The Year of the Enchantress, Word: 21~22

Welcome to my first “/word” page ✨ a character curating polaris for the year ahead. This page is the final incantation of the ‘Ritual of Becoming’ created by the cleverness of Dr Jason Fox.

I’ve spent two months and many an evening immersed in Jason’s world of complexity & linguistic flare, ruffling through internet rabbit holes of linked resources, all while being guided to introspect for self-development. It needn’t take so long, but the process is well worth the commitment of time and there’s something particularly potent in finishing with my own mythology (hopefully not too potent, one should never believe their own myth ☝🏽).

Now, before the word, some context…

A Chronicle:

So much, in fact, probably all, of the paths I have gravitated towards in life obit the idea of futuresteading ~ creating a culture for humans to consider their role as caretakers of the future. But what kind of future? While the future is forever our present riding on the periphery of becoming, I’ve found some movements with wonderful suggestions as to how we can arrive there, like the solarpunk movement which suggests we ‘create a world more curious and kind’.

Curiosity for me has always found form in seeking the patterns, beauty and potential of a world that suggests utopia is not to be found on another shore or planet, but right here and now, where ever you are, existing in relation. And because of our relative existence, all living things should have equal say in it (I hear that boulders have wonderful ideas about the future).

I was supposed to become a civil engineer, that’s what you do after you pay a quarter of a house deposit for a degree, but in the call to futuresteading I never did. Instead, I pursued environmental activism, community organising, political engagement and sustainability consulting. However, what I found is that in every job, no matter how well-intentioned or aligned in purpose, I was continually watering down my (what I know to be called) metamodern, solarpunk notions to fit a conventional culture. This was between 2015-2017 when I inhabited the archetypes of The Manic Pixie, The Shapeshifter and The Eager Student. These years saw me try on many philosophies too quickly, becoming insecure and impressionable, getting lost in a maze of identity and becoming burnt out.

2018 I call The Year of Shadow, which I spent in the depths of my mind, fighting & making friends with my demons, mainly anxiety. In deep need of nurturing, stability and internal alchemy, 2019 became The Year of the Chrysalis. A pivotal happening from that time was finding a diary from a teenage self that had not yet been overcome by the Shoulds of the world, she wrote ‘you can’t prove that ants aren’t gods, everything is everything, and everything is both the most and least important thing in the universe’. These are the kinds of ideas which gave me the freedom to emerge in 2020 for The Year of Wild’s Apprentice.

In the stillness of Melbourne’s drawn out lockdown, I delighted in the time to tend to my garden while growing wild and unruly in my thoughts and ways of being. Whisperings of a new story for the world inspired me to want to help cultivate a more beautiful future, so I quit my job as a sustainably consultant to become a facilitator instead.

Thus, this is time to welcome The Year of the Enchantress…

The Year of the Enchantress;

Akin to the Mage, Sage or the Witch, as magical characters do, an Enchantress brings forth ideas which disrupt contemporary values and order, most often using spoken and written word to perform and imbue their magic in the world.

With knowledge often related to medicine and healing, they seek to understand the threads beneath the surface that weave a world together. However, knowledge is not enough. Action is key for an Enchantress as they wish to harness magic for purpose.

The quest of Enchanters is to train, develop and master in their use of mana*. When mana is full and drawn from a grounded place of health, acuity of enchantment to inspire can be affected with finesse.

At the heart of their mission lies engagement. Making connections with others in their community and helping them re-connect to their own enchantment in the world, whether it be through spoken or written word used in story, music or art.

(* Note of Import: I have used the gaming term for mana here to represent a source of inner spirit energy used for magic by enchanted characters, however this term has much older origins in Polynesian cultures and how I have used the term doesn’t align with the original meaning. I’m still searching for a less appropriated term to represent the cultivation of spirit/inner energy. If you know one, chime in please! Verve is a great word but doesn’t quite fit.)

Guiding Principles:

1. Kaleidoscopic

   Playful perspective

   This word began as ‘balance’ and ‘delightful’, which is what kaleidoscopic means to me. It is a reminder of the interconnected, liminal state of things and that we are all looking at fragmented parts of a whole. Having a kaleidoscopic perspective means to acknowledge that the answer is never an either/or but both/and many possibilities at once.

2. Mettlesome

   Grounding in grit and courage

   This year is the year I move through my pain of performing, prioritise practice and begin publicly storytelling through writing and song.

3. Ritualistic

   There is little magic in a spell half cast

   I like Esther Perel’s definition of ritual that ‘rituals are routines elevated by creativity, driven by intention, and imbued with meaning.’ Routine is simply a spell half cast, requiring ritual to complete the enchantment.

Patterns of Behaviour:

There will be much more sharing of my work and thinking in draft as I spend less time learning and more time exploring new ways to communicate through various creative forms of expression. But holding attention publicly expends a mountain of my mana (speaking publicly has been my most vulnerable point for a lifetime), so I need to be quite organised, determined, practised and appreciative of the experience as a process. Sleeping well and maintaining regular rituals will help this immensely.

This brings me to the next pattern of collaboration and living in relation. I love doing things myself, but it often means that things take longer than they need to, and I miss out on the potential that comes from a diverse ecosystem of thought. So, this year I’ll be making an effort to share and collaborate more.

Work and play so often overlap for me and I don’t think much needs to change. However, I will need to become clear with myself and others about how I intend to spend time. Being amenable has been my default setting for a while, fitting things in during the week and pushing back my tasks to the wee hours of the night, so the person I’ll have to set the most pronounced boundaries with is myself. Living at a good rhythm with intention, ease and a full reserve of mana is the goal here.

Projects:

Aside from working as an environmental advisor/sustainability consultant ~

• Consciousness-raisng, community events are my favourite form of activism, and I’d like to host these monthly

• Finish and perform my cabaret The Fat Cats Who Ate The Earth Whole

• Begin animist.lifemodelling & create a portfolio of images with short essays to accompany

• Daily journaling, weekly life blogging and monthly essay writing here on the eco-anthro site*

Update* I now record the progress of these and other projects on paper using a bullet journaling system, daily journaling is in a free app called Day One and my weekly general blog will be hosted on an app I’m yet to choose (tumblr or substack).

How you might assist:

I have a tendency to prioritise playing with my dear friends, sometimes to the detriment of sleep and my long-term goals. So this year, working on so many things, when inspiration and creative energy strike I would like support to prioritise these energetic windows of opportunity.

Another likely area I could use your assistance with is when I’m in a thought-rut, or lacking in mana, ask me how The Enchantress might navigate this situation, what she might do for herself? She usually knows. This will be particularly helpful in these first few months towards October as I embed new practices and rituals.

What’s your word?

I selected my word with the guidance of the Choose One Word program by Dr. Jason Fox (which is now free, I might add, amazing!). I’m deeply grateful for the richness it has brought to my world. I highly recommend trying it yourself ✨If you have a word/character/wish/goal for the year, tell me yours so that I might assist you in your process of becoming as well!

With love in the web, Jessamie