Black corner desk with books, crystals, and tarot and oracle decks

I just took a little time to clear out and clean my corner desk, which was never getting used for work anyway, and dedicate it to all my magic stuff.

A few words about my beliefs: I’m mostly agnostic. With respect to magic, I believe we make our own. Action follows intention, and I find these tools - tarot and oracle cards, crystals, candles, books - useful in setting my intentions. They help me trust my intuition.

I value balance. My professional life is all about truth claims, evidence, and figuring out what counts as empirical research. I need a thing in my life that is the opposite, and this is it.

A few more words, this time about Everyday Magic, my local witch store. It’s hard as the mom of a very little, to go shopping anywhere. Now imagine taking your magpie toddler into a shop full of crystals.

You might let him choose a small one to hold. He’ll immediately put it in his mouth, of course.

It’s fine. You were going to buy it anyway.

Next time, you might let him hold a larger palm stone. He’ll probably drop it. If it’s selenite, it’ll shatter when he does. When this happens, you apologize profusely. At Everyday Magic, they tell you, “It’s okay. Babies happen. He picked a good one to drop.”

Obviously, you offer to buy it. When they don’t make you, you buy a whole one. And also a book entitled Witchy Mama.

Then you have a dream about buying the Moonchild Tarot. But you know it’ll be a long time before Everyday Magic has it in stock. But you know they have the Starchild Tarot, by the same artist, in stock. So you decide to drop by after work - toddler in tow, because he almost always is - and look at their open copy of it and, if you fall in love with it, to buy it.

Your giant baby has a lot of words now, and when you get in the store, he uses all of them to scream about the crystals. He’s clearly outraged that you didn’t hand him one immediately. As you try to look at the cards, he shrieks and you toss off a “Seriously, dude?” that elicits a laugh from the shop’s owner. But of course snide remarks don’t settle babies, so he keeps yelling. You give up on looking at the cards and take him outside because you don’t want to ruin everybody else’s day.

Then you try to reason with him. Then you remember that you have veggie straws. He accepts the veggie straws. You go back inside and move toward the cards again. A shop employee shows you a stone and asks, “Would letting him hold this help stop the crying?”

“YES THANK YOU!” you say. Then, “It won’t shatter if he drops it?” You’re already bracing yourself for the tantrum he is going to throw when he has to give it back, but you really want to look at those cards, so you hand him the rock and get your peruse on.

You pick up the box and get a chill. You open it and start to look through. Yes, this art appeals to you. And then your favorite card, VII The Chariot, is a unicorn, and you’re buying this deck.

You grab an unopened box, take the stroller over to the counter, and miraculously, when you ask the toddler to hand you the stone, he does so completely without incident.

“Thanks for letting him hold it,” you tell the shop employee.

“Oh, he can have it,” the employee responds.

And that’s why you are going to buy all your magic things at Everyday Magic forever, because instead of shaming you for your screaming baby, they gave him a crystal.