Natalia Lee

A nest of sorts

A Smudging of Articles and a Ghost Poem

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Enchantments

The Witches Sabbath or The Great He-Goat, Francisco Goya.

It’s Halloween and instead of talking about the ghosts running around in my head, and around my house. I want to share a few articles that explore the topics of the dead, ancestors, devotion, and also a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Honoring the Ancestors of the Dead. A beautiful and poignant essay on the importance of honoring our ancestors. It also has altar suggestions.

Modernity has birthed a culture that is so hellbent on defying nature and extending youth that it has developed a repulsion to aging and death. Rather than being part of the natural cycle of spiritual existence – a new beginning as understood by countless traditional societies, death is viewed as a finality, a tainted and unclean evil that is detested and feared.

The Spirit Court. A wonderful article by the wise and magical Camelia Elias, on tutelary spirits, divining, and as always, the cards.

We all know it, and if we don’t all know it, we all feel it, and if we don’t all feel it, we all think it, and if we don’t all think it, we all desire it: A strong connection to the unseen, to the ones who came before us.

Sustained Devotion. The art of devotion in practice.

Sustained devotion to process is also the ‘thing itself’. It is clear that hundreds or thousands of hours of work at a thing are what makes a person better at that thing. This is sustained devotion. This is the nature of practice.

The Cartomancer: Ritual for meeting your ancestors in the simple. Another one by Camelia on patheos.

A ritual is only good as it puts you on the path of non-identification with whatever arises: a thought, a demon, a god, depression, a ghost, an ancestor, a star.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel T. Coleridge. I will not post the whole poem here as it is long, but I leave you the link. There is also an audio option there. Enjoy the poem, it is one of my favorites, as I love Coleridge and I also love nautical themes.

How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

The Witches Sabbath, Francisco Goya.
Death/Life Ritual and Vampires

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Enchantments

The last week of October is upon us. As previously mentioned, this month I broke custom in favor of using Robert Place’s Vampire tarot deck. I put my Marseilles decks away. Fitting as this month is traditionally about shadows, entering the darker months, communing with or honoring the ancestors, the dead. There are a couple reviews of the Vampire tarot around the web, and on youtube (this is my favorite). And it is true what most say about the companion book, it is a jewel. Robert Place is concise and approaches the subject with an academic’s grace while also being engaging. The deck is now out of print.

I will not be doing a review of the deck as I feel that has been done quite well already. I will be talking about concepts that relate to the deck, namely the shadow self, the hidden realm, the “underworld” of our psyche. I don’t know if many remember the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but if you do and saw the whole show, all seven seasons, towards the end in the final couple seasons, things got very dark with Buffy. Right after her resurrection from the “other side.” Buffy feels lost, disconnected, starts an affair with Spike, the dark “quasi” hero, bad boy. From here the show enters into the realm of the psyche. Buffy starts battling her inner demons, asking herself why she keeps falling for the things she kills, vampires, what is the purpose of it all, a never ending cycle of desire versus love, good versus bad. What is good? What is bad? And after having faced death, and constantly slaying the undead. She now has to answer the question, what does it mean to live, in the threshold between life and death. She has to start a conscious discourse with death. I say all this because, well because it is fitting that as nature turns inward we turn inward as well. As I enter the flow of the cycles of nature, things are dying around me, leaves falling, trees turn pale, birds migrate. Death is all around us, always. Well, all this death has got me thinking about the inner creatures we nurture inside us, what creatures need to die, and when? What creatures we need to integrate, accept as part of our self?

For some this doesn’t seem necessary, to know what darkness lies within us. I disagree. Think about the stories we construct of our selves, the identities we construct and allow culture, society, and family to add building blocks. Oftentimes these constructs, whether consciously or unconsciously manifest themselves entwined the unexplored darkness within. Moments of ire, irrational behavior, out of the norm, restlessness. Rash decisions. Foolish personas. Excessive guilt and self-hate. Wouldn’t it be better to sift through the murk, to appease the darkness and begin a discourse with it?

This is a good time to explore the depths, to explore the ties that bind us, the monsters that suck the life out of us, to explore death.

The Vampire Tarot by Robert Place.

Using these cards I came up with a small ritual, or “performance.”

Take three black candles and place in a grid, a triangle, somewhere safe, where the candles will be undisturbed. Take a white flower (albedo, soul/spirit), a knife (rubedo, sacrifice/eros), and a wand or tree branch(nigredo, death/ fertile potential). Connect these together with a string, so that they form a circle. Place the the three objects within the grid. Light the candles. Devise a couple lines that speaks to you of the cycles of life and death, asking what must die and what must live within. Seek clarity so that you can see the darker aspects that lie hidden, hence the flame of the black candles and the framing of the objects within. Sling a couple cards down, see what they have to say, mediate, converse with your spirits, or converse with your heart. Let the candles burn out. *I normally use the seven day candles inside the glass jars so the flame remains undisturbed.

