The magic you can hold in your hands....

“To me, all creativity is magic.
Ideas start out in the empty void of your head - and they end up as a
material thing, like a book you can hold in your hand. That is the
magical process. It's an alchemical thing. Yes, we do get the gold
out of it but that's not the most important thing. It's the work
itself.” ― Alan Moore

“It's not my brain that's writing the
book, it's these hands of mine.” ― Madeleine L'Engle

When I fall asleep

my hands leave me.

They pick up pens

and draw creatures

with five feathers

on each wing.

- Siv Cedering (from "Hands")

With these hands I have held
a bird with a broken wing.
With these hands I have touched
my children in the sun.
With these hands I have made
a house of living earth.
With these hands I have worked
a field of growing corn.
With these hands I have learned to kill
As much as I have learned to live.
These hands are the tools of my spirit.
These hands are the warriors of my anger.
These hands are the limitations of my self.
These hands grow old and feel
unfamiliar walls
As they reach out to find
the world I used to know.

- Nancy Wood (from Many Winters: Prose and Poetry of the Pueblos)

Images above, photographs of hands by three great American photographers: "Worker's Hands" by Edward Weston (1886-1958), "Georgia O'Keefe: Hands and Skull" by Alfred Steiglitz (184-1946), "Crofter's Hands" by Paul Strand (1980-1976). Also, me and Tilly: "Hand and Paw."