When Murky Water Sparkles
The first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, was published after I graduated from high school. Over the next ten years, the entire Harry Potter movement was vaguely on the periphery of my awareness. It wasn’t until my son was young and close to starting his own reading life that I turned my attention to Harry Potter.
I read the entire series one summer when my kids were young. Harry Potter, Hermione, and Dumbledore, among the many characters- do indeed capture the imagination. I found the books oddly transformative.
I love the vague sense that Hogwarts may exist. Just yesterday, my 13-year-old daughter told me she was still waiting for her invitation to Hogwarts—or the American equivalent. (She's also disappointed that it’s probably not coming—that is a truly magical book! We know they are just stories, but maybe…)
The Harry Potter books leave me with the question, Am I a muggle (non-magic person) living in a world where magic and magicians do exist on the periphery of my vision? Was the man with a long white beard, an interesting hat, and a black overcoat riding his quirky bike down State Street yesterday afternoon a professor from a hidden magic school running an errand in our muggle world? Just considering the possibility is magical. It makes the unexpected moments in life a little more whimsical.
Friday afternoon, on my daily walk along Dry Creek, which does not describe its current state, I noticed buds budding, grass greening, Owls nesting (!!), and robins excitedly finding their first worm and insect meals of spring. Spring is slowly springing.
As I crossed the small footbridge over Dry Creek, within sight of my home, something unexpected caught my eye. Dry Creek is flowing strong and steady, with runoff from the mountain snow. It’s not a gentle, bubbling, blue, crystal-clear flow. It’s mucky, murky, brownish water filled with sediment. It’s sort of blah and uninspiring.
The reflection of the water dancing on a small branch just above the water line stopped me in my tracks. The murky, brown water, which is probably not more than a foot or two deep- I should be able to see the creek bed-was reflecting magically, with dancing, sparkling light, on the bark of a tree, just above the water's surface.
It felt incongruous. How was murky, dirty, muddy water reflecting pure, magical dancing light? I know it was probably the angle of the sun or something obvious like that. But what if we do live in a magical Harry Potter world and it was tiny water fairies dancing?
Since Friday, I’ve thought a lot about that reflection; it spoke to my soul in a smaller and deeper way. First, I started thinking about dust and runoff. What is in that water?
It’s believed that around “5,200 Metric tons of micrometeorites (stardust) fall to Earth every year.”1
The mucky, murky brown water is filled with dust from stars, last year's autumn leaves, sand from Oregon deserts, and ash from last season's Canadian and California wildfires. That murky creek reminds me of our global-cosmic, even connectedness.
Maybe the sparkling, dancing water reflection that caught my attention and whispered something to my soul was explainable, unexplainable magic. It was a reminder that interconnection is everywhere, all the time. Stardust mixes with sand, ash, and leaves, which then sparkles like fairies dancing on bark. A magical world indeed.
A Blessing For When Your Heart & Spirit Feels Murky
When your soul and spirit feel murky, may you be reminded of the star and moon dust that mixes with our less exciting earth dust. May you find unexpected ways that murky messes can sparkle, dance, and beautifully reflect light (and life). And just as the rushing spring flow will soon settle, may you, too, remember that the sediment in murky water - always settles.
Here are a few short quotes from the Harry Potter novels. As you read, notice if one or more seems to sparkle. How can you hold the sparkly quote together with another line of poetry or wisdom texts that speak to you?
“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
“You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
“It was important, Dumbledore said, to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then could evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated. . . .”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince