, you may wish to ask yourself several questions in order to make the most of your own insights. I’ve provided a few questions here as optional prompts, along with some of my own responses. If you have experiences and insights to share, I’d love to read them in the comments.
Further Reflection & Questions
High on my gratitude list for 2024 was finishing the manuscript and pressing “send,” leaving a few days for a personal vacation at the end of our trip. I felt strange. Light. On our walk that night, my husband bought me earrings.
Yet despite that momentary release, I was also hanging.
Pregnancy, when we’re lucky, culminates in a new being who demands our attention so immediately and relentlessly that we don’t have a chance to mourn the passage of the life-bearing phase. That is, unless our delivery is planned in advance. How well I remember the night before my daughter was born—a scheduled C-section due to my high-risk status as a diabetic. Alone in a hospital shower stall, I placed my hands on my belly and wept. Not because I was scared of the surgery, though naturally, I was; but because the pregnancy was coming to an end—and I’d loved it. That sense of permission to grow large and full, to step away from the busy world and be alone with the precious life inside. I’d taken the last month off work, simply to slow down. Just to be. Not only for my health, but for my child.
However, unlike a biological gestation period and birth, when bringing a book into form, unless we’re self-published or hybrid-press authors, after “delivering” the manuscript comes a limbo stage of waiting. And even when an acceptance email follows, as it did for me last April—a top-of-the-list highlight in 2024, for sure—another waiting period begins.
In the bardo state between projects, we can easily feel unsettled and even lost. Vulnerable.
Question 1: When did you feel most creatively vulnerable in 2024? And are you feeling vulnerable now?
Increasingly, I’ve come to value reflecting on vulnerability as a marker of new growth. That tenderness. The uncertainty. Such things cause us to find our way differently than we do while borne along by the current of a work-in-progress, or by routine commitments to show up and serve in familiar ways, no matter how life-affirming and valuable those ways of service may be.
Being vulnerable in the creative process comes in that moment after we leap, when the catch hasn’t happened, and we’re suspended in the ether of our own faith—the expectation that our creative life does, indeed, have a next phase. One we haven’t quite clarified or grasped. Of course, we hope things will go a certain way, and we do our best to envision it, yet we know that in this vast universe we are co-creative beings. In part, we must depend on others. A great blessing. And we must also place our trust in the unseen. Consider that statement as you will.
Those are things I remember in the long night at solstice.
It’s been a year of harrowing world news that makes my dreams seem very small. But then, I remember all dreams come from the same place: the life force moving through us, seeking expression by means of us. I trust in that. A silent partner. I also choose to believe in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Living in mystery, we do our best to dream and create and feel our way forward in hope.
At Christmas, as much as I love “O Holy Night” and want to listen to the carols, I also love hearing John Lennon sing “Imagine,” and I know that somehow, in a way I don’t need to understand, those songs come from the same source.
Question 2: In the past year, when did you override fear in order to take action for your vision?
One of the gifts of starting over again is what Zen Buddhists call the “beginner’s mind.” Fresh life, never more fragile and potent, springing forth through the husk of the ruined seed.
I invite you to celebrate each time, over the past year, you said yes—no matter how wobbly and uncomfortable you may have felt—to doing something new in service of your emerging dream.
Last spring, having received the publisher’s nod for my next book, I knew my life had changed and that I had to bring parts of me forward again, in a new way. The writer part, yes. A given. And also, the teacher part, the coach. Not knowing how I’d do that was an invitation to find support. I’d heard of consultant Dan Blank through one of my favourite shows, the Write-minded Podcast, and I’d followed him for a while. When I reached out to Dan for a chat, the combination of inspiration and fear I was experiencing was familiar. A good sign. Taking action is the best way I know to dispel fear. And so, I did. I said yes to working with him for a few months. A mini-dream come true and a lot of fun.
During that process, in a new way, I revisited my core beliefs and considered the question he posed recently in a free workshop: “What hill would you die on?” In other words, what’s most important to you as a creator?
I knew the answer right away.
All my life, I’ve been a lover of wonder. My writing explores it. I’m curious about the borderlands between ordinary reality and extraordinary perception and experience. I’m curious because I’ve always felt drawn to consider those liminal spaces—mystical awareness, stories of unusual encounters, the uncanny, and the possibility of connection across time and different planes of existence.
