Realm of Magic
When I was traveling in Mexico at the age of 21, a friend told me about a healer. A woman. A very strong woman. He told me she had cured his family from a spell. Immediately I felt that I wanted to meet this healer. Not because of a special question I had, but because I felt a magnetic attraction to this realm, where things seem to happen in different and mysterious ways. We travelled to her house. She knew that I was coming long before I called her. We sat in front of each other and both of us entered a deep state of trance. She started to converse in a way totally foreign to me and yet it was most familiar. After spending some hours together, she drove me back to my hotel. I was deeply impacted by this totally magic experience. Though I had no words for it, my heart and my body felt pure joy. My friend and I continued our travels, and on our return, I visited her once more. Like before, we moved again in the Land of Magic for some hours, and after, she gave me a lift to my hotel.
In the coming years, back in Switzerland while studying Psychology, I always looked back on our very special encounters as an enchanted world. I didn’t want to think too much about it because I was afraid that it had just been a dream. Many times I wondered why this magic was not part of study the psyche. But what was the Land of Magic?
After finishing university I called her. Again, I felt total excitement, total delight, pure joy and connection. It was as if we had known each other for years. After celebrating these delicious moments of being reconnected, I asked her for advice about what to do with my life. Her answer was not what I expected. She told me to sit in silence every morning and night and wait for clarity. I followed her advice, and after 4 weeks of regular sitting, I got it. All of a sudden it was so clear, that I wondered how I could have ever forgotten this deep longing of wanting to learn from her. How could it be that something so meaningful was outside of my awareness?
I called again, feeling a bit insecure. How should I tell a woman I had met just twice in my life that I wanted to study with her? Gathering my courage, I called and told her that my deep longing was to come and learn with her. She expressed a cry of joy and asked me if all Swiss people were so slow. Tears coursed down my face. All that I had experienced that had touched me so deeply had not just been a dream. The Land of Magic was real, and I was longing to dwell in this world.
After a month, I landed in Mexico. She picked me up at the airport, and the first thing she told me was: ‚Listen girl, here, there are no books. We don’t talk about things. Here, we see. We feel. And we heal. There is nothing I can explain to you. You will have to discover the Realm of Magic yourself. And it is not what you think.’
This was a definitive kick-off. I had no clue what she wanted to tell me, but I was there and willing to walk into the unknown. I sat next to her for weeks while she was healing people. I just observed them as they became well again. I had no idea what exactly she was doing while she laid her hands on them.Then one day, I sat there, looked at a patient, and I just knew. My hands started to move. And there it was again: the Realm of Magic where things just seem to reveal themselves.
In this Realm, different laws seem to be at work. Memories and present moments have the same aliveness. Experiences from the past and longings of the soul are living entities that want to be seen. Sometimes they show themselves in strange masks; sometimes they need a physical discharge. Sometimes they open up to pure ecstasy; sometimes they just pulse through the body. It is a constant flow, a dance, a silent ocean, where every single drop moves through infinite depth.
We can think about things. We can even detect the reasons why we suffer or something is not working well. It’s a rational process of analyzing known parameters and how they work together. Whereas in rational thinking, linear cause-and-effect is assumed, in the Realm of Magic, things pop up from anywhere unpredictably. They present themselves in their own rhythms. This realm is not accessed with the analytical mind.
In the Realm of Magic, memories and wisdom become alive. They show up in their own pattern, often totally forgotten or not considered in the everyday thinking. Sometimes stories from generations back or collective traumas are like living entities that want to be experienced rather than talked about. They want to be felt. They want to reconnect in order to become free. In the Realm of Magic, everything is alive. Solutions present themselves as energy-in-motion, wanting to give birth to the next level.
