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Words Cast Spells: Spell-Casting for 2020 to Experience Grief, Temperance, and Abundance

Filed Under: Contemplative Practices, Everyday Feminism By Beth Godbee February 5, 2020 Leave a Comment

Though the new year marks a time for review and renewal, it’s often a few weeks into the year before I’m ready to set new goals via the contemplative practice of spell-casting. It’s as though I have to get out of the turbulent holiday season and new year energy before I’m ready to engage the magic of habit formation.

This year (like the past couple) I’m returning to the practice of writing spells (like mantras, poems, or intentions) that I’ve learned through adrienne maree brown (specifically, episode 10 of the Healing Justice podcast—“New Years Practice: Cast a Spell with adrienne maree brown”).

Words Cast Spells

As someone who came to writing and literacy studies because I so struggle with finding words, I strongly resonate with this practice. I resonate with the importance of naming and speaking aloud desires. I resonate with the idea that words cast spells, that words manifest being.

This image invokes the idea of spell-casting with smoke and light swirling upwards from an open book. “Words Cast Spells” is written above this image, which is framed with rows of candles and a black background.

This year, I notice that my spells pair the welcoming of abundance with the experience of grieving (allowing sorrow and lament) in a way I’ve never considered (much less articulated) before.

Perhaps this is because I’ve been re-reading Edgar Villanueva’s Decolonizing Wealth, and I’ve been particularly moved by the recognition that grieving must happen before moves toward apology, listening, investment, and repair are possible. I’m learning—and feeling in my body—the need for deeper, truer grieving in order for continued visioning and striving toward justice.

Likely this is also because I’ve been actively working on noticing comfort-seeking and numbing-out behaviors (my preferred ones being sugar-binging and TV-watching). I’ve been noticing how these behaviors keep me from deep grieving. Though they’ve been good friends for some time, they’ve become self-sabotaging. I’m ready to face how these behaviors are blocking me from pursuing my commitments with real integrity, discipline, and accountability.

So, along with an active resolution of “no TV or sugar during daytime hours” (something I’m finding exhilarating and exhausting), I’m ready to turn to what awaits in 2020. I’m using words (spell-casting) to call in the creative potential that’s possible. And I have a sense that I’ll get there through some emotional deep-diving: through releasing old patterns and allowing life to take new shape.

With these recognitions in mind, here’s my spell for 2020, shared with the hope that it might spark spell-casting for you, too.

My Spell for 2020: Linking Grief, Temperance, and Abundance

I stay with grief, sorrow, and lament: noticing when I fall into comfort-seeking behaviors to block suffering, and more and more, staying with the sensations that come up, allowing myself to feel, experience, release, acknowledge, and emerge.

I use temperance as a guiding principle: noticing when I’m being less than honest with myself and gently, humbly redirecting.

I stay with the hardest stories and the ones asking to be told even when I’m resisting. I notice and release resistance, leaning instead into the guidance coming to me.

I welcome abundance and ease: noticing with gratitude all the ways that I’m already supported and allowing myself to be held within a community of sustenance, care, and backing. I’m not in this (this work, this life, this striving) alone.

I use intuitive guidance systems—runes, meditation, pendulum, and more—to reconnect with the “strong yes,” and that strong yes becomes part of an ongoing and daily discernment process.

I invest in repair, working with money, resources, and inheritances (ancestral debts and assets) differently, learning to betray capitalist goals, honor the earth, and live out reparations.

I commit to truth-telling, ancestral healing, and a relational ethic. While recognizing continued harm, I strive to lessen harm and to learn and unlearn.

I stay in mess (the messier and truer, the better).

—
This post is written by
Beth Godbee, Ph.D. for Heart-Head-Hands.com. For related posts, you might try “Spell-Casting and Other Contemplative Practices for Reflection and Recovery” and “A New Spell for a New Space.”

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Tagged with: abundance, commitments, countering perfectionism, courage, divination, emotional literacies, grief, healing, hope, learning, mantras, mindful eating, pain, racial justice, resilience, resistance, shadow, social justice, storytelling, temperance

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Updates to the new offering “Pathways Through Bu Updates to the new offering “Pathways Through Burnout: A Cohort Experience”:

For the past year, Candace and I have been listening to requests for an offering around burnout (or, more precisely, being burned up), and we launched a new cohort experience August 1st. We are deeply grateful for the range of responses we’ve received since then, and we’ve been prioritizing time to listen and discern what people want and need.

Through a lot of conversation and reflection, we’ve decided to slow down further and to reshape the offering. 

We’ll continue offering interactive workshops on practices for navigating burnout—with new dates announced for November 3rd and December 15th (and more to come in 2024). 

Starting in January, we’ll hold a few one-day retreats with time for art, play, contemplative practice, conversation, and coaching. We hope the retreat will feel like something that’s possible now (with so many pushes and pulls on time and attention).

All of this is leading to a 12-week version of the cohort experience: a season of connection to match a season in life. We’ll reopen applications in the spring and hope that a small group forms well ahead of our start date in September 2024.

The details of all of these experiences—and an invitation to join the workshops in Nov and Dec—are shared online here: https://heart-head-hands.com/pathways-through-burnout/ 
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I am slow to edit and share photos, but I want to I am slow to edit and share photos, but I want to share these from the Beyond Granite public art exhibit that just left the National Mall here in DC. I wish this installation was staying long-term. How I struggle with visiting the Mall in the best of conditions. And how these pieces helped me appreciate what could instead be done in this space. 

Also, Jonathan and I got really lucky that the night we visited was the most spectacular sunset! Scroll through for photos of how "America's Playground" appears against an orange sky (no filter).
In case you missed it, here again is the new inter In case you missed it, here again is the new interview with Candace Epps-Robertson @dr._candace_epps_robertson_ :
https://heart-head-hands.com/qa-with-candace-epps-robertson/
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This photo shows Candace at a BTS concert, Permission To Dance LA, December 2021.
 
Among the wide-ranging subjects Candace addresses are her experience with #BTSARMY fandom and her current work with museums.
 
Read to the end, where Candace talks about the importance of listening for pursing justice. :-)
New blog post (this one has been a long time comin New blog post (this one has been a long time coming)!
 
It’s an interview with Candace Epps-Robertson -- “On Seasons of Life, Writing, and Career” -- https://heart-head-hands.com/qa-with-candace-epps-robertson/
✨✨link in bio✨✨
@dr._candace_epps_robertson_ 
 
I am incredibly excited about this interview because Candace speaks to a wide range and depth of curiosities. Her related work ranges from reflecting on her journey as part of the BTS global fandom ARMY to curating museum exhibits to teaching writing with visual art and music to caring holistically for ourselves as writers and to navigating burnout. Candace describes the underlying motivations—the deep why—behind the range of questions she asks about social justice, cultural rhetorics, literacy, and writing. It’s clear that this range speaks to the importance of everyday, integrated living for justice: for striving toward justice in all ways of showing up and being in the world—relating, listening, and living.
 
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About Beth Godbee

I'm an educator and former writing studies professor who believes our fully embodied selves matter in the world. We can’t just think our way out of the incredible injustices, dehumanization, violence, and wrongdoing that characterize everyday life. We must feel and act, too. [Pronouns: she/her.] Read more ...

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