Have to believe we are magic

A true confession: I was one of those kids who wanted fairies to be real. I would have loved to communicate with the spirits of the flowers and talk to the dryads when they decided to come out of their trees. Didn't happen.

But looking at some landscapes, it is not hard to understand why our ancestors felt spirits there. Forests in particular have this effect on me.

Sometimes I half-expect to see magical beings rising up from the woodland floor.

And who wouldn't love to hear the conversations these polypores are having with the lichens?

A few days ago, an old, not particularly impressive-looking field, now part of a northwestern Ohio park,

was alive with tiny creatures whose wings flashed silver in the sunlight. Could they be--fairies? Alas, no; they turned out to be small grasshoppers. Today, when of course I had no camera, I came face-to-face with one as it munched on a blossom of weedy Canada thistle. When not in flight, these grasshoppers are a very ordinary-looking gray or green. But--a tiny, green and silver flying thing that dines on thistlebloom--isn't that a kind of magic?