Anthony Rella

01/26/2026

"Which finally leads me to the notion that calmness is not the enemy. Calmness within the body—or the nervous system, if you prefer—is not the same as pretending everything is okay. Indeed, pretending tends to make us more anxious, irritable, and brittle over time. True calmness comes with complete acceptance of the situation as it is. Acceptance does not mean, “I am okay with everything that’s happening.” Acceptance is more like, “There is real danger, but if I don’t face it, we won’t ever get through it.” Or, “The world is on fire, but I’m going to show up so that my kids know they are loved.”

Acceptance acknowledges the conditions on the ground. Affirmation is the choice we make within those conditions—what we want to move toward. None of this requires denial of our emotions, but it does invite us to temper their intensity to allow calmness and clarity to steer. "

https://open.substack.com/pub/anthonyrella/p/calmness-is-not-the-enemy

01/20/2026

What a party game teaches about living through times of paranoia and an absence of cultural referees. Full text at https://open.substack.com/pub/anthonyrella/p/party-games-and-paranoia

01/12/2026

"There is a deeply practical reason to cultivate this kind of being in your body. Aggression and force draws out resistance and counter-force. When you come at someone with hostility, all their base-level defenses come up and their bodies are going to instinctually protect themselves. That instinct often looks like the famous fight, flight, or freeze response, most of which are accompanied by tense muscles, impulsive response, and a mind without the capacity to think through the consequences of one’s actions."

https://open.substack.com/pub/anthonyrella/p/when-you-apply-force-you-draw-resistance

01/05/2026

Just a reminder that my spiritual book for magic workers—Slow Magic: Cultivate Lasting Transformation through Spellwork and Self-Growth is available anywhere you get books, and is also available as an audiobook wherever you get those!

If you’ve read it and loved it, please consider leaving a positive review and tell others!

If you’ve read it and hated it, don’t trouble yourself! You’ve done enough!

I love this book as an expression of hope in the midst of adversity, and an exploration of the gifts, meanings, and mysteries of a magical worldview. It’s also a perfect compliment to the energy of a new year!

01/03/2026

"Explore the Divine Twins within and without as we befriend the active and the passive, the one who seeks and strives and the one who rests and receives". Hope you can join us for this 2 hour class, open to all. Link to register:
https://www.morningstarmysteryschool.com/classes/feeding-the-deep-hungers-being-and-doing/

01/02/2026

The last of three Slow Magic workshops is coming up! Registration link is at
https://www.morningstarmysteryschool.com/classes/feeding-the-deep-hungers-being-and-doing/

12/30/2025

"When I went to college in the early 2000s, we spoke often in those critical gender and race theory classes of the ways in which the white male perspective was treated as normal, as central, and all other perspectives treated as aberrations or exceptions. What Savage is tracing is a moment of disruption, in which the white male perspective was forcibly de-centered. But instead of then treating white men as a unique demographic category, with its own sociological reality and systemic pressures that shape their experiences and behaviors, we were mostly blamed for our frustrations and told to stop whining by the left, while the right happily welcomed and nurtured our grievances, offering vengeance and free reign to the most antisocial longings of our hearts."

https://open.substack.com/pub/anthonyrella/p/kicked-out-of-the-center-white-men

12/24/2025

A poem and blessing for the dark time of year. Full formatted text is available at https://open.substack.com/pub/anthonyrella/p/for-spacious-time

12/18/2025

Bus stop bunny has a command.

12/17/2025

This is an interesting article about the experiences of millennial and younger white men. It is about the experience of a generation being actively decentered while trying to establish your own career and dreams.

For fifteen years I’ve scalped tickets to pay the bills. But in January 2016 I almost managed a real career.

12/14/2025

So wild to be shelved next to Silver Ravenwolf! But her book is so huge it was like the elder tree preventing the young sapling from getting sunlight. I gave my book a little boost.

12/05/2025

T. Thorn Coyle hosted me as a guest on their podcast to discuss creativity, magic, and simple practices to support our mental health in the face of stressful and challenging times. Thorn is one of my favorite people and it was an honor to be a guest.

Episode 26In this conversation, author T. Thorn Coyle speaks with Anthony Rella, a magical worker and psychotherapist, about his journey as a writer, his cre...