This week Amy offers the end of war, and the way war doesn't end for those who lived it. Her prescription offers the Witch's castle as the place we can all come to find the medicine of care. It's a return to Funkadelic, and we invite you to join us in the March to the Witch's Castle:
And Father, why must wars be fought?
Someone said this war ended with "Peace with Honor"
but can that truly be?
Is there such a thing?
Thousands of boys gave their life, and for what?
Do anybody know?
Oh Lord, give us the strength to undertand ourselves
For we are a mysterious animal
Man
And as the boys march home to the witch's castle
They will all need your help
I can hear them calling
We live in traumatized times and the cycles of violence won't end unless we can transmute this suffering by telling our truths in stories and songs, grief and gardens, and hold each other's trauma truths tenderly alongside our own.
Amy continues her medicine for the week with the art and mission of Governor General award-winning artist, two-spirit Métis Elder, Marjorie Beaucage. Marjorie serves as Elder for OUTSaskatoon, Elder-in-Residence for the University of Saskatchewan Students Union, and Grandmother for Walking With Our Sisters, and is the author of ‘Leave some for the birds: Movements for justice,’
Sit with Marjorie's Coming IN Stories: "An intimate portrait of Indigenous teachings and stories of Two Spirit people in Saskatchewan taking their place in the Circle." Let the medicine of trickster stories weave you back into your constellation of identities, beyond gender and class, and back into the continuity of creation.
This week we are here for art as medicine, for making covenants and unions and strange bedfellows, and for conjuring absurdist responses to absurd times as a way of staying sane.
Risa's prescription begins with the art-Satanist lovers behind the delightful, demonic doo-wop of Twin Temple. Put on I'm A Witch and call up your creative power. Imagine you are in a beautiful old theatre, filled with thousands of other glorious rebel weirdos dancing and singing along loudly: "hex the patriarchy." Because that scene of playful, mounting, collective, dancing freedom is real, and you are a part of it, no matter how alone you might feel.
Yeah, I'm a witch
And my power is real
Yeah, I am a witch,
And I'll never kneel
(I am a, I am a witch)
I do whatever I please
Hex the patriarchy!
Follow with Billy Bragg singing Joe Hill's "There is Power in a Union" from the soundtrack to the movie Pride about the powerful alliance between gay rights activists and miners in the 1980s. Call in the spirit of radical care across imagined boundaries. Don't forget, we have always been stronger when we decide to make safe spaces for each other and work together.
Now I long for the morning that they realize
Brutality and unjust laws cannot defeat us
But who'll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackeys out to cheat us?
Money speaks for money
The Devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone?
What a comfort to the widow
A light to the child
There is power in a Union
Coven Events
You're Invited: Spend The New Moon Making Art Magic with the Missing Witches Coven.
Monday, Mar 1108:00 PM - 09:30 PM EDT
Hosted by Amy: "This New Moon in Pisces, let's talk about Art! How does art-making figure into your practice of the Craft? Do you make wreaths like Bri, or trap spirits in gelatin like Jess? Do you draw? Paint? Knit? Decorate cookies? Do you love the undo option of digital art or a no-turning-back splash of red paint across a canvas? Please bring your favourite artist or some of your own art and we'll discuss what role making art or loving art plays in our humanity. Keep in mind, the oldest evidence of human-made art is at least forty-five thousand years old - delightfully, it's a painting of pigs!! Humans have been doing art since before we started agriculture - making art exists in the deepest part of our DNA - even if we're "just" painting piggies.
If you choose to create as we talk, here are some outta the box ideas to make your medium part of your message:
Homemade playdough recipe (let’s get squishy!!)
Anti-anxiety watercolour (watercolour paint sets are cheap and easy to find and this YT creator keeps it low stress)
Paper Bag Kite!! (OMG imagine us all out flying our homemade Witch themed paper bag kites?!?!?)
Of course you’re also welcome to stick to your favourite medium, crayons, collage, embroidery or whatever you have on hand.
A creation prompt will be provided at the start of the meeting, and we'll share readings from the Pisces / Art chapter of our book, New Moon Magic: 13 Anti-Capitalist Tools for Resistance and Re-Enchantment.
Can you think of someone who might like.. all this? (She said, gesticulating wildly.) Forward them this email with all our love! Introduce your witchy friends to each other and let's give each other hope + community.
Blessed Fucking BE!
Risa + Amy
