This season calls on us to tend even our smallest fires, to curl into our little shells — both bodies and homes — with love... and to believe in that love through sickness and the blinding snow.
Risa's prescription is a house blessing for snowed-in times, which — in the magic of "as below so above" — is also a political spell laying claim to nations built on love, a belief in another way of being in our places, and in making them homes of love and liberation. The song is vintage Diana Ross, and you must walk around your space and thank it and love it up while you listen. It's My House, and I Live Here.
It's my house and I live here
There's a candle to light the stairs
Where my dreams await someone to share
Oh, there's music on the radio
And good vibrations won't let me go
I put my name on the ceilin' above'
cause it was built for love.
Our countries weren't built for love, we've got to be honest. They were built for extraction: from indigenous people, enslaved people, indentured servants, and the land. But under the weight of extreme cold and anti-immigrant lies we insist upon remembering a different possibility. A spiritual home. What Anne Braeden — white, Southern, anti-racist activist and abolitionist — learned from William L. Patterson to call: "The Other America". He told her:
You can join the other America—the people who struggled against slavery, the white people who supported them, the people who all through Reconstruction struggled...The upsurges of people’s movements in the 1930s, the civil rights activities of the 1950s and ‘60s, and beyond...the people who have struggled against injustice — the Other America... [He told me] I could be a part of that—that it existed today and offered me a home to live in.
That Other Place, that Other Community, is a home we can live in too. We can build it for love and work for it with our mundane and magical activism.
This week, dance with Diana as you bless your living space, and feel it there, That Other Place, not impossible, not out of reach.
Amy offers a musical companion for an exploration of the whole range of human emotion, and we're going to need it all. A friend for all the shadow places and wild fluctuations of the mind. 60's folk singer Norma Tanega leads us in song through darkness with You're Dead, into joy with Jubilation, and settles us into the absurd with Walkin' My Cat Named Dog.
Happy, sad and crazy wonder
Chokin' up my mind with perpetual dreamin'...
I'm driftin' up and down the street
Searchin' for the sound of people
People what you think of that?
That's where I'm at, that's where I'm at, that's where I'm at.
Wherever you're at, be there for a moment.
That's where I'm at, that's where I'm at.
Coven Events
So, FYI: We're experimenting with some new modes of bringing the Missing Witches Weavers circle together. The Weavers group is full of ridiculously badass people, who come together to work on the great projects of their lives, whatever that looks like for them. They are therapists, scientists, writers, PhD candidates, lawyers, parents, podcasters are more. When they are together the magic is palpable and exponential, so we're experimenting with adding "Co-Working Cauldrons" to our event schedule, for Weavers only. In these Cauldrons we make a container to work on what's calling to our most magical selves, we bounce ideas off each other, sometimes Amy DJ's, it's pretty great. We have our second one coming up this week, followed by our monthly Weavers circle. If you've considered moving up to the Weavers level or jumping into your Missing Witches membership at that tier please know that your support means everything, and we'd be thrilled to have you.
Weavers Co-Working Cauldron
Monday, Jan 22, 12:00 - 01:00 PM EST
Weavers Full Leo Moon Loom
Thursday, Jan 25 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM EST
More Rxs from around the Coven
Podcasts:
Ghosted with Roz Hernandez (comedy) especially this episode with Margaret Cho.
Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch (comedy)
Books
The Terraformers (fiction)
When Women Were Dragons (fiction)
(via Michelle.)
Practices
Thrift Craft
"You need not purchase a single thing to practice witchcraft, but if you *want* to, I strongly recommend a stroll down the tchotchke aisle at your local secondhand store. Small glasses make great votive holders, and they rarely cost more than a few dollars. Find a picture frame adorned with crucifixes and hang it upside-down for a touch of Satanist flair (sorry grandma). There are tacky candelabras and woven baskets and unique vases waiting for a witch to see their potential!" (via Erin.)
Hand Craft
"I deal with health issues that mean frequent hand pain and weakness, so I get frustrated with them a lot, and I also tend to not give my body kind attention. It’s nice to start small, and when I do, it makes it easier to expand that kindness to the rest of me. I’ve been making sure to keep my hands moisturized, and at night I oil my nails and cuticles and rub a nice herbal salve into my hands and forearms." (via Melissa.)
Mutual Aid / Collective Action Corner
Amnesty International's Toolkit for Action: Ceasefire
"A ceasefire would put a stop to unlawful attacks by all parties, halt the mounting death toll in Gaza and enable aid agencies to get life-saving aid, water and medical supplies into the Strip to address the staggering levels of human suffering. It will also allow hospitals to receive life-saving medicines, fuel and equipment they desperately need and to repair damaged wards.
A ceasefire would also provide opportunities to negotiate the release of hostages detained in Gaza and for independent international investigations to take place into the war crimes committed by all parties in order to end long-standing impunity, which will continue to breed further atrocities."
Protect Old-Growth Forests & Endangered Ecosystems in BC!
"If done well, the resulting legislation and policies of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (BEHF) would make BC a global leader in conservation. If not, it could be a squandered opportunity. Right now is the most important time to speak up!"
Can you think of someone who might like.. all this? (She said, gesticulating wildly.) Forward them this email with all our love!
Blessed Fucking BE!
Risa + Amy
