on enchantment

bringing magic home

There's an elaborate game my children like to play, one entirely of their own invention. My daughter is a water sprite, lost and far from home. I am the kindly witch who finds her. The role my son has chosen for himself is simply The Witch's Son. Sometimes he's a healer, sometimes a chemist, often both. 

When they play, they mostly tell each other stories. The water sprite has wandered out of the river, and they tell each other details of the place she has found herself, a landscape I often think about as I fall asleep. 

It is a dark and wooded place. The trees are full of nests, and there are birds of all kinds on every branch. I, the witch, live inside an oak, and the living space magically opens up before you upon entering through the blue door in the trunk. There is a river by my tree that the hummingbird families are fond of. Near the river is a pond, and on the pond is a red rowboat called The Osprey. There is a healing spring beneath an apple tree, and glowing ferns, and the sky is always, always lilac. 

I've needed the game this week. We recently returned to Brooklyn after time away in the western Catskills. I love the mountains, and I'm always struck with a painful tenderness upon leaving them. It gets worse every time. When I'm in the Catskills, my hands on trees, in the water, on the earth, I feel like I've touched something I'm supposed to stay close to. There is so much to be startled by, so much to be in awe of. 

The only book I had on the trip was

Katherine May

's Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age. Katherine's books are like teachers and companions, curious friends that invite questions I didn't know I had. 

I sat by the fire and read this passage again and again: 

"But seeking is a kind of work. I don't mean heading off on wild road trips just to see the stars that are shining above your own roof. I mean committing to a lifetime of engagement: to noticing the world around you, to actively looking for small distillations of beauty, to making time to contemplate and reflect. To learning the names of the plants and places that surround you, or training your mind in the rich pathways of the metaphorical. To finding a way to express your interconnectedness with the rest of humanity. To putting your feet on the ground, every now and then, and feeling the tingle of life that the earth offers in return. It's all there, waiting for our attention. Take off your shoes, because you are always on holy ground."

I knew I'd eventually have to try to bring my mountain sensitivity back with me to New York City.

Heron with Apples - pencil and watercolor on paper (2023)

On Tuesday, we set out on foot in search of a waterfall. Past a gate and into wild forest lands, we followed a stream. On one side of the path was towering Japanese knotweed so thick it obscured the water. On the other side, a meadow full of aster, a small sea of goldenrod, wild raspberries, and tall, feral apple trees.  

The sky was beginning to turn purple. I was looking out over the meadow when a great blue heron lifted out of the goldenrod. She looked nearly as tall as me, and her outstretched wings seemed to move in slow motion as she rose into the air and disappeared behind the apple trees. 

A split second. No one else saw. But the image was instantly seared into me: The heron moving slowly skyward, the meadow full of apples and goldenrod. 

Back from the mountains, a sadness set in that I couldn't shake. It stayed with me for days. All I could do was daydream about throwing myself into a cold pond that was now 140 miles away. 

Last night, my children were back in the world of the water sprite and the witch and the witch's son, and, as we played, I offered the image of the heron rising slowly over the meadow, the lilac sky behind her. "You should paint that," my son said. 

As an artist, I am amateur but enthusiastic. Once the kids were asleep, I painted the heron and the apples, and the act returned me to a nearness to the bird, to the image that had so shaken me loose. I felt a surprising awareness as I sat with the image and let it unfold in new ways. And this morning I feel lighter, the heron somehow still close, the light in my kitchen seeming somehow as extraordinary as the light in the Catskills. 

Just now, I read this line in Katherine's book: “I think I’m beginning to understand that the quest is the point. Our sense of enchantment is not triggered only by grand things; the sublime is not hiding in distant landscapes. The awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is transformed by our deliberate attention.”

A relief to remember two things: The mountains are still there. I can find enchantment at my kitchen table. 

P.S. The artwork I make to accompany these posts (usually the first image) is for sale and pay-what-you-wish. Simply reply to this email and let me know you’re interested.