Shadow Work with Light Magic for Dark Times

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

As we move through #ScorpioSeason—and with it, celebrations like Halloween, All Saints Day, and Dia de los Muertos, we enter into the time of year between the autumn equinox & the winter solstice (here in the Northern part of the globe).

It’s a point of death and decay, change and discovery, when the gauzy veil parts and the obscure takes over. It’s when we visit our dead & our dead visit us (literally or not), & when we connect with whatever is beyond, establishing a link to both the darkness and the sacred unknown.

Image by Magda Knight of MookyChick

I have always felt a connection with darkness, the space between here and now. Between the perceived safety and the “dangerous” shadow. For so long I have felt not only a home in the dark—but too comfortable, almost naturally made of it. A safe space. I do not think this is a bad thing. I understand its liminality & language—and maybe you do too, either naturally or when you encounter a hardship or loss or trauma.

These darknesses carve out a space in our hearts, our wirings, and even our physiological responses. These things open up a gate, in us and elsewhere. It’s hard to ignore it—whatever your dark is—once it’s been opened. But that darkness isn’t simply an enemy; it can be a catalyst for healing.

Shadow work is about healing and encountering and reframing what hurt. For me, it’s largely about reframing my relationship with the dark, and making the liminality work for me. I believe it is an opportunity to transform, or cycle through transformations as needed, as I learned early from a mentor. It might take a while, or feel bumpy, but it can happen. Transformation isn’t linear, isn’t perfect, and it’s not always pleasant.

During Halloween, and during the entirety of scorpio season, that change comes more naturally. The gates are open; the winds of change whirl around us. Scorpio is the sign of transformation and regeneration, and so we may naturally feel inclined to shrug off what we don’t need and welcome what we desire. It is also the time to work through negative self-talk or journal about feelings of pain, shame, or fear.

Light Magic for Dark Times: More than 100 Spells, Rituals, and Practices for Coping in a Crisis

By Lisa Marie Basile

Buy on Amazon

You don’t have to believe any of this literally, either—it’s symbolic, if anything. The seasons shift, and there’s a wide, dark, open space ready for harvest.

During this time, I think back on when I was much younger in my teens, when I was in foster care. I always held the blaring sense that I was different, invisible, not enough. I heard the others gossiping about me and I longed to vanish, to be validated in my heartache. I pined for the traditional family unit with all the trappings that come with it. For many years I lived with shame and silence and anger, not realizing in those very differences was my entire world.

I eventually turned to shadow work to look those demons in the eye and find a way to live with them or eradicate them. To honor my light, despite the dark—and to honor my dark. To face and strike down the shame. Shadow work is the work we do to look into those feelings and internalized ideas to disassemble or rearrange them to bloom better things for ourselves.

My shadow work was always through writing and self-listening and even though I’m not perfect, I have been able to make peace with my past and turn that shame into pride.

Some of the things I did included:

• Writing letters to my younger self, to heal her.

• Writing out what hurts, or painful memories on a few slips of paper and then burying them in a box underground.

• Using candle magic to illuminate feelings I was keeping buried; I’d sit on the ground and light a single candle for each feeling, letting myself sit with it and feel it.

• Decide what I wanted my life to look like and take active steps to make it happen. I’d design a mood-board, light candles for manifestation at night, and journal about my goals.

• I picked an archetype that inspired me and learned from her. Hecate is mine; goddess of necromancy and witchcraft, she leads the way through the dark and encourages me to face my shadows and find my inner power.

In my book, Light Magic for Dark Times, I share all of this, and more. I hope that those of you reading the book or those of you that are looking to pick up the book find some healing and opportunity in it. When reading it, you are the guide and you are in charge of the results.

Here are are a few of the things you’ll find in the book:

This spell was created with writer and editor Leza Cantoral.

View this post on Instagram

🦂 🌑 As we come upon #ScorpioSeason—and with it, Halloween, All Saints Day, Dia de los Muertos—we enter into the time of year between the autumn equinox & the winter solstice (here in the Northern part of the globe). It’s a point of death and decay, change and discovery, when the gauzy veil parts and the obscure takes over. It’s when we visit our dead + our dead visit us (literally or no), & when we connect with whatever is beyond, establish a connection to both the darkness and the sacred unknown. For me, that connection is something I worked on for years—unlearning fear and resistance and working toward change. It’s listening to the earth, taking long walks among barren trees, lighting a candle at night for my dead, writing letters to those I’ve lost, and deciding how, when spring comes around again, I will bloom. What I will let go of and what I will grieve. What I will birth. . . Just as we are reminded of how the earth and our bodies die, a sort of other realm opens—one in which we feel connected, heard, held, alive. Peer into it. Most importantly, have FUN with it. Dance in the dark. Say “fuck off” to what doesn’t serve you. Go deep in that alter ego. Don’t take yourself too seriously if you don’t feel good about that. . . On page 120 in #LightMagicforDarkTimes, you’ll find a Santa Muerte Death & Rebirth Spell—one inspired by the magic of @lezacantoral, who offered this spell to the book🦇 please check out her work, her writing, and, of course — try the spell.

A post shared by Light Magic For Dark Times (@lightmagic_darktimes) on Oct 20, 2018 at 11:09am PDT

View this post on Instagram

🐛Chapter 4 is regeneration & recharge, which follows the chapter on negativity. I think this particular chapter and Shadow Work will be two of the most productive sections to use this autumn (I encourage you to skip around the book!). Because with all that going inward this autumn, you’ll need a way to lighten the load and find a balance. . . These chapters allow you to ruminate and release. To glance back and then create forward. Because sometimes we need to wade into the muck before we can clean house, proverbially. . . We must treat our space, our bodies, and the energy we keep around us sacred, as a garden; would you ignore it? Let it die? If yes, that’s okay. Everyone gets to a place where things fall apart; that’s one part of the cycle. But if you want to move through the weird, fun, intense, necessary process of shedding skin...this chapter is for you. 🐍 You do shed, you do change, you are natural, you are flora; you must be watered, you must see the sun. So while you are working through this chapter, be mindful of your body. Do you need to breathe, stretch, drink water? Be mindful of your energy levels. Do you need to send some color into your blood? Say yes to the little things that make you vibrate. Whatever that means to you. 🦋 . . The ouroboros (as is depicted in the chapter opener) has long been used as a symbol by many, many cultures—by alchemists and spiritual practitioners, symbolizing the natural processes of life and death, the eternal and immortal energies of the cosmos and the universe, the destruction and rebirth of the self, of nature’s cycles, Kundalini energy, the beautiful and constant journey and continuum. I love looking at the symbol knowing/trusting that whatever may come, time goes on and things continue and my body will be recycled and it will blossom again. But on an everyday, pragmatic level it also symbolizes that change and renewal is bound to happen—no matter what. We are constantly changing, moving through and emerging from ourselves. We are always regenerating and renewing🐍

A post shared by Light Magic For Dark Times (@lightmagic_darktimes) on Oct 8, 2018 at 5:53pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

🌿 Last night I attended a panel called “What Is A Witch Without Her Coven?” and one of the many wonderful comments centered around how magic can be simple — mundane, really — taking a walk, taking a shower. This is one of the cornerstones of Light Magic for Dark Times, and it was wonderful to hear witches talk about this openly, the notion that witchcraft or a magical or intentional practice doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive or fancy or Instagramable. The reason isn’t that you’re lazy or unwilling to study or apply yourself — but that life can’t always accommodate ceremony or the elaborate. In chapter 8, Last Minute Light, I share lots of little ways to summon your inner magic. To step away and sit in a bathroom stall and ground yourself—especially useful in 9-5s or toxic jobs or spaces where getting a minute away or taking a breath is hard. If you’re struggling, just know that a minute + an intention + your breath is your power. 🌿

A post shared by Light Magic For Dark Times (@lightmagic_darktimes) on Oct 24, 2018 at 1:12pm PDT

---

Lisa Marie Basile is the founding creative director of Luna Luna Magazine—a digital diary of literature, magical living and idea. She is the author of "Light Magic for Dark Times," a modern grimoire of inspired rituals and daily practices. She's also the author of a few poetry collections, including the forthcoming "Nympholepsy." Her work encounters the intersection of ritual and wellness, chronic illness, magic, overcoming trauma, and creativity, and she has written for The New York Times, Narratively, Grimoire Magazine, Sabat Magazine, The Establishment, Refinery 29, Bust, Hello Giggles, and more. Lisa Marie earned a Masters degree in Writing from The New School and studied literature and psychology as an undergraduate at Pace University.

5 Ghost Poems by Catherine Kyle

BY CATHERINE KYLE

For Ghosts  

This one’s for the ghosts

alive 

or dead 

or in whatever state.

You need it? Then

this one’s for you. 

An honorary

ghoul. 

If candles won’t light

get new candles. Throw 

the old ones out. 

If words you have sung

form architecture 

windows and pillars 

shadows and beams 

that haunts you, well then

burn it down. Light 

the bouquet, 

pansies and forget-me-nots 

all blazing.

Touch it to

the load-bearing walls

now. Cast 

your corsage in. 

Dig a grave of soot

and ash and 

lie in it. 

And watch. 

A Garden Ghost 

A ghost revisits 

the body of a girl,

a skeleton, now

with lace gloves. 

The ghost sheds ghost tears

one two three 

that plunk the bony ribs.

Clean and blue as buttons, like

a silky workday blouse. 

The ghost turns on the garden hose

and does not turn it off.

irresponsible 

unreliable 

groundskeeper 

if you ask me.

The water fills up 

thyme and nettle beds,

the poison ivy. 

Fish swim by and huddle in

her sternum and 

her hips.

A River Ghost

I want to talk 

to the river but the river 

is either silent or 

roaring. No in

-between, no inside 

voice. It pouts 

or throws my things.

Already it has broken 

thirteen teacups wrapped in paper, 

gold-kissed rims and 

painted cobalt landscapes  

jigsaw crunch. 

The river does not speak

in words. It speaks 

in overflowings. Creeping 

over sandy shores 

and soaking my new boots. 

It will not talk 

to me, it will not talk

to me, it will not tell 

me what 

it wants. It wants

to be angry, 

I think. It wants 

to Cubist all

my mirrors. 

Look at me, it seems to growl.

My face: a rippled blot. 

A Family Ghost

Ghost girl touches the family

photograph, edges creased, gnawed

-on by time. Runs her pointer 

finger down the silky paper 

seam. It crosses the breast 

of a woman, fold a sash imitating 

quiver. Echo of what weaponry

she might have gripped and shot. 

Ghost girl knows many weapons 

are invisible. Knows many injuries 

are guarded under tongues.

The woman’s face is stalwart, 

mouth a heart monitor 

with no pulse. Ghost girl wants 

to climb inside, to interview 

her teeth. What was your life like?

What would you have wished 

you could demolish? What would you 

have saved, had you power? How was it, 

your pre-ghost? 

A Messy Ghost

You know how they say

you can’t die in a dream? 

This 

is just like that. You’re not 

awake, but there’s nowhere

to go. So park it. And adapt. 

Welcome to the liminal, 

survival’s purgatory. Survival is  

all liminal, a temporary stop. (Yet)

I want to know your breed of this, 

your verbing, your endurance. 

Tell me of your tinctures, 

your spit-shined artillery.

Tell me of the herbs you crush 

and slather as a poultice. Tell me

of the cloak you wear as you 

shoulder the cold. Enter this forest.

See your breath rise into arms of cedars. 

These are territories of things unforgotten

that cannot be healed, either. Here, we all

survive. Welcome to the emptied drawer,

the thousand haystacks scattered. 

Weave them, now, all back together. 

Sort the fleeing parts. 

