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This blog post is not just centered on magical rituals for transmutation. This post is a question that I've posed to myself, again and again - when we remove and take down the systems that harm, what do we build in it's place? How do we commit to dreaming and building new worlds through our everyday actions? What do we want to rise and grow in the removal of systems that harm?
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I recently got a few gifts from a friend who visited Italy. A small wooden magnet, on it written, "La vostra invidie e la mia forza" - translated, it means your envy is my strength/power. It made my friend RJ think of transmutation, and I thought the same - even writing my transmutation sigil on the back before placing it on the fridge.
Transmutation has been on my mind quite a lot recently. It's a part of my practice that is less discussed online for a variety of reasons, but continues to pop up as I watch the news, scroll, and notice the workings we are doing publicly as witches and folk practitioners.
This blog was inspired by a few things. Firstly, being in a closed community centering this work, the work of collective liberation, and the work of sharing Ancestral magic with each other - cultivating community, support, and strength in times of deep grief. Secondly, the fridge magnet. Thirdly, our current world and country's circumstances. Children kidnapped off the street. Dozens killed in ICE detention centers. Genocides in various countries, including Palestine, Sudan, and the Congo. Harm to bodies, harm to regions, harm that holds a legacy in the colonial empire of so-called "America". Among all of this, a consistent outpouring of public calls for witches to take action.
Let me be clear - there's absolutely nothing wrong with different approaches to justified work and supportive magic. I think that baneful, justified work is an integral part of folk magic and that, if you have the means and the divination points to open roads, it's something we should be considering and prioritizing. I think that protective work is an integral part of folk magic. This isn't at all to discourage those taking the lane of sharing particular workings publicly to fight this fight.
Rather, it's an important question for us to ask when we do baneful and justified work.
Especially, and I mean especially for white folks doing this work. I believe that every white-bodied practitioner should be slowing down and asking themselves whether or not the work they do is centered on calls to action created by those actively being harmed, centering community and magic that helps achieve those goals, or rather if it is instead informed by what we think is right in this moment - rather than what immigrants, BIPOC, and the people in our communities are asking for.
Are we centering our own ideas of justice? Are we being performative? Or are we tapping into communities, watching for calls to action (donations, boots on the ground, more awareness & witnessing) and planning our workings accordingly? Are we working in relationship to people, groups, and spaces that have been doing this work for most of their lives? Are we looking to elders? Is your magic matching your mundane actions? Or are we centering our white guilt and need to be witnessed in doing something?
When I talked to my teachers about my Salem class, "the Bane and Blessing of Italian-American Folk Magic", I had many discussions about the baneful workings that exist within this practice but are less done, less talked about, or less shared. Part of this was to explore through a theoretical lens what our most desperate situations look like - is now the time we begin practicing this magic? Are we in our most desperate situations?
But, a question was posed to me by my teacher, Lisa Fazio, when I talked about this, specifically hexing or cursing the government.
"What takes its place?"
If we intend to topple and remove someone from power, magically, what head raises in the next breath? How are we making space for something new, non-hierarchal, focused on liberation, sovereignty, and Land Back? What are we calling in? What worlds are we birthing? When we take the time to hex ICE, our government and administration, what are we calling in its place? What magic are we doing to midwife in a new world?
This was an integral question to the presentation I created for Salem Witchcraft & Folklore Festival in 2025 - "When we remove - what are we replacing it with? What works are we doing to bring in something new? What space is left, and what needs to fill it?"
Even more so - I think of the famous song and quote, "The revolution will not be televised", by Gil Scott-Heron. How this work begins not in magic, not in the streets, but in your head - doing the work of unsettling settler colonialism, rediscovery and reconnection of culture, and centering processes for being present in community and showing up for community at times of crisis.
For me - this is the work of transmutation, but also the work of dreaming. This is the work of creating something new. This is the work of releasing what no longer serves the people and believing and dreaming of something better. Transmutation in my practice, is similar to or the same as siphoning - borrowing energy from malefic magics sent to us to power it into something that assists us, like utilizing mal'occhio or evil eye to feed our wealth, health, and protection.
Transmutation is synthesizing. It is alchemizing. It is transforming our circumstances into something else.
It allows us to pull from energies that are intended to be harmful or accidentally are harmful, and dream them into something different.
Transmutation magic is, in my opinion, inherent to the practice of collective liberation. Transmutation magic is inherent to how we move through the world. Transmutation magic is taking old beliefs, ideas, and practices and alchemizing them into something new. This is inherent to reconnection as well - holding both the duality of tradition being important to our ancestral magic practice, but also recognizing that not all traditions and systems - especially those holding problematic beliefs - are necessary to gather forward.
