The Spirit in the Afternoon: Magic and Mystics, Human Consciousness, and the Journey to the Abstract

Beijing, China.

Is there magic on a Summer's day afternoon? Is there a mystic nature to it all? There is that bittersweet moment when one gazes upon the Sunset, the mountains, the leaves blowing in the wind, and the grass under the coming twilight, and you can feel your lips almost utter the words.

"It is magical."

Then, as the years go by, and one withers onward into old age, a feeling of depth will live on the inside of the heart when that word is used. Was it really magical? Is there are any magic at all? Or is that beautiful sunset only the result of light waves and the neurology of the human brain? Did the magic ever exist?

Let us not forget that magic is a tool for the stories of long ago, but the spirit, now that is different. The connections of ideas from one to another. One human being with a mind on a plane of consciousness that is shared by all other minds. Each act of kindness can generate a form of positivism in another person's life.

Every time someone helps another human being out of selflessness, it is a drop in the ocean of goodness, and it is all part of a larger connection. Each idea is connected to all other ideas, for the abstract has no concrete limitations. Each possibility is an opportunity to share love with the word to put all of humanity in closer touch with the whole of the universe, in the physical and in the ideal.

This is not magic. This is not a miracle. This is the nature of humanity trying to align itself with the nature of the cosmos. To put the mind of the human in complete connection with the flow of water, the growing of the leaf, and the sharing of elements after a supernova. This is what human beings live for in our greatest depth. We have faith, but we also have fact. We have dreams, but we also have understanding. We have love, but we also have reasons for our love.

We want to know its origin. We want to know its value. We want to know it all. We want the far side of the universe to come to us and we want not to be down on our knees waiting, or with our hands in the air screaming.

We want to let our mind become one with all there is, material and formless. Every fiber of our being and every neurotransmitter that allows for us to have our imagination and fantasy can come together. For when all humans are together, as we always are, each idea leads us to a new one. All the collective ideas of humanity must not forget, that there were ideas before humans every walked on the Earth....existence, consciousness, omnipresence, limitlessness.

To call it magical is not enough. To call it mystical is not sufficient. Some call it the supreme. Some call it the divine. Some only call it love. When one gazes upon the sunset and the cool colors of the twilight, every idea of  goodness that has ever existed has brought you to that moment of joy...It is not magic. It is something stronger and more beautiful.