spells for radicals

not busy, focused; not busy, full

this is a poem or a reset
you keep telling me you know I am so busy but…
and then you ask me for something
and I want you to know
I am not busy
no, with all of these boundaries I have space
to write.
to take care of my body.
to hold my loves tightly in my many many hands so we can somehow make it through the rest of our lives

I am so focused
on the imaginary world which is trying to whisper to me
how to write a story that unlocks a heart
to write a spell that makes us bored with punishment and immune to capitalism
I am so full of ancestors and characters and I can’t tell which is who
but they are a chorus
telling me humans are not the protagonist
and nothing I can say is more brilliant than a stand of trees or a mycelial warning
or a newborn’s first shuddering dance
or the grace of the blue heron in lustful prance across this pond
or the continuous sky flood always somewhere storming

and when the clouds are full with pending storm they are quiet
so I am studying that quiet so I can hold that storm
and when the riverbanks flood, the soil forgets it is earth and goes flying through the water and finds a new purpose in the deep or maybe maybe even the vast ocean
isn’t every stream a boddhisatva
didn’t Lao Tzu know it is humble to become the vastness beneath
I was running so fast and trying so hard but what I forgot was the wonder

now my body aches to remember when I was busy
when I was so capitalist in my anti-capitalism, that is to say so productive in my revolutionary performance
but now I am not busy
I am breathing
I am moving at the pace my body allows, ever forward, mentored by a tortoise
I am balancing my vibrant intentions with my bemused body – bones of betrayal, bruised by the busy I once thought was my worth
now I know my body is the sliver of earth I’ve been given
I am healing from the extraction
I thought gave me value
from the toxins I thought of as solace

the freedom I can experience is from the traumatic past and the dystopic future
into the miraculous now
in which I can still find moments of respite
moments to water the garden of my home
to skim the news stopping only to witness and feel the heartache and longing
the beauty of being so connected is that my boundless love has a field without horizon, my heart can gallop on, loving all the people experiencing and shaping humanity, without end

I hope to never be busy again
I owe this quiet breath to my grandmother
I am creating at an astounding rate
and some of it I even write down
some moments I get so still
I can sense how it is all connected
and that the tissue is love
and I know my love could never be wasted
or too small a contribution
I say yes when love leads
I say yes when there’s enough time to do it well
and sometimes even then I am not there
because life showed me another way to love
and it was irresistible

flower moon spell

the petals:

how many witches must cast a spell before it can protect our families, our bodies, our land? the sacred ritual of birth? the innocence in each of us?

how much abundance is needed to satisfy the hunger of cancer? the grasp of loneliness, the ache of desire, the pulse of greed calling?

how many prayers must cross in the sky, at odds, to confuse the gods into hiding? (for isn’t it true that the idea of god corrupts us, tricks us into diminishing our divinity until we forget how to be answers?)

how many children must be warriors for their future, and how do we forget war for the sake of a future?

how many nights will the moon pull the tide of this blood river, until the trauma settles, and even the memory of the trauma, and even the anger and forgetting and getting lost in the shape of the trauma? how many nights until it flows clear in us?

how much dirt must we grip into with our roots before we can trust ourselves to grow all the way out into the light?

flower moon spell:

moon help us shine into the impossible places, and then shed the pain, carrying the lessons into the dark, new, and fertile night. teach us the spells of this time.

gift us abundance without attachment.

let us pray by loving each other without conditions.

let us play, singing blurred words and dancing alone, surrounded by love and the possibility of love.

over and over, take what we can’t carry, with ashes, with water and whispers. and then let the nightbirds sing us to sleep.

humble us, remind us that the dirt is home, the dirt, the mess, is us…the petals fall away.

radical gratitude spell

a spell to cast upon meeting a stranger, comrade or friend working for social and/or environmental justice and liberation:

you are a miracle walking
i greet you with wonder
in a world which seeks to own
your joy and your imagination
you have chosen to be free,
every day, as a practice.
i can never know
the struggles you went through to get here,
but i know you have swum upstream
and at times it has been lonely

i want you to know
i honor the choices you made in solitude
and i honor the work you have done to belong
i honor your commitment to that which is larger than yourself
and your journey
to love the particular container of life
that is you

you are enough
your work is enough
you are needed
your work is sacred
you are here
and i am grateful

these are a collection of spells from radicals, generated in the spell casting workshop today at the allied media conference!

if you didn’t get it to me yet don’t fret, just send it along and i’ll add it. or if you want me to add your names, send them <3. enjoy and add on:

Console our childlike memories
Caress it’s hood, drink tea with the child
Repeat the emotion of lovemaking
Speak in love into our existence

we call on earth, ancestors and friends to hold us, to stand at our backs
give us ground and give us cover

nurture what we instinctively and lovingly knew as children

for the ground to hold people with privilege as we face the reality of the ancestral and active harms of racism and colonization, for a spark of possibility to push us into transformative action

share your pain, I’ll hold it with mine, release it towards ones that play with your power, a discomfort heered

Nah
Loreto
Carly
Erica

Clear the illusion and make space for love.
Clear the air surrounding our bodies, identifies, and broken pieces.
Together we will practice forgiveness in the service of creation
And accept uncertainty and all that it brings.

“a flickering light ignites the spark to our rebirth / growth pulsates as we tend to the fires at our center, / illuminating our way so that others are guided by / this ever-deepening love for our eternal liberation.”
— co-created with lucecita cruz, yvonne gail estolas, tara scott-miller + katherine tom

let us counter fear with radical love and generosity

healing our wombs with fierce care for ourselves

going beyond binaries, birthing the revolution

we follow the sun like sunflowers carrying our ancestors wisdom