Shining Life Continued

Pursuing the idea of bringing shining gestures and shining moments into the balance of daily life, (in relation to Temperance, as well as the Two of Pentacles—the latter of which is a card that also came up a lot at our July 1st chat session), I recall a study I heard about on NPR, where people in the performing arts (such as members of an orchestra), were asked to bring some small element of change into what would otherwise have been repetitive performances, to make some small difference in their performances.  I don’t recall what methods the researchers used to gauge the audience reactions, but they did find that on the occasions when the performers were consciously trying to make a difference, the audience response was more enthusiastic, and the performances were rated more highly.  So, that extra element of mindfulness generated more shining performances.

By the way, when I talk about the magic of shining, though I may get into a lot of what may seem superficial, outward things, such as the paraphernalia one may make use of (as touched upon in the previous blogpost), or other aspects such as bringing qualities of shining into one’s personal appearance and presentation, the greater aim is cultivating an inner quality of shining, actually an internal transformation that effectively raises one’s “vibration.” 

However, I previously said I would get on to the subject of glamour bombing: this is a special type of magical performance, involving whimsical gestures contrived to bring a touch of magic into public spaces; the idea is to spark peoples’ imaginations—or at least their sense of fun--with glimpses of the fairy world.  A great number of glamour bombing techniques involve leaving curious (and often shiny) objects out for people to find.  These may be glittering signs or miniature scrolls with messages like “the gates are opening” or “the magic is real.”  Other techniques include leaving trails of flower petals or gluing mystical patterns of pennies to sidewalks.  For the bold and the dramatically gifted, more elaborate presentations may take the form of performances, such as dressing up as a fairy and putting on a little act.  The intent, here, is to give people delight: happening upon such objects or performances can create shining moments for whoever witnesses them.

Though glamour bombs tend to be ephemeral and fleeting, I would include certain types of public art such as the Ann Arbor fairy doors in this category, [see my April 28^th blog entry], because they delight people with fairy imagery.

By the way, it just occurred to me that leaving a tarot card in some unexpected place can also spark magical intrigue.  One could place such cards as blessings, bringing in magical intent.  However, I’ll have to give some thought as to which cards would be ideal to leave in which places for which purposes.