A Spell for You

Dear Friends,

I’ve been feeling it — the state of the world, the nation, our hearts. I imagine many of you reading now are feeling it too. This paragraph, this spell, is for you who are reading, but also for the larger you, the larger us, the world we are all a part of.

I am on sesshin this week, in noble silence, so I won’t be checking in here until we have a break over the weekend, but I’m eager to hear your thoughts and feelings.

Sending love,

— Sal

---

---

---

¶ A Spell for You

This is a spell to bring back what is forgotten. This is a spell to arrange the letters of language into map. This is a spell to transmit my desires to the overheated air. This is a spell to turn on the electricity of ordinary kindness. This is a spell of praise. This is a spell of pleading. This is a spell to restore the fountain. This is a spell to shatter the defenses. This spell is a horn. This spell is a shout. This spell is breathing hard. This is a spell to bring back what was cast away. This is a spell for the earth, a spell of protection for the earth and its creatures. This is a spell for keeping true. This is a spell of warding and a spell of harboring. This is a spell to bring poetry to the poets and water to the gardens. This is a spell to shield the civilians. This is a spell to let the hearts stay broken. This is a spell of petals, leaves, waves, clouds, granules, particles, molecules, atoms. This is a spell at sea. This is a spell for the nation: may it be wholesome, may it be whole, may it be wholly good. May each person carry out their tasks with a great tenderness. May each body be able to rest under a tree. May the cooks have everything they need. May the artists turn again to the colors they love. May the arguments become irrelevant. This is a spell of life. This is a spell of unknowing. This is a spell against petty meanness. This is a spell against greed. What were you thinking? I want to recall you to yourself. This is a spell to remove the stinger. This is a spell to hold you. This is a spell so that you may keep living. This is a spell for the tongue. This is a spell to hold you. This is a spell to hold you. This is a spell to hold true.

---

I’d love to hear from you! Let me know what you think of these or what they feel like.

---

---

Further adventures and new ways of seeing can be found in my book, The Uses of Art.

Artist Sal Randolph’s THE USES OF ART is a memoir of transformative encounters with works of art, inviting readers into new methods of looking that are both liberating and emboldening.

Dazzlingly original, ferociously intelligent.
— Michael Cunningham

A joyful, dazzling treasure-box of a book.
— Bonnie Friedman

Here’s a guide, to waking up, over and over again.
— Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara