1.
Meet the dove with the empty mouth at your own door. Plant one olive tree. Wait three years.
2.
Meditate on the inner workings of one eyeball, and then, the other. Now your sight is clear.
Visualize your body spread across a leathern sheet. Imagine your feet are stitched to the floor
black X
x
black X.
Imagine the earth is entering through your back and feel the weight of antlers burst from your own head.
3.
Imagine the body of your enemy in a shallow pool of water. Imagine a green thorn tapped and untapped into each of your enemy’s heels. Watch the fluid draining from the enemy’s feet stain the pool arsenic.
Cup your hands as if you are holding a heart in each. Allow the energy of your hands to scoop the liquid from the pool. Continue until the pool is empty. Now you and your enemy are equally grounded.
4.
Make oil of your tree’s olives. Place the oil in a copper bowl at the intersection of you and your enemy’s roads.
x
The animal that comes to drink will be the familiar of you. Or, the animal that comes to drink will be the familiar of your enemy.
You will feel perfect fear, either way.
This isn’t a spell to ward anything off.
Touch your skin until there is a vibration of yourself above yourself. Drink rose tea until yourself is even larger. You cannot be harmed.
5.
Walk in the direction of the familiar with one hand outstretched.
Candice Wuehle is the author of the chapbooks VIBE CHECK (Garden Door Press, 2017), curse words: a guide in 19 steps for aspiring transmographs (Dancing Girl Press, 2014) and EARTH*AIR*FIRE*WATER*ÆTHER (Grey Books Press, 2015). Her work can be found in Tarpaulin Sky, The Volta, The Colorado Review, SPORK, The New Orleans Review and Prelude, among others. She is originally from Iowa City, Iowa, and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Candice currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas where she is a Chancellor’s Fellow at The University of Kansas. Find her at candicewuehle.com.