Initiated by Amanda Yates Garcia

Author:Amanda Yates Garcia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: None
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

Corn and grain

Corn and grain

All that fall shall rise again

We all come from the Goddess

And to her we shall return

Like a drop of rain

Rolling down to the ocean4

It got so bad that I couldn’t empty my chamber pot. By the time I woke up, my pee would be frozen solid. I’d have to heat it on my hot plate in order to dump it out. I had the belief that I should be able to endure anything. That to get what I wanted, I must withstand the worst. My culture had trained me to believe that the greater your sacrifice, the greater your virtue. The chants I used to soothe myself were a thumb, frostbitten and red, skewered into a dam about to burst. If I pulled my thumb out, if I stopped chanting, the dam would collapse. I’d be swept away in the freezing waters of poverty and despair.

Magic improves your odds, but it doesn’t erase the odds. We still live in the material universe and we must obey its laws. Just because magical practitioners don’t always get exactly what they want, exactly when they want it, doesn’t prove that magic is pointless. Getting what you want is not the only reason to practice magic.

If magic worked, cynics might argue, then the voodoo priests of Haiti would be leading their rites in an unsullied tropical paradise, rather than the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. If magic worked, then the Winti ceremonies of the Surinamese, with their perfumed gifts to the ancestors and their possession rites, would’ve landed them in jungle palaces, lounging poolside as they smoked fresh tinqs Colombian, rather than hawking ecstasy to tourists whose fancy backpacks cost more than a month’s rent of their apartments. If magic worked, the Eastern Orthodox women trafficked to Amsterdam from Belarus could smash the glass of their Red Light prisons with a simple prayer whispered to the Virgin. If magic worked, then the American Instagram witch making Delphinium potions to heal her sexual trauma could focus her efforts on her art instead of just scratching her way back to baseline mental health.

Though magic does often bring us the things we desire, satisfying our cravings is not magic’s primary purpose. Magic connects people to their roots, to their spiritual ancestors and allies, to the hundreds of thousands of beings who have gone before them experiencing similar struggles. A creative act, magic brings richness to your life. When you’re cold and alone, your chants might be all you have to keep you alive. Even when it feels like all of civilization has conspired in its effort to take it from you, magic gives you hope, magic gives you pleasure, and most importantly, magic helps you remember you have power, even if you can’t see a way to use it yet. The fact that magic connects people to their power is the main reason most systems of oppression attempt to ban it.

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