The trail stretches almost three miles, starting near the famous French Quarter and proceeding through neighborhoods such as Tremé, Lafitte, and Mid-City, almost to Lakeview. Construction was only completed in 2015, but the story goes back much further.

I came into the story in 2005. I was walking with a friend near Bayou St. John in the spring of of that year. We saw workers removing the railroad tracks, pulling up the rails as we watched. My friend turned to me and said, “You know, that would make a good rails-to-trail project.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but those words would change my life.

A hike is born

Over the years that followed, I found myself getting more and more deeply involved in an effort to bring that rails-to-trails project to life. I helped start a nonprofit advocacy group, Friends of Lafitte Greenway. We began as an all-volunteer effort, writing grants and making connections, commissioning studies and building coalitions.

Every year, we organized a hike, and in time this became our signature event. It grew every year, and soon hundreds of people were coming out — to hike on a trail that didn’t exist.

Over the same time period, there were numerous other changes and challenges, both collective and highly personal. We suffered the flooding of the city. A friend was murdered. My daughter was born. I drank too much. The project endured setbacks and delays.

Through all the difficulties, to say nothing of the high weeds and brambles, we kept hiking.

It occurred to me, one year, that this was an example of magical thinking. That is, we were visualizing something that wasn’t really there, exercising the power of our collective imagination, through a public ritual, aiming to bring a new reality into being.

And it worked! After ten repetitions, the trail materialized beneath our feet. We walked this path right into existence. Surely this is true magic.

Naturalistic magic

Generally speaking, philosophical naturalists don’t believe in magic, so any invocation of the term is likely to be pejorative. For those with a naturalistic mindset, the phrase “magical thinking” is often a diss or a criticism, a suggestion of logical gaps or inconsistencies, similar to wishful thinking. Magical thinking is irrational and fallacious, attributing causal relationships where none exist.

To some extent, I agree with and participate in this perspective. I’m inherently skeptical. It’s good not to be overly credulous, and I have little patience for hucksters who prey upon the gullible for personal profit.

But I think wholesale disavowal goes too far. Academic Westerners have typically attributed magical thinking to “primitive” indigenous cultures, to uneducated or unsophisticated religious believers, and to children. It’s classic “othering,” and all the usual caveats (classism, racism, ethnocentrism, colonialism, patriarchy) apply.

Neo-Pagans tend to see things differently, of course. Magic is generally considered in a positive light. This is one of the most promising aspects of the Pagan perspective: to re-enchant the world, to restore a crucial perspective that’s been lost.

Naturalists who embrace this project need to consider what magic really means, and what magical rituals might look like. I’d suggest they may look like our annual hike.

Magic is hard work

Skeptics might point out that there was a lot of hard work between the hikes: all the aforementioned fund-raising and planning and organizing, to say nothing of the actual physical labor of the workers who built the trail.

That doesn’t make the ritual any less magical. It just proves that magic requires a lot of hard work. Any serious practitioner of the craft knows that.

Moreover, while the annual hikes were symbolic of our community’s desire, but they were not only symbolic. They also served a real purpose, a real function. They kept the community focused on the common dream we shared. The ritual sharpened our resolve and strengthened our will.

I’m using the past tense, but I have no doubt that the annual hikes will continue. The work is not done. The dream is shifting a bit now that the initial buildout has occurred. Now we dream of extending the greenway further, and of improving what’s already been built. We dream of volleyball courts and community gardens.

So next time you’re down in New Orleans, come take a walk on this path made from dreams. See for yourself the glorious results that can come from magical thinking. And if you time it right, you can even join the next hike.