In all things, keep it simple, keep it clear, and keep it precise. I hope you all have a lovely Samhain.
Thoughts on a full moon and October

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Spreads

As October wafts onward, the air gets cooler on this (where I live) side of the globe, and as the popular saying goes, one can almost feel the veil between this world and the unseen get thinner. I have briefly put down my varying Tarot de Marseilles expeditions in favor of meditating with Robert Place’s bloodsucking, vibrant, and darkly enticing Vampire Tarot. Also, started reading Women Who Run With Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by the Jungian Clarissa Pinkola Estés. These two, the deck and the book, work marvelously well in combination.

Whether because of these actions (reading the book and using this deck) or in tandem, I have, much like the hermit you see in the above card, retreated within in search for answers. Choosing denial, limitation, of the external in favor of internal explorations. October is a fitting month for these sorts of travels. Where one goes inward in search for answers to basic, intrinsic, and vital questions. What do I want? What is the measure of a decent life for myself? How do I value myself? Where am I headed? What is important? Who am I?

Much like the hermit, one starts to face these questions and strip away the superfluous, leaving only the barest, to the marrow, the essence of the thing. This just reminded me of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. However, instead of retreating into the forest to contemplate the lake and trees in the comfort of my cabin to the music of warbling birds, I am retreating to the desert, the valley of my inner world. There is no music, no cabin, barely any trees. But there is a full moon and a small candle somewhere.

This month is a month of reconnecting. After traversing inside it is also good to touch base with our past, those that have been alive before us, those that paved the way for us. An honest encounter with our ancestors helps us reach the nucleus, the crux of the matter, removing what is not needed from our lives, from our points of view, from our assumptions and presumptions, and from our desires.

This is a good month for us, for me, to look in the mirror, reconnect and uncover what truly is the measure of a decent life, a good life. What are my desires and where are they leading? And what am I doing to change, to evolve?

As the veil gets thinner, let us honour our past, our ancestors, light a candle, whisper a prayer, create a sigil, whichever, and put to death whatever is not needed in our life so that what is needed, what is essential can guide us like the flickering flame guides the hermit through the forest in the night.

The Vampire Tarot by Robert Place

Like the 3 fates creating, measuring, and cutting life, I want to discern what needs to be created, what needs to be allotted, and what needs to die. Incidentally, this happens to be a worthwhile spread.

The spread of the 3 fates:

what needs to die?

what needs to be allotted?

what needs to be created?
The story

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Enchantments

I want to talk about the story, the stories we tell ourselves, that we construct, those we love hearing, and the stories we create when we read the cards. This is not a new idea, many have mentioned the wonder of storytelling to be had with the cards. Reading tarot is a way for us to tell ourselves stories, to create new stories, and to look back at past stories. Through this creation we are able to refine our self, address areas of concern within our lives, we are able to gain enlightenment as we grow spiritually through the story, as we learn.

There is something very magical about stories. Julio Cortázar, an Argentine writer, spoke about how photographs function as a revelatory image. A story told through the world of the image allows the viewer to contextualize, open up, what is left unsaid. Frequently, we wander around with vague ideas about the big concepts of life, love, being, the self, belief, hate, wisdom, knowledge, etc. The moment in which we look at an image or a story at the right time, there is a revelation, we are able to see, truly see what is before us and within us. This moment of revelation is also the function of stories, hence their importance. Stories help us give voice and put words to the unknowable, to the silence.

When we read the cards, we are in fact creating stories, whether for ourselves or for others. These stories help us put images and words to vague concepts and ideas that beforehand remained somewhat elusive to our grasp. When we are able to create a story we can look at what lies before us objectively, from different angles. In this way, we gain insight into our self, into what lies beneath, our unconscious. When we read for others we help them see the story from another angle as well, we help them gain insight, direction and advice.

Storytelling is as old as time, well I am not getting into the logistics of telling stories, the history and what not. What I mean to say is that it is an ancient art that has been vivifying the experience of human-ness for aeons. The paintings of Lascaux tell a story, for example, for ages we have been passing down stories orally, and with them beliefs, ideas, concepts about life and being.

Thinking on this I decided to ask the cards, “What story do I tell myself, that I need to look at more closely?”

The Spanish Tarot by Fournier.

Remaining still to germinate an idea into fruition will breed results. This is a reminder that while there is a time for stillness and contemplation, too much turns into hesitation, which transforms into doubt and then leads to fear. All this encased within the shell of inaction. In order to “make something happen” actions are needed, this is true in life an in magic. In order to achieve the perfect balance of the two cups, one must act, one must do, and one must dare.