"Many of us are yearning for something that connects us again, that draws us back into our bodies, and tethers us to our landscapes. Something that gives us back our delight, and allows us to explore our longings." Such a beautifully balanced essay, Katherine, which sets out your views so honestly and clearly while allowing space for others with different views or beliefs to think along with you.
Enchantment is an absolutely necessary book, Katherine. We need connection, ritual, and yes, magic more than ever. You’ve vocalised things I’ve been feeling for a while and I’ve been recommending your book to so many fellow travellers. Thank you.
I absolutely love this! I identify with so much of it, especially this:
“I was forever picking up spiritual texts in charity shops, just out of a sense of intellectual curiosity, you understand, and not out of any personal seeking”
Thank you for writing this, it resonates so much. I have this judgy voice also: "you're so naive, stop thinking everything is magical", then I think of trees and I cannot shake this feeling of wonder and beauty. The self-loathing though... tough one. I sometimes wonder how to turn the enchanted doors into revolving doors, so they make me see the magic inside of me as clearly as I see it on the outside.
Loved this newsletter! Thank you for sharing. My Dad has Alzheimer’s and can’t remember any of his life however he can still see magic and God everywhere. He is always exclaiming over starlings and clouds and trees moving in the wind! He has helped me get back to noticing the wonder of it all. Even in the simplest….. 💜
I can really see so much of myself in this, as a child I found so much magic in the world (both enchanting and scary at times) but dismissed it as I got older, thought I needed to be more serious. I feel grateful that I've found it again and for the sense of connection and wellbeing it brings, it feels like an essential now
Katherine, your words hold so much wisdom and beauty. If I could embroider, I would stitch these words, "Noticing is infinite", place them in frames and put them in schools, supermarkets, and bus stops. The ordinary is extraordinary.
I have read Enchantment several times, and yet, reading this post, it's as if I'm hearing it all for the first time. I am so grateful. It is so easy to get distracted, to forget, to get lost. I need to return to this way in to magic, again, and again, and again.
All of this, beautiful, and so resonant for me. Thank you for writing it. As ever, your words land like a gift. A whole year of this book in the world. x
The lesson I took away from Enchantment is that magic is there if you look for it, but it isn't something you can passively observe. Magic requires your active partnership and an open-handed sense of possibility.
This could be my story, Katherine. "I grew up to reject every shred of it. If you’d have met me in my twenties, you’d have found me robustly, argumentatively, trying to demonstrate my absolute rationality. It seemed clear to me that my purpose in life was to reject any shred of magical thinking, and to roundly mock anyone who thought differently. It was the age of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, of the Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, and I wanted in." That was me in my 20s, before I began writing fiction and taking back magic. Now I have an eight year old and as she's starting to hear from friends that magic isn't real, I've been gently transitioning her from a Disney kind of magic powers world to a world where magic is everywhere, secret and hidden and quiet and wild. I loved both your books and am grateful to them, as someone working hard to reclaim and keep enchantment in my family's life.
I can confirm that there is something profoundly healing in that reconnection with the body and the place we inhabit. As someone who has spent 40 of my 51 years yearning to explore the world, and about the same number living no more than two miles from my childhood home, I am finding the peace that comes from not grudgingly accepting, but embracing the place that has always been home. To see not a cage, but deep, nourishing, grounding roots.
After 2 days in London, I know that i wouldn't trade the peace I find in my small Welsh valley for the “glamour” of city life for all the money in the world.
I think I'm starting to realise that this truly IS my landscape, and it's a bloody beautiful one!
I love this - and it came just as I was considering how I have lived my life in so many magical ways - meeting the right people at the right time, finding the right book , even the right cat being gifted to me after a bereavement. People tell me I'm lucky and I guess to them I am, however, it's belief and openness to receiving the magic and enchantment that is the key for me - and knowing that not going with the flow of my life path is where the pain comes from. Thank you for your post.
