article: Week Four: The Power of Positivity | written down

When I thought about this week’s prompt the first thing that came to mind was magic. I see magic – the cast-a-spell, make-a-wish kind of magic, not the rabbit-yanked-out-of-the-hat kind—as the art journaling version of prayer. Instead of engaging solely in conversation, when you cast a spell you also employ visual aids – candles, incense, sound and other representations of your aim … a little something to engage all of the senses. And magic is only effective if you envision having already achieved what you’re seeking as you work your spell, and fully believe all is well after you’re done – if you mope around and wonder if it worked, guess what? It won’t. So, to me, magic is a primo example of the power of positive thinking—it all boils down to: I have to change my attitude before I can make a change my life.

I didn’t want to do a woo-woo witchy page so I decided to spin off of two of my favorite quotes; Arthur C. Clarke’s “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” and Terry Prachett’s counter quote “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.” I picked a magician image because I wanted to play off the idea that sometimes a little illusion is necessary to make a change – sometimes we need to convince ourselves and others that we can pull the rabbit out of the hat before we are actually capable of producing said bunny. The magician image is from a vintage advertisement which I altered (for one thing, the guy in the original doesn’t have a festive bow tie).

Happy Year of the Fire Dog, everyone! (As of this Sunday, EST)

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