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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

A Children's Book Of Magic

So far, I have a cluster of stories for children.  They are all about relationships, but deeper down they re about acceptance, loving yourself and being true to who you are.  The story Izzie and Harold is a story about a bat and a frog who live in two very different worlds.  So different, in fact, that all their friends and family think its crazy that a frog might be thinking about a bat or that a bat might pause at night while flying over the frog pond to feel entranced by the singing of those slimy bug eating creatures.  But each of them point out that for as different as they might seem at first blush, they do both like to eat bugs, and both fly even though one is a leap while another swoops and dives.  They get along famously.  In the book Booger Under The Bed the main character, Lucy, is afraid of the dark.  After having slain her imaginary monsters that she fears, she finds that one of them has magically come to life and has something to teach her about authentic bravery and freedom from fear.  His lesson is nothing short of a triumph of the heart.  In yet another story, Mr Skunk And The Kingdom of Heaven, the character who is most reviled by the forest animals winds up literally going down the river never to be seen again. But when he emerges again, Mr Skunk returns a changed man.....or a changed skunk. His own change inspires all of the creatures of the wood to think differently about the things that might at first blush make us different.  The story of Mr. Skunk is that what makes us different or even hated by some is just what makes us great.

In the next story, I present a very different kind of book, a simple and direct how-to guide of magic for children.  It begins with an oath to always do what is in the highest and continues on to explain the true nature of all magic, which emerges from what we are in our divine natures. By explaining the nature of our ability to intend and thus manifest, children are guided through understanding how their own thoughts form their wishes and how wishes, properly given can bring a world of wonder and opportunity.

The book makes a break from the notions of most magic and explains how we have sought to darken or demonize what we all do naturally moment by moment, which is to create our own reality. The book, then, is really about how to manifest your dreams while understanding what we think and even fear can be conquered to set the stage for a different kind of life.  There are no pagan rituals, no sacrifices or even eye or newt. It is spoken in a clear and simple voice and helps to show that we are all magical creatures beneath our own ordinary skins.

These books all help me to learn how to relate to the material of awakening in a new way, and they all spring from the fact that I am a parent who knows how precious and wonderful childhood is and how the magic that is so naturally present in children is best nurtured and seen as something that need not be put on a shelf but held deep within the heart no matter what the world might say about it. Our magic is our very beings that are capable of glimpsing the wonder that is in us and in all things around us.  Magic is in the moment!

So whether I wind up finding a publisher for these books or if I publish them myself, I think they all offer something worthwhile to children. In the last book, which is still being edited, Mr. Skunk, I am utilizing my daughter's own sense about how the book ought be written.  She thinks right now that its a bit too heavy....so I am finding a way to keep the pace light and the path brightly lit.  It is little surprise that my daughter is also afraid of the dark like so many children often are, so Lucy in Booger Under The Bed takes place in a fictional landscape that is every person's home who ever was unsure about what might happen when the lights go out. If we are lucky, though, we wind up making the monsters real only to discover they have something to teach us about what it is to actually BE a monster.

With the work that I am now doing on the book about my awakening, I am hoping that I can get these projects moving and at some of them accepted as actual printable manuscripts.  Keep me in your prayers and let's all exercise our own magic for a better world more full of compassion, tolerance, and understanding......

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