[Something Afoot is the story of awakening, written and released episodically. Welcome to Part 1. For entertainment purposes only.]

Hello. My name is Lark.

At least, that’s my name here in the physical realm.

I am a middle-aged woman who is admittedly kind of a mess. Don’t fret, I’m working on it and I’m gonna be okay.

Anyway, over the past few years, I have been blowing up various parts of my life trying to figure myself out and what the heck I am doing here. That’s the bigger plot, I guess.

This here episodic blog story thing is a side quest to put myself out there in all my messy glory. To join the chorus of voices sending their thoughts, beliefs, and intentions into the Universe. To weave some Lark-flavored tapestries for others to encounter, contemplate, and perhaps resonate with. To unabashedly ask questions that spirituality and science have attempted to answer since human started asking questions.

Like, WHAT THE FREAKING HECK, Universe. Seriously.

I don’t harbor any delusions about being special for contemplating my existence. I don’t pretend I have answers, and I don’t speculate from any place of authority. I present these thoughts as the human being Lark, with all of my attendant flaws and virtues. If anything, this is just an exercise in being authentic, to see what happens when I do.

Because y’all. Something is afoot.

First, a Confession

As someone who grew up in a family of practical, STEM-focused folks, and who has surrounded herself with logic-aligned, science-supporting, woo-free people, I struggle to not be embarrassed by what I’m about to say. It’s true that I have always been attracted to fantasy, science fiction, dream realms, the arts, and anything involving intuition. But from my teens until my forties, I have been very guarded about giving these non-rational themes undue influence in my real-world life. I have been thoroughly non-religious since starting to think for myself, and have followed science as my beacon for understanding how the world works.

So here we go, I’m gonna say it.

A couple of years ago, I decided to believe in magic.

I was sick of the confines of reality as I knew it, I was tired of all the neat little boxes around everything, and I wanted to step out. And so, I did. I consciously and intentionally started to believe in magic. I followed up my beliefs and intentions with lots of reading, consuming, experimenting, opening my mind to possibilities, and generally blazing a path towards bolstering that belief.

I will outline my initial path of exploring my belief in magic in Part 2 of my story of awakening, but first let me tell you: just deciding to believe in magic was huge for me. There was a lot of self-conscious hand-wringing. However there was also a strong undercurrent of truly not being able to give that much of a flying fart anymore. (It does seem silly to admit to believing in magic, but feel squeamish about swearing. As a concession, I invite you to sub in expletives liberally. Plus if my kids ever read this, there’s a good chance that they’ll laugh at the word “fart,” and that will bring me joy.)

An Itchy Brain Asks Impertinent Questions

I’ll admit I have been open to some loose notions of spirituality, but not in an organized way, and certainly not through religion, or the occult, or any other form of what I would previously have deemed as “woo”. My spirituality has expressed itself as a general curiosity about things I can’t easily wrap my head around (and of course a deep reverence for nature, but more on that at another time). The urgency of this curiosity has ramped up in the past few years, however. Age-old questions keep nagging:

• Who am I, really?
• What makes me, me?
• Why are we here?
• Do we have a purpose?
• What is my purpose, or how can I give my life meaning?
• What is it about being out in nature that makes me feel whole and alive?
• Does free will exist?
• What happened before the big bang?
• What’s going on with black holes?
• What’s beyond the edges of the Universe? Nothing?
• What is nothing?
• How can we be so apparently solid when, if you get down to the particles of matter, it’s mostly space?
• What is going on in my brain? How does it actually create thoughts, feelings, memories, experiences?
• How do animals know when and where to migrate?
• How does instinct work?
• Is there a collective unconscious?
• Is it possible we have souls separate from our bodies? (And for the love of God, why do I always mistype “soul” as “sould”? Is it a subconscious warning about selling your soul?)
• What the heck is going on when we dream?
• What do I make of the commonalities in reports of near-death experiences?
• What up with observer effect in quantum mechanics? Or if we dig deeper, the effect of the observer’s belief?
• What do I do with all of these numinous experiences and inexplicable synchronicities?
• What do I make of all of the totally irrational beliefs so many people have, whether religious, occult, fantastic, paranormal, extraterrestrial, etc? Are they really all crazy?
• Why do I feel so dissatisfied with reality as we know it? Why does it feel incomplete?
• Am I crazy?

And so on. Run of the mill existential questions, I’d wager.

Pesky Cracks in my Beloved Science

Science has been a pretty trusty belief system up until recently. But in the past several years, I’ve noticed that humanity’s collective approach to science has begun to feel more and more dogmatic, unyielding to big, important questions, and extremely resistant to challenges in the fabric of our understanding of the physical world as we know it.

