Newsletter #80: 🪄 Words are wands
Stewarding ideas and words that heal
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If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that's often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
Don’t Hesitate, by Mary Oliver
Every week, I sit down to write this newsletter and ask myself what needs to be said.
I can't know what the world “needs” to hear.
But I feel an urgency to write anyway, a sense that if we don't put better ideas out into the world, we'll keep sliding toward poor health, environmental devastation, and war, and that it's going to take all hands on deck to turn things toward something better. And that perhaps each of us was created to be one piece of the puzzle that makes existence whole, here to reveal something about God that only we can.
So I try to tune in to what most wants to come out of me. Sometimes it's obvious, percolating for months and now bursting out like a racehorse from the gate. Other times I have to listen for subtler cues: What made me feel expansive and inspired this week? What made my brain buzz with excitement? What genuinely touched my heart? What words just might bring a little more wholeness, a little more light, into my own life, and maybe, then, into someone else's?
This week, I sat staring at a blank page, and nothing came.
Nothing felt quite right for the heaviness of this moment. In a world that includes military drones, endless chronic disease, murder, suicide, cancer, child abuse, mass deforestation, oceans filled with trash… what could I, or anyone, possibly say that would make a difference?
Then a phrase landed in my mind with a thud:
Words are wands.
Okay, Spirit, I thought. Tell me more.
It isn't a phrase I came up with, and I hadn't thought about it in a long time. But I love the idea that our words are constantly creating reality, shaping how we see ourselves, how others feel, and what we believe is possible. It's the same wisdom at the heart of The Four Agreements: be impeccable with your word.
Lately I feel like I’m witnessing a lot of tragic news. Some of it touches people I know; some of it touches people far away whom I never will. Now that I'm postpartum, with all the heart changes and hormonal shifts that come with it, difficult news seems to hit me even harder. I won't go into details. Open any news site in the world and you'll find endless pain and suffering. I lean on my weathered copy of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, on Kabbalah podcasts, on notes from sermons on Yogananda’s teachings, on a few minutes of breathwork, on my husband, on God. Still, some days, absorbing all the sadness in the world feels paralyzing.
And yet, as I sat there feeling the weight of it all, and the seeming uselessness of writing a newsletter in the face of it, I noticed a little brown gecko climbed up the side of the honey jar on the counter and began licking the rim, over and over, with his thin pink tongue.
I’ve seen many geckos in my life, but never their bright scarlet tongues indulging in honey. What a blessing.
Just beyond him, outside the window, bright green shoots were pushing out of a branch the last huge rainstorm had broken.
A moment later, my son came stomping around the corner with a hairbrush in each hand, beaming with pride, his tiny teeth framed in a huge smile.
All of it, happening at once. The suffering, the beauty, the absurdity, the relentless persistence of life.
What does it all mean?
What needs to be said?
What needs to be done?
My next thought was of the story of the Red Sea. With Pharaoh's army closing in behind them, the Israelites reached the water's edge, and it didn't part. According to an ancient Jewish teaching, it was only when one man, Nachshon, walked into the sea, trusting God, until the water reached his nose, that the sea split open.
Maybe that's what's being asked of us now. That in the face a world that seems ready to crack, we keep the faith, and keep choosing to believe, speak, pray, act, and think in ways that bring light, hope, love, and wholeness. Starting— and most importantly—in the small moments of our own lives. Because the current state of the world is built from eight billion individuals making choices and sharing ideas all day long, and those choices are what matter most.
One year ago, 24 hours into unmedicated labor, my midwife said something that changed me to my core: "I'm hearing a lot about what you're afraid of and what you DON’T want. I need you to use your limited energy to say what you DO want." I roared, "I WANT MY BABY OUT OF ME NOW, SAFE AND HEALTHY!" Not long after, he was born. It taught me so potently that we need to spend our precious energy on what we hope to bring into being, not in ruminating on and expressing fear.
That's why I love this Mary Oliver poem. She doesn't deny the pain and complexity of the world. She names it fully, and then reminds us that joy is still here, and that choosing it is its own act of resistance.
So today, inspired by the idea that words are wands, and by Mary Oliver's challenge to embrace joy even in the midst of a world filled with pain, I want to try an experiment for myself. For one whole day—this precious day—I want every word I speak and every thought I think to be a wand, blessing the most positive, glorious future for all beings on Earth. The words I say to my husband, to my son, to the person at the market, to my friends, to myself: all of them a blessings for the highest good…
There will be peace and harmony on planet Earth…
Love will fill the Earth, and hate will fade away…
All children will be safe from harm…
All people will know the love of God and let it shine through every action of their day…
You are perfect, capable, and strong…
Delusional? Probably. But so much of what's happening around us already feels delusional: AI, the algorithm, social media, robots, extinction, moving humanity to Mars. I think we can allow ourselves to be delusional in a hopeful and positive direction, too.
I was fortunate to learn firsthand the power of ideas in a very concrete way. I wrote a book about my own life: losing my mother, seeing patterns in the scientific research that I wasn't being taught, and becoming disillusioned with the overmedicalization of modern healthcare. Less than a year after I released those ideas in a rainbow-covered Good Energy book into the world, I was asked to come to the Oval Office, four months pregnant, at 38 years old, face to face with the President, talking with him about root-cause health, holding that book. Ideas have power. They travel further than we can imagine, and they just might change things.
We live in an age when a single thought can reach the farthest corners of the globe in an instant. When an algorithm can pick up a scrap of information and spread it to millions of people with no check on whether it's true. When a convincing fake video of a real person can be generated in seconds and used for scams and exploitation. It has never been more important to be impeccable with our words, to be discerning in what we allow ourselves to think is true, and to be relentlessly thoughtful about which ideas we choose to steward into the world, cultivate, and share. We all now have the power for our ideas to move in quantum, non-linear ways. What passes our lips or fingertips can bring destruction, pain, and division. It can also heal, create harmony, and spread love and peace, just as fast. This starts in our our minds, and then in our homes. I want to choose wisely, today and always. That, at least, is in my control.
So I'll leave you with an invitation: join me in the experiment today. Just for today, notice your words, spoken and unspoken, and aim every one of them at the world you want to live in, one that is more whole.
And if joy shows up unexpectedly—a gecko at the honey jar, a toddler with two hairbrushes—don't hesitate.
With good energy,
Dr. Casey
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