The Long Work of Magick

For most of my life, I’ve sprinted. From magickal experience to magick meeting, from teaching gig to ritual role.

WHAT’S NEXT? My heart screamed.

I know how to grab onto the energy I need to get to the next destination. And sometimes I get there with energy to spare.

Many times, I get there, ‘get through,’ and then crash.

But then I took on a year-long teaching role. Well, I jumped into it. I dove in, splashed around, and learned something: the magick of long work feels different.

It wears differently on my skin. It seeps out of the way my body moves.

This magick does me. Covers me. Reminds me that I promised my heart to it — and that I said I would give my all.

And the end was just the beginning.

Tomorrow Too, Not Just Today

It’s not that I don’t think of magick as being part of the story of my life. And it’s not that I think of magick and teaching as individual points on a timeline. But there is something about opening my witch’s eye to see beyond the present.

While still standing in it.

I can experience and touch into the after.

Like initiation, there was something about a progression of challenges and steps. And because most of the world thinks of steps as being the thing that gets you to the place you’re not quite at yet, I experienced moments of ‘Oh, initiation will be done.’

HA.

And of course. Of course.

I’m not done. I’m never done.

Pacing and Deepening

My magick has changed. I linger more in the beauty. I dwell less in my all-too-present imposter syndrome. I close my eyes more to feel the way my heart beats alongside another heart. (Maybe yours.)

I make space, I make room, I let the things that cry out for my precious attention to be left unsatisfied. I let the presence of my anger be a fuel for shifts. I invite in my laughter to charge spells. I focus less on where I want to go, and more on where I am being led. I am imperfect and present.

But mostly, I love the ordinary way that magick takes up residence in the doors I leave open. Because the warm breeze that sneaks in becomes the heat that carries me through the night.

“be easy. take your time. you are coming home. to yourself.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, nejma

What if you could linger here — in the unfolding?

What if you could rest here — in the unknowing?

What if you could breathe here — in the liminal place that is still between here and there?

Just for a moment.

There is always time for rushing and sprinting. There are always reasons and pressures and messages of immediacy.

And — tomorrow is waiting for you too.