My Divination Practice: A Reintroduction.
It's my One Year Anniversary on Substack!
Did you exhale? I mean it. Let go the tension—let go the expectations and dread making burrows of the folds in your muscles Roll back the shoulders and remember Your breath is planet breath Slow down for us with us Together again
Welcome back to
Animation of scarlet theater curtains opening to reveal shapeshifting ink blots of flowers and eyes that become the words “The Magick Artist” by Gurleen Rai
It’s my first anniversary on Substack!
On August 1st, 2023, I left Instagram and joined Substack. While my first newsletter wasn’t published until the end of the month, I still consider August 1st the pivotal day of my transition.
I return to the format of that first newsletter as the repeating core of my new dedicated pattern of monthly letters. We return to the Ostinato in the song of my life, as my words are my life, and I will repeat my stories, my truths over and over.
Not quite the meditation offering of my first newsletter, but I’ve had this song on repeat:
“You didn't have the confidence, you couldn't see a way through it
But look at all the things you did and look at your metamorphosis…
… You're basking in the light of day, a resurrection on your grave
Like flowers in the breeze, you sway, but rooted in the dirt, you'll stay” ~ Infinity Song
As I said nearly a year ago:
Welcome to the mangrove forest that is me! Between earth and water, debauchery and divinity! Eat your fill and leave what you don’t hunger for—others will come. Hide in the nursery of my roots. I am a mixed metaphor. I am a bard.
Table of Offerings
Questions for you!
A Charcuterie Board
A Divination Map
First, Questions
I am a year into this newsletter, so I want to understand how you connect to it.
And
Before the main course…
Would You Like Some Charcuterie?
An amuse-bouche of my time here in France.
At the time of writing, I have just left my residency in the countryside and returned to Paris. In a few days, I will go to Marseille and then back home again.
The end-of-month newsletter will be a detailed French retrospective, but before then, enjoy these samplings.
NO CONTEXT! Just moments.
Parts of this letter were published as a supplemental for my first Substack Post.
Is social media stressing you out?
Are you struggling to find the authenticity of your path?
Are you in your Pisces Saturn Return?
^ I highly recommend returning to this original publishing and scrolling down to the Tarot reading.
A Witch Needs a Familiar
As you might imagine, discussing divination means I will be addressing some potent “intangible” and, dare I say, “woo-woo” concepts. If the woo-woo is not for you-you, that’s okay!
My practice is not one of faith. I have experienced tangible causality in my energy work. I could pull out the quantum physics, but I don’t want to.
For now, open your mind and listen if you wish.
Caveat over! LET THE WITCHING HOUR BEGIN!
Tarot cards can feel more like a familiar than a tool. Picture the black cat at the witch’s side; that’s a familiar.
There’s a little more agency. It’s not just an object I’m using; my cards have chosen me just as I have chosen them. The adage of Tarot was that you must be gifted your cards to use them. While I don’t ascribe to that as a rule, I recognize that it speaks to an unconscious call to each other. You cannot help but find each other even when you’re not looking.
My cards were a gift from a Black elder in my community.
Yours could be locking eyes with a box at a Barnes and Noble. That’s just as significant.
The point is the connection you feel, not how you received them. Your divination practice is a relationship between you and your instrument. Some divination practices are closed, meaning you have to be born or trained in that cultural and religious practice, and some are open, meaning you do not need to be raised/trained in that culture. Open practices often mean the roots of the practice come from so many different places it cannot be claimed by one culture/group alone. Tarot as a whole is an open practice, though there are suborders of tarot divination that are closed. Part of listening to your instrument is listening to whether or not the tool is for you to use.
You converse with a divination tool and do most of the listening, which underlines that the cards have a voice.
This voice can exist as a feeling when you interpret cards. You may feel the card refers to your client’s ex-boyfriend or feel the suffocating emotion you’ve been hiding come to the surface. The feeling could be a gurgle in your gut, a heat behind your ears, or something much less tangible and not bodily connected–the intersection between a psychic feeling and a psychic knowing.
Perhaps the voice is less about awareness and instead about interpretation, something more logical. Reading tarot cards can be simply studying a language and interpreting symbols. A practice-based solely on interpretation means you’re likely the kind of person who watches or reads media and is quick to point out the underlying meanings of the choices of the director/author/etc. This voice is your own voice telling you what makes sense based on what you’ve observed and learned. That’s no less important than emotional or psychic interpretation. All of this is about witnessing.
I utilize both techniques above, but I also genuinely hear a voice.
If you have ever used tarot cards or another divination tool, perhaps you know what I’m talking about. I’m referring to a literal voice in your mind’s ear (the oft-forgotten cousin of the mind’s eye). This voice I hear is not necessarily of the cards themselves but of those who agree to speak to me through the cards. They’re called my Realm of Beings.
When I published this last year, I said I would explain my Realm of Beings “later.” Now feels as good a time as any.
Everyone has a Realm of Beings. It’s not something “special” about me. You make certain agreements before you are born. I came into “contract” with seven beings (I don’t know who they all are, only some of them). Your Realm could be your ancestors, magnetic energies (like Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, Guanyin), or others who never received a human name. People have experienced the phenomenon of a Realm of Beings in many ways, such as “guardian angels,” “voice of reason,” and that intense impulse that tells you, “No way, baby girl, don’t go down that path.”