That journey took place in the year of 1992. Since then I have been investigating healing with different tribes and worked with many clients. And I kept wondering if there was a cultural understanding in my country for what I had learned and experienced with indigenous people. I wanted to understand the origins and philosophical concepts of western thinking. In 2005 I returned to university to study ethics. After graduating ethics I knew that we need to build bridges. The understanding of life in a western academic world does not include the Realm of Magic. The very things that academics label as ‘esoteric’ and ‘unprofessional’, are perfectly natural for indigenous peoples, and each tribe has generations of healing traditions handed down over centuries.
The journey of discovery is still going on. And reconnection to the Land of Magic is more important than ever. So many solutions wait there to be received by us.
Nature, Collective Culture & Fear
In 2018, there was an extremely dry summer in Switzerland, known as Europe’s ‘cradle of waters’. Many trees died from drought. They just fell to earth in the middle of the summer. I remember one day walking in the woods and feeling the trees’ longing for water. I grieved to see that humans create such imbalances that the aborigines of the world become so thirsty. I sat down and looked at these wonderful giants and asked them what I could do. One special tree seemed to answer me: ‚Just look at us. We have been here for millions of years. Look at us and see who we are!’
The Land of Magic had opened up again. I felt humbled and love, and was deeply grateful to feel this connection with them. The trees are holding space for life. They are alive and a unique and beautiful expression of creation. They provide home to millions of plants, animals, fungi and bacteria; the building blocks for our existence. They give us food, shelter and oxygen. And they know so much about collaboration. How can we forget the importance of Nature?
We exchange millions of atoms with our environment each second. The water we drink carries the information of all the substances it has met on its way to our mouth. An environment of peace influences the state of being of people, animals, and plants. Our
bodies know this because we constantly perceive. In the western way of thinking, this natural interconnectedness is not part of collective decision-making. This is the curse of our time. This ties in with Covid and the way we handle this global situation.
It is impressive how much massive environmental destruction is just brushed off as if it has nothing to do with us. Millions of trees were set on fire in the summer of 2019, and not one single government cried out for the madness to be stopped. The toxic impact of big transnational companies seems to be tacitly accepted, knowing that they kill the natural beauty of nature, the endlessly giving soil and destroy the home of millions of people who are natives to these lands. These actions are justified by scientific approval and the very strange messages that we are not causing harm. This is a deeply perverted double-bind. While brutal violence is being done to people and nature, it is trivialized by saying that it’s all good. Violence is being enacted and then it is said that this is helpful for people. Populistic messages are against natural instincts, the very ancient connections to life. These instincts have been telling me during many years, that this mode of operation is not sane any more. Destruction always leaves disruptive traces. Destruction is not life affirming. I don’t need scientific proof for this, and I assume that many people have been feeling the same.
The effect of such contradictory messages created a deep tension of being alienated. I couldn’t identify with the governance of my country. How should I trust political decision makers, when the life-threatening actions are not treated with first priority?
My natural instincts provided me with totally different messages to what politics put on the top of the agenda, creating an uncomfortable incoherence. The tension between wanting to belong to a collective and the messages of my natural connection to life, which was my innate coping strategy for adaptation, had been a stressor. Upon realizing this, I decided to follow my inner wisdom.
Fortunately, there is an ever-growing number of people who recognize the need for change. Even so, there is still so much resistance to fully recognizing the depth and breadth of the changes deeply needed. Collectively, we seem to wait for the next scientific proof, which often lends itself to a tacit acceptance for lies, murder and destruction, under the guise of being the best for everyone. Why is this so, given the fact that so many people are realizing the necessity for change?
A collective culture is highly bonding, because it represents a shared reality. Having sacrificed the deep sense of belonging to nature, collectively shared values remain all we have. Even though the collectively shaped reality is dangerous, stepping out of it seems to be more frightening. This is the madness of our times. Lack of trust in our natural instincts leads to even more distancing from nature and creates even more fear. Leaving the collectively agreed reality is entering the land of the outlaw, the unprotected and wild anarchy.