Blood Moon Limpia by Monique Quintana

BY MONIQUE QUINTANA

When I was a girl, I watched my boy cousins conjure spirits in our family house. Our great grandmother, Marcrina had to do a limpia to clean it out. I wonder if those spirits birthed other spirits that have existed in the many rooms that my body and my family have encountered.

Our landlady had received the Delno house as an inheritance from her dead brother. The house was trimmed with orange paint and the front yard was covered in flaxen colored weeds that itched my ankles when I walked across the lawn. They made me question why we had moved in there. It made me think, should sisters reject gifts from their dead brothers? When we lived in that house, it was the first time I had my own little fruit tree. I thought that only good would come from that tree, the way that the dark lord’s daughter, Xquic became pregnant when a tree spat on her in the old creation of her magic twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

The first night in the house, I walked into the bedroom doorway and my arm began to bleed. There was a tiny hook sticking out like a half moon. It must have held a bolt and lock in its past life. The sting of the pain felt different than an injection needle, and I shivered because I imagined my arms filling with rust and small bits of paint.

 On the second day, I saw that the blue on the restroom walls was painted haphazardly. I did like the color of it because it remained me of the ocean, and I very rarely get to see the ocean. I hung a mirror in the corner and it looked like an egg floating over my head. 

 On the third day of living in the Delno House, I saw her in the old storage shed shaped like a triangle. A black widow spider, its stomach the size of a marble. A red blushed stomach. All her legs quick and nervous like my fingers. I left all of my summer dresses to hang over cardboard boxes, flapping in the cold wind that swept through the broken window.  Left lipstick and thread in jars and muffin tins. Electrical cords ran under the basin, dripping with water and rust.   

My son and I burned sage under the light of the moon and my son started crying. We began to argue mightily whether the sage was bringing bad energy instead of clearing it away. If the copal we burned in the morning time was making us hate each other. In that cold wind, we made our ancestors into demons and we shivered in shame.

I invited my friends over for new moon tea and we write our intentions on small scraps of paper. The candle lights melt the bits of crystalized sugar off the pan dulce in blues and yellows and milky whites like smiles. We three took a picture in front of a large growth, combustion of purple flowers. We were happy to be consumed by the flowers.

I took baths two times a day, leaving the window open to listen to the birds. The window over the tub like a mouth. I would stand up in the tub and watch the shade grow under the giant tree. I thought of myself sleeping deep under the dirt and tree roots, my limbs tangled and peaceful. I go under water and come up again. The mirror floating about my head like an egg. My blue hair under me like kelp and like smoke.

---

Monique Quintana was born and raised in the Central Valley, “the other California” and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from CSU Fresno. She is a Senior Associate Editor at Luna Luna Magazine, Fiction Editor at Five-2-One Magazine, and a contributor at CLASH Media. She blogs about Latinx Literature at her site, bloodmoonblog.com, and her work has appeared in Winter Tangerine, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Grimoire, Huizache: The Magazine for Latino Literature, and The Acentos Review, among other publications. She is an alumna of the Sundress Academy for the Arts and has been nominated for Best of the Net.Her novella, Cenote City is forthcoming from Clash Books in March, 2019. You can find her at moniquequintana.com

How to Cast a Spell & Other Poems by Sabrina Rose Nelson

BY SABRINA ROSE NELSON

How to Cast a Spell

Winter midnight, trickle of

muted moonlight, more like

shadow, still in skinned-knee reverence,

here is how you cast a spell:

Cauldron open face up on the desk

flecked with musk and mugwort.

Stir in sea water, honeycomb,

gold striated stones. Invoke:

Air to drink into parched lungs,

Earth to root wet soil deep,

Fire to burn noise, wreckage, and

Water to guide soft slippery excavation.

Take three deep breaths:

Consecrate this page to heal and to shed,

may the spell I now weave

honor all that has been bled

By water and salt rock, by smoke and scent,

by heart and outpour, conjure up

ocean wild, wind blown, eyes wide

unafraid mystery, born deep in the belly

of an active volcano:

It lives.

It breathes.

For as it will,

so mote it be.

Grandmother

Muck root woman.

Garden woman.

Vivid green, pulsating life woman.

Always feed the ducks kind of woman.

Waxing moon woman. 

Vanilla and moss scented woman.

Sweet earthy scent that brings me home woman.

Feet on the grass woman.

Kitchen witch woman.

Late summer night woman.

Sunflower woman.

Blackbird woman.

Ocean wild, eyes wide, wind blown woman.

Chin first, matted fir, tree sap woman. 

Fire belly woman.

Appetite woman.

Heart shake woman.

Earthquake woman.

Know it in your bones woman.

Raw skin woman.

Moon heavy woman.

Too soft, woman.

Too much, woman.

Buried grief woman. 

Blood worn woman.

Marrow sucked woman.

Goodbye woman.

My woman.

Healing

Inanna, Isis, Lilith, source,

root planted earth deep,

I offer up Magdalene red,

deep ruby oozing down

to the once razed earth below me.

She swells-

moonlit lush singing sweet rebirth,

full and unashamed in her potency.

In her winter: violent desecration,

soil burns devastation.

Violet blossoms sacked,

garnets turned to blades.

The antidote: bleed medicine to core,

lung deep, seep down and root.

Enveloped in the sweet, musky

earth cauldron, I see:

eyes a flooding river,

root to earth,

heart laid bare in her warm night.

---

Sabrina Rose Nelson is a poet, kitchen witch, and recent sociology graduate whose work now revolves around writing and holistic wellness. Her work has appeared in Bitch Magazine and the anthology I AM STRENGTH, among other places. Her writing is deeply influenced by the women in her family. To her, writing is a way to alchemize grief and shame into beauty, connection, and healing. Originally from the rainy and magical Pacific Northwest, she now lives in cozy New England with her partner. Find her on Instagram at @xosabrinarose.

The Spolia Tarot Deck: A Review

BY SELENA CHAMBERS

[To get a little more behind the scenes of Spolia, stay tuned to my interview with creators Jessa Crispin and Jen May here.]

