Transforming "Spiritual Warfare": Day 1 (Hawaii)

"Coriolus versicolor," by Hawaii artist Alex Steelsmith.

I have pondered a great deal about the proper response to the "prayer war" that begins today. Many ideas & plans have passed through my mind. I have never been good at doing someone else's brand of magick. It is ironic, because I just love reading grimoires, spellbooks & those big, thick anthropological tomes chock-full of folklore & magic. Few texts bring me greater pleasure or inspiration. However, when it gets down to showtime, no matter how well constructed, eloquently versed, or stimulating to the imagination a published spell may be, I always seem to go with my own creation.

My version is radically different this time. This is a sticky venture. Some people will choose traps, protection, deflection, binding or reversals. These strategies are not for me -- I am energetically spent & also uncomfortable with anything that could establish a direct link. Many people are feeling the need to tap into the gods, ancestors or Nature spirits. I do not feel it is appropriate to appeal to beings I am not in relationship with at this time. I believe it is important to work with what you know, as well as work with what is fitting for the work needed. After much deep consideration, weighing the nature of my patrons & my depleted spiritual reserves, I decided that it was most appropriate to appeal to the saprophytic agents of change, my beloved brokers to the underworld & entreat them to absorb & transmute the combative energies targeted at our homelands.

And so it begins.

Hawaii is an amazing place for the saprophagous & the diversity of fungi on the islands is great. However, I want to try to stick to organisms I have personally encountered, so today I called on the spirits that reside within Trametes versicolor (or Coriolus versicolor or Polyporus versicolor), also called "Turkey Tails." These resilient, long-lived polypores are found practically everywhere (like so many of their kind), including Hawaii. They are model decomposers & better still, they are well known anti-cancer agents -- how apropos. May their transformative powers help us circumvent a spiritual carcinoma.