laws of magic

and the lifespan of ferns

Summer in Ireland is magic.

Yes it’s beautiful, yes it’s lush and green, yes the people are wonderful, but it’s the undercurrent of magic that transfixes us all whether we admit it or not.

But I don’t believe in magic, you say. Magic doesn’t need you to believe in it, not the real kind. That’s what faerie tales get wrong. Disney didn’t really do its research with Tinkerbell, you see.

Faeries don’t die when you stop believing in them— they hide, fade into another dimension, keep to themselves.

This is the part where you’re starting to wonder if I’m being serious about magic. I am always very serious about magic.

Have you ever had the joy of introducing toddlers to the ocean? It never gets old. They can’t take in the vastness, the endless horizon is obscured into a bluish haze. They squeal and don’t understand the physics of waves. Even with their partially developed frontal cortexes, they immediately sense the awe and danger of a strong wave. They giggle, but look down at the sand pouring out beneath their feet in betrayal.

I’m a big believer in letting kids experience the dangerous edges of nature. Danger and beauty often go together— a cliff that cascades into an ocean, a sequoia that climbs endlessly into the sky, a waterfall that pummels rock into sand. We learn our place when we stay open to the wild and magic.

We can’t get over the big and ancient trees everywhere. “Mommy!!! It’s a tree!” Una squeals every few minutes on our walks. I get it. The trees here are Ents. They’re alive. They think we’re cute, mere blips on their timeline of life.

Have you ever tried to photograph old trees? Like redwoods or sequoias? Even this Western Hemlock pictured above doesn’t really photograph. Una loves visiting with trees. She likes to hug and kiss them. She strokes their branches and climbs into their arms, like a baby. She talks to them like they can hear her, probably because they can.

“I’m kissing the tree.”

Oscar tells me to make a wish every time we walk through an overgrowth. “What did you wish for mommy?” I told him I wished for a kiss. He toddles over and kisses me on the cheek. “What did you wish for Oscar?” I ask him.

“I wished for a hug,” he smiles at me. We hug. Small magic counts as much as the big stuff, I always think.

Everywhere we look, it seems, there’s foxglove, or digitalis. It grows in fuchsia clumps along hedges, in gardens, on the corners of the road. Bees swarm in and out of their downcast bells, making their stalks sway.

They can kill you, of course.

Even touching them can cause your skin reacts immediately, trying to alert you of the impending doom, by breaking out in a rash. Ingest them and you can die. They’re gorgeous though. Beauty and danger dancing together, once again, like it’s a law of nature.

What’s more magical than a flower that can kill you?

“The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse.” — C. S. Lewis

One thing I think Magic got right, that Science struggles with, is a respect for danger. In a magical worldview, danger is a given. There will always be a cunning wolf, a poisonous apple, a crafty witch. In magic, you learn it’s your job to treat these dangers of life with respect and pragmatism.

In Science, sometimes I think we lose our respect for things in the itemization and breakdown of how things work.

“It’s just made up of atoms,” we say in Science, as if an atom isn’t its own miraculous universe. How many universes do we contain? Science has yet to reach the final nesting doll of existence, and for that, I’m grateful.

grandfather fern holding his own in this forest

Did you know ferns are some of the oldest plants on earth? While the earliest ferns are now extinct, the plant family are some of our most ancient. Every fern is the descendant of DNA passed down through millions of years, and we still get to touch it. The knowledge lurking in those coils, makes me feel like a blip. A happy blip, but a blip nonetheless.

My children know none of these facts, yet. They move through the natural world in a primal state. It’s fascinating to see what they’re drawn to, what they stay away from, and what trees call their names when they’re passing.

Their instinct to always kick of their shoes, no matter the conditions or weather, the way they see a tree and immediately try to climb it, a stream and try to bathe, a ledge and see a jump— it’s so consistent as to feel like a law of nature. Like a magical contract.

Who am I to stop such a thing?