Community Care as Spiritual Practice: A Ritual for Witchy Spoonies
A book excerpt and a medical update...
So, as you’re reading this, I’m taking the week off to get some specialized medical treatment.
I am safe and well, but I am resting. Therefore, I thought this week would be a good time to share one of my favorite rituals from my book, Disabled Witchcraft: 90 Rituals for Limited-Spoon Practitioners. This is a ritual about love and trees (two things I generally can’t shut up about, haha).
(Also, this time has been filled with medical bills, so I do have a mutual aid page for anyone who wants to help in that way.)
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“Love Spell: Resting in the Rooted Love of Trees” (Ritual # 16)
Often, witches are asked to perform love spells (usually for sexual or romantic love), and these spells are often misunderstood as taking the place of true connection and relationship work.
But as disabled people, we know the power of a resourcing community as an expression of love, and we also know that quick fixes for connection (romantic and otherwise) don’t work.
And as witchy spoonies, we have a source of love to draw from: trees. Trees actually take care of their communities. According to some ecologists, “trees are ‘social creatures’ that communicate with each other in cooperative ways.” They “are linked to neighboring trees by an underground network of fungi that resembles the neural networks in the brain,” sharing resources and important information with each other.1
Undergirding witchcraft is a deep respect for the connection we all share with nature, and I can think of few more beautiful examples of that connection than what the trees do to help each other.
That’s why I wrote this love spell—to draw on that love of nature within witchcraft and to challenge the outside expectation that we can create instant love connections without any personal work on the part of the person requesting the love spell. A tree love spell declares what disabled people already know: love isn’t about instant gratification but about showing up through it all in honesty, authenticity, kindness, repair, and readjustments.
The disabled community is about sharing resources, a kind of tree love. And when we are feeling like our community is lacking, we can look to trees as a baseline—we have the love of trees and all who have gone before and will come after. We are connected.
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What You’ll Need for This Ritual:
• Optional: a crystal, candle, or other magickal item of your choice with a correspondence of love
• A tree to sit near or an accessible item or location that will help you visualize trees
Visualize trees or go to a physical location with a tree you can be next to in whatever way is comfortable for you, holding, bringing along, or visualizing any items you associate with correspondences of love. Visualize yourself being surrounded by love in the shape of the roots, branches, and trunk. Connect to the feel of the tree on your back or its roots underneath you. Imagine the networks that connect this tree to other trees and also to you.
Repeat the following:
Oh trees, I invoke your love for me and all of nature. I invoke your connection. I invoke this sense of love and connection through all my doings. Fill me with your sense of care. I thank you for your love. I thank you for your magick.
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Dear readers, when I think of the community we have here, I’m reminded of the love I believe holds up the universe, and I am so grateful for you all showing up and reading. Your presence means the world.
May you know the love shown in the rootedness of trees—the love of all who have gone before, all who are here now, and all who will come after.
And if that connection is not spiritual,2 not magickal,3 not divine,4 I don’t know what is.
In Wonder,
Kandi (Ivy) Zeller (she/they)
Thanks for reading! I’m a queer, disabled writer/editor, and what I do is made possible by readers like you. You can support me in this journey in a number of ways:
Dave Davies, “Trees Talk to Each Other. ‘Mother Tree’ Ecologist Hears Lessons for People, Too,” May 4, 2021, NPR, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/04/993430007/trees-talk-to-each-other-mother-tree-ecologist-hears-lessons-for-people-too>.
When I describe or experience any tool/practices as spiritual, I want to acknowledge that that is not everyone’s experience. Any practice/tool I share is meant for all, regardless of spiritual label (or lack of label) or whether you experience these tools as spiritual or as some other adjective(s). Labels, while helpful in describing our experiences, are ultimately insufficient, so I want to hold space for that tension here.
I love the definition of magick laid out in this article: “action taken to bring about internal transformation or external change.”
Also, my understanding of how god expresses godself is expansive. Basically, I conceive of spirituality as our experience with divine love and connection. But even that feels a little religious-y. Put another way, I believe spirituality is the place where we as individuals and communities connect with the “force of love that holds up the universe” (in words sometimes attributed to Julian of Norwich), whether we conceive of that love as divine or as the love shared between fellow humans/other creatures or some combination of both loves. It is the place within our bodies and our communities where we find love and connection with all who have come before and who will come after.