I want to write a spell.

A spell that travels around the world, stroking it with my adoration. A spell that kisses icy mountains with tears of bliss, and dances with the rivers in ecstasy. I want to write a spell singing praises to the genius of your DNA, the miracle of your mind. This spell will travel down into the untouched depths of the sea, the fertile mess of your heart, the cold and hurting corners of my urban home, the burning places, the flooded places, the warring places, the aching places, the starving places, the unknown, the misunderstood. It’s a spell to seek the beauty of it all, to touch its truth. To tow in the wake of love, all it offers and needs to thrive: justice, liberation, knowledge, trust, gratitude, connection. 

I want to offer you this spell in the palm of my hand. A tingling balm, a warming tincture. Crisp and cleansing. Hot and stirring. Soft and comforting. Bitter and awakening. Words for you to whisper, magic for you to weave.

What is a love spell, you ask?

This is where I tell you to subscribe to my Substack and find out :)

I could go into MW definitions of “love” and “spell,” but perhaps we shall save that for another time and greater character count. Shortly said, a love spell is a calling forth. A sweet and beautiful beckoning. She may balk, she may be coy. But oh shall we call her forth. Here upon these binary pages, in the language of images, text, photos, videos, the spoken word and G-D knows what else, we’ll explore what a love spell can be and what power it can carry.  

And who, exactly, is casting these spells?

My name is Ali; I’m a New Yorker by birth and 400 years of lineage, residing today in the sweet, strange city of Portland, Oregon with my doting, sexy & beloved partner, Jim; Sibyl, our cat queen, & loyal assistant; and our coyote-soul hound, Navi. We live in a hundred-year old house beneath a magnolia tree. My ethnicity traces both through the Dutch & English, and also to the Tribe of Judah, by way of Romania. I’m bisexual, a relationship anarchist, and politically somewhere between being liberal and wanting to blow the systems to bits and start this party over. 

By trade, I’m a writer, filmmaker and career creative; trained as a journalist and further schooled by wilderness, wildness, activism, street art, endless books, a few start-ups, psychedelics, scientific obsession, a deep spiritual practice, and the raging tides of love. At heart, at my tender, molten core, I’m a writer, healer, lover and seeker. 

Things I love

I love long Sunday runs through the forest, hot baths filled with rose, lox on a bagel with capers and cream cheese, the color of the Pacific at sunset, the harmonic bliss of a limpia, the cool blue silence of an alpine morning, strange slow B movies, the first crocus of spring, tripping under the stars, shibari, jungle sounds, the snaking of my spine when I rock climb, bold earthy vintage finds, my moroccan shag rug, starting fires, tending hearts, long massages on a heated blanket, dancing in the kitchen to my boo’s vinyl, the way my kitty keeps me from work by laying on my chest with her deep purr, and deep intellectual inquiry. I love my untamable family, my brilliant friends, and my incredible and incomparable partner. I love making love, spreading love, and seeking to understand love, in all its nuance and wiles. 

What & When

Expect one spell a week. These spells are for the world, they are for you, they are free. They may be spoken, they may be written, they may come in video form or, who knows? An image, a recipe, an invocation to sing. 

In addition to your weekly spell, I’ll share some raw bits of the wild ride of my process, through dripping dark caves and blistering light and fertile, cloud-cloaked jungles of my mind and its wanderings, my experiments and their outcomes.

Expect musings, short stories, resource lists, recommendations, reviews, and whatever else bubbles to the surface. Expect to learn with me. Tell me what spells you desire. Let’s build this together. 

Your Money is a spell: Paid subscriptions

All content, archives, and community forums are free for all. These love spells are for everyone, regardless of economic means.

When you purchase a subscription, your money becomes a spell that opens time so that I can write more spells, so that my life goes here, to this manifestation of my passion and soul knowing, to loving you and this world.  Your money becomes a spell that calms my nervous system, by helping me meet my physical needs. When you subscribe, it tells me that this work has touched you in a way that made you want to take action, to make sure that it continues. It honors the work, it honors my time.

Paid subscribers who wish to provide a mailing address will receive physical art objects, hand-typed incantation, and other little, loving surprise at mysterious intervals.

Substack

Be part of a community of people who share your interests.To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.