This was something I discussed in "Ancestral Magic", writing, "Utilizing and connecting with tradition in your practice doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to the harm certain traditions and ways of thinking have done over time— rather, it calls you in to reconnect and release those traditions for future generations" (Castanea, 213).
Upon a glance, the information and practice surrounding transmutation magic and transmuting energy is primarily found on Tik Tok, Youtube, and a few random blog posts. Some of which appear to be helpful, while others seem to be more focused towards fantasty-style roleplay games like DND or New Age concepts.
I actually reached out to my friend, the owner of Jaqs Witchy Ways, to talk a bit more about transmutation. To describe transmutation and the mechanics of this magic, she says, "We have to identify the issue, using specificity, and what you want it to become and the end result. Thinking about what we have to channel those two things. From there, we have to consider channeling where that energy exists at - anger, rage, frustration is fire. A burning bowl, an element of fire, candle, literal porch fire - than what you want to turn it into, like something that heals - earth or dirt from a church, from a hospital, water element or moving and cultivating a spell and energy that is around that."
Jaq talks about transmutation as literally channeling energy from one thing to another - using the elements to represent where a particular emotion is, then using another to transform it, like taking a candle and letting it burn down into water.
When we talked, Jaq also said that her experience with transmutation primarily comes from living through hard things and having to channel, alchemize, and shift those painful experiences into something different - like art, creativity, or change in her life. She noted, “I think all of us have experiences and examples of alchemizing pain. Taking rage, harm, hurt or shame and channeling it into something else."
When I say channeling, I don't mean releasing - we don't intend to let go of our anger, harm, hurt, or ignore it - rather, we want it to mobilize us. We want to transmute it. In many ways, this practice is one embodiment, Jaq tells me. She knows it because she has embodied it and done it, not necessarily because she learned it from a book.
There is always a benefit to utilizing transmutation of energy into money, health, or wealth, especially if you're a public figure who gets a lot of negative backlash, taking negative energy and using it to formulate or power particular workings.
However, I think that the magnet RJ gave to me is what I like to describe this type of work as - someone's envy, hatred, or negativity fueling strength, resilience, and resistance. Even more so as fueling it, siphoning it - stealing power from those in power and repurposing it to give energy to those who need to be protected.
When Jaq and I talked, she also said, "Transmutation work for the community should be born from the community. From taking isolation and division, we want to create community."
Sit with that. This isn't work to do alone. This is work to do in intentional community - whether that is big or small. Dreaming together. Creating and building together. Going to protests together. Raising funds together. This is about vetting who you want to build with. This is about sitting down and realizing who, in your circles, is really here for this - not performative spell work. Not sitting in privilege. But who is really ready to begin showing up for each other in tangible ways - through sitting with each other, holding each other's grief, and holding each other accountable. This is the time where we really need to ask who is here for this work, for this change, and who isn't. For those who are - begin building together. Begin reading liberation-based literature together. Begin a small mutual aid fund every month and choose where to donate it. Show up to protests together. Get involved.
Here are some ways, magically and mundane, that I imagine doing this work:
Siphon Work
What is already being siphoned from us that we can shift and change how we approach? In many ways, this is the work of looking at problematic beliefs and traditions through a critical lens. What systems, holidays, or physical places are already taking energy from us, and how do we call that back communally and redistribute this to others?
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Creating a siphon (a sigil or particular symbol) and placing it near a space that upholds systems that harm or taking dirt from this area and covering the siphon with it. Then, utilize the siphon in workings and practice that centers communal protection, justified workings, or abolition of systems - literally using the energy taken from this place and turning it against them.
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Creating a siphon/transmutation symbol or sigil for a particular person, and utilizing that symbol or sigil in similar workings. Taking energy from a person or place that harms and transmuting that energy, sending it to someone or a place that needs to be uplifted, protected, or blessed.
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If accessible, set up a monthly donation (even $5-10) to a local organization supporting movement towards mutual aid, support of the unhoused, or support of immigrants. Or find a mutual aid request every month and see if you can donate when applicable. Redistribution of wealth based in generational or societal privileges is a powerful way to cultivate transmutation.
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Creating a siphon and placing it near a space that is abundant (like a bank), using that symbol/sigil to do money workings or workings for security for those who lost SNAP benefits or access to food security. Alternatively, use this siphon while donating food, money, or time to a mutual aid organization like Mutual Aid Monday.
Dreaming Work
Nyasha Williams is already cultivating a beautiful space for the work of dreaming up a new world through the Dreaming Table. I often look to Nyasha as inspiration, a friend and co-creator, and as a person who has been centering and living the ability to dream and create a better world, including creating collages for folks of their visions of collective liberation.
