This August, Amy and I are turning inward for our annual sabbatical to write the next season of the Missing Witches podcast — a season of true stories of feminist magic. While we’re resting, writing, heading to the sea, and trying resist the way white supremacist imperialist capitalism screams within us to be more productive, we asked our covenmates to share their own prescriptions: bits of spell, song, ritual, or practice that are getting them through these horror days, as pedophile kings and genocide machines rot and flail.
What follows is a collection of their medicine — offered in solidarity. May you find in these words, songs and practices something that ennobles, soothes, and enflames your own wild magic.
🎶 Polyphony and Resistance
For Em C., the medicine is polyphony. They remind us that:
“Polyphony is a musical texture that features two or more distinct simultaneous melodic lines… The New Orleans-based choral group Trendafilka performs European folk songs with contrasting and looping melodies, which feel both urgent and soothing in turns.”
Em writes about watching the singers’ breathing sync up, “like everyone’s hearts are beating in time—through time—to a place where our ancestors passed their culture down through song and story.” They invite us to wrest our cultures from the jaws of homogenization: “Put on their album For The Olives and weave yourself in, with, and between their melodies—and breathe in sync with me.”
👉 Study link
🪨 Listening to Stones
For Jennifer M., the prescription is elemental:
“I take 2 rocks or crystals or even meteorites from my collection, whichever are calling me and hold one in each hand.
I sit outside or by an open window and shut my eyes and allow my mind to clear.
I listen to the natural world and focus on the feeling I am receiving from the stones.
I try and listen to what the stones are telling me and what they are making me feel in my body.
So wise ❤️”
🌊 Floating Spell
Heather D. prescribes floating:
“In a pandemic-purchased above-ground pool, I float on an inflatable chair with a noodle at my feet. We call it the ‘mama chair.’ As I float, the reflection of the sun on the water makes light dance on the tree limbs above the pool. It sparkles. Free light show. The current of the pool pump moves me around the 14 foot circle. The crows in the trees above clack, clatter, and caw as I float… My makeshift zero-gravity chair on top of the water cools me and allows my body to rest. Without weight. I am free. After 20 or 30 minutes of floating, my tension eases. I remember how to be me. I cool down. I resurface. And I float.”
🎵 Song: Listen here
🌱 The Seasonal Body
From Julie N., we receive a year-long archive of noticing:
“In 2023–24, I created a project featuring daily short nature videos that I filmed and shared on social media. This series showcases the changing seasons over the course of a year, and each video is accompanied by an image description that offers an immersive, sensory experience that prioritizes accessibility.”
👉 Watch here: The Seasonal Body YouTube
📲 @TheSeasonalBody on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook
🔥 Songs for the Soul
Teela shares songs that bring her to peace and power:
“My favorite song for meditation and magic is Devi Prayer by Craig Pruess and Ananda. There is just something about this song that makes everything feel peaceful and magical.
The songs that have been resonating a lot with me lately are Little Girl Gone by CHINCHILLA and Stand Up by Cynthia Erivo.”
🌍 Grounding and Defiance
And from Em H., a mix of grounding and rebellion:
“Starhawk's grounding work, In the Name of the Father, also this:
🎵 Listen here"
🌙 Chants and Justice
From bat S.
"The MILCK chants have been keeping me alive lately: A Freedom Hymn + Sisters of Winter."
And the JVP & R4C Food Aid for Gaza campaign:
“My ancestors, they taught me to say, “Never again!” When I cry out for Gaza, it’s because I honor them.”
“Stop the bombing.”
“Oh, Palestine! You are not alone. We will walk with you till you’re safe at home.”
“Lay the weapons down.”
“Not in our name.”
“Never again for anyone.”
“Let aid in now.”
OPEN THE GATES.
Together, these prescriptions weave a picture of where we are: craving justice, summoning an electrical current that runs through us all and awakens our humanity - more than humanity! Our livingness. Seething beyond these cults of rape and death, we are collectively conjuring wild attunement, polyphony, defiant joy.
May we find guidance here for the kinds of spellcasting that conjure better possible worlds out of chaos. May we raise our voices and our power, may we listen to each other with the attentiveness of harmonizing.
Labour like a parent birthing the whole world. Play. Rest. Dream wildly. Root into your most sacred beliefs about how good the next turn of the wheel could be. See the masks burning away. Be and feel the wave rising.
With gratitude and wildness,
Risa + Amy
Missing Witches