Jessa Crispin and Jen May’s Spolia Tarot Deck is a collaboration that, after three years in the making, was Kickstarted and quickly funded last December. A modern riff on Tarot’s history, it remixes the Raider-Waite-Smith system with that of the Italian Minchiate and Sola Busca decks, allowing readers to explore 94 fully illustrated (including elemental and zodiac) cards. “Spolia” means building with rubble, a concept that resonants throughout the deck. It also encapsulates perfectly what has become Tarot’s sole purpose:  it’s not cartomancy, it’s therapy. Tarot gives you the tools to distract a busy, downward spiraling mind with narrative (and because it’s all about you, your ego shuts up for once to tune in) and guide it through the psychic wreckage towards clean-up and reconstruction. An uneasy task right now with the constant demands to never have dead air on our social media, further compounded by the constant dumpster fire headlines and the IV stream of fear and anxiety they feed. 

This is something Jessa Crispin certainly understands, who in addition to Creative Tarot, is the author of such cultural criticism as The Dead Ladies Project and Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto. I’ve been a huge fan of her work for many reasons, but perhaps most significant here is its interest in asking more questions than providing answers about difficult issues, because in many cases answers aren’t as absolute as we’d like them to be. Her work urges readers to come to their own conclusions rather than just lap up whatever ad hoc interpretation the expert of the day wants to serve you. Which is perhaps why her Creative Tarot became my gateway to considering card reading as a serious pursuit. Not only did it present me with a system divorced from what had been to me a superstitious context, but it honed in—like much of her writing does—on the only religion for which I have ever felt true devotion—Art.

Creative Tarot is a celebration and demythologization of the creative life, and the Spolia deck is a broader, integrated extension of that.While Spolia isn’t new-agey, witchy, or remotely woo-woo, it is Hermetic. Based on six years of research, the deck encompasses numerology, astrology, alchemy, world mythology, art and literary history, as well as the symbolic language of flora, fauna, and minerals. It is very much about reclaiming intellectual spiritualism, when art and science worked together to find the seat of the soul. By using esoteric systems like alchemy—whose seeming sorcery stemmed from the integrating creative explorations with those of the natural world— Spolia provides a creative pathway that doesn’t just lead to art making, but to the reinvention of our more authentic selves.

All of the above could be a lot to package within one image, but the negative space of Jen May’s sparse and vibrant compositions do as much heavy lifting as the figures acting out their meaning. A lot of this has to do with color— Emerald Green as Earth, Royal Blue as Water, Black as Air, and Cardinal Red as Fire—which allows for more cross-referencing among the trumps and pips beyond the usual numerology and elemental associations. Of course, color theory and tarot have always been something of an alchemical marriage, but the way it is integrated here in Spolia reminds me more of the bold, experimental studies of Ithell Colquhoun’s Taro as Color than of Patrica Colman Smith’s pastel colorblocks.

The Aces establish these Fauvist codes, and the spectrum immediately unfolds throughout each suit starting with the 2s. In 2 of Coins, the green is concentrated on the neverending goal of juggling Saturn and Jupiter, while the expanding blue ocean in the background indicates a need to control emotions. Pink is used in the 2 of Cups to mix the fire of passion and decadence into a emotional relationship, bringing abundance and balance. 2 of Swords uses a bit of blue to indicate the presence of intuition in an otherwise bleak space of logic and reason in which decisions need to be made.

Readers familiar with RWS will not have trouble grounding themselves within Spolia; however, there are some significant diversions that might actually give you a better understanding of the Major Arcana’s universalities. For example, in the RWS deck, there are a few cards that are visually connected—The Lovers and The Devil; The Wheel of Fortune and The World—that are severed in the Spolia deck. I found this especially significant as these connections never really jived with me, especially with the emphasis on Primordial Sin in the Lovers and the Devil. In Spolia, the Lovers card celebrates absolute pleasure while the Devil focuses on compulsive consumption. With the Lovers divorced from Primordial knowledge, and as such divorced from the Devil, I was able to understand these cards more. The Devil especially drove home a whole new meaning for me with its allusions to Saturn Devouring His Son that came to involve mentor or familial relationships in a much more nuanced way than the bondage metaphor found in RWS.

And while I feel these cards break with the Primordial Sin parallels, they still are tied with a sensorial symmetry through overwhelming feelings. In The Lovers, it is a positive overwhelming sense of infatuation and pleasure which can be as much within the mind as within the heart. But if you loose your grounding, that same emotion, if not channeled right, could become a whirlwind of anxiety and misery.

Some other great tweaks: The Hierophant combines the Babylonian pageantry to what has been a solely Catholic representation of spiritual ambition. In mixing ancient and active religion with elemental harmony, it shows how difficult, worthy, and ephemeral the goal of spiritual perfection is. The Temperance card has reinstated the Hermaphrodite into their rightful reign within that card to illustrate the integration of opposites to make something new. The Star has added poignancy through the casting of Marchesa Luisa Casati, which transforms the introspective/coming home interpretation into standing in the world as exactly who you are. My favorite change has to be with The Moon, where the barking dogs and crawling crustaceans are shoved aside for the triple-faced goddess Hekate to rule the pathways, emphasizing the key’s importance of needed shadow work for fulfillment, integration, and transformation.

The pips may be too numerous to go into in great depth, but I especially appreciate the natural symbiosis of creation with the other necessities and phases of life, and the brutal honesty these cards alongside Jessa’s personal white book interpretations present. I have often found within Tarot too much polite advice, and sometimes I need cards to look like how the situation really should feel. Like when I feel a phase of my life has sucked me dry and I want to run away, I don’t want to be comforted by a nice family all packed up to go on a neat trip in the Six of Swords. I need to be confronted with a melancholy woman out to sea, alone with only her choices. I need to be able to identify with the iconography as much as possible, and just as the absence of a man steering a ship for a mother and her child has done wonders for how I read the Six of Swords, so does the absence of any children or visual implications of a nuclear family (10 of Cups) make it easier for me to relate as it is closer to my own interrelationship dynamics. In fact, many of the cards opt for more abstraction than figurative representation, and it really does drive home the deeper contexts faster. In the Six of Coins, the beggar cards and their patron are replaced by a network of hands that blur the line between giving and taking, raising the question about economic and emotional exchange.

