A Spell to Strengthen Your Community
In the excellent book How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community, author Mia Birdsong writes about the importance of community and of acknowledging our interdependence.
Birdsong argues that the deep loneliness and isolation in modern USAmerican culture (and, to a lesser extent, other Western cultures) is a product of what she calls “American Dreamism.” This ideology saturates every aspect of our culture. American Dreamism says that to be successful, we need to be totally independent and self-sufficient. It says that to be happy, we need to successfully perform social norms like heteronormativity, monogamy, and the nuclear family. It says that we must see other people as competition and keep them at an arm's length. As Birdsong says, “The American Dream is white supremacy culture bound up with capitalism and patriarchy.”
I highly recommend y'all read How We Show Up for yourselves, but here are a few of my main takeaways from the book:
Our healing and growth is entwined with the healing and growth of others
We can build our own families, beyond biology and legal ties, based on shared experiences and values
Our culture encourages us to rely only on romantic partners for help and support, but there is no reason friends can't fill this role for each other
When we reject American Dreamism, we realize that we can prioritize and honor our friendships the same way we might a romantic relationship
When we expand our definition of family, we create support networks that make it easier to overcome life's challenges
With these lessons in mind, I created the following spell for strengthening your community, whatever it may look like.
A Spell for Your Community
For this, you will need to create an artistic representation of your community. You can do this with any medium you want. Here are a few ideas to get you started on your brainstorming:
Weave a web of community using an embroidery hoop plus thread or embroidery floss in different colors. Using a spider's web as inspiration, weave together the threads that make up your support network. You could use different colors of thread to represent different types of relationships, like blood red for your legal/biological family (your “blood”) or pink for romantic partnerships. From here, weave in more colors to represent the identities, feelings, and qualities that hold your community together, like green for a shared love of nature/gardening or rainbow colored thread for shared queer identity. If you'd like, you can place a jewelry charm in the center of the web to represent your place in your community.
Map out a relationship garden inspired by permaculture. In How We Show Up, Mia Birdsong writes about the work of Lawrence Barriner II, a communications strategist who “applied to his friendships a system of zones inspired by permaculture, a system of design that helps farmers and gardeners be efficient with their resources and energy. Zone 1 holds those he is closest to… Zone 5 is people he doesn't know exist.” You could create your zones on a blank sheet of paper by creating five nested circles, with each ring filled in with a different colored pencil or crayon. In each zone, write the names of the people who fall into that zone for you. For example, Zone 1 might include your core chosen family, your partner(s) and roommates, and your best friends, Zone 2 might include extended family and friends you see or talk to regularly, Zone 3 might include acquaintances and old friends you've lost touch with, and so on.
Create a community collage. For this, you'll need access to either a printer or a stack of old magazines, plus scissors, glue, and plenty of space to work in. Start with a blank sheet of paper, either white or another color that resonates with you. If using a printer, search online for images that remind you of different aspects of your community (like a bubbling cauldron for your witchy friends, a playground for your kids, etc.) and print them out. If using magazines, flip through the magazines and cut out any pictures that remind you of your community. Once you've gathered your cut-out pictures, arrange them on your blank paper in a way that reflects the rich diversity of the people in your life. Once you're happy with the placement of all the pictures, glue them down.
Write a love poem celebrating all your relationships. If you're more comfortable with words than with images, try writing a poem about your community. Any poetic structure works – rhyming couplets, limericks, haikus, free verse, whatever speaks to you. Make sure your poem mentions specific people and groups and what they bring to your community. Don't be afraid to go through several drafts!
You will also need a candle. (If you can't use an open flame, a LED candle is fine!) You might also want to have a notebook or journal onhand, but this is optional.
Try to create a ritual mood as you create your art. This might mean meditating beforehand, burning incense, listening to a playlist of songs about family and community while you work, or anything else you need to do to set the mood.
Once you've finished your art, choose a special place to display it. If you have a designated altar, that would be a perfect place for it. If you don't have an altar or don't have room for the art on your altar, choose a place where you'll see it often and where it won't be damaged. This could be in a picture frame on your desk, stuck to the fridge with magnets, or taped to the mirror where you get ready in the mornings.
Place your candle near your representation of your community.
At least once a week, light your candle and sit near it. Look at your art and focus your thoughts and energy on your community. What's going on in your community right now? What wins are they celebrating? What problems are they facing? What do they need from you? What do you need from them?
After several moments, turn your attention to what you can do to strengthen your community. This could be anything from checking in on a friend who is having a hard time, to watching a loved one’s kids for a weekend, to setting up a mutual aid network. Remember that community is something we build by choosing to give our time and energy to the people we care about.
Sometimes, you might find that you need to receive support from your community instead of giving it. This is totally okay! Healthy relationships are reciprocal, which means both people give as they can for mutual benefit. Reciprocity looks different for each of us based on our abilities and resources. It's normal to go through periods of being able to give more and periods of needing to receive more.
You might want to journal after this meditation. Write down at least one actionable step you can take in the next few days to support your community. Make an effort to actually follow through on this – remember, community is built by people getting out there and doing the work!
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