Most people are not anarchists and put up with a given reality, even if it is self-destructive. And this is really scary. It is deeply frightening that it is the holding up of common, life destroying values which ultimately will lead to the elimination of our species, while at the same time being caught in the illusion that this is the only option we have. Becoming cynical is a natural reaction to this one-way road. Life no longer feels safe. Fear is spreading like a virus. Underground. Invisible. Highly contagious. Far away from the Land of Magic.
Covid stepped onto this shaky ground, where so much contradictory information and fear has been spread for so long. All of a sudden, the decades of suppressed emotions seemed to come to the surface and go out of control. There is no longer a way to avoid the underlying fear, as being done when reading about hunger, war or climatic catastrophes in regions hundreds of miles away — even while these problems are dramatically more threatening and millions of people dying of them every year. Covid’s appearance on the world stage wasn’t in the far away Pacific Islands being flooded by oceans, or parts of Africa going through years-long droughts. No, the pandemic hit the heart of Western culture. There was even no possibility of leaving it up to the coming generations. It was right here. In a very short time, Covid moved across the planet and knocked at the gate of the big polluted, industrialized cities, and with it came a wide range of interpretations.
Transformation
In the Autumn of 2019 the Brazilian Amazon Forest was burning. Many fires were set. At one point, there were more than 70,000 fires, far too many to extinguish, especially given the fact that some groups weren’t interested at all in stopping them.
At one point, I felt totally paralyzed. Everything I did in Switzerland seemed to be nonsense while the aborigines of our planet were being slaughtered. How will the waters of world find their orientation if all of a sudden billions of trees are missing? Maybe the rains will become totally confused? I felt like an idiot sitting in a golden cage in Switzerland while the world is on fire. I felt the need for having to change so deeply, that I decided to go the Amazonian jungle in Peru. I needed to be with the guardians of the rain forest, with healers and shamans, because I was overwhelmed by what was happening. I felt lost and disconnected and couldn’t see the next steps anymore. Two months later, I was sitting with them in a circle and doing rituals with plant medicines again.
The first two weeks, I went through hell. I re-experienced my deepest fears. Is real change possible? Can we humans heal? I moved through inner wars and destructive sides and genetic memories. I was in an internal fight between the longing of my heart, knowing about life’s big web of interconnectedness, and my rational mind analyzing all the injustice and having lost hope for change. There was no joy anymore. I struggled with controlling all of what I knew: contradictions, destruction, dangerous human-made realities and millions of people following these patterns, including myself. I was trapped in the one-way reality of suicide.
At one point, I knew if i did not stop identifying with this destructive reality, which is a one way ticket to total destruction, it would kill me. I couldn’t go on living in a golden cage. Once more in my life, I made the decision to choose the Realm of Magic. But it was not my head leading to the change. At one point, I felt my roots again. I felt love and a deep connection to life, the best place for letting go of old habits. This deep transformation happened two months before Covid arrived in Europe at the beginning of 2020.
Covid
Covid’s potency for killing people, combined with science not knowing how to cure and control it, seems like a mirror of the way problems are solved or rather, remain unsolved in this world. Technology and science are no longer omnipotent, nor are they the pillars of western society which should save us from our our self-produced mess. All of a sudden this anchor broke. Maybe we have gone too far with upholding our so-called developed lifestyles.
The Realm of Magic is different. What is being shown is watched, observed and listened. There is no underlying masterplan for having to reach a prescribed goal. There is no suppressed agony; therefore the ground is not soaked with fear. The pillars are the capacity to face things even if they scare us to death — until we realize that even the most terrifying information is part of the eternal change of creation. It is never the same and yet we can become familiar with this divine dynamic. If fear should appear, it is being taken as precious information that wants to reveal its message.
If we don’t transform fear and anger, we end up suppressing it, and this is stress. We disconnect more. The vision gets narrow and we forget about nature and the big cycles of life and its interrelations.
Disconnection and stress will not lead to creative solutions — even when a virus is dangerous. A narrow vision shuts down curiosity to understand the numerous interrelations of everything alive. Rushing, stress, anger and despair are not wise counselors, especially in a crisis. They are the products of a society that has lost its roots and is prisoned to its own disconnected world view — a world that needs more and more speed and where slowing down is the enemy. Again, a double-bind with a terrible effect. We were told to stay home, knowing that our economy would collapse. The so-called first-world reality doesn’t allow us to just be. The whole western model seems to be breaking down.
What can the solution be for this pandemic, the product of a highly polluted world, if we disregard the need for slower rhythms? Again, it can seem hopeless, as if there is no exit.
It’s like someone being abused again and again, until one day the immune system collapses. This break down doesn’t happen from one day to the other, as humans have the amazing capacity to adapt. Stress continues and gets higher and we become used to constantly being alert — until one day the self-defense mechanism just won’t work any more.
Nature seems to show similar patterns. After many years of intoxication, imbalances show in tsunamis, floods, droughts, grasshoppers and Covids. Yes, plural. Corona is not the first and not the last virus. But it is the first hitting us without defense. It is the first virus to overwhelm the Western world in many years, despite our so-called highly evolved culture.
One thing is sure about Corona: it is an adaptation of Nature. Not in a moral sense. Nature doesn’t work with such concepts. Viruses are part of life’s foundation, and they always evolve when they are required. Maybe for cleansing. Maybe for transforming pollution. They evolve because life is constantly adapting.
When we look at Covid as an organic expression, we can learn. We can readjust. It creates space to breathe. We can slow down traffic and pollution. We can stop pouring toxins into the ground and waters. We can change everything as soon as we feel the connection with life again, because that connection gives us a place to relax and to find orientation.
Nature always adapts. It is her inherent intelligence. She doesn’t resist. She has no plan but to create new possibilities for life to grow. Observing her, we see an eternal collaboration between species and elements. They all complement each other and form symbiosis. Looking at the whole situation from a broad perspective, we can understand Corona as the time for adaptation. It is like the very first thing my Mexican teacher told me many years back: ‚Perceive and hold your perception without making any interpretations. Just be with it until clarity reveals itself. There are no statistics which prove your perception. Here we see, feel, and listen. And when there is the moment for action, you will know. And then act. Don’t do anything before this!’
Stop trying to fix the imbalance with your rational mind. Feel Nature. Feel life. Sense it. Feel you and let go of old habits. Reconnect again. The Realm of Magic is our nature. It is nature. A whole big interconnected organism without borders. Take care of you and learn to move with the natural cycles again. We don’t need statistics for this. The Realm of Magic is our inherent dance with life.
For this, instinctive knowing is required, to know when it is time for turning inwards, listening and feeling the moment for action. We no longer need to wait for science to confirm this deep knowledge. The natural perception of the Realm of Magic is what supports the changes of each of us. And if someone feels lost in this eternal dance of life, we can ask for help. The trees are always with us. Silence can become a dear ally. We can ask friends for help and support us in difficult moments.
Sometimes it looks like the collective mind is still wanting a single explanations for nature’s expression. Not one single snowflake looks like the other. The future is not standardized solutions. Life is Creativity. The Realm of Magic takes things as they are and lets them readjust the way they need to, by observing, testifying, and taking action that is organically evolving out of the whole work of art.
This is why the Realm of Magic is in the neighborhood of anarchy. Magic is Rock n’Roll and at the same time it is calm like an ocean can be. The Realm of Magic holds infinite possibilities to support the organic processes towards health. And when we are aware of them, space is opening up. We are not on a one-way track. There is always time to change.
This deep connection will help us to understand how to create new life-serving cycles. And part of connection is the grieving about the times of disconnection. So when forests call us, when oceans talk to us, or we hear the cry of Mother Earth, we better listen, humble and grateful to be in connection with life.
Love
