Media, Magic and Shifting Consciousness

I am a professional wizard, and I am not alone. Thousands upon thousands of us are in every part of the globe, and we’re constantly cooking up new spells. We’re in every town and almost every community. In fact, you know many of us; and every day, you feel the power of our craft — if we get the magic right.

No, I’m not over my head in Harry Potter or World of Warcraft, nor do I belong to a coven.  But years ago, a friend of mine who really does belong to a coven, who is a Wiccan, and who lives in a house called Black Cat, said something that rocked my world.

“Magic,” she said, “is not that big of a deal. Magic is simply the act of shifting consciousness.”

It was like getting whacked in the back of the head with a sorcerer’s stone. From that point on, I started embracing the idea myself as a practitioner of magic. I suddenly realized that I had been doing wizardry for years, but during that time, I was out of touch with the essence and the impact of my work. I take my calling more seriously now —  because the world is in dire need of good magic these days. Almost everywhere I look, the dark seems to be winning over the light.

Actually, I am a media person: a journalist, a filmmaker, a strategist. Since that revelatory moment, I’ve been regarding media professionals as the magi of our time. Like all the rest of my colleagues in this broad profession, I create incantations — sequences of words, sounds, pictures. These elements, when put together in the right order, in the right rhythm, and unleashed at the right time, can make something shift inside us. Incantations can change the way we look at the world and the way we act in it; they can build beautiful bridges of understanding.

Sadly, the wrong kind of magic can produce outcomes that are much less desirable. Faceless corporate forces and their political machines have put a lot of very talented wizards to work in ad agencies and PR firms. The messages and the memes concocted there have ravaged our planet and its people, fueled consumerism, ignited hate, and seeded ignorance on a massive scale. We are under a helluva spell, and the sooner we break it, the better.

My definition of media includes pretty much any way that we communicate. There are the obvious mediums like TV, social media, books, and email. But I think the most refined media wizards are those who, with just one incantation — an expression, a canvas, a photograph, a tweet, or a conversation — can leverage a powerful result. Madison Avenue has excelled at this, luring most of us into a mass illusion.

What kind of magic will wake us up from this dreamscape? What will make us look at one another, feel the beauty and pain of the planet under our feet, and re-ignite the power that each of us has to create change? That’s the question that’s been burning in my gut for the past couple of decades, and I think finding the answer starts with going back to some basics.

I believe that there are three media elementals, three fundamental forms of media:

• communicating with ourselves and our own inner wisdom;
• direct conversation with others;
• our dialogue with nature — however we might express that.

All other forms of media spring from this triumvirate, and as far as I’m concerned, all good media takes us back to these elementals.  If we don’t know ourselves, or can’t relate to those around us, or aren’t aware of the forces and the mystery of the natural world, we’re hosed as communicators. And these days, most media are taking us away from these precious building blocks. My passion is finding fertile ways to reverse that trend.

Here’s a magic word that could help with that: En’owkin.

It comes from the Okanagan tribe in British Columbia.

One translation means, “Please give me the viewpoint most opposite of mine so I can increase my wisdom.”

I can really feel the magic in this one. What a concept — imagine actually wanting to hear an opposite viewpoint, and treat it with reverence. Not a bad start.

Photo Credit

“Groovy 1974 Smoke Trail Electronic Luggage Predictions as the Mysterious Moustache Eats the World by Exercising with Psychedelic Dancing and Injecting Nano Technological Antigravity Vibrations while Surfing the Ravines! Vlogs with Zen Mix Vlogging Tool” Dan Zen @ flickr. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

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• Media, Magic and Shifting Consciousness