Magic Words & Symbols Spotted in the Wild

Love

"When love reaches you, it is a magical feeling. It is a magical word, 'love', in my language and in all languages: amore, sayang, dragoste, liefde, amour, upendo , bhalobashi. They all have a special ring to them." —Robert F. Luce, Fall Into the Ebony (2011)

Love stands at the gateway of each human soul, holding in his hands a rose and a drawn sword —the sword is for the many, the rose for the one.

We love this visionary passage in which love is defined as a "magician whose word can change water to blood." Here's the full context:

Love is the immortal essence of mortal passion, together they are as soul and body, one being; separate them, and the body without the soul is a monster; the soul without the body is no longer human, nor earthly, nor real to us at all, though still divine. Love is the world's maker, master and destroyer, the magician whose word can change water to blood, and blood to fire, the dove to a serpent, and the serpent to a dove—ay, and can make of that same dove an eagle, with an eagle's beak, and talons, and air-cleaving wing-stroke. Love is the spirit of life and the angel of death. He speaks, and the thorny wilderness of the lonely heart is become a paradise of flowers. He is silent, and the garden is but a blackened desert over which a destroying flame has passed in the arms of the east wind. Love stands at the gateway of each human soul, holding in his hands a rose and a drawn sword—the sword is for the many, the rose for the one.

(F. Marion Crawford, The Witch of Prague, 1890)

Love

Love: "Isn't that the fabled magic word that fixes everything? Isn't that the only word that can't be worn out by its repetition on the covers of a billion greeting cards?" —Dexter Palmer, The Dream of Perpetual Motion (2010)

The Secret of Love

"Love escapes concrete definition. Even the word 'love' is magical, bringing to us a host of emotional and physiological changes. The real secret, I suppose, is that love isn't any one thing at all, nor does it fit into any specific description. It can't be boxed, as flowers and candy can, nor can it be contained or restrained by those of us who desire to feel it, touch it, and taste it. And it's first a gift to each of us because we can't truly love those around us unless we have healthy and respectful love for ourselves."
—Gabriel McShane, Soul Chasing (2006)

Love and Magic

"Love is magic, Giordano Bruno said; magic is love. The magician and the lover are both venatores animarum, hunters of souls; by emblems and by arts, the magician draws down into his heart the powers of heaven, that is the star-persons through whom the whole of nature and the spirits of men and women are ordered, and have their meaning. He ranges these powers within him and asks: teach me to bind, with bonds like love's, the things of this world and the hearts of others. And they do, they can. And thus we become like gods."
—John Crowley, Daemonomania

(Photo by Love Not Fear)