Workings: New Wives Tales for a New Millenium is a memory of a past I never had…yet; an invisible kinship manual.   Deeper then déjà vú, the tales, spells, and recipes that comprise this book are transformational devices that are entertaining, educational, and spiritually efficacious.   I have "worked" almost every spell in this collection and cooked every dish.   I have told the tales in informal familial gatherings and in front of large crowds of children (at least the rated "G" ones).  

These tales have scientific intentions. They can be used to spur conversation and investigation of a child's natural and moral world.   As entertainment, they titillate the senses, provoking recollections of that joy of magic, of the surprise ending, the unusual twang of a sauce, the delight of brightly colored vegetables, that release of sweat, tears, and laughter.

The spells are drawn from my Conjure work and experience as a transformer of energetic reality.   Like most of the recipes and some of the tales, they were specifically "received" for particular individuals in order to help them through a particularly rough piece of destiny road. Some of the spells are for communal transformation, addressing issues in a non-confrontational manner and providing sumptuous care and loving kindness where common popular workshops and books tend to unintentionally point fingers and mollify.   While these spells are formalized, it should be said that a spell is a very particular thing to the energy of each person working it, therefore, the mixing instructions are written in approximations, since unlike Wicca, Conjure has a great deal more to do with the moment as it is rather than the moment as we would like it to be.   In a similar vein, the recipes and meals are intense Conjure, for what could be more transformative than ingestion, digestion, absorption, and elimination of various energies represented by food?

Culled from our collective everyday, the workings in this collection are not beholden to any one particular tradition, challenging blind repetition of a series of acts without comprehension as to the why.   The goal of Workings is to coax people into re-membering their particular practices so as to save them from condemnation as superstition.   If major pharmaceutical companies are now reaping the benefits of these century old practices, relishing the fact that those fantastic recipes and chants are actually solid organic chemistry, then why should us everyday folks relinquish that power and manifestation of the divine to them?   Everyone has these stories, everyone should investigate their stories, and everyone is responsible for passing the stories on, as best they can.   For me, this means using tales and spells everyday as a way to investigate the world as much as a way to record my family history; our family history.   Workings is a doing to undo, a way to shift into "been done did," out of "shoulda, coulda, woulda" while having an exceptional good ole time.