The quest for magic in a fallen world

I don't think for a moment that this world is really "fallen," but I do agree with those who warn that extinction of life on Earth is a real possibility in the Anthropocene Age. To take my mind off that, I was looking for a single word that captures best what it is I seek when I read or travel or I work in the garden (and let's put aside romance, sex and love).

There is undoubtedly an aspect of escapism to all this, especially as we grow older and have the luxury of more time, although time seems to accelerate as I age. It is why we have expressions like "armchair traveling" or seeking the "enchanted garden" or "return to Eden." It's also why I have always liked astrology and Tarot rather more than modern psychology or institutionalized religion, not because they are more accurate; I like them for the opposite reason, because of their infinite variety and randomness.

The words I landed on - what I'm looking for - are "magic" and "wonder," but I chose magic because I think it's just a better word. More allusive and ambiguous. I am not thinking here of performative magic (card tricks, etc.). Rather I'm thinking of the unexpected moments of pleasure that happen in our lives and which have a lot in common with Transcendentalism and "magical realism."

All that is solid melts into air (Alles Ständische und Stehende verdampft) 

I'm sure this also echoes Lewis Carroll (he obviously went with "wonderland") and Philip Pullman (whose Lyra trilogies are about needing to recover a lost "imagination"). Echoes too of Hayao Miyazaki because of how important Animism is to any sense of magical pleasure, and T.S. Eliot for his word images of space and time, memory and desire. All these artists aside from Eliot frame their stories through child or teen heroes, because there is a "lost childhood" or "transition into adulthood" aspect to this - the child is father to the man, paradise lost and regained, and so on - and this is a lot more interesting than looking for grace or maya (religion) or the uncanny (the supernatural), or the hallucinogenic (eating magic mushrooms), and so on. They just aren't for me. But magic is another story, pun intended.

I only find magic in reading novels occasionally, usually Taoist-influenced novels. I stopped reading Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain, which I really did enjoy, halfway through, and it didn't matter. Some stories should never end. I did finish Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists, which I enjoyed even more. They are the only writers who I think of as channeling Taoism in a way I enjoy.

无为

I find magic in the random moments, in the microcosm of my garden, like the petals of a flower and the Golden Ratio - just look at that aloe above - and the stillness of a hoverfly over the ceanothus, or the lizard sunning itself on a slender branch. Like those novels above, the infinite microcosms are much more satisfying than the macrocosm of the world (above all, our politics right now).

"People where you live," the little prince said, "grow five thousand roses in one garden... yet they don't find what they're looking for..." "They don't find it," I answered. "And yet what they're looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water..." "Of course," I answered. And the little prince added, "But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart."