The Blood Still Works.

Part I: Black Girl Magic as praxis.

This is a chronicle of incantations flung from the depths of my Soul on nights when the moon was full and I was, too full of cortisol and whiskey to set the crystals out or pour the water, or light a candle, or consecrate one of those journals I bought to season the pile of off-season clearance dresses with a little self-care. Perhaps the jingle of my bracelets and the weight of my ol’ heavy-handed self snatching the journal from the shelf shook loose the dust at the same frequency of a good tambourine. The one with all its jingles shining and head still taught. The kind of tambourine you could go to town on when Sister Harrison caught the Holy Ghost and your only form of intercession was to keep the praise high by snatching it off the pew, pursing your lips and making a mighty percussive noise unto the Lord until your little fingers felt like they might burst open and bleed rivers of little black girl stigmata all over the sanctuary. I was conjuring then, too. That magic is still in my palms so the day I grabbed the journal in TJ Maxx, I only needed to notice the shiny gold lettering, and hear my bangles jingle, and my palm slap the cover, and feel my lips tuck themselves in between my teeth and ALAKAZAM! or whatever. That journal is consecrated because I said it is. The magic of my silent and still full moon ritual is powerful. The blood still works. 

It doesn’t always writhe and exalt or dance naked under the moon. The Magic, I mean. It’s not loud like souped up exhaust pipes, police helicopters, and late night infomercials. My magic be so quiet sometimes, it lulls me to sleep. My magic speaks in windsong sometimes and rumbles thunder in others. One time, it was a lightning bolt that sent ice drip down my spinal cord and knocked out all my Christmas lights, even the tree. Well, technically that was the night a Warlock transitioned and his goodbye was pitch black, like his soul would turn from time to time when I was a little girl. I’m getting ahead of myself. Muttering on about magic and witches and warlocks. Sittin’ here surrounded in coral quilts and satin pillows, tapping away about how I make magic this life.

And I do. Make magic this life. And I want to think about how I go about doing that. My Grandmother used to sing a song called How I Got Over. It was about introspection. It is a meditation. Songs are incantations, spells sung. This is why joy is an irrevocable tool for the revolution. There is wonder-working power in the precious blood of the lamb. Outside the church house, in the garden or the woods brought inside and pressed into dresser drawers and back pockets, it be hoodoo. Ask us what we know of sacrifice and blood ritual. I can show you maybe better than I can tell you. Gramma knew the benefits of knowing how to “sit wit cho’Self” to let your soul look back and wonder / how I got over. They wouldn’t dare call it magic, the elders. There were some words that were just ill-fitting for the time and that’s fine. Like what I call transformation, I think Gramma would have referred to as salvation. She might have witnessed the dedication of one’s life to Christ and remarked at how “they’d been changed” or how the Lord was “doing a new thing” in us, her, them. We been magic. We been saved. We been feminists. We been witches. We been light bearers and heavy load sharers. We been redeemed and redeemers. We been buked and scorned, or burned at the stake. 

And I want to spell it out for you, reader. I want to make it plain so that you can clear the channel to transmit your testimony. I believe I have a testimony now. I sat with myself a while. I rededicated my soul to the God in me. I looked back over my life and thought things over and I believe in the quiet, the witching hours, when the magic is loud and I hear my Greatmother humming and clearing and she tells me to wait and rest by the riverside, hum my own song and know peace. Be still. I hear her telling me to study war no more. To surrender. To live well. To trust. To fear not for the kingdom of God is at hand. And then I look down at my hands, and I finally understand. And ask me how I know. Because when I move with intention, every surface becomes an altar. I consecrate my kitchen counters and call the sunken ones up when I stir honey into my teacup. This is communion of living bodies decked out standing at the mouth of an empty tomb in the name of heavenly bodies springing forth from living wombs. By water first and fire next time. It is the language, the technology, the transmission, to decipher, to process and apply. Ask me how I know its all connected and I will write you a book of spells, a guide to the getting over of the Soul. One witch’s way of making use of power.

Before we begin, I want to share some information about how I am grounding this work in Black feminism, afrofuturism, somatics, ancestral veneration, and liberatory coaching to create a decolonized analysis and praxis of Black Girl Magic. This project is informed by my core values of well-being, autonomy, meaning, integrity and expression. There are no rules, you are at choice. You are also extremely powerful and creating as a part of the infinitely connected consciousness of all that is and ever will be. Make yourself accountable to the laws of the Universe and do no harm. I begin with an example of a spell that interferes with the will of another, and that was some messy shit that was out of alignment with my core values, so you will get to see an example of what happens when you defy your own authority and create a soul tie with a total stranger . 

A Spell for Conjuring A Lover to Rescue You  - don’t do this!

You will need:

two red taper candles

one white taper candle

altar oil (stored in a repurposed 375ml Ruinart Rose Champagne bottle)

a straight nail (new, not rusty) 

Ace of Wands from your favorite tarot deck

a glass dish filled with honey (taste it first)

a mound of salt

a clean glass filled with clear, cool water

1 stick of incense you burn when Bae is coming over

some fine tobacco 

good liquor for the offering 

Now, look. Don’t pretend you didn’t read that line up above that explicitly tells you not to do this. There is a reason for that, and I will say more about that after we are finished here. I will also share a spell for getting out of the soul-tie you will create when you do this anyway because if you are anything like me, you are hard-headed and led by your own free-will and power. Still, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The thing about magic is we overthink it. We formalize and outsource our power to the doctrine and protocols of groups to which we have no connection, or birthright. Without proper awareness of Self and energetic boundaries, we become susceptible to abuse or infiltration by energies that really don’t mean us any good. Grounding and protection, Self-trust and discretion are essential to working with your magic. Your routine behaviors and focused attention are the first access points to your power. It is through them that you are able to ground and center yourself in intention for the work.

Part of me wants to stop here and invite you to take whatever version of the items listed above you have, make any substitutions that are required, and to go off, Sis! What magic would you make? But that would be irresponsible. Over the next few entries I will tell you what I did, why I did it, and what happened afterward. From there, you choose your own adventure.

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Your ritual is more important than the ingredients. Your intention is the spell. The magic is what you become as a result of your aligned actions. Ritual grounds you in the activity, magic makes apparent the intention or subject of things hoped for. We use what we have to get what we want and the danger with that lies in wanting. That’s where I stepped in it. I wanted to be rescued from my reality and from that place, I externalized my power to invite more darkness into an already present void…