And while all of this is very serious, the deck doesn’t get lost in its dogma thanks to the presences of pop-cultural figures alongside the historical. John Wick is connected to the Knight of Coins; Mary Todd Lincoln takes on our anxiety in the Four of Coins; and Lili’uokalani teaches us about the veracity of love as the Queen of Cups.

The extra cards were a little harder for me to get behind at first as, despite having several decks, none are Minchiate. Personally, astrology isn’t my strong suit. The Little White Book offers wonderful meanings for the cards, but no instructions on how they were envisioned to be used. I played around with integrating them into my normal spreads until I finally read about zodiac correspondences with the trumps and began treating them like court card supplements to the Major Arcana. Sometimes, but not always, then when a zodiac card would appear in a spread, it would often be next to its corresponding key. I would take that as pointing to the personality or mindset I needed to channel the card. For example, I needed to adapt a tempered Libra state of mind to get closer to Justice’s purpose. But sometimes that could get muddy, as in one spread, the extroversion of Leo seemed antithetical to the patience needed for Strength. 

The other route I began to explore with the astrological cards was using them to indicate time, with each card standing in as signifier for the month, or even for new moons and full moon readings. If you are someone much better versed in the nuances of astrology, I am sure you could have a field day with various constellation and horoscope spreads. But for now, this is how I’ve come to contend with it.

The elements have been a bit easier for me. When they come up in readings, I feel like they are pointing to what is lacking or in abundance despite the pattern of suits in the spread. I also enjoy using them as signifiers for Mind, Body, Head, and Spirit spreads.

I’ve been getting to know the Spolia Tarot Deck for around seven months now, and it has never failed to shoot straight, to take me down personal plot twists and turns, and ultimately help me navigate what is a pretty anxiety-driven psyche. I learn new things from the cards’ symbolism every spread, which encourages me to go even further into my own study For the most part, it is my go-to deck, and I am sure it will become so for everyone who invites it into their practice.

To purchase the deck with manual, check out their website HERE.

---

Selena Chambers writes fiction and non-fiction from the swampy depths of North Florida. Her work has appeared in such publications as Literary Hub, Luna Luna, and Beautiful Bizarre, all with an emphasis on women creatives. She’s been nominated for several awards including a Hugo and two World Fantasy awards. Her most recent books include the weird historical fiction collection, Calls for Submission (Pelekinesis), and the anthology Mechanical Animals (Hex Publishing) co-edited with Jason Heller. Learn more at www.selenachambers.com or Twitter: @BasBleuZombie.

On Leaning Into The Mystery of Tarot

BY MICHAEL STERLING

As a tarot reader, I get questions about the accuracy and authenticity behind my readings. Which is understandable, I suppose; people don't want to pay for something they're unsure of being benefited by. I explain to potential clients that accuracy isn't the point, but many persist in wanting to know if tarot can give them definitive answers.

The short answer to this question is: no. Tarot will not hand you "yes" or "no" on a silver platter. No oracle or source of divine inspiration will give you answers so concrete.

Would you really want that anyway?

Tarot pulls from the deepest stretches of our subconscious to pluck on the strings of what witches and occultists variously label intuition, "the Knowing", Spirit, etc. A reading isn't predicting our future, tarot helps us remember what we already know. Each card provides a portal to a set of memories and feelings that exist in both our conscious and unconscious minds. Laying the cards out is a tangible way for us to organize, manage, and explore ourselves. One could argue that tarot isn't all that "magical" after all (though tarot is absolutely magical, and I'll get to that later).

The average person probably doesn't research tarot enough to know that, though, which is understandable. The art of reading cards has been a part of occult practices since at least the 18th century, though many occult leaders and writers argue that cartomancy (the art of divination through cards) dates as far back as the ancient Fertile Crescent. In all of that time, tarot has remained in the cultures of the most marginalized and oppressed, as much of witchcraft and occult practice has.

People tend to be scared or believe that the cards are "bullshit", as a stranger attempted to explain to me; the dominant group has been the latter in more recent history. To the majority of society, tarot is a game of smoke and mirrors, and those who put stock in it are thought to be delusional. This delusion is a form of what the American Psychological Association refers to as "magical thinking."

According to psychologists, magical thinking is a form of non-scientific belief that attempts an explanation of the world around us. Superstition, ritual, and spellcrafting are just a few examples of belief practices that are labeled as delusional. This is seen as something that occurs normally in young children, however, due to their lack of logical development. But when present in the minds of human beings older than the age of 7, magical thinking is viewed as a form of mental deficit or illness meant to be corrected.

Some critics of this therapeutic standpoint argue that children had it right from the beginning. According to Alison Gopnik, writer of an essay for Slate titled "The Real Reason Children Love Fantasy", this method of viewing the world isn't a delusion of early childhood, it's evidence of the development of a scientific mind. Gopnik argues that children are "intuitive scientists" who freely theorize and explore their universe in a way that brings them joy and motivation. The theories are the most crucial part. She writes, "A theory not only explains the world we see, it lets us imagine other worlds, and, even more significantly, lets us act to create those worlds." Children aren't escaping or denying reality; they imagine, and so create, a better world.

Now imagine what we would be like if we encouraged this way of thinking as a form of healthy development. What if we collectively saw the lens of magical thinking as an evolutionary trait that has been present in us since birth, and have simply dismissed as society said it was "time to grow up?" This ability to shape our reality based on our intentions shouldn't be a stretch; when we focus on something and dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of it, we make it happen. Magical thinking isn't delusion; it is tangible hope for a brighter future.