In my fiction, I aim to create psychologically compelling, moving stories about human characters with real struggles and depth—believable characters who get into our hearts, and whose experiences cause us to question reality and bring us to the edge of the known.
As a transformational life coach, I also show up in service of wonder at every session. That sense of awe each time someone I’m working with clarifies their dream and takes action for it, and feels the uplift of their own new perceptions—a deepening awareness of living in alignment with their sense of purpose.
A clear vision and progress, defined in their own terms.
Why is wonder so essential in our lives? Because it sparks us to marvel at the mystery in which we live. To question basic assumptions. To be amazed by the intricacy of things. The delicacy and complexity.
And so, in service of wonder, would I be willing to start a weekly newsletter? Yes. And yes, I’d be willing to make videos. I’d also be willing to override the upswell of fear that for a moment causes me to doubt myself each time I create something for immediate consumption and feel uncomfortable, unfinished, imperfect, nerdy, unpolished, too polished, an imposter—and so on—all in service of what feels important. Not just to me, but (I hope) to others, too. That’s why I show up.
The words “Awakening Wonder” came to me back in 2022, when I redid my website. At the time, the consultant I worked with suggested I use it as a tagline, and I pushed back. What literary writers have taglines?
Then along came Substack.
Magic.
What a gift to connect with you, dear subscriber, via this platform. A gift to connect with new-to-me writers and readers in this community of creatives. Along with meeting new people and enjoying others’ work, one of the unexpected pleasures here has been sharing some of my older material, giving new life to pieces from previously published books. And occasionally, publishing new poetry.
Question 3: What’s your vision for the New Year?
I’m still working on that one, and will be, over the holidays. What about you?
If you’re interested in receiving help in creating your own personal vision and bringing that vision into form, please note that I’ve recorded a three-part talk series on that subject, which is now available for paid subscribers. Each session runs approximately 50 minutes. As well, on January 17th, I’ll be offering a talk specifically on welcoming a beautiful year in 2025. If you’re inspired (or looking to be inspired) over the holidays, take advantage of this video series.
This winter, I’ll likely shift from a coaching focus to more of a writerly focus in my offerings for paid subscribers. But I’d love to hear from you on that subject. If you were to receive additional offerings from me, what would you most value?
All of this is a work in progress. It’s still new, and I’m feeling my way.
Finally…
As you may have noticed, telling you about receiving a publisher’s “yes” to my novel submission is not the point of this little reflection. I didn’t want to send you a newsletter primarily about accomplishments, but about how dreams work. How we work.
Once something we’ve desired comes to pass, or doesn’t, we can take a breath and celebrate—either the win, or that we’re still here, on this field of becoming. We reflect on the learning and start again. It’s how we grow.
And of course, the most important thing is to enjoy the process. On that note, here’s a quote I love by author Ben Okri:
“Our time here is magic! It's the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great, whatever is potential, whatever is rare, whatever is unique... It's the only space.”
Achieving things feels good, even astonishing sometimes. But who we become in that process—who we’re being while we’re here—that’s what I do my best to remember when I look up at the night sky.
I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a New Year filled with the magic and the wonder of beginnings.
Thank you for being here.
Robin
Awakening Wonder will return on Friday, January 3, 2025
Your grandmother's story sounds fascinating, Robin. I like "unsilenced." But you'll know your answer, as you sit with the question. I can hardly wait to read your book! Thanks so much for sharing.
What's my word for 2025? Love that question. I was thinking it must be "remember" - since I'm working on an ancestor memoir, my grandmother's crossing to America in 1893. The only problem: I'm trying to conjure her memories, not mine. And she is long gone. The historical record is sparse, given how women's stories--everyday people, not celebrities or royals, coming from places where they destroyed the records--are so often hidden. So I've had to consult my muses, the stars, and ancestral voices in novel ways to get to her story. So maybe that isn't my word.
I'm thinking "unsilenced" because maybe that is what my work is at this time: raising the voices of those whose stories have been lost. Making "herstory."
Not sure that's a legitimate word, but it feels true. What do you think?