Pomba Gira’s Dance — Focus, Work, Survive
Thoughts on Where to Place Our Focus
There’s a group of Woofolk in the UK trying to stop Brexit.
Bless them.
They’re not new to doing Woo; several of the occultists involved are people I’ve called on in the past for their expertise. They’re not kids, and they’re not Love-n-Light types. These are bona-fide conjure-folk, ghost-soil wanderers and Workers of Woo, people I admire and respect in the field.
But they are wasting their time and energy. Their spells aren’t going to work.
I haven’t had much to say on any platform for a few months. I’ve withdrawn from social media and generally unplugged from the internet entirely as I was exhausted by 24/7 bad news and outrage, trigger warnings and hurricanes. On top of nonstop Bad News, Powers That Be and spirits of the land were shouting at me with such intensity I questioned my sanity. I barely slept. I didn’t feel like eating. Under the onslaught and shouting from all sides, I was tempted to join fellow occultists to fight against the tide, as at least then I felt I was doing something in all this mess.
I’ve been given a grim perspective on current events by various P.T.B: this is all necessary. I hate even typing those words. People are dying. Children are living in tent cities. Bigotry and misogyny gets challenged, and just continues to do its thing. I don’t like it, and I don’t understand why it has to be this way. I think on a human level, which is compassionate, empathetic, and doesn’t want people to suffer. But I have learned in the work I’ve done with my orisha that human feels has little to do with the unfolding of the universe. The universe doesn’t function on a human level. It culls what doesn’t work, and it carries on. Dispassionate and unfeeling, the worlds move as they must.
When it comes to trying to enact global change through the means of spellwork, I agree with occultist Josephine McCarthy; the rich and powerful either are Woo-Workers themselves, or they’ve hired Woo-Workers for their cause. Never assume for a moment that every witch, magi, and occultist out there is working for the greater good. Some don’t really give a damn. Some want to watch the world burn, and some want to gather as much power and riches as possible for it all goes up into ash. When such powers have the money and spiritual resources to aim at steering the world, a group of ten people isn’t going to do diddly squat in the grand scheme of things.
The Conjure-folk trying to stop the crisis our government is so intent upon enacting are nobly minded, but they don’t see the larger picture. They also assume a handful of magi can stop what thousands of very powerful, wealthy, and equally skilled magi are currently putting into motion.
Strong they may be in the way of Woo, but not that strong.
As a species, we’ve proved time and again we only change our trajectory when we are forced to do so — we love our status quo too much to give it up. We would rather run in place until our hearts burst than lose out on our luxuries or find a more sensible course. We only change when Nature forces us to shift, and either we adapt, or we leave behind a crumbling city for future archeologist to puzzle over.
Over the past few months, I’ve tried to figure out where I fit in this new wave of hell and shit. Do I fight? Do I run? I considered both of those possibilities, but I’m a woman rapidly approaching fifty with health conditions that make even climbing a flight of stairs a risky proposition. My partner and I have three children, each with their own learning disabilities and challenges which make just up and leaving impossible. And run where? We’d be foreigners everywhere. I’m the wrong shade of immigrant in Europe, and there is no escaping the rising tide of white nationalism drowning the life out of humanity one gasp at a time. The whole planet is writhing in agony and it’s difficult to tell if the spasms are birthing contractions or death throes.
I struggled for weeks, trying to reconcile what felt like a head-in-the-sand approach to current events with my desperate attempts to regain self-care and sanity. There was nothing for it but to go and speak to the spirits whispering in the lost potter’s fields, in swollen mounds where even the sheep won’t graze, and standing along the verges of forgotten corpse roads. They’d been trying to get my attention for long enough.
And so, with salt, chalk and several pence, I went to speak to the dead and ask their counsel.
England is a land of civil war, land grabs, plagues and raids. It’s steeped in lore and ghost-soil, where cunning folk were feared, reviled, honoured and respected depending on how current events were running at the time. The witches who lived long before me had villages to protect or curse as required, and I needed to know when faced with widespread tragedy or danger, what did they do?
Globalism is a new thing on our planet. We’ve never been faced with so much horror all at once, and our minds don’t know how to cope with it. For my own sanity, I felt I needed to speak with those old cunning folk. I was pretty sure they didn’t work spells for bringing justice to a country halfway round the world; they were too damn busy with what was going on where they lived.
What I got from my work was to learn how to focus on the land where I’m standing, in the place where I live. As someone who spent years of my life on social media due to illness, I know no one in my current neighbourhood. Nor do I want to; I’ve learned bigotry hides behind polite smiles in the UK, and current events make it worse. While working with the Spirits of Place, I learned a few things, and I’ve been applying them to my own life.
Work quietly, but well. The witches and cunning folk of ages past knew the tide could quickly turn on them, so they didn’t advertise. People knew who they were by word of mouth, but no one went around telling anyone they were trying to overthrow the regime. I learned the Woofolk of ages past worked quietly in their villages, and their Great Works amounted to blessing crops, protection spells against invaders, and maybe some herbalism for illnesses. They had enough to do just living from day to day. There were many unsung witches quietly doing their small works on a daily basis, and we will never know their names. But they were damn good at what they did; we know this because their villages still survive.
Protect your own hearth. I struggled with this, as I imagine many other people do. The fact stolen children currently languish in tent cities fills me with white-hot rage. I’m furious with my current government over Brexit, over Grenfell, over Windrush. But I know there is no amount of petitions or protests which will change any of these things. The cunning folk of old heard rumours of governmental changes, intrigues, and trade route problems, but for the most part they were more worried on local issues. Applying this mentality to my life, I decided my focus was on making sure my family weathers the coming storm. I began a stockpile of foodstuff, invested in fishing poles and licenses, focussed on alleviating various health symptoms so I can get out of bed and do more round the house. I saved plastic bottles to fill with potable water, mapped out more areas in the garden for growing food, learned where the waterways lie in relation to the land. I put more warding spells on my house, my family, and my friends. They reciprocated, and I have several pieces in my house spell-wrought with ghost-soil Work for our protection. I even managed to put some Work on securing a better job position for my partner in case we need to go to the continent. Our situation is relatively secure now after months of struggling against the ‘This is Fine’ mentality of my partner. We are working with the change, not fighting to hold our position against the tide.
Let the world change. This was put a lot more bluntly to me, more like ‘Stop trying to change the damn world’. This is where I baulked the most, because there are children in fucking tent cities. Damn right I want to do something about that. But there is a rising tide of people with more energy, time, and resources to take on that fight. Privilege is the only thing that can tackle privilege, and I need to leave it at that. We don’t have to accept the nightmare, and we certainly shouldn’t look the other way, but we all need to do some serious soul searching to figure out whether protests are to cling to a failing status quo, or to feel like you’ve done something, even if it’s ineffectual. Pick your battles, and put your energy where it is needed. And if it isn’t needed…accept it.
Looking back on previous stories here on Medium, I’ve clearly received the same message, over and over again. Of course I have; my P.T.B have been insistent to the point of driving me to distraction. They’re shouting because so few people seem to be listening. I know it’s hard, Fellow Dancers, but sometimes we need to step back, refocus, and do the little works that don’t feel particularly important. But if you’re surviving and thriving, laughing and loving and learning, nourished and nurtured…then it’s enough.
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