Learning to Love. Lesson 8:Magic

L´earning to  Love

Gloria Ornelas Hall

Lesson 8: Magic

People call believers, crazy. But to love is to ‘be-live’ in someone. Plato said that to be in love was to be mad…and it is in fact a physiological state of intoxication, where the senses lose their capacity to focus, the heartbeat and respiration are altered, and the circulatory system augments the metabolism. In fact the most vulnerable state, in man is just after orgasm. His perception is altered to the point of being incapable of sensing danger.

For people who limit reality to what they see and touch…belief is incomprehensible. Those of us who work on our capacity to see with the heart and feel with the soul, learn to focus not on things as they are, but on things as they could be.  To love someone is to focus not on what they are, but on who they can become. To believe in someone is to focus on their potential, and loving them brings it out.

Miracles are the ‘spectacles’ through which we look at life to identify magic. They are the lenses which allow us to focus on the probable. They align facts with meaning. We give meaning to everything that surrounds us, and though we cannot change things as they are, we can certainly change what we think of them. This capacity to re-create life through the significance we give it makes us ‘be-live’. We live out our subjective interpretation and give ‘me-aning’ to things.

Take this morning. I walked down the stairs barefoot, and suddenly stepped on something. It looked like a shell, but looking at it closely I realized it was a Baby Jesus!!!! That for me, given my past as a Nun, is a miracle. The fact probably was that my dog got into someone´s wastebasket, got ahold of a piece of the Mexican traditional “Rosca de Reyes”* and got the hidden figure, bringing it home to chew on. The stark truth is barren. I like my magical interpretation of the synchronicity which made me feel loved and special.

Maybe it´s stupid or crazy, but I chose to be mad and love, rather than never love at all.

*The adoration of the Magi in Western religious tradition is celebrated as the Feast of Epiphany, on January 6^th. In Mexico families gather to share a sweetened bread where a hidden figure of the Baby Jesus adds fun and surprise to he or she who gets it in their slice, obliging them to throw a party. What is interesting is that the word ‘epiphany’ comes from the Greek describing  sudden understanding, as of a strike of realization. This breakthrough enlightens realization with deeper understanding and renewed perspective- magic. It is called the Feast of Epiphany because it is the realization that Jesus is the Promised Son of God.