That's what tarot and magic are: tangible ways for us to grasp onto hope. Hettie Judah writes about how witchcraft & the occult has, and continues to shape creative culture in her article for Frieze titled "How Witchcraft Continues to Cast Its Spell on Artists' Magical Thinking." She argues that magical thinking is not something specific to a point in human history, but is something that evolves as society grows and changes.

We create new rituals and collective spaces to bring our hope to be manifested; experiences such as placing padlocks for lovers on bridges, and the old rhyme that goes, "Something old / something new /something borrowed / something blue..." are a few that come to mind. Ritual and superstition exist in our lives, regardless of our subscription to witchcraft & the occult. We search for ways to understand our relationship to the Earth and the surrounding universe; that underlying truth has never changed.

Regardless of how "true" our magical thinking is, the more we search for a better world, the closer we are to finding it. Pulling tarot cards, praying, and performing ritual are ways in which we grasp at the world we want to live in. So next time, instead of asking a witch or a tarot reader if their work is accurate, lean into the mystery that led you to question the cards in the first place.

An Indie Rock Playlist for Halloween Chills and Thrills

BY ELIZABETH HART BERGSTROM

There's plenty of classic music to listen to at Halloween, whether you want to dance to "Thriller" or get nostalgically spooky with "The Monster Mash." For a different take, I put together a playlist of songs from some of my favorite indie rock bands about ghosts, vampires, and other Halloween frights. Hopefully this will please all your guests, including the most discerning hipster witches and La Croix-drinking ghouls.

A playlist featuring Tokyo Police Club, The Walkmen, Veronica Falls, and others

If you wanted to watch a few of the videos, here are the more interesting ones…

Music video by Yeah Yeah Yeahs performing Heads Will Roll. (C) 2009 Polydor Ltd.

Sleigh Bells offer a dark and dizzy live performance clip to accompany their Reign of Terror cut "Demons". The band's Derek Miller co-directs, with Gregory Kohn.

Official music video for "Afraid of The Dark" by The Frights. Richard Dotson: Producer, Director, and Editor. Peter Novoa: Assistant Director/Director of Photography Aaron Espinoza: Production Coordinator http://thefrights.com http://dangerbirdrecords.com

Red: A Modern Re-imagining of Little Red Riding Hood

BY SARAH PRISCUS

Red offers him the oatmeal cookies that she baked for her grandmother. He takes one, then lobs her entire body into his open mouth.

His canine fangs graze her skin and her blood drips onto his tongue as sweetly as summer Moscato.

Once she settles into the wolf’s stomach, she unlaces her scarlet Skechers sneakers and tosses them aside. For days, she just sits barefoot and cross-legged on the wolf’s gooey stomach lining.

She hums to herself. It’s bat-cave quiet. She opens her backpack and eats an oatmeal cookie, absently marvelling at how easily it crumbles under her baby teeth.

Loneliness sets in so she sets out in search of her already-swallowed grandmother. She wanders through the abdominal labyrinth until she finds Grandmother lying semi-dissolved in a low, growing pool of stomach acid. Grandmother greets her with a honeyed, dimming “hello.”

Red stares at how Grandmother’s legs look piranha-eaten, all bone and mushy cartilage. Half-skeleton and still sweet-faced.

She places an oatmeal cookie on Grandmother’s cadaverous lap. She doesn’t eat it. If she did, it would tumble right back out again.

Red leaves her.

She passes the time by pressing her ear to the slimy side of the wolf’s stomach, listening for sparrow calls and the rushing of water. A field of sheep. A siren.

Priscus 1

Her bite wounds scab over. Her eyes adjust to the dark.

Red realizes that she’s begun to breathe with the same rhythm as the wolf. Their arms stretch and scratch at the same time. Red cannot decide who is copying who. She prowls the fleshy floor in search of sunflower seeds or scraps of raw meat. Sometimes she slushes through a puddle of stomach acid and doesn’t really mind that it stings her skin.

Just as her acid bath is beginning to rise and burn, some well-intentioned man with an axe and ambition slits her swallower open. Red is yanked from her sticky home, and blinks mole-blind and paling in the sunlight.

The wolf’s carcass lies flat and broken on the dry earth. She and him have never looked more alike than in this moment, both bloody and matted with autumn sweat and gunk.

The man with the axe dries her sprouting body with a tea-towel. She gazes back to the wide wound slashed into the wolf’s body. Oh, she thinks, how dark it was in there - how deliciously, decidedly dark and damp. In that darkness - in that beast’s belly - there was power.

The forest is dark too, and the mist settles as a slick slime on her skin, so she wanders it, lightblind and soaking, until someone pulls her into the sun again.

---

Sarah Priscus lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and currently study English and Theatre at the University of Ottawa. I have previously had work published in Rookie Mag, Atlas and Alice, and Every Day Fiction. 

When The Veil Thins: A Call to Heal

BY NICOLE HAYWARD-BISHOP

October 31st marks the celebration of Samhain—the day when the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is at its thinnest. It’s a night that is great for ancestral magick, banishing unwanted spirits, and connecting with loved ones who have passed on. 

It’s a night that offers an opportunity to do some soul searching and to ask our ancestors for guidance to help us heal and grow. 

Our family histories are like previous chapters in our own stories and opening the lines of communication seeking answers can gift us with the insight into ourselves and how to navigate our futures. Change and rebirth can be scary, and the idea of digging up the past and opening old wounds can be painful. However, if old wounds were truly healed you wouldn’t be able to open them. In order to truly heal we need to revisit the histories that we left behind in order to make peace and truly find that closure.

Take it upon yourself to recognize the areas in your development that you’ve been ignoring. Cut open those stitches that act as shields allowing wounds to fester and make peace. It’s much easier to walk away from things when shit gets tough. It’s much easier to close ourselves off from people or the parts of ourselves that scare us. Our darkness shouldn’t be seen as something evil and angry, but just areas that have yet to be discovered or understood like an attic full of unmarked boxes.

