Inside the Magic Box (Egan Sanders The Magic Box)

It was the summer of '72 and we were tan. Monica and I shared a bedroom in the basement that was going to be our cool hippy place. Thursday nights, the public swimming pool was open until midnight and we could hear the music from our room. We wanted to be older so bad it hurt. Our square radio that had been covered in contact paper to look like wood had a short in the cord so it required a delicate touch to avoid getting shocked. Dad faux painted the walls in what we then thought was a putrid green with brown stripes. (Nowadays, it's very chic) What did we know? Back then, you walked up town. There weren't rides for us. It took two months and an agreement but Monica and I finally had eight bucks to buy the "flicker light."As soon as we walked into that store, her body language changed. She was trying to be cool in the old people hippy store. They burned incense and had posters that glowed in the dark. The lights were amazing with twinkles on the tips and do not touch signs. I loved that place! We bought a huge poster of a black and white circle that could make you blind if you stared at it long enough. Monica was the one who carried the light home. It was a four inch tall ceramic cylinder with a light bulb on top that flickered back and forth with a white plug.

We started arguing about where the light should be placed. The poster was on my side of the room so she wanted the light near her bed. It got accidentally chipped which meant it wasn't perfect anymore. Seemed like every time we turned on the old radio, the same song would be playing. A woman sang about two kingdoms that were fighting over a gold box. Many people died and in the end, one kingdom wins and upon opening the box was a piece of paper. That was it. The words read, "peace on earth." Then she sings, go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend, you'll testify in the end. All that fighting, for nothing. (song: One Tin Soldier by Coven )

Those words follow me to this day....peace on earth.  Egan Sanders. www.egansanders.com  has a short but powerful book called, "The Magic Box." He talks about how our role in manifesting things into our lives would be better if we first worked on our self-improvement. It's worth a read.  Peace on earth and let it begin with me.