A few Januaries ago, alongside my goals for writing and financial and physical wellness, I made “Find the Magic” one of the pillars of my annual planning. It was less of a goal than a quest and, to be honest, I really didn’t know what I was looking for on this quest, only that I was missing something in my life and magic seemed like the best way to describe it.

As that first year progressed and that vague yearning refined itself, I knew began to understand that it wasn’t just a sense of joy or whimsy that is often characterized as “magic.” What I wanted was actual magic — something that touches the transformative otherworldliness that lies outside the ordinary, day-to-day experiences. Since I’m not a follower of witchcraft or another spiritual belief system that practices magic regularly, I really didn’t know where to start. Nevertheless, I do believe in magic is real, and that’s it’s something that we can experience and even attune ourselves to in our daily lives.

Have I read too much fantasy literature? Maybe. Or is it that believing that magic is real is what makes me embrace fantasy literature so enthusiastically? Could be! Either way, it feels right that, as a fantasy writer, I should pursue the experience of magic in real life as determinedly as I do on the page. Call it a vocational obligation, if you will, or maybe just an affirmation.

Some readers are probably looking at me through the screen right now wondering if I’ve got all my beans. Believe me, I get it. How can someone who seems to be a rational, non-religious, science-supporting individual just come out and say she believes in magic?

I should probably start by explaining what I mean by magic.

In the fantasy genre, the current vogue is to divide magic into two categories: hard magic and soft magic. In brief, “hard magic” means that there is an organized, thought-out, and dare-I-even-suggest “scientific” approach to magic. It adheres to a set of clearly defined rules that are (generally) communicated to the reader. The plot is frequently dependent upon understanding those rules and figuring out just how far they can be bent.

“Soft magic” is the opposite: while the author may have rules about what magic can or can’t do, the reader doesn’t know those rules, and likely the characters don’t either. I’ve heard it suggested that soft magic is best (in story terms) for causing problems, while hard magic is best for solving them

(I’m not going to go in deeper on these definitions, because I figure most people reading this are already familiar with them. If you need more info, you can easily find references online.)

It’s easy to assume that, because of it’s lack of rigor, soft magic is easier to pull off in fiction, but that’s not actually true. Yes, there is a heavier burden on the hard magic author, who must devise a whole system of magic before even delving into plotting and characterization. But for the reader, once those rules are established, it’s easy to grasp why things happen as they do. This is why hard magic is particularly useful in gaming, when systemized rules allow players to control what their characters do with reliable results.

But the success of a soft magic fantasy depends on something  on something the author can’t control: the mind of the reader.

Since the author does not explain how or why magic works as it does, it requires more of the reader, who must take that  the leap of imagination — a leap of faith — all on their own. The reader must be ready to accept the unexplained and the ambiguous, and they must realize that the connection between action and effect isn’t going to be direct or obvious.

“Magic, do what you will,” says Schmendrick the Magician when he transforms the Last Unicorn into Lady Amalthea, only knowing that he must do something to save her from the Red Bull. Who decided, then, that the Unicorn should become a woman, that that was the best way to protect herself and to solve the mystery that had brought her from the safety of her lilac wood? It’s not a mystery the Schmendrick or the story need to solve. Soft magic just is.

In the real world, magic is soft.

You can’t say a spell and produce a fireball out of thin air. You can’t point a wand at a book and make it fly through the air. You can’t perform a martial arts move and freeze the surface of a lake.¹

There is no rulebook, no recipe card, no YouTube tutorial that will teach you how to do magic that has an observable, repeatable effect every time you practice it , and that’s why people — modern people, anyway — are inclined to disbelieve it entirely. We don’t believe what can’t be proven. We won’t buy what can’t be packaged and sold.

In a recent article, writer Mary Catali asked the question:

If magic is real, why don’t wizards rule the world?

Catali was talking about magic in story worlds, and the need to establish checks and balances within magic systems to keep that from happening (unless wizards ruling the world is the point of the story).

But I keep asking myself the same question about the real world: If magic is real, why don’t wizards rule the world?

My tongue-in-cheek answer is, “Maybe they do, and we just don’t know it.”

But the real answer is probably that people who can “do” magic aren’t really interested in taking over things. Magic in the real world is an inward journey. It requires developing an awareness of yourself as a part of an interconnected web of forces —nature, the cosmos, god, whatever you want to call it. It takes time, it takes patience, it takes surrender — none of which people who are interested in dominating the world are very good at.

Real magic requires aligning yourself with the world, not setting yourself against it.

Remember, Schmendrick couldn’t do anything to help the Unicorn until he gave up his need for control over how to do it.

It is likely that, long ago, there were many more people who we might call wizards or witches than there are today. Our modern world makes it difficult to find the time and space needed to pursue magic; there’s always something nibbling at our attention. While there’s a part of me that longs to run off to a wildly contemplative, magical life, I’m too attached to the conveniences of modernity to take that kind of leap (yet). But I can look for small ways to make magic more a part of my everyday experience. For me these include the practice of awe — stopping to notice those things that take my breath away; connecting with nature — I don’t hug trees often, but they know so much; ad journeying inward — my meditation practice is one of the foundations of my day, most mornings.

Are these magic? Maybe not. But they make me feel connected to the things in this universe that are magical. Maybe someday, if I keep opening myself up, I’ll push past the narrow constraints of my perceptions and discover that I, like Schmendrick, will be ready to let magic do as it will.