Samhain is a holiday that I like to think of as one big flashlight ready to cast light upon our dark. It’s up to us whether we want to pick it up, turn it on, and do some serious soul searching. Ask for guidance from your ancestors, search for answers in your family history and dig deep into the parts of you that should be celebrated and the parts of you that you have yet to discover. The most exciting and worthwhile adventure we can take in life is the journey of self discovery. Change happens whether we want it to or not, and the only thing that we have control over is if we grow as a product of that or if we dig our heels in the sand and refuse to budge.

Living in Canada, I take inspiration from the visual changes this time of year brings like the trees shedding their leaves in order to make way for buds of spring. Nature is always a great source of inspiration when it comes to the ebbs and flows of life. The same goes for animals like the sacred serpent who sheds its skin once it no longer serves, leaving it behind without a sense of remorse but an understanding that it has to go through change in order to move forward. Consider adding visual representations of the serpent to your altar as a way to heighten magicks dealing with this theme.

If you don’t know what kind of rituals to perform on Samhain there are lots of great resources online but really it’s about connecting to your intuition and letting that guide you.

Banishing spells are great to get rid of evil spirits or energies that are weighing you down. It’s easier to send things from the spirit realm back there when the veil is thinner, just keep in mind it’s easier to attract them too if you are breeding a positive environment for negative energies to dwell in so bring awareness to that. I definitely use this time of year to perform a few banishing rituals but I also like to practice deep meditation that’s positive, creative and visual.

I like to sit on the floor with a candle lit in front of me, dimming the lights in my apartment so I have just enough to see the pages of my journal.

I place items that feel inspiring next to the candle like crystals, flowers, and I pull an oracle or tarot card or two asking for clarity.

Sometimes I play music, but oftentimes I prefer it to be quiet and then I just visualize and think about the parts of myself I need to focus on and heal and the parts of myself I might not be totally honest about or sure of. From there I meditate and write as I go, sometimes pulling more cards for guidance. 

Once I’m done and ready to close my circle for the night, I run a bath with oatmeal, honey, and some essential oil infused salts and just relax, nourishing my soul and body, thanking them for the work they’ve done and putting them to peace for the night. With all of the emotional hardships ancestral work and healing can bring, it’s good to take them time to nourish ourselves and practice activities that feel calm and cozy. Sit and read a book, watch a movie, cook; whatever it is that helps you rejuvenate and heal.

That dreamy future that you wish for is attainable, it’s just about embracing your truth, learning from your past, and lighting the torch of knowledge our ancestors have gifted to us.

Blessed be.

What It Means to be Dead: A Ghost Story

BY BOB RAYMONDA

Tucked away along the sprawling boardwalk of the Jersey Shore, there’s an unremarkable stand filled to the brim with balloons of all shapes and colors. Jules, an immovable man with a respectable paunch, presided over this place. He was bespectacled and bearded in such a way that made him look like a low-rent George RR Martin and brandished the author’s same tired fisherman’s cap. He never said a word as the sun-pocked children passed by, handing him fives and tens and twenties from their ice-cream stained fingers, begging for a chance to destroy the colorful spheres behind him.

What the children didn’t see, as they flung their dilapidated darts at the wall, was that the man possessed no legs to speak of. Trailing out from underneath his taut black t-shirt was a tuft of smoke, approaching the facsimile of a tail. The smoke’s size and shape ebbed and flowed with the management of his stall. Almost bursting while he waited for the grubs to make their mark, and deflating again as he used his pent-up-pressure to replenish the cheap waxy balloons behind him.

At his side most days sat an ornery fading beach rat named Luellen, clutching a wireless microphone, and cooing at the sweaty vacationers in their stringy bathing suits and inquiring after their fattened wallets. She chain-smoked Parliaments and blew second-hand smoke into the face of her customers, her legs propped up on the stall in front of her. What she lacked in grace, she made up for in what Jules’ mother would have called gumption. The few times she was asked to modify her behavior, be it by their boss or one of her asthmatic tween marks, Luellen had lit up a new smoke, let out a raucous fart, and cackled in their faces.

Jules appreciated her give-no-shits attitude, but couldn’t let her know it. She assumed he was one of those old, queer types who spent all their time in their own head and couldn’t give a second of their day to anybody else. Jules didn’t have a tongue. It got ripped right out his head when he died and never came back when he became re-corporealized. He was tenuously tethered to the land of the living, as it were. 

Where others in his predicament would take full advantage of the freedom in his newfound form, Jules has chosen to remain mostly stationary. There would be no haunting the halls of an old manse or zipping along the depths of the ocean floor in his future. There would only be the alternating seasons of the same rickety beach where he spent his own summers growing up. But he didn’t mind, Luellen was good company and he’d always loved the way the smell of deep fried oysters mixed perfectly with the dull glow of the neon lights that surrounded him.

The biggest trouble with Jules’ immortal decision was when the end of the season rolled around, year in and year out, like clockwork. After the last of the balloons had been popped and the summer people had filled their cars back up with their sand-covered beach gear, he stayed put. After Luellen had retreated to her winter job behind the counter of a deli, serving up bland bacon egg and cheeses, Jules floated back and forth in his stall ad infinitum. 

During those days, Jules would wait for the sun to come up and finally take a moment to float away. He watched the waves swell in and out as the snow came and went. And he waited, for the next crop of kids to show up and require something of him. It was a lonely thing. He’d drift along the edge of the shore and wonder what it’d be like if he could still wiggle his toes into the harsh frozen sand underneath them. What it would be like to feel anything, at all, anymore. 

It wasn’t that he couldn’t touch anything, on the contrary, he could pick things up well enough, but he couldn’t savor anything, not really. He couldn’t eat a Nathan’s hot dog or drink a cold Bud Light without it falling onto the ground behind him in a pool of grey unsubstantiated mush. He couldn’t kiss his husband’s collarbone or feel the brief moment of joy as their hairy knuckles brushed into one another. It all felt so hopeless. 

At least, until Phil showed up.

