Recharge to Radiate
Shifting Self Care from Reclusive to Revolutionary
Preface: January 29, 2024 Cleveland, OH
It feels equal parts surreal and exciting to revisit this work from 2020s wicked hot Covid cauldron. My inner fire was stoked as I felt the moment I've been fearing and also preparing for had arrived. We were in (an) apocalypse. It felt fitting to participate in Snake Hair Press’ apt and brilliant zine Occult Studies: Vol. 1 Apocalypse. I wished to stretch myself out into the community as more than just a witchy healer, but a radical change maker. This moment, this essay, this concept has continued to shape my life and practice to this day.
Let’s fast forward at dizzying speed to my present moment in late, dismal January 2024, the year Parable of the Sower took place. I think about this book constantly but especially now. What struck me most, unsurprisingly, was the main character Lauren Olamina’s decision to start studying herbalism. She studied many survival strategies and techniques, though she decided herbalism would be the most palatable to share, the least alarming. It was as if she thought herbalism was a sort of “gateway” into the realm of apocalypse oriented survival skills.
As an herbalist with over a decade of study under my witch hat, I think I agree with her. However, I feel it’s not just that herbalism is easier to stomach, but that it is an inherent bridge between people and the Earth. We are offered a roadmap and a sense of control as we gaze into an uncertain future on this planet. The plants are way showers and healers in themselves. No one can save us but the plants can help.
Octavia tried to tell us. I wish I had heard her earlier. In early 2020, this book radicalized me to a point of no return
and also drove me into a psychotic break.
Well that’s another essay…
Bringing us back to today: late, dismal January 2024, in Cleveland, OH, I am deciding to leave the following essay in present tense. I would like you to be transported back to my desk in Salem, MA in March 2020. I am curious where you were then, how you were surviving and how your mind was bending around the new state of the world. How did you sustain yourself and your community? What got you through? In the following essay, I posit these questions in a world still gripped by a global pandemic. We are now fighting against Zionism, Islamophobia and fascism like never before. On this day, over 30,000 Palestinians are dead and countless more are maimed and orphaned. We need resilience and stamina now more than ever. The struggles get harder and more intense. It does not appear there is an easy street on the other side of this bridge. However, if things won’t get better, we get better. We get better at creating the worlds we want and need, we get better at being free. We get better at collective care; we recharge to radiate.
March 2020
Originally Published in Occult Studies V1: Apocalypse
Snake Hair Press
As a professional healer and witch, I specialize in self care. I work in a witch shop in Salem, MA that sells self care products. Self care is very important, especially in late stage capitalism where we are assaulted with a new nightmare everytime we open our computers. However, I’ve observed the ways people with privilege have used self care as a way to spiritually bypass social responsibility. They place their needs above the needs of others and the planet. They use self care resources to burrow further into the system that benefits them at the expense of others and the planet. It becomes an escape, rather than a resource for social healing.
This is a big problem.
When I talk about folks with privilege, I am speaking of white, cishetero, class privilege. I am speaking predominantly about white middle class women. I am talking about those who have the economic resources and time available to attend spiritual retreats, high end healing sessions and shop exclusively at Whole Foods. I am one of these women and many of my clients fall into the same category. This topic is on my mind pretty much at all times and is the crux of my work.
So, what do I mean when I say “spiritually bypass social responsibility?” It means that people with unearned societal privilege, those who benefit from cishetero white supremacist capitalism, retreat into self care practices to benefit themselves and no one else. It often becomes a lifestyle that becomes centered around their own health and comfort without any consideration of the context in which they are pampering themselves. Real healing does not exist in a vacuum. Healing is generous and abundant and wants to be spread as far and wide as possible. A person with unearned social privilege has more access to means of dismantling the system. Whether it means engaging politically, performing healing on others, or donating time and resources to marginalized groups, actions like these are a vital stretch of the self care path, especially in this time of global crisis. This is the social responsibility of those with privilege.
I do not wish to sound harsh. I, myself, enjoy massages, hot springs and wellness retreats as much as the next witch. I understand that all women, femmes and queers in this culture are oppressed under patriarchy and many are survivors of gender based violence. Personal healing and retreat is mandatory, especially for those most marginalized and beaten down by the system. Oftentimes, one must engage in personal healing in order to effectively heal in community. I often wonder how powerful it could be if self care became more expansive than contractive. How can self care be an avenue for opening the floodgates of our power and radiance? As we heal and expand, we can attract and empower others to heal with us and come to social movements from a place of radical joy and curiosity. The greatest energetic protection is our own radiance. The more we fill up with our healed and whole selves, we are less susceptible to burnout and overwhelm.
The burden of resisting the system should not fall on the backs of folks who are already carrying its enormous weight. For marginalized folks under this system, self care is a revolutionary act. Thriving and experiencing vibrant wellness under a system that seeks to destroy you is an act of resistance. Period. Those who do not have layers of obstacles between them and their basic needs must do the work to change the system. It is the social responsibility of those with privilege.
Self care allows restoration and fortification of the body and spirit so it can go deeper, challenge ourselves and each other. Self care is a means of strengthening our systems so we can manage more hard work. The planet is burning. Billions of animals are dying. We are in the midst of a global crisis that is only going to get more intense. Self care needs to shift towards sustaining the collective. We all know that burning out from a lack of self care is very counterproductive. However, retracting into a privileged bubble of self coddling is also counter productive. For those with unearned social privilege, the access to quality self care resources is a tremendous asset for fulfilling their social responsibility. If one can afford to get a massage after a stressful protest, this can allow for the body to be recharged for the next one. May justice be our North Star.
Self care is like recharging a flashlight battery. There’s no point in recharging a battery if the flashlight remains unused in a drawer. Charge the battery so the light can shine as bright as possible to illuminate pathways to healing for society and the planet. What would the world look like if everyone’s lights were shining in the direction of social justice and healing? Let’s find out!
To learn more about herbal, psychic and spiritual strategies for radical self care, sign up for my online workshop Recharge to Radiate on February 4th! 20% of proceeds will go to Critical Resistance, a prison abolition organization. Visit their site here
For further reading and scholarship, please seek out the work of bell hooks, Gloria Anzuldua, June Jordan, Audre Lorde and many other BIPOC abolitionist thinkers who believe in the indispensability of Radical Self Care. We would be literally nowhere without them.
Listen to Abolitionist Feminist Angela Davis speak about the importance of self care for sustaining activism