"Many of us are yearning for something that connects us again, that draws us back into our bodies, and tethers us to our landscapes. Something that gives us back our delight, and allows us to explore our longings." Such a beautifully balanced essay, Katherine, which sets out your views so honestly and clearly while allowing space for others with different views or beliefs to think along with you.
Enchantment is an absolutely necessary book, Katherine. We need connection, ritual, and yes, magic more than ever. You’ve vocalised things I’ve been feeling for a while and I’ve been recommending your book to so many fellow travellers. Thank you.
I absolutely love this! I identify with so much of it, especially this:
“I was forever picking up spiritual texts in charity shops, just out of a sense of intellectual curiosity, you understand, and not out of any personal seeking”
Thank you for writing this, it resonates so much. I have this judgy voice also: "you're so naive, stop thinking everything is magical", then I think of trees and I cannot shake this feeling of wonder and beauty. The self-loathing though... tough one. I sometimes wonder how to turn the enchanted doors into revolving doors, so they make me see the magic inside of me as clearly as I see it on the outside.
Loved this newsletter! Thank you for sharing. My Dad has Alzheimer’s and can’t remember any of his life however he can still see magic and God everywhere. He is always exclaiming over starlings and clouds and trees moving in the wind! He has helped me get back to noticing the wonder of it all. Even in the simplest….. 💜
I can really see so much of myself in this, as a child I found so much magic in the world (both enchanting and scary at times) but dismissed it as I got older, thought I needed to be more serious. I feel grateful that I've found it again and for the sense of connection and wellbeing it brings, it feels like an essential now
Katherine, your words hold so much wisdom and beauty. If I could embroider, I would stitch these words, "Noticing is infinite", place them in frames and put them in schools, supermarkets, and bus stops. The ordinary is extraordinary.
I have read Enchantment several times, and yet, reading this post, it's as if I'm hearing it all for the first time. I am so grateful. It is so easy to get distracted, to forget, to get lost. I need to return to this way in to magic, again, and again, and again.
This was the absolute best 💖
Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you.
All of this, beautiful, and so resonant for me. Thank you for writing it. As ever, your words land like a gift. A whole year of this book in the world. x
The lesson I took away from Enchantment is that magic is there if you look for it, but it isn't something you can passively observe. Magic requires your active partnership and an open-handed sense of possibility.
There’s a lot in life that can be horrendous, but the magic can be, happily, hilarious.
This could be my story, Katherine. "I grew up to reject every shred of it. If you’d have met me in my twenties, you’d have found me robustly, argumentatively, trying to demonstrate my absolute rationality. It seemed clear to me that my purpose in life was to reject any shred of magical thinking, and to roundly mock anyone who thought differently. It was the age of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, of the Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, and I wanted in." That was me in my 20s, before I began writing fiction and taking back magic. Now I have an eight year old and as she's starting to hear from friends that magic isn't real, I've been gently transitioning her from a Disney kind of magic powers world to a world where magic is everywhere, secret and hidden and quiet and wild. I loved both your books and am grateful to them, as someone working hard to reclaim and keep enchantment in my family's life.
I can confirm that there is something profoundly healing in that reconnection with the body and the place we inhabit. As someone who has spent 40 of my 51 years yearning to explore the world, and about the same number living no more than two miles from my childhood home, I am finding the peace that comes from not grudgingly accepting, but embracing the place that has always been home. To see not a cage, but deep, nourishing, grounding roots.
After 2 days in London, I know that i wouldn't trade the peace I find in my small Welsh valley for the “glamour” of city life for all the money in the world.
I think I'm starting to realise that this truly IS my landscape, and it's a bloody beautiful one!
I love this - and it came just as I was considering how I have lived my life in so many magical ways - meeting the right people at the right time, finding the right book , even the right cat being gifted to me after a bereavement. People tell me I'm lucky and I guess to them I am, however, it's belief and openness to receiving the magic and enchantment that is the key for me - and knowing that not going with the flow of my life path is where the pain comes from. Thank you for your post.