Magic Archives - Martha Beck

Magic

Hidden in Plain Sight: How to keep yourself open to life’s mystery and magic

Here’s an image that recently blew my little mind. It’s called the “Coffer Illusion.” When you look at it, you’ll either see four rows of rectangles or sixteen circles. You probably won’t see both. But the rectangles and the circles are all right there, in plain sight.

When I first saw the Coffer Illusion, the circles were thin on the ground. Absent, in fact. Squinting didn’t help. Crossing my eyes didn’t either. Then my gaze relaxed slightly, and sixteen circles seemed to pop into existence. Then they were gone. The rectangles took over again. But now I knew the circles [...]

Magic at the Corner of Intention and Invention

I recently went to Costa Rica for the first time. Twice.

Of course that’s not literally true. There’s only one first time for everything. But something happened in regard to this adventure that I’ve noticed many times, in many areas of my life. Things magically double up.

Here’s how this goes: I feel a strong pull to do something, usually for no apparent reason. After daydreaming about it for a while, I set out to make it happen. Then, circumstances seem to arrange themselves to give me the thing I’ve just created for myself. It ends up coming to me two [...]

Like Violets in Early Spring

So in spite of everything, violets are blooming in the forest around my house. One day there were none, the next day, they’re everywhere.

I’ve been chatting about this with Elizabeth Gilbert. In her book BIG MAGIC, Liz cites a mathematician whose father told him to publish his ideas quickly, because “When the time is right for certain things, they appear at different places, in the manner of violets coming to light in early spring.”

In science this is called “multiple discovery.” It happens a lot: calculus, oxygen, and evolution were discovered at the same time by different scientists.

Well, last week, [...]

Manifesting 202

I don’t often yammer about “manifesting” because I think the whole topic is a bit cheesy. On the other hand (she said, blushing) I know it works. Call it the Law of Attraction, call it selective attention, call it karma, call it long distance and tell it to jump off a bridge if you want—the plain truth is that we basically experience the world we think into being.

I’ve been mulling this over for years. I wrote my most recent book—Diana, Herself— as “fantasy fiction” so I could describe the magic I experience without being institutionalized. But after all this [...]

The Magic Created Just for You

Every year, before I go to Londolozi, South Africa, for our annual Self Transformation Adventure Retreats (STARs), I expect magical things to happen. When I get there I always panic—Holy crap, I’ve promised something I can’t possibly create. Will the magical things arrive?

And every year, they do.

This year—whew!—was no exception. I watched our STARlings create magic for themselves, and I watched Africa embrace them, and it was awesome. But right now I’ll just tell you something that happened to me, me, ME, because as Nisargadatta Maharaj once half-joked, “God is doing all of this for me.”

Before leaving for Africa, [...]

Conjuring Good Magic: Setting Powerful Goals

Photo by Sheeshoo

“Life would be so great,” said Ilsa, a fledgling entrepreneur, “if I could just start a business to pay all my bills.” Another client, Sue, wanted to have a baby. “Being a mom would make me happier than anything in the world,” she told me. Like any codependent life coach, I wanted everything for Ilsa and Sue that they wanted for themselves. I longed for a magic wand that would let me bippity-boppity-boo their dreams into reality, fairy godmother–style. Instead, I did the next best thing: I worked with them as they made to-do lists and financial [...]

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