Day 2: Beware the Break (Implementing Balance)

Posted on by Irene McCalphin

The first part of this working is not launching an all out attack
The first part is an assessment of my physical and metaphysical arsenal
You don’t pop off without knowing how many bullets are in your gun

Today it was hard to focus

What is happening here is not just happening here. It is happening all over the world. In China right now Muslim children are being sent to “boarding schools” and their parents to “re-education” camps.

Representatives of their government say that this is to help them assimilate and that there has been no evidence of these kind of actions causing any cultural harm. But we know this is a lie. Members of the United States Government dare to open their mouths to condemn these actions without addressing the harm this country is doing right now, the harm this country has historically done to Black people and Indegious people.

There is already well documented, living and breathing evidence of the effects of actual and cultural genocide. I am a survivor of these things.

It was hard to focus today.

So I did a single card draw from Cristy C. Road’s Next World Tarot

The 2 of Wands learned everything she wanted to learn. She travels in a world free of injustice and asks you to assist her in ushering in the next world. Before we are teacher, starseeds and magicians; we are cultural workers living on a margin with hope and fear that feels eternal. Self sacrifice makes us magical but trauma makes us human. We deserve to engage with the endless possibilities of our gift and we deserve to take our time to heal.

The 2 of Wands is a safe threshold. She is guardian angel who asks you to discover your deepest truth and unravel your deepest wound while basking in your greatest achievement.

Christy C. Road

This draw helped me refocus and see that I am not just doing one working but creating a system for my magic. One that uses magical & emotional sacrifice, informed not only by trauma motivated by the healing of trauma, a system that supports my wounds and my wings. It’s not for one thing. It can be mutable and used for so much more in the now and future.

I feel called to reiterate that this is dangerous work

When a friend asked me how this could be dangerous work. All my exhaustion brain could come up with at first was: Think of this kind of magic as RACK (Risk Aware Consensual Kink) instead of SSC (Safe Sane Consensual Kink)

I risk breaking myself.

Spiritually: How can there be a Divine Intelligent Force when these things continue to happen? Aren’t my prayers heard? Am I not screaming loud enough? Am I wrong in my beliefs? Is this all for naught?

Emotionally: Depression, Rage

Mentally: Anxiety, Paranoia

Physically: Continued and chronic stress leads to heart issues, high blood pressure, loss of cognitive functions, adrenal overload, insomnia etc.

I’m not saying this to say “look how brave I am for doing this”
I’m saying this so I remain vigilant and continue to replace that which I put out
I’m saying this in hopes that I don’t break
I’m saying this in hopes that if I do I remember that I wrote this and I can go back and remind myself that this is the work and not me and to ask for help.

The first part of this working is not launching an all out attack
The first part is an assessment of my physical and metaphysical arsenal
You don’t pop off without knowing how many bullets are in your gun

The first part of The Covenant of Working I made for this action was intentional:

I understand that this is dangerous work
I understand that I must not die for it but live for it
I understand that I must take care of the vessel, mind and heart that sets upon this task

I will repeat the whole to myself twice a day before bed, upon waking but that first part is the foundation. I’ve watched too many great people, healers, comrades fall to suicide, depression, mental instability while walking the tightrope between hope and hopelssness.

Most people engaging in this kind of desperate bloody work physically and metaphysically are those who are marginalized. As a marginalized person, as a Black person, as a fat person, as a person assigned female at birth I was taught that the silent sacrifice of myself was the most noble thing I could do.

I refuse to allow my Resistance Magic to be rooted in concepts formed by colonization and patriarchy.

So today I did my assessment and created my daily rituals of self care that will sustain me physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Daily:
Exercise
Water
3 Meals
At least 15mins of Joy
At least 15mins of Meditation
At least 7hrs of sleep or down time
At least one check inwith Kith and Kin
Conversation with Ancestor/ Spirit/ Divine
Shower

This may seem like some pretty basic shit but I know I’ve gone a week without showering when I am going through it…

Today

Magical:

  • Created my daily ritual
  • Recited my Covenant
  • Set my Wards
  • Set a glass of water on a white cloth next to my bed
  • Ask my Guides and Elevated Ancestors for advice

Real World Action:

Tomorrow I’ll be breaking down the three goals of my Covenant and crafting rituals for each that take in account the moon phases and the upcoming retrograde. I’m really glad my CPAP came in. I’m going to need all the sleep I can get.

