The magician, the Inuit and the Green Mountain fox
A story about real magic.
About 50 years ago there was a young man who lived in Canada, in a city called Winnipeg. His name was Doug. Doug was a magician and he was starting to become famous, at least up in Canada. One year, just before Christmas, a TV network hired Doug to go up toward the Arctic Circle, near the top of the world, near the North Pole, and perform magic shows for army troops who wouldn’t be home for Christmas.
One day, Doug was asked to do a show for a group of native people known as Inuit—the name translates to “the people” in English. He was on the edge of a little town in the wilderness, 400 miles from the North Pole, and it was about 60 below zero. He set up his show in a little building, and the Inuit came in to watch.
They sat on the floor in their parkas, and Doug did his show. But the people just sat there, didn’t smile, didn’t say a word and, at the end, nobody applauded. But they were completely focused on Doug, as if he were something they’d never seen. Only one of them spoke English, so after the show, Doug asked that man, “Did you like the show?”
“Yes, we liked the show,” the man said.
Doug asked, “Did everybody like the magic?”
“The magic?” The man replied. “What magic?”
Doug explained that he was trying to entertain people.
The man said, “Entertainment is good, but why are you doing magic? The whole world is magical.” So he and Doug sat down on the floor and he told Doug, “It’s magic that snow falls, all those little crystals are completely different … that’s magic.”
Doug said, “But what about when I made the rabbit and doves appear?”
“Why do you do those things?” said the man. “It’s magic when the walrus appears each spring, he comes from nowhere … that’s magic.”
Doug said, “I made a beautiful silver ball float in the air … that’s magic.”
“But there’s a ball of fire floating through the sky every day. It keeps us warm, gives us light … that’s magic.”
Then the Inuit started talking among themselves. The man came back to Doug with a big smile on his face and said, “Now we know why you’re doing that. It’s because your people have forgotten the magic. You’re doing it to remind them of the magic. Well done!”
And Doug said, “Thank you for teaching me about the magic. I didn’t know.” And he began to cry.
Last week and this week, here in our little corner of Vermont, I was reminded that the whole world is magical. And let me tell you: I needed reminding. We were in the midst of the worst snowstorm here since 2012, two-plus feet of heavy snow in our neck of the woods, and power lines down everywhere. Our power was out all week and we had to rely on the generator we quickly had installed after the first extended power outage of winter back in January. In the Green Mountain State, the mountains are green because there are so many trees, but trees tend to fall on power lines when heavy snow falls. Despite a massive effort—crews from Canada came down to help out—more than 100 towns and tens of thousands of people in the state were without power all week.
I barely slept, lying awake every night worrying that our generator would—take your pick—blow up, catch on fire, putter out and refuse to restart. It was my first experience having a gas-powered generator running practically 24/7 for such a long period of time. In a twist o’ fate, we moved here to be close to the land but have found ourselves increasingly reliant on fossil fuels and all their potential hazards.
The generator came through, though, and my wife and I felt grateful that we could take hot showers, use the microwave and count on continuous internet connection to perform our remote jobs. Our furnace kept us warm. We know not everyone was so fortunate.
Around the middle of the week, I put on snowshoes to tread to the back of our property to check out our one apple tree, which had been badly damaged. At that point we had no word from the power company as to when our power might be restored. I was feeling frustrated and admittedly a bit demoralized—I was thinking our power could be out for another week, at least.
As I stood assessing the fallen limbs from our tree and surveying our little acre of land, my eyes swept the forest and the hillside that wraps crescent-like around our property. I remember saying, “Show me a sign. Show me that this is all worth it. I believe it is, but my faith is shaken. Show me a sign of life, a deer or a turkey or some other surprise guest wandering across our land, something that at once makes me know we are in the right place.”
I scanned the forest’s edge and the hill rise, but nothing came along. I thought, well, maybe my timing is off. But I kept looking out the window the next few days, hoping to see a friend with paws, claws or hooves.
Nothing showed. And then everything changed.
Saturday morning, our power came back on unexpectedly, a relief. But more surprises were in store: Saturday afternoon, I got my wish, when a fox came traipsing across the hill rise, casually padding through the trees. I’d never seen a fox outside of a zoo.
It was pointy and orange-y with a long tail. What I loved was that it was seemingly indifferent to having an audience even though it must have known we were there. The best magic shows are those in which the magician and their assistants act completely naturally. Clearly, this fox had gone to Magic School.
Then, on Monday, a family of deer wandered out of the forest and down our little dirt road. Here is the brave scout, leading the pack, photographed by my wife, Janice, from her upstairs office through her window.
The fox and the deer, they came from nowhere. That, as the Inuit gentleman told Doug Henning, is magic. And the deer, since Monday was the first day of spring, showed up right on time. What is more magical than that?
When I asked the universe for a sign in that down moment last week, I think the response may have been, “We don’t work like that.”
And you know what? I’m glad. We live in an age of on-demand. Curated choices. No surprises. As long as you and I can say, “The walrus, he comes from nowhere,” and marvel at the thought, I think we’re going to be okay. There is perhaps no greater saving grace than the thought that the whole world is magical, that universe-time is nothing like our time, which is so ordered and laden with expectation. Given a choice between knowing the world’s secrets and wishing I knew, I would choose the latter.