Category: Magic in Nature

sunlight behind yellow flowers in a meadow at sunset
Cornerstone Content, Entertainment, Magic in Nature, Our Magical World

Our Magical World

Ella

Dorothy was right – sometimes you don’t need to look further than your own back yard to find wonderful things to inspire you. Who needs a trip to Oz when our magical world is where we wake up?

I’ve always had this sense of wonder about the natural world. It’s often simple things like the beautiful symmetry inside of a purple onion, or the star shape of seeds when you cut the apple sideways. I’ve had friendships with trees (very good listeners) and connections with rocks, which I bring home from practically any walk outside of pavement. In some ways, I’m always on the lookout for treasure from nature, a hole in a tree that could be a fairy door, or a sunbeam that stirs that part of my imagination that longs for connection and magic.

This has led me to become a Wiccan, to take photos and turn them into art, to fill shelves with birch bark, seed pods, seashells, feathers, crystals, fossils, bones.

I’m fascinated by this idea that things out of stories and fairy tales are all around us, here in the real world, if you only know where to look. You have to be sensitive to it, like a psychic channeling spirits, awake to the possibilities. It’s almost the opposite of cynicism, embodying the belief that the real world already is inspiring, fascinating, beautiful, peaceful, connected, magical.

Do not disturb the spiders
frosted winter lace
Green Woods in Summer
path through the woods
what’s beyond the bridge?
bicycle to freedom

Dewdrops lined up like pearls on a spider’s web. Flower bushes that resemble a congregation of butterflies. Bicycles bringing communities together. Bunnies that are blue, octpuses change color when they dream, and Tasmanian devils that glow in the dark. The World of Wonders is not just fiction, not just imagination, but our magical world is at your fingertips and all around us.

A lot of what I blog about is the art of seeing, and I hope we can gather real things, people, and places that fulfill the dream of seeing our magical world is real.

  • One Thing Clear

    The spider watched the fog catching in her web, each bright bead another dying breath of the misty September morning. Frankly, she preferred dragonflies, but at least it made one thing clear: sometimes you cannot admire your creation until you stop working.

    Read the post.

  • Spiraling

    Curling rainbow roundExponential spiral stepsInfinity’s ease

    Read the post.

Magic in Nature, Magic in the Mindfulness, Our Magical World

Schoolhouse Rocks

Ella

The rocks at Schoolhouse Beach on Washington Island, Wisconsin, are so smooth they feel almost soft. The unique silky texture makes the rocks precious; you’d get a $200 fine for removing one! On a chilly day, visitors built rock stacks with these smooth, flat stones well-loved by the waves, instead of swimming. This stack was ours.

I worked hard in post to get separation of color in the individual rocks. Plus doesn’t that swirl of cloud at the top look a bit like an eye? Look out for the VFD.

Visit my store at society6.com/ellaarrow to find art prints, canvases, and other cool stuff made from my art.

Buy Schoolhouse Rocks
Ella Arrow Author
Ella Arrow Author
Magic in Nature, Magic in the Mindfulness, Our Magical World

October Snow

Ella

Snow on the ground this morning, the first of the season. And not a little snow – 2 or 3 inches. An impressive amount for October in southern Wisconsin.

Grr, said my son to the too-pretty trees.

I’d gone to bed in a foul mood after an up and down day. I got the first proof copies of my book, The Flight of The Starling, in the mail, which was thrilling, but I also spent half the day fighting with Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat over an embedded fonts problem. A stupid technical glitch that I have to fix in order to publish this book. So close and yet so far.

Plus the kids didn’t want to get out of bed, and for some reason, my son, who’s ten, decided that snow was the worst thing that could’ve happened to him. Oh what a hassle. We’ll have to find all our snow gear. (Nevermind that I did that while they ate breakfast.) Why oh why does the school make us put on snow pants to play outside?  On and on. His grumpiness infected me. By the time I was driving them to school – late out the door, plus extra minutes scraping the car – I was as pissed at the October snow as he was.

When I got back home, I realized I needed to reset. First snows are magical, and that is my quest: to seek out the magical aspects of life, to acknowledge that awe can be found every day if only we look. More troubleshooting is still ahead of me today, and I didn’t want to give in to the dark clouds so early in the day. I decided I would try my best to appreciate the first snow, to look with new eyes and see the wonder in it, dammit.

All it took was a walk around my block. The first thing I noticed was the sounds, a shushing and a plopping as the trees threw snowballs with their leaves. (Yes, I got hit, once. Yes, I shrieked.)

Octoplant creeps up toward the jacks.

The neighbors’ potted plant, long leaves thickened with snow, became a tentacled monster. Halloween decorations turned cartoonish, plastic skeletons grinning at their foolishness in the extra bright light. A huge rope spiderweb tied to porch rails sparkled with frost.

Now don’t you feel silly.

The trees dropped spontaneous snow-showers, flash flurries that glittered in the morning sun, silver and gold. The orange and red leaves on the sidewalk stood out more sharply, a last flame of fall before the black and white of winter.

It wasn’t just the snow itself that seemed beautiful – it was the autumn snow. The October snow. And of course, bare black trees outlined in clinging white are pretty hard to growl at. My cheeks grew pleasantly chilled in one block, and the warmth inside my front door was welcoming and soft.

The hardest part of finding the magic was deciding that I could.

Ella Arrow Author
Ella Arrow Author
Magic in Nature, Magic in the Mindfulness, Make your own Magic, Our Magical World, Tiny Stories

One Thing Clear

Ella

The spider watched the fog catching in her web, each bright bead another dying breath of the misty September morning. Frankly, she preferred dragonflies, but at least it made one thing clear: sometimes you cannot admire your creation until you stop working.

Visit my store at society6.com/ellaarrow to find art prints, canvases, and other cool stuff made from my art.

Buy One Thing Clear
Ella Arrow Author
Ella Arrow Author