Fables and Spells by adrienne maree brown

I read Fables and Spells, by adrienne maree brown, in the tender first days after I gave birth to my second son. I read it on a new tablet I had bought for myself, so both the words and the format in which I received them felt new, strange, and fulfilling, while my new son snuggled with me—also new, also strange and familiar at the same time.

It was the perfect book for this liminal place.

I have no comments to add, below I’ve chosen a few quotes that I’ll carry with me.

The labor I put into my work is clearing everything out of the way until I can listen. The work I do is to look at the moon, or a body of water, or some creature other than human, and wait until I understand something. The work I do is to repeat the instructions of love that want to be heard, over and over.

if you can’t see the small you will keep leaping from built thing to built thing

kindness eases change.

you are not in control, you are in collaboration.

you are the only one who will ever get to love yourself from the inside out. be especially generous with loving the parts of yourself no one else knows. we must remember ourselves, remember our original shapes before all the wounds distorted our divinity. we are the cells of god.

Living fully into your own story, before, during and beyond the othering, is a counterspell.