When You Need Some Good, Old-Fashioned Sorcery
(Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches)
The world is on fire in too many ways, a Presidential candidate is drunk with power, and the fact of climate crisis from fossil fuel dominance still hasn’t impacted governmental leadership in both my countries. I don’t know about you, but I think October needs more witches already.
The darkening autumn is the season for daemons you can wrestle and energia1 with which you can align. Think Kidōmaru in Naruto, The Force in Star Wars, the Weird Sisters of Macbeth, Clarice Lispector and the Surrealists, Annis’ ability to communicate with her ancestors in Let Us Descend. And think too of everything here potentially being aware. Think of this animate cosmos moving as one, abundant with life.
For decades now, I’ve been thinking about the laws of reality, and how they often carry more weight than worlds of magic. I was taught the literary tradition of magical realism, where magic was considered metaphorical, and fantastical worlds made a haze very unlike ordinary experience. But I don’t live in a world where reality and magic are separate. Magic isn’t only supernatural, or reliant upon those with special powers. We live in what writer Sophie Strand calls “the animate everything.” I relate to a web of relations that includes (within my sphere today,) high mountain snow, tall and rooted ones, slanted autumn sunshine, Willamette salmon runs, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, and wildflowers turning to seed along the trail.
And there’s something else I want to add, something that has just been landing over these past months. What’s knowable isn’t separate from the mysterious. I can move my personal attention, but consciousness is conscious of all of it, instantaneously. It’s what’s always here. It’s home, but a sense of home that doesn’t belong to anyone. I can move my personal attention to say, the low sun casting shadows on the grass, but if I use that to make me happy or define the narrative of myself, I’ve completely missed the entire limitless smorgasbord. What’s radical is that we wake up each day with expansion and unboundedness, (and not what we tell ourselves about who we/they are.) There isn’t a lot of the storymaker in just being.
In my writing, characters are always having mystical experiences and existential breakdowns. It’s what humans can do. And the magical and the mysterious is always creeping in. My memoir describes a mystery so profound that it upended my entire life—that a character identity (our narrative of ourselves) isn’t the true essence of what we are. In my forthcoming book, American Bloodlines: Reckoning With Lynch Culture, I write about my very real connection with my ancestors, and the ways (in life and death) they impacted this work, and brought us into a good relationship. In the novel I’m writing, there’s a young woman who sees a ghost of an ancestor, and it is this relationship that helps her to know what happened in the genocide her father endured.
As I write, I’m thinking about conveying the magic, without holding too tightly to the storymaker. It’s the impulse of writing, the truth that I wake up wanting to write that keeps these books going. I’m not concerned about having written. I don’t expect that my books will make me known or wealthy or joyful. But I sure do love the sorcery of language, and the sense of moving with the words, the work that is in some way already being done. If you’ve had this experience, or want to, drop a note in the comments.
I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who opted for a paid subscription on the news of American Bloodlines finding its publisher last month. I lost some subscribers with that announcement of my Autumn 2025 book on reckoning with lynch culture. This has been the toughest writing and research I’ve ever done, and it really helps to know that you support the work when there’s lots of people who will not choose to read about historical and present-day racial violence.
And now, I want to tell you about some of the truth-telling I’ve seen these days~
My friend, Meghan Ward has a beautiful film, Wildflowers, coming to the Banff Mountain Film & Book Festival this November. See it in Banff or on the road. Here’s a piece on her work in writing, filmmaking, coaching and mothering. Sometimes I see here in urban America that there's a limited access to the wilderness and what I like about this short may be the very ordinariness of going into nature, and how life-changing that can be.
Corinne Richardson has an exquisite new book out, Beyond Everest: One Sherpa’s Summit and Hope for Nepal, which tells the unique and improbable story of a local Sherpa who escapes from the depths and struggles of poverty by summiting Everest. Here’s what I said about this work: “"Beyond Everest is not just an adventure story, but one that's grounded in love, partnership, and a shared vision. Richardson is a trustworthy narrator who reveals a nuanced understanding of Pem and Moni's challenges and secrets and invites readers into the ascendancy that results when we devote ourselves to each other and our communities." Corinne is a dear client who worked such long hours on getting this story right, and I’m delighted for her success with this book.
I met Taha Ebrahimi when she came to some of my writing workshops. I was lucky to read her work, and to have some great literary conversations with her. This year, it seems everyone found her beautiful Street Trees of Seattle: An Illustrated Walking Guide. Seattle has one of the most diverse collections of street trees in the country (double the East Coast and triple the Midwest!) Seeing her work root itself in the community has been so wonderful. If you want to renew your love for trees, check out her very smart Instagram, @treeswithtaha.
I love the work of Brittney Cooper, known on IG @professor_crunk. Author, activist, professor of Women & Gender Studies at Rutgers, Cooper has some stellar works (Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower) and she often speaks with her friend and colleague Rebecca Traister (Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger.) And it is Cooper’s daily talks on the politics of this moment and the Presidential election that are getting me through these weeks of campaigning.
May this season captivate you!
Sonya
I'm a queer, nonbinary writer, mentor, activist, mother, partner, sister, cousin, aunt, friend, and a sixth-generation Kentuckian. You can find out more about this work by signing up for my Substack newsletter, (there’s a new version dedicated to this work, coming soon,) or learn more about me at my website.
In tracing her own and a nation’s lines of blood, Sonya Lea takes readers on an intellectual and moral odyssey. With compelling prose, American Bloodlines clears a path homeward that is lit with loyalty and belonging. ~Emily Bingham, (My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song)The podcast I did with my kid.
The Italian for energy makes more sense to me. It’s feminine, meaning strength and power and vitality.
A lovely and thought provoking post, thank you Sonya. I am sure I have witchy women in my Mothers line. Incidentally today is/was Mom's birthday.
I adore reading this post. I imagine you already know that all the ingredients in the weird sisters cauldron are plants.
I am reading Virginia Wolfe's memoir, Present Moments, published after her death. She describes her occasional but repeated experiences of dropping from "muffled" ordinary reality into what I believe you are describing.
I'd like to have a longer conversation about this sometime.
Ah, "sorcery of language" - I love that. I feel the same. It's not about wealth or fame; the very act of writing feels so powerful, especially amidst the chaos and feeling of helplessness I have sometimes about the world. And thank you for mentioning Wildflowers. I am honoured.