“This is what comes from dabbling. You can’t practice witchcraft while you look down your nose at it.” – Aunt Jet, Practical Magic (the movie)
When I was a teen-ager I decided I wanted to do yoga. Typically, rather than go to a class I read a book about it. The book I chose told me all about the diet and the philosophy and it freaked me out. Be a vegetarian? Meditate? At 16? You might as well have asked me to go to Mars. What would people think?
When I discovered new age and esoteric bookstores at the age of 17, I would spend hours in them, thumbing through books and wondering what it was that compelled me so. I’d spend so long in them that the smell would cling to my skin afterwards. I was too nervous to pay attention to that call. What would people think?
There is a great scene in the movie Practical Magic where Sandra Bullock’s character Sally has caused huge problems by using magic. Stockard Channing’s character scolds her with the line I have quoted above. But the only reason that Sally looks down her nose at magic is because she is desperate to fit in – she worries what people will think if she admits who she is. There is a bit of universal truth in there. You can’t properly practice anything if you are worried about what people will think. You can’t embrace your true self if you are also desperate to fit in. If you are dabbling in something, on some level you have decided not to admit that that is who you are.
On my shelves there are multiple dozens of books with a scrap of paper in them that mark the place where the book got uncomfortable. The bookmarks show where I stopped growing and stuck with dabbling. They show the place where it got dirty or scary or wild or raw or sacred or in some other way too much. So that is where I am going next. It makes perfect sense to me that some of my pathmarkers are bookmarks, because words have always been how I find my way.
xo
(picture of the Practical Magic green house borrowed from hookedonhouses)