It was like any other January morning: Jules moping about, restocking the balloons despite the cold when he heard a knock at the counter behind him. He spun around and saw someone wearing a long trench coat and a pair of aviator sunglasses. They were chomping on a cigar and chewing a piece of gum at the same time, and spoke with their teeth gritted, “Hey Skin, how much for a chance?”

Jules pointed to the sign behind him, $3 for 2 tries, $5 for 3. 

The stranger chortled, “What’s a matter, cat got your tongue?”

Jules, feeling sassy, opened his mouth and pointed to the bloody stump where his tongue used to be. Phil recoiled, but then stuck their head in even closer to Jules’ face.

“Holy Mary, mother of Joseph, what the fuck happened to you?”

Jules shrugged.

“You ever think of carrying around a little pen and paper so you can actually talk to people?”

Jules rolled his eyes, but reached into his pocket and pulled out a faded moleskin with a canary on the cover and a stubby brown crayon: Of course.

“That’s more like it. Name’s Phil,” they said, sticking their hand out, “How about you?”

Jules, he wrote before taking Phil’s hand in for a shake. It was cold. Cold like Jules’ hands were. Dead hands. Jules cocked his head like his pit bull, Tubsy, always would.

Phil let out a knowing smile. “Fifty or sixty years now, I think. I lose track. What about you?”

Jules held up all ten of his fingers.

“A baby then. Sorry I called you Skin, haven’t run into any others in a while.”

Jules shrugged again.

Phil reached into their breast pocket and pulled out a crisp twenty dollar bill. They slapped it on the table and hungrily took the fistful of darts Jules handed them. They didn’t make a single shot but didn’t seem to mind. Casually pinning the wall while taking puffs from their cigar.

Jules picked up his crayon again, wrote: You don’t like sitting still much, do you?

Phil laughed, “Never been too good at that.”
I can tell.

“Can I ask you another question, Jules, was it?”

Do I have a choice?

“Course you do, but I’m still gonna ask: why here?”

For the first time in what felt like ages, Jules’ wrist began to cramp up. He wasn’t used to writing this much, but asked: Where else would I go?

“Anywhere!” Phil exclaimed, giving up on their darts and sitting on the booth, patting the table next to them, “I know this lounge singer, Debby, who goes around at night singing in the empty ballrooms of every venue she never got to topline before she croaked.”

Jules hesitantly climbed up and plopped himself down. His tail wagged with excitement, and as soon as Phil saw it, they unbuttoned the bottom of their jacket and showed off a hazy tail of their own.

“And there’s this other friend of mine, a tax agent from Tallulah who summers in the lingerie section of a Wal*Mart outside Tacoma, for the fun of it.”

Jules scratched away: Sounds like you’ve got a lot of friends.

“I do! And that’s just in the States. There’s this old clown who runs a crust punk DIY venue in Berlin. And…”

That’s very good for them. It sounds like they’ve all had very fulfilling deaths.

Phil let out a big sigh, “You’re not getting my point.”

Jules cocked his head like Tubsy again.

“Forgive me if I’m overstepping here, but if I can hazard a guess, you lived here before you died.”

Jules nodded. So what?

“So, haven’t you wanted to get out and see any of the world?”

Jules shook his head, without conviction.

Phil stubbed out their cigar and spit their gum out in a high arc across the boardwalk. “You’re telling me, in the ten years since you’ve been a skin, you’ve sat here doing the same shit you did when you were one, and you’re still happy as a clam?”

Jules nodded, more and more unsure of himself.

“I call bull shit.”

Where would I even bother going? None of it’ll be any different than here. None of it will get me my husband back.

They sighed and put a hand on Jules’ back. Even dead, lifeless, and cold, it still sent a shiver down his spine. “Anywhere, Jules. You could go anywhere. And you can’t dwell on the skins, it’s bad for your complexion. And this body of yours? If you’d bother getting out once in a while, you’d realize it could be anything you wanted.”

My body is just fine thanks.

“Of course it is! But it could be something else too. Something more”

Jules gave Phil the Tubsy look again.

Phil put their hands on Jules’ face. Their pupils were giant and their eyes were green in a way you could get lost in. They looked at him, earnestly, said, “If you’ll take my hand, I can show you.”

Jules hesitated. Who was this ghost, anyway? And why should he trust them? He broke eye contact and fiddled with one of the darts that Phil never threw. He turned and sent it flying, himself, straight into one of the biggest balloons he’d blown up. A small wisp of mist leaked out as a little part of him escaped back into the world.

It was Phil’s turn to shrug and shrug they did. They rubbed their hands together and pulled their trench coat back in tight to their chest, blowing air on their fingers. “Suit yourself,” they said, as they stood up to leave.

As Phil drifted away, Jules thought about what they said. What was the point of staying here, at least during the offseason? He could always come back when there was work to do again if he wanted. He wrote a quick note and rapped his knuckles on the counter three times. At first, Phil didn’t hear him, and so he did it again. The whole stall shook, and it sounded like a thunderclap against the boardwalk beneath him. Phil turned back now, and Jules held up his sign: Wait.

Jules took one last look at the stall where he’d spent so much of his life and death. He’d miss it, but Phil was right. It was time for him to experience a little bit more of what there was out there. He had his whole death ahead of him and he was starting to look forward to it, despite himself.

Phil had a huge smile on their face as Jules appeared next to them. “You sure about this, friendo?”

Jules sighed, and scratched a final note: You’re really gonna try and get me to turn back, now?

Phil shook their head. Took Jules’ hand, warming him all the way up, and lead him finally away from the shore.

---

Bob Raymonda is a writer based out of New Rochelle, NY. His work has found its way onto Quail Bell Magazine, Peach Magazine, Syndicated, Potluck Magazine, & Yes, Poetry. In early 2015 he founded Breadcrumbs Magazine, an online literary and arts journal that fosters creativity and collaboration through shared inspiration. The project has grown into a community of over 200 contributors across the world in a wide variety of mediums, with more submitting all of the time.