Dreaming work and creating work allows us to create other options. We need this work to dream and create of new worlds and new possibilities - it is essential work in order to see and dream up a better world. Instead of limiting possibilities to what has been and how we have moved in the past, what realities and dreams do we have for the next ten years? What about the next twenty? The next fifty? How are taking time to imagine and be creative in a way that makes space for imagining these possibilities, and then beginning to move towards them?
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Taking time to dream up what you wish the world to look like. Finding like folks who hold that same dream, and dreaming it together. Writing it out. Seeing it. Centering not what we will lack, but what we will have.
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Cultivating or joining a community that creates your dream of collective liberation.
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Supporting and being present in that community - either through consistent conversations of ideas of collective liberation, and embodying and implementing them together. This can be a small group, or a larger group, with ideas to grow and shift to bigger scale or keeping it tight.
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Show up for each other in political actions. Set aside a day that you and your friends contribute to your dream of collective liberation by contributing to mutual aid, volunteering, creating art and space together, or attending a protest or civil disruption/disobedience.
Embodying Work/Reconnection
Reconnective work is the center of the work I do. It asks us where we came from, what pasts and histories we hold, and how we can re-learn, re-connect, re-establish roots and return to ancestral ways of being. This work isn’t just one of learning about the cultures our ancestors come from, but being in diasporic culture and community. Recognizing the ways in which we move now, as living ancestors, that reflects the world we wish to see.
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Connecting with the stories of previous lineages, learning their histories, and the history of your Ancestors and families. What can we learn from lineages we hold, whether this is familial or communal? I have been leaning into learning about the Partisans in Italy, how they functioned, and how they fought the fascist regime there.
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Embody your anger. Embody your grief. Embody your rage, feel it deeply - then channel it towards something. On Instagram, the Death Witch writes, "Take it to your altar. Take your fears. Your anger. Your sadness...prayer, roots, screaming to the ancestors, it's all work. It’s all effective" (Jan 12th). Within this, use your emotions. Use your anger, rage, grief, and sadness to do workings for a better world. Use it to transmute, to cast, to pour into a candle geared towards what work is justified.
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Embody what you wish to see in the world. Be a better Ancestor. Identify generational lineages of harm. Feel the grief surrounding this hurt, then notice where in your body this pain sits. How can you honor it? How can we make active, intentional choices in this life to be a better ancestor?
In terms of my ancestral journey, some ways I have embodied this work include getting to know my neighbors and local community, feeding myself and my friends, and of course - learning Ancestral magic.
We are being called now to establish networks of care that are intentional, but also networks of care where we may not all be exactly the same. Our hyperlocal communities are those that need tending - and from there, our local and distant communities.
How can we show up for our neighbors in a way that reflects the world we want to see?
In nourishing my body and prioritizing my health, I am also ensuring I have energy to feed and nourish my friends. Feed and nourish the lineages I hold. Feed and nourish my soul and the grief, anger, rage, and action my ancestors are asking me to hold. This can be physical - donating to a local foodbank. Participating in a food train. Offering cooked meals or food to friends, or magical. Being a place to land, a shoulder to cry on, creating community spaces and being in community spaces that nourish.
How do we feed ourselves and others in a way that reflects the world we dream of seeing?
And of course, learning Ancestral magic and the folk magic and medicine of my lineages. Being in relationship to my Ancestors, folk magic, and how the magic itself is asking us to show up for others. I have had the privilege of being present with so many amazing workers and practitioners who hold magic and medicine from their lineages with many different varieties of how they show up. From grief work and death doula-ship to offering services of spellwork or tarot readings to cultivating magical products and creating art that allows others to be represented and feel seen, there are so many different ways to transmute and cultivate the space we want to see.
Recently, I’ve had the chance to sit with Mary Beth Bonfiglio in “Us Sinners: a writing salon”, and from this a poem was birthed during our first weeks’ focus on rage. Out of immense grief and generational drift, art was made. Being in this container with so many talented writers has brought my spark back for creating art, writing, and connection through intense, beautiful emotions that we have been told to silence and quiet. The prompts that Mary Beth is cultivating aren't just those that ask us to hold our anger/lust/desire/obsessions - but to tap into it, embody it, hold space for it in a way that is a balm for the soul and for these times.
lupa
in sound, soil, and grief –
she emerges to howl and tear:
out of guilt, I find pleasure
in my ferocity. always watched like a child
born out of kindness and
not force, barreling forth
from blood and plasma and
spit with
The Matriarchs standing over me,
I hold my wolf-skin carefully.
waiting.
my body can hold a storm.
I become wolf before a curse –
before a calling –
with fingers buried in fascia, fastening
around knife hilt –
I become storm before oil and water,
in a church, I hit holy ground
running for the thrill of it,
careful eyes marking predator
lilting howls, ash spread at protests,
I blow my coat on the way home,
file down my fangs,
wait.