Resistance Work Day 1 of 30

Posted on by Irene McCalphin

I am sharing my process for this 30 day intentional working.
I have never done this before. I am no expert. I am hella winging it.
My intention in sharing this is providing a framework for myself and others who feel called do this type of resistance magic from as resourced a space as possible. I invite discourse and suggestion and if it feels right taking pieces of this and making it your own.

Tarot Readings (uploading later)

  • to advise on whether or not I should do this working
  • to advise on how I should do this working

Questions to for Intention/ Clarity/ Goals

  • why am I doing this work
  • what do I fear in this work
  • what is false in this fear
  • what are my goals
  • who will I ask to aid me in achieving these goals
  • what am I willing to give personally for this goal
  • what offerings will I give to those who aid me in achieving these goals
  • how far am I willing to go for this goal

Why am I doing this work?

Because it needs to be done, people are dying, being abused, being treated as if they are less than human. Because what is happening today will cause generations of trauma. I refuse to be complicit citizen of the state.

My freedom is an illusion. As long as things like this continue to happen my freedom is an illusion and time is an hour glass.

I have no home but this. My limited traceable heritage is here. As someone whose ancestors were stolen to this land in violence my roots are connected to those whose ancestors were taken from this land by violence.

As a Black person whose Ancestors saw their children taken from them and sold I can not and will not sit silent while the same thing happens to another People

What do I fear in this work?


That I am not strong enough, disciplined enough, educated enough that the working will not be enough.

What is false in this fear?


My strength is aided by my ancestors, by the land itself, by those already casting their will towards the liberation of free peoples and the children who follow in the footsteps of their ancestors who have transversed this coast for thousands of years before the imaginary borders were drawn
My discipline has been tested countless times. I have a traceable history of my ability to push through and move with
My education was gifted to me by my mothers. My birth mother taught me how to pray. My spiritual mother taught me how to curse. Both have educated me thoroughly and well. What I lack will come through community, through words and workings of those far wiser than myself. I trust Spirit, I trust Tears, I trust my Rage, I trust my Heart.
It is enough. If it is everything I can give without breaking myself it is enough. Every single drop of rain is responsible for the flood.

What are my goals?


The destruction of the border camps
The destruction the systems that sustain them
The uniting of families
Reparations for these families

Who will I ask to aid me in achieving these goals?


Those whose names remain veiled
Nimue the Slayer, Protectress of Children
My community
My Kindred

What offerings will I give to those who aid me in achieving these goals

Aside from the blood of my enemies?
Feasts, acts of love and creation, blood, works of art, healing services

What am I willing to give personally for this goal?


My safety, my money, my time

How far am I willing to go for this goal?


(for my eyes only)

From the above create a contract between Deity/ Spirit/ Yourself these are your boundaries and reminders.

The Covenant of Working

I understand that this is dangerous work
I understand that I must not die for it but live for it
I understand that I must take care of the vessel, mind and heart that sets upon this task

Tonight, as fire lights the sky in celebration of a lie I light my own candle to combat it
Tonight I call upon my Mighty Dead and My Elevated Ancestors
Tonight I call upon Nimue the Slayer Protectress of Children, I call upon Justice beyond the laws this land, I call upon *

It is with an open, soft heart that I pick up my sword, my will, my call
It is with tears in my eyes that I bare my teeth
It is with compassion that I seek to curse those that harm, detain, kill, abuse, abduct the free peoples at the false borders.

I ask for wisdom, for guidance, for courage as I set myself to this task in both magical and mundane ways
I commit to praying with my feet moving

Tonight I harness every blast to bolster the voices of those crying out from chain linked fences and battle line
Tonight I harness every spark of light to reveal the ugliest and most damaging secrets of all those in power who gain from this atrocity or remain silent about it
Tonight I harness every collective cry of awe from the complacent crowds and bend it to this purpose:

The complete and utter destruction of the border camps
The complete and utter destruction the systems that sustain them
The complete reuniting of families and reparations to these families

Hear my words
Note my warrant
Aid my work
And for You I will dance
I will create stories,songs and feasts
I will lend my touch to those in need
I will make love in Your names.

With money, mouth and magic directed against Tower and it’s dragon
I answer the Call of Resistance!
With the ordered thoughts of a mind calm and as cold as a river in winter
I answer the Call of Resistance!
I wield the sword. I see the field.
I answer the Call of Resistance!

The Call

Posted on by Irene McCalphin

I’ve woken myself up crying for the past few weeks. It lasts for a few minutes then stops. I just blamed it on Cancer season

Today it took longer and I asked the tears: What The Fuck?!?!

The tears responded
You must do a working

Me: On what?

Tears: On these camps.

Me: Okay I do one tonight.

Tears: No. You do one for a month. You do one everyday, you use blood and sharp things, you write a curse. You do it out loud. You do it with Black and Brown people in person. You do this in conjunction with real world action.

Me: Okayyyyyy can we negotiate on the bl-

Radio: (Plays Formation)

Me: So that’s a no… When do I start?

Tears: Tomorrow

Me: That’s the 4th of July

Tears: That’s not a fucking coincidence. Get to work.

No Apologies

Posted on by Irene McCalphin

I told my partner last night that I wanted to post this picture but I was waiting for the right words.
They asked me why I don’t post it without them.
I clutched my pearls.
My words would have been a way to distract from, explain away or justify my body.Thank you Laydee Kaye Photography for this image that reminds me of my sovereignty and my sacredness.Thank you Love for reminding me that this sovereignty and sacredness needs no explaination.

That shit’s expensive

Posted on by Irene McCalphin

There are days
I can’t get out it bed
I can’t eat
I eat too much
Where I count the scratches on my skin

There are nights
I can’t sleep
I wake up gasping for air and my heart beating out of control
I claw my shoulders and arms in my sleep

There are places I can not go because I see it for what it is
There are people I can not fuck with because I see them for what they are

The worst was seeing myself.
How I contributed to and still contribute to the world poison.
There are a lot of people who think I and people like me don’t work but we do.
Personally,
You won’t see the results in my banking account
It’s in the muscles of those I’ve worked on
the amount of tears my skin has soaked up
burnt out novena candles smelling like hope, justice or a road opened on some child’s altar
somebody finally resting after a late night phone call
some ones expression of validation after reading words written in moments or rage or realization

You’ll see the consequences of this constant effort of confronting social injustice and the gaslighting inherent to maintaining the current status quo in an exhausted smile, glazed over eyes, anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, disordered eating, disordered sleeping, trust issues, broken relationships, suvivor’s guilt and resistance to receiving self/community care.

I stay offering/doing work for the people who exchange stability and “sanity” for our collective liberation
I stay lying to myself and others by saying
I’m okay.

Still, I am aware that I am luckier than most. I have a home, I have access to food.
I see you
I see us

I see how we
Black and Brown and Femme in particular were taught that if we want something we have to be willing to die for it.

I want us to live to see “it”
This is dangerous work
Not just to the people who do it but all those who are close to them.
So if you’re reading this and there is somebody in your life doing the work start doing something for them.

Say I see you and thank you
Buy them a meal
Throw money in their PayPal or purse when they aren’t looking
Send them something sweet to remind them of the sweetness life has

But do something
Because they are literal dying for you to live.

The Medusa

Posted on by Irene McCalphin

The first time I saw Queerest of the Gods I was left undone. Here were stories of Deity that felt like accessible reflections.
Ten years later I had the honor of participating in the event that touched me so deeply.

I knew I did not want to represent something linked to the Greek/Roman pantheon. In the ten years since my first QotG I had found myself having adverse reactions to eurocentric representations of The Holy. The combination of an extreme lack of racial diversity in both aesthetics and practices with a cascade of casual dismissal from white people in leadership had done a fuck ton of damage to me.

As someone deeply invested in the transformational magic of seeing myself in the face of the Divine it was really fucking inconvenient when Medusa popped up like
Heeeeeeeeey bitch you ready?

I tried to turn my back.
Roll up on Oya.
Show up with purple flowers and sweet red wine to ask her to step out with me but Oya looked over my shoulder, laughed and walked away.

Medusa chased me for months until I surrendered.
Which was, as alway, dramatic and full of madness because I often don’t know when to stop.
She told me I was so very wrong in my assumptions
And after a night of marijuana, wine, naked dancing and crying on my balcony under a strong bright moon I received Her & Athena

and this.

This is for the survivors
This is for the war-weary women and femmes fighting for sovereignty of their own bodies
fighting for the sovereignty of their own sex, their own stories, their own land
You who have been slandered sullied and scarred
pass through me and be reborn

All you know of me is lies
A false narrative I had nothing to do with
A recorded demonization that served those in power and convinced others that they had none
Let the record burn

Athena: Heaven
Medusa: Myself
Music: 121 Recorriendo la Sabana de Nuevo / Black Panther Suite (Score) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6txUB4JPw8

Transcription

Medusa:They would have me hate you
Athena: These men that stole our story
Both: They dishonor us
Athena: Sister,Let the record finally be set right

I was born of Africa
My mother The Living Waters
My grandmother The Earth Herself
My sisters and I The Anatha
We the Triune Soul of the Triple Moon

How dare these fuckboys tell you I am not Immortal.

These men who invaded my land
These men who wanted my abundance
These men who sought to impose authority over me, tell me how it was going to be in my own damn home.


I resisted
Against those carried here with the protection of Poseidon himself
Against those trying to take from me that which belong to neither god nor man

I rallied
Summoning my Priestesses, the Matriarchal African Warrior Clans

I retaliated
Even as my blood flowed like rivers across the whole Libya and Egypt

I fought until they captured me
drug me by my hair across Poseidon’s lap to Greece
I was to be a spoil of their war
A sacrifice to their new gods
But I would not die


They shattered my triple soul, One part eaten, One part made to forget and still I would not die


So they raised their scalpels and reconstructed the story of my soul
they sucked the melanin from my skin, they raped me, turned me against myself, demonized me, isolated me, murdered me, perverted my corpse,  then bled it’s power dry

Because I had the audacity to say No
Because I am a Black Woman who had the audacity to say No More

Years turned to decades into centuries into millennia
I began to hear these lies cross the lips of my own children. I began to believe…that everything they said about me was true, that everything they did to me was deserved…

Athena:(walks toward Medusa and holds her)
I found you
Broken and bloodied
I loved you
Me loving you was me loving myself

Athena pressed her lips and teeth against the scarred skin of my back and her breath restored my wings

She passed her palms down every inch of my body, turning ravaged flesh to gilded armor and we remembered who we were

Medusa: Our fingers loced in my hair
Both:Our hair singing sweet songs our coiled serpents awaken
I am not dead
I am all that came before
I am all that survived after

I am monsteress because I am Wisdom in a Woman’s form

I am not the cursed but I can deliver one
for the survivors
for the war-weary women and femmes fighting for sovereignty of their own bodies
fighting for the sovereignty of their own sex, their own stories, their own land.

Call for me and I will raise my red mask and ride to your defense
Call for me and I will hold them in a mirrored gaze that will drive them mad with the truth of themselves

I am a viper whose poison will burn their flesh to stone
no mortal has yet been able to lift the veil that covers me for I am the hard earned Wisdom you should never had to learn

I am MotherDeath and Crone
Women, Femmes my beautiful TransDaughters
You who have been slandered sullied and scarred pass through me and be reborn

Call me by my name and I will come to you!
The name they stole from me when I would not lay down

Call me by my name!
The song on lips of my sistersselves Athena and Metris

Call me by my name!
I am Neith I am the Medusa
I am vengeance and I am coming.

cup of tea

Posted on by Irene McCalphin

Often,when it rains
my knee aches
It didn’t used to

I fell.

I came to work the next day limping, in a wrist brace with dark circles under my eyes
must have looked like I was punched in the face
one of the legal assistants leaned over my desk and whispered

what happened?

I said that my current boyfriend had pushed me down the stairs

Awful joke, I regretted instantly
Her eyes widened, she leaned forward even more
Concerned

No no I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I fell
She didn’t believe me

I did fall
I had been having a weird fever with chills every night but I seemed to be coping well enough during the day

I begged my ex to fix me a cup of tea because nightquil and exhaustion made the stairs difficult
He told me to get it myself
He was tired.

So I did and I fell
When I asked him the next night saying please help me I fell last night he responded the same

So I did and I fell
I fell in the same damn spot
I shattered the cup
I cut myself
I twisted my wrist and burned my stomach
I hurt my knee
I cried

Then I crawled up the stairs for towels, cleaned it and myself up then went back to bed

The next morning he scolded me for not asking for help in a way in which he could hear and understand it

Years later
After a show
I was sitting in the rain in San Francisco
eating crepes with a mutal aquaintaince
the steam rising up from every bite

He told me that my ex was getting married. It was something I already knew. When I asked how she was doing I was really asking if she had figured out what an asshole he was

He looked at me directly as if realizing something for the first time

You know what, he said. He really has a thing for broken women.

I rubbed my knee as I responded
He doesn’t have a thing for broken women.
He breaks them.

It’s raining now
As I write this
As I pause to rub my knee
Sometimes I still get sad in the rain which is inconvenient because I really really really love the rain

I often don’t remember why I get sad but today I do
Today I’m aware
So I’m taking a moment to speak directly to my heart from the knees up
Reminding these parts of me
I am no longer broken
I am loved
I will never again want for a cup of tea