The Magic of Daily Life + Rune of the Day

Everyday Wonder

When I started storytelling Mage: The Awakening, the game I told you about yesterday, I was going neck-deep into Venezuela's political process. I'd recently started working as a translator for a news site that reported what was happening in here to the English-speaking audiences of the world, and the degree and intensity of information that I was getting was enormous, so I added all of that in the game and used my city as the scenery. I needed a way to channel hope that things would change here, so I created a story where a couple of very powerful Mages used a complex ritual to secure a city-wide Awakening. In my mind's eye, I was seeing Caracas already as the birth-point of the New Atlantis and the story revolved around that idea. The characters were all introduced to the world of Magic by visions of the Ávila, Caracas' northern protector, being assaulted by a great darkness coming from abroad. They were meant to be there and make sure that this force didn't enter the city, while also securing the final part of the Ritual of Awakening.

Although I couldn't finish that chronicle, the story kept morphing with different parties and I started exploring it beyond the tabletop gatherings. I was seeing signs everywhere, my awareness slowly adapted to the new levels of information and even my country's crisis began to transform for me. I spent nearly four years working on the news and both processes flowed in parallel. As I discovered the Magic all around me, I was also managing the reports of State abuses, following the media, listening to political discourse and chatter, and exploring my spirituality allowed me to keep my bearings in harsh situations. I started to truly apply the knowledge the game was offering me in my daily life and watched in awe as the decrees and spells that I was putting out there fundamentally shifted the way I was experiencing events. I realized then that Magic, the real deal, was an inner phenomenon, for as my perspective changed, my surroundings also changed.

We're educated to hope for wonder in our lives. We're told that if we work hard, we can fulfill our dreams. We're told that we should have an education and a job, that we must produce money or we've got nothing. None of this is even close to the true power that we hold. I can tell you now that I've reshaped my existence entirely in a relatively short span of time just by allowing myself to see the Wonder instead of hoping for it; to decree my dreams fulfilled rather than making huge efforts to follow the paths set by others; to eschew the boundaries imposed by social convention and common sense, and dare to put my entire energy into what I was feeling, into this new layer of reality that I was seeing. I tried, of course, to fit these two versions of the world into one single noiseless flow, to share my experience with others, but another teaching of Magic is that people must be ready and willing to see it and practice it, otherwise they don't even register others telling them about it and in fact, unconsciously lash out at the idea that there could be any internal mechanism to their actions and thoughts, that they could modify any aspect of their lives almost in the blink of an eye. Talking about Magic can only be done with people who already practice Magic regularly, nobody else will give it a second thought.

And so, I went from playing a game to discovering The Game around me, and I've done nothing but play that since then. Even the difficult parts, which haven't been few, have been amazing in hindsight. Everything is a message from on high and from the depths of my being, and now I'm extrapolating all of this information that I have within onto the exterior, because I've seen the Beauty of Magic and the Narrative, and I know how to enact it for everyone to see.

A threshold has been left behind and you need to rest, the road still continues, reduce your impetus and conserve your strength. Hurry almost always causes stumbles, reflect on your steps. Concentrate your energy, do not get distracted, reunify that which is disperse. Reduce the number and intensity of the stimuli that you receive, focus only on the most essential tasks. Bring down precepts and norms that hinder your path, not everything that you consider moral or noble is auspicious for you. Revive your inner animal, give voice and space to your instincts in your own territory and at your own rhythm. Study your reactions calmly and in detail, not every conflict demands an immediate response.