Incantations For Rest: Poems, Meditations, and Other Magic

by Atena O. Danner

Overview

A call to anyone who thought they were alone on the journey, Incantations for Rest is for kindred spirits: neurodivergent folks, parents up late past bedtime nursing resentment, Black people in predominantly white spaces—anyone who has found themselves at the edges of Beloved Community.

Incantations for Rest is an invitation to slow down and explore every kind of rest, providing sacred space for those exhausted by the demands of a racist, ableist society. This stunning collection of poems, meditations, and magic by poet-activist Atena O. Danner is an examination of spiritual spaces, a love letter to Black well-being, and medicine for BIPOC people. Within these pages you are invited to savor connection, question assumptions, admit to complicated feelings, and still make room for joy. It is a beacon of affirmation and a vital tool for ritual and reflection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558968882
Publisher:	Unitarian Universalist Association
Publication date:	04/04/2023
Pages:	88
Sales rank:	490,444
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Atena O. Danner is an unapologetically Black time-traveling poet-activist who dwells in the past to survive the future. She writes toward Beloved Community, Black liberation, and collective imagination. Atena lives near the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires and of the Menominee, Miami, and Ho-Chunk nations with her partner, pets, and two free Black children.

Read an Excerpt

Ancestors of the Page and the Call

Elders of the Message—

not quiet, not easy, not waiting another moment

Ntozake, Toni, Octavia, Pauli,

Zora, June, Gwendolyn, my mother (not an ancestor,

but a lit fuse . . .)

To my Ancestors and Elders: I honor you all!

My mother spoke to me in your language, so I would

be ready for this religion.

I take up the mantle

and bear the reverberations—the power! It shakes me!

I plant my feet . . .

Ntozake did not come for your comfort: none of y’all.

Mother Morrison did not come to suffer fools.

Octavia E. has an omen for you

Did you think Reverend Dr. Murray would let you off

the hook?

Zora gave less of what the world wanted

and more of what we needed: what needed to be said.

June said it plain and simply undeniable.

Gwendolyn’s quiet pace dogs your steps and keeps

coming and coming and coming . . .

The moment I touch the page, I’m howling the throughline,

tasting

the blood and joy.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Storyteller’s Invocation

Decatur, Georgia Creeks

Mending

Prayer for Artists and Creatives

Ancestors of the Page and the Call

Conspiracy

Sharing

Of the Altar

Singing Prayer

Evolution of Worship

Lineage of Magic

Facebook Vespers

Simple Parts of Faith

Sharing Losses

Swimming Alone

The Divine Audacity of Bree Newsome

Reckon: Reclaim

Changeling Generation

Teacher to Teacher to Teacher

Divine Right to Rest

Litany for the Exhausted

Litany of Oops and Ouch

Litanies of Worthiness

Labyrinth Chant

Benediction to Build a World

Psalm of Talents

A Spell for Warriors and Heroes

Thinking of Mathew

Reciprocity

Spirit Does

Election Night 2020

Every Storm Runs Out of Rain

Blessing of the Instigators

Giving Each Other Our Flowers

Humble yourself before the brutal lessons of the free Black child!

Combing Liturgy

A Normal Conversation About Attending UU Churches

Unconditional Earth

In Darkness, All Things Are Possible

MYOB

A Black Daughter Speaks of Rivers

Generational Wealth

Praise Song for a Desert Rock

Spitting Out Rocks

Instincts

Attention Deficit Invocations

Dear Fear,

Earthen Vessel

Revenge Bedtime Contemplation

Stories and Stars

Kuumba and the Fourth Principle

Editorial Reviews

My tensed shoulders relaxed while reading the radical care captured within Incantations for Rest. Atena O. Danner wields her powerful magic by bringing the systems that produce the weariness of racial and ableist oppression to light while she also lovingly rubbing a healing balm upon her rest-worthy readers’ spirits." —Sekile M. Nzinga, author of Lean Semesters: How Higher Education Reproduces Inequity and editor of Laboring Positions: Black Women, Mothering, and the Academy

“Atena O. Danner has offered the world a reflection and revelation on legacy, imagination, and truthful naming in Incantations for Rest: Poems, Meditations, and Other Magic. Moving back in time to visceral memory and ancestral lineage and stretching out into a connected collective future where we leave no one behind, these poems are both a mending to the weary and a hymn to affirming what matters. I will be returning to them again and again throughout the years, for guidance, fortification, and magic. —Isabel Abbott, author of Salt + Honey: secular prayers for hedonistic hearts

“Atena O. Danner’s poems invite us into the universal, while also singing praise and honor of what it means to be a Black woman in today’s United States. She covers specifics and love of her community via the heartbreak and joy voiced via such powerful pieces as ‘Generational Wealth,’ ‘Reciprocity,’ ‘Giving Each Other Our Flowers,’ and ‘Ancestors of the Page and Call.’ This heart-centered collection is the balm that can bring all of us to better love, understanding and movement toward a just world fit for our beloved generations to come." —Jen Haines, poet and educator

“How deeply we need this invitation to divine rest—these spells for singing out, for swimming alone, for the beauty of Blackness, and for being ourselves, whoever we are. I will be reaching for this book for public worship and private reflection. I love how personal yet accessible and universal Danner’s poetry is, honoring her own experience and ancestors while calling each of us to grow and feel our interconnectedness. I feel honored now to witness the truth and beauty she has nurtured in this book. She has given birth to art and magic. Keep this book in your spiritual medicine kit.” —Erin J. Walter, editor of Care for the World: Reflections on Community Ministry

“Whether you are an avid reader of poetry collections or a casual appreciator of the occasional poem, you'll want to add this book to your repertoire. To call Atena O. Danner's poems ‘incantations’ is exactly right—these are incantations, spells, prayers, recipes, and passionate calls to rest, care, and liberation. A long-time organizer and educator, Atena O. Danner offers balms for the weary, reminding us to rest so that we can show up for others in the ways we most want to. Reading these is a gift for anyone feeling worn down by the big (systems of oppression, especially against Black women and femmes) and the small (the everyday challenges of parenting, for example.) Since I read this collection, I've been keeping these incantations close. They work as monthly meditations or daily affirmations—reminders to breathe, to sing, to ‘pour love into an active volcano.’ —Coya Paz, writer, director, and artistic director of Free Street Theater

From the Publisher