Dogma is the main issue I have with organized religions. Dogma closes the mind to new ideas. Dogma puts boxes around things that should not be and cannot be contained. More and more, the scientific world feels like it’s being run by close-minded, gatekeeping zealots (and of course, money). Rupert Sheldrake has a great Ted Talk-esque presentation about it here called the Science Delusion. I also love this hilarious talk by Dean Radin explaining how paradigm-shifting science has almost always been considered utter delusional poppycock, magical thinking, or heresy when it first hits the scene.

The magic > religion > science pipeline that Dean Radin talks about feels apt. When I told a friend about some of the thoughts I was entertaining about the nature of reality and how it felt like I was succumbing to believing in magic, she responded that historically, things that humans don’t understand feel like magic, until a breakthrough in understanding is achieved and humanity has time to adapt to the new way of thinking about the world. The collective ontological shock of any major paradigm shift really can’t be understated. Well, dang. Okay! You’re right, friend. So I’ve been giving myself and others grace for assigning the word “crazy” to these thoughts and ideas. Because it does feel crazy.

Anyhoo, in light of the dogmatism plaguing scientific communities, I’ve put the bulk of science in a time out. (You’re still cool, quantum mechanics. ❤ you.) Until Big Science can be a little more flexible, exercise some humility, and open itself to challenging the current reigning materialistic and deterministic world views, it’s getting some tough love from me. Instead, I have been turning my ADHD superpower of hyperfocus to gleefully engage in one of my favorite activities…

Plunging Down Rabbit Holes

No rabbit hole has been off limits in my quest to find of evidence of magic. (I literally read Alice and Wonderland as one of the leads I was chasing. Highly recommend; it’s great!) No topic was too crazy to explore. Tarot. Witchcraft. The occult. World religions. Myths and legends. Archetypes. Ancient art. Ancient civilizations. Woo of all kinds. Dream theory. Psionics. The Gateway Experience. Paranormal phenomena. Extraterrestrials. Higher dimensional beings. Synchronicity. Human ecology. Symbiosis. Cognitive science. Neurodivergence. Theories of evolution. Mushrooms and mycelium. And on and on and on…

I’ve kept an open mind down all my rabbit holes, and will continue to do so. Because when I took magic out of the box labeled “fiction,” I am telling you, it started to become real.

Growing My Magic Beans

Initially I didn’t try too hard to enact magic onto the world of my own volition, some very silly and ineffective spell work notwithstanding. But I did start to look for and observe magic happening around me. I planted the seeds of wanting to believe in something a bit magical, something not too far out there, something just a wee bit beyond reason.

Not every avenue I went down grew a whole-ass beanstalk of magical belief, because for me, it needed to “make sense” on some level in order for it to be real. I’d have a theory, then find evidence that I was personally satisfied with—what my brain’s current belief system could reasonably deem as legit. And the times when the stars aligned in my belief system, it enabled me to accept as real something that previously seemed impossible. This in itself was pretty magical, because there was a snowball effect. Each time a seed of belief bore fruit, it allowed me to push the boundaries of belief of a little father. I could plant more seeds. Small shifts in perception slowly but surely evolved the seeds of “I want to believe” into a full, conscious, soul-affirming I believe. And as more and more magic was on the table, the more I believed even crazier things. Like being able to enact magic myself, although in mysterious ways I hardly understood.

In upcoming posts, I will outline some of the major rabbit holes I’ve followed, and maybe I’ll convince you that something’s afoot too. Or, even better—maybe my ramblings will provide a spark of inspiration leading you down your own unique rabbit holes. I believe that part of our power and agency is that we have to discover what works for us, individually. My path probably won’t be exactly the same as anyone else’s.

Anyway, next week I’ll be blathering on about the some of the first magical rabbit holes I went down: tarot, witchcraft, and the occult.

Homework

You with me fellow humans? Then I wanna know what’s been shakin’ in your worlds. I’m treating life as an actual play (yet another future topic), and therefore your interactions and ideas may influence this story as it unfolds. So tell me:

• What are your Big Nagging Questions?
• What rabbit holes have been numinous for you?

——END PART 1——

~~~For any friends who find this and resonate with it, or if you just like my writing, I’d accept help, ideas, or signposts to finding a writing, editing, or artist-adjacent job. You can also support me by buying my art or requesting a commission (links coming soon!). But don’t do it unless you want to; above all be true to yourself. ~~~