Seasonal Grief Magic Salons, a Dreamers' + Troublemakers' Study Hall, + Curated Reads for May!

Details for this months' inside!

Meme by @Sensitivesensualist

This morning, I did something I don’t usually do these days - and haven’t really done in years. I read for pleasure.

My reading ability is one of the things that has been profoundly disrupted by grief. I used to be an avid reader, but since my dad died, I’ve just not been able to do it like I used to, though reading is one of my greatest loves.

If you too are a lover of reading, whether grief has impacted your reading practice or not, you might enjoy these two new offerings for paid subscriber​s:

📚🤓 Seasonal Grief Magic Salons/Book Clubs and Curated Readings

Paid subscribers will also get access to live seasonal Book Clubs, where we will discuss a mixture of curated excerpts, essays, and resources having to do with grief, joy, creativity, magic, and staying with the trouble of our times! Replays of our book clubs will be provided.

📖🍵 Monthly Reading Parties: A Dreamers’ and Troublemakers’ Study Hall

If you’re like me and have found your reading practice disrupted by grief, you may find body doubling helpful. Paid subscribers will also have access to monthly silent reading parties - which I’m thinking of as a dreamers and troublemaker’s study hall. Bring a cup of tea a magical text or whatever book of your choosing!

Grief studios are also still here!

Paid subscribers and self paced study members will also get access to live Grief Studios each month, like the one we have today, May 19th, from 6-8pm eastern time!

Grief Studios are containers to dialogue with, make, and witness your own art and writing alongside other grievers. Replays will be provided!

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Let us know what you’ve been reading for pleasure lately, or how grief has impacted your relationship with reading in the comments section.

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You’re invited! See details for this month’s study hall and this season’s book club below.

May Study Hall: May 26th

We will meet May 26th from 12-1pm eastern time to read alongside one another. Bring a cup of tea a magical text or whatever book of your choosing!

May Grief Magic Salon/Book Club: May 27th

We will meet May 27th - 12-2pm eastern time, to discuss the resources below. BUT please don’t feel like you have to have gotten through all of them to join us! As you move through these readings, try to find what feels most alive for you. Bring a few quotes, themes, or questions you would like to discuss with one another!

• Essays:

  • “Uses of the Erotic” essay by Audre Lorde (Audio) (PDF)

  • “A Plea for Magic” essay by Bayo Akomolafe

  • “The Rise of End Times Fascism” article by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor (take care of yourselves as you move through this one, but be sure to get to the end which calls for reviving animist understandings and practices of “hereness”)

• The following excerpts from Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief by Cindy Milstein:

  • Prologue: Cracks in the Wall, p. 3-12

  • Feeling is Not Weakness/ On Mourning and Movement, p. 13-26

  • To Mourn and Strike, p. 203-231

• The following excerpts from The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram**:

  • The Ecology of Magic, p. 3-29

  • The Forgetting & Remembering of Air, Coda: Turning inside out, p. 225-274

**OR, below are some supplemental podcast interviews with David Abram that accompany the book well and if you can’t get a hold of the book will still help you engage in conversation around it!

- Coming to our Animal Senses - A Conversation with David Abram

- The Ecology of Magic - A conversation with David Abram

- The Ecology of Perception - A conversation with David Abram

There are two ways to join us for these offerings:

• Become a paid subscriber to Grief Spells for $16-20 per month

• Join the grief magic self paced study for $35 for 12 months when you sign up by May 20th, which also gives you a lifetimes access to a seasonal library of resources for cultivating your attunement to your grief, your magic, your joy, and your ecosystems that you can move through at your own pace! 🌸🪄 (All students are also invited to grief studios!)