Magical

I sat by our back window last evening, gazing at nothing in particular, admiring the green spaces of our back yard and letting the stress of the workday fade. Then I saw it: a yellow-green blink of light. Seconds later, I saw it again, and I smiled. It's June and the fireflies have returned.

At first it was obvious there was only one of them out there, shining his little light alone, here and there. It was only when the sun got a little farther below the horizon that others blinked around him. Before long, they were all over the yard, small beacons of light and life.

It doesn't matter to me that I know these are little bugs and it's a chemical reaction that causes the flash. Knowing and understanding something doesn't make it any less magical. Sometimes the opposite is true.

When I say "magic," I don't mean flying dragons and unicorns, I mean that wonderful, amazing thing that makes you stop and gasp with joy. It can be something as common as a dandelion or a cardinal ... or a firefly. The magic comes when you feel it in your heart and it makes you smile.

Science and magic aren't exclusive. Scientists often reveal the magic to us, when they discover new lifeforms, show us how to understand what we see, find new explanations that change how we see it. And scientists know as well as anyone the feeling of magic. If you want proof, look at the video below. These are scientists and engineers who spent years working with numbers and facts, building a craft and calculating how to get it to another planet, speculating on what environment it would find there and how it could react to that environment. Yet, after all that figuring and postulating, they weren't 100% sure they would succeed. So when the word came in, their reaction was ... well, magical.

Don't ever ignore the magic in your life. Look for it and embrace it.