We often imagine magic as something rare — tucked away in far-off realms, ancient tomes, or the hands of mythic heroes. But magic doesn’t only dwell in the extraordinary. It lives, quietly and faithfully, in the ordinary moments most of us walk past without noticing.
The smell of bread baking.
The sound of laughter ringing off the kitchen walls.
A child’s question that stops you mid-task because it’s both hilarious and profound.
These are not just fleeting occurrences — they are invitations. Doorways to wonder.
The Alchemy of Attention
If magic is the art of transformation, then attention is its wand. What we notice has the power to change how we move through the world.
Take the smell of bread, for example. On one level, it’s chemistry — yeast and heat at work. But when we stop and breathe it in, it becomes something more: a reminder of home, of care, of hunger soon to be satisfied. The same moment that could be ignored as background noise becomes, with a shift of attention, a sacred act of nourishment.
The everyday doesn’t become enchanted because something outside it changes. It becomes enchanted because we change how we see it.
Children as Teachers of Wonder
Children remind us how to find magic in the overlooked. They laugh at things we pass by. They ask questions that reframe the world.
“Why is the moon following us?”
“Do worms know they’re worms?”
“How do you know your thoughts are really yours?”
What can sound silly at first is actually the work of wonder — the refusal to take reality for granted. Somewhere along the way, many of us trade that raw curiosity for efficiency and certainty. But children pull us back, asking us to notice what’s strange, beautiful, and mysterious about the most ordinary things.
Laughter as Spellwork
Laughter is another kind of enchantment. It disrupts heaviness, rearranges energy, and pulls us closer together. A shared laugh has the power to transform a tense room into a lighter one, to bridge differences, to remind us we are human.
Think of how children giggle uncontrollably at a silly face, or how an inside joke with a friend can dissolve stress in seconds. That’s spellwork of the highest order — not because it solves every problem, but because it makes the burden bearable.
Practicing Everyday Magic
The enchanted ordinary doesn’t demand incense or ritual robes. It only asks for presence. Here are a few simple ways to practice:
- Pause for sensory moments. Notice the scent of your morning coffee, the rhythm of your footsteps, or the play of light on your wall.
- Listen to laughter. Let it remind you that joy is contagious and available even in small doses.
- Answer the unanswerable. When a child asks a question that seems absurd, resist the urge to dismiss it. Explore it together.
- Collect sparks of beauty. Write them down, sketch them, or simply whisper “thank you” when they arrive.
The Sacredness of the Small
Grand ceremonies have their place, but the sacred is not reserved for cathedrals or mountaintops. It waits in the steam rising from a loaf of bread. It hides in the cadence of a story told at the dinner table. It lingers in the quiet after a shared laugh.
The more we attune ourselves to these small moments, the more we realize they are not small at all. They are the threads that weave our days into something whole.
And perhaps, when we learn to find magic in the ordinary, we discover that the world has always been enchanted — we simply needed to notice.
