Summoning into being

and what our words can architect

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Upcoming events

— Bay Area Book Festival author booth, Berkeley, 5/31, 11-5
— Copperfields Books in Petaluma with Kaitlin Soule, 6/12, 7pm
— Womb House Books in Oakland with Carissa Potter, 6/23, 6:30pm
— The Dance Palace in Point Reyes with Sophie Wood Brinker, 6/27, 4pm

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[ A song I’m loving ]

a familiar road, 35mm film

I’ve been reconnecting to my Irish lineage lately, something I have always hesitated to do because of the complication of making my bloodline more real. As part of this reconnection, I’m reading Thirty-Two Words for Field by the late Manchàn Magan, a profoundly brilliant Irish writer and documentarian. A few pages in, I paused on this sentence that struck me and has been rolling around in my heart like a tumbleweed since: In Ireland, “words were believed to have the ability to not only describe things but actually to help summon them into being.”

I’ll write it again: Words were believed to have the ability to not only describe things but actually to help summon them into being.

I keep asking myself, what am I summoning into being through the words I turn toward, the language I speak, the sentences I write? What am I growing from the words I use to describe myself, my life, and the world with? What am I making more vivid that I actually want to release or create distance from? What am I refusing to allow, simply because I refuse to practice new ways of speaking about it? What have I not yet put into words because some part of me is afraid of making it more real — because I’m not sure what lives on the other side of summoning it into being?

beach party, 35mm film

I imagine many of us often speak the same words, the same story, the same lines over and over again, whether about ourselves or the world we inhabit — not because it still fits, but because we are rarely encouraged to look at our language and inspect whether or not it remains accurate. I’m thinking of the words I often use to describe myself, or the minimization of things I’m good at, or the sweeping generalizations I can quickly make about who I am and what I’m capable of. I’m thinking of words I often see thrown around to describe our collective fate: Doomed. Fucked. Over. I’m thinking of the words I use with my partner, my child, my friends, and whether they limit or expand what wants to be summoned into being. I’m thinking of how the systems we live in describe certain humans, certain problems, certain solutions, and how those words influence what people believe about humanity. I’m thinking of the power in poetry, in writing, in slowly learning to find the most accurate words instead of resorting to the words we’re used to. I’m thinking of how much time and energy it takes to be intentional, and how we seem to be losing more of this time and spaciousness by the day, unless we choose to turn toward it again. I’m thinking of what my words are the architects of, and whether or not what they build is a solid foundation for what I long for. What we long for.

solitude, 35mm film

I want to summon beauty into being. Possibility. Love.
I want to summon grace into being. Ample room for getting things wrong, and right.
I want to summon connection, care, nurturance.
I want to summon death rituals for all that needs to die.
I want to summon old skins to shed.
I want to summon the tenderness of being seen in new ways, in new light.
I want to summon words I’ve never used before, words that bring what is most true more alive, words that show me something new.
I want to summon change where it is needed and deepening where it is calling.
I want to summon a willingness to be seen trying.
I want to summon kindness that comes from the deepest places within.
I want to summon a dropping of the performance.
I want to summon forgiveness. Liberation. Visions for a more boundless world.
I want to summon a richer connection to place, land, the elements.
I want to summon more goosebump moments.
I want to summon grief as a ritual and practice of full aliveness.
I want to summon risk on behalf of what the heart longs for.
I want to summon the safety tucked within the mundane.
I want to summon an expanded capacity to be surprised.
I want to summon faith in our children’s future.
I want to summon an undoing of aloneness in every room.
I want to summon more needs consistently met.
I want to summon the wobbliness of practicing something new.
I want to summon the kind of presence that makes room for all of it.

What do you want to summon into being? Where are your words keeping it from becoming so? How might your words, language, and ways of naming it support that summoning, awaken that being? What words do you want to experiment with using more? What descriptions are asking to be laid to rest?

May new words bolster new ways of being. May new language awaken new possibilities. And may we be gentle with ourselves and others as we release old narratives and embrace what we’re longing for. May we summon what we want.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ A forever reminder for my creative self, and perhaps for you, too

△ This beautiful reflection on my book from Michelle Dowd

△ The beloved Madison Morrigan is offering this shame alchemy workshop that sounds beautifully medicinal

△ Poems I keep returning to

△ This incredible essay that feels very relatable

△ The gorgeous new book and deck from Lindsay Mack, out Tuesday!

△ The brilliance of Maria Popova

△ Excited for this local event (& book release) on Tuesday

△ A birthday with my favorite people in one of my most special places

abundant beauty, even now.

With care,
Lisa

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Thank you for reading. Everything I share comes from my own heart; this publication, and everything I do, is created without the use of AI.