The Practical Magic of Recording

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TFW when god* tells me to do shit and I am like fine, photo by Chloe Sells

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I have found that in seasons of stepping into my power there comes a forgetting of self, and a remembering of practice. This is always preceded by an inner darkness clouded in the fear of being forgotten, unqualified for my job, and an endless amount of grasping for anything outside of myself.

My willingness to record this experience is what keeps me steady, what keeps me knowing it is temporary, and turns the experience into an act of service.

Reporting keeps me with the people, keeps me in service, keeps me in wholeness, keeps me coming back to the cycle

Every year since 1988 I have watched the iconic film Practical Magic starring Sandra Bullock as Sally and Nicole Kidman as Gillian, with a beautiful early performance from gay icon Evan Rachel Wood, Stockard Channing as Aunt Frances in one of her greatest roles since Rizzo, and Dianne Wiest as the subtly sharp but kind Aunt Jet.

I have projected this film at a dance camp in rural New York, convinced dozens of sleepover parties it was very important we have a viewing, and into my adulthood I have continued to annually watch and weep hysterically at three parts. When Sally runs towards Michael and jumps into his arms as Faith Hill’s This Kiss plays at full volume, when Sally asks the aunts to bring him back, and when Sally lays on the ground begging Gillian not to die on either side of a circle of broomsticks created by all of their neighbors, who have shown up with a willingness only the ordinary witch could do.

As soon as it begins, the rope breaks. We see how devastating love is. That heartbreak feels like dying, feels like one hundred deaths. That never loving at all is worth avoiding this feeling, for centuries. That breaking a spell takes generations, unimaginable loss, forgiveness of the self, and the gathering of our people to cast out what keeps us trapped.

Sally has watched spells and witchcraft kill everyone she loved, taking on the commitment to never practice magic. We don’t witness a shift in the consciousness of this ancestral pain until Sally becomes willing to use her power, first out of fear, and soon out of the need to save her sister. Knowing that the pain of losing her could very well kill her too.

The greenhouse in the Aunt’s house, Sally’s shop in town, and her involvement in a PTA that basically hates her, are the places Sally goes to record, to see her people, to run into her neighbors and community. Even in the discomfort of these connections, there is a connectedness that in the time of greatest need they all show up to the task of saving Gillian (who is big gemini energy, big tornado person energy, and since Nicole Kidman is a gemini this makes sense to me)

Ways of recording :

Writing morning pages

Painting, Quilting, Knitting, Drawing - tactile creative practice

Writing a newsletter

Dancing + performance

Writing a zine, a book

Creating a podcast, youtube channel

Community Radio and Tv Stations

Make a documentary

Keeping a list making notebook

Going to a coffee shop to speak out loud to the person in line behind you

Gardening

Notes app on your phone

Text to a friend

Social media caption

Integrating the research, taking the time to retreat and let it move through you (think Sally in the garden), and showing up to the work of bearing witness to yourself is spell casting. It is a way of breaking through ancestral trauma, breaking the spells of those who came before you. And being of maximum service to those who don’t yet have the words to enter the the creek they want to cross.

Art making as recording, words as recording, movement as recording. Keeping close to my practices of recording keeps me just above the surface of drowning. Keeps me in even the most exhausted tread of water. Because I know it’s never for nothing. It’s always for the people. It’s always to bring the people into the circle of protection. We may record alone but we absolutely do not do this work alone. The work of complete transformation, collective shapeshifting, bringing to light what has been in the dark.

Blessed Samhain

Blessed Dark Moon

May your findings not be in vain but in a soft effort to raise us all to a higher level of a passionate orientation toward life.

Listen. I made up this free thing for us to do together. By made up I mean the idea to write 1111 words a day for 30 days spilled out of my little hand yesterday morning in my morning pages and I said YES and you are invited! Click here to access Headquarters for co-working, community forum portal, clubhouse. It’s literally free I figured there is no possible way I could do it by myself so HERE WE GO! Pretty sure people do this for novels and if you want to write a novel GREAT! I will be working on non fiction for newsletter, zine, book, pdf, and teaching formats!

⛱ COMMUNITY FORUM + CO-WORKING

🍂 WORD TRACKING TEMPLATE

🌞 PROMPTS FOR UNBLOCKING

🌸 CUTTING THROUGH THE FEAR

🌻 IDEAS FOR WHAT TO WRITE

For reference : today’s newsletter from top to bottom is 1254 words

1111 WORDS A DAY HEADQUARTERS

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