I don’t worship my Realm of Beings or see them as higher than me. They have different skill sets, wisdom, and experiences that provide me insight along my path as any friend might. They are dedicated volunteers who want to support our reality, and they work through me as a physical anchor on Earth. I don’t do magick. I’m a vessel through which magick moves through, and my Realm of Beings aids me in specifying that energy into modalities that support only what is required for the “highest good,” growth, and evolution of consciousness.
That’s a brief overview; if you want to know more, you can if we ever do an energy work session. I offer an annual energy work session as a part of my “Founding Member” tier. That’s the only consistent energy work I’m doing at this time.
The basis of my practice is consent. Before every Tarot reading, I talk to the cards themselves and ask them for permission to use them. I ask their higher consciousness, and I hear an answer in my mind. So far, I’ve only heard yes.
I’m providing context for the voice of my Tarot cards because if you’re going to read my interpretations consistently, you need to understand that my cards are SASSY and BRUTAL. They go right for the jugular every time. Every divination instrument has a personality; mine have a heavy energy but are quick with biting humor. They don’t coddle me and trust I will interpret their truth.
My cards are not Rider-Waite Tarot cards. I use their imagery in my illustration practice as their symbols and style are iconic.
My cards are Enochian Tarot cards.
What I’ve learned about Enochian magick I’ve learned from these cards and their book. It’s more like I’ve been learning from working in the field. You’ll be learning with me. I haven’t studied Enochian magick in-depth, and I don’t recommend studying information about it online. Two white dudes transcribed Enochian magick in Elizabethan England: John Dee and Edward Kelley. I wish I could remember my sources for this, but essentially, the angelic beings that translated the magick to these two men told them it was not for them to use. They were only supposed to transcribe it. White men don’t have a great track record for respecting boundaries.
They used it, and many generations of white men used it. It’s described as a magick of “commanding” spiritual beings. It’s heavily associated with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the peak colonizing warlock assholes of our reality who stole many magick practices in the pursuit of power.
As I said, my cards were given to me by a Black elder in my community. The moment I started working with them, one thing became clear: the entities of Enochian magick have been abused and, at the very least, misunderstood.
Enochian magick taps into a particular pathway of spiritual evolution. Many roads lead to “enlightenment,” “heaven,” “oneness,” or “enjoinment.” The path of Enochian magick is for those who wish to find enlightenment (using this broadly from now on) by going through a series of trials that break down the ego, release you from the human cycle, and “refine” you until you are everything/all things/all and nothing. That refinement is a series of trials and transformations guided by Angels.
These Angels and spiritual beings are generous! All too eager to support our reality and our growth, they do not need to be trapped or have their energy siphoned.
They are givers and nurturers who have been taken advantage of, which I deeply relate to, which is why I think we’ve found each other.
The planes of existence surround our planet and divide into the elemental Watchtowers of earth, air, fire, and water. Each plane is broken down into regions represented by a card, and each region has a different nature and environment, as well as just general v i b e. Inside the circle of Watchtowers are inner planes of consciousness called Aeythers (an old-timey way of saying Ethers).
If you’re an animation nerd like me, you’ve probably seen the “Together Again: Finn and Jake are Dead” episode of Adventure Time Distant Lands. I like to imagine the layers are similar to what they depicted in the afterlife, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers and creators of Adventure Time drew inspiration from Enochian magick or other similar magick understandings. However, Enochian magick is even less linear than Adventure Time’s depiction.
Each region holds a being or force that rules it with a message, trial, or aid. These Tarot cards are condensed versions of these different planes and regions.
Can you see why the personality of my cards is dense?
An entire plane of reality is concentrated into a single laminated piece of paper.
Other tools!
Sapphomanteion
I use the Sapphomanteion, the “lesbian oracle.” I use the physical book and roll the dice set with intention, but I also found a digital version here. You roll three numbers, and then those numbers correspond with a line of Sappho’s poetry—the poet from whom we get the words “sapphic” and “lesbian.” So, I think you can interpret the vibe even if you are unfamiliar with her work.
This tool was also given(?) to me by a friend. Okay, I’m going to be honest. The friend who gave this to me (you know who you are), to this day, I don’t know if you gave it to borrow or to keep, Haha! I use it nearly every time I write, so either way, thank you.
For you: 6-1-3 – “You gather back all that dazzling dawn has put asunder.”
My intuited interpretation: It’s time to collect your energy from all the forces and beings that extract and scatter it. You are going to need it. It’s the start of a new era, and we must be ready.
Word Magnets
Yes, it’s exactly as it sounds. Word magnets were popular in the early 2000s for making poetry or silly phrases on fridges. As an artist whose core artistic ethos is collage, I’ve always loved word magnets. Anything can be a divination tool!
When I was a child, I used to use gravity as a divination tool. I would hold my hands in the air and let them gently fall multiple times; if one hand hit my thigh faster than the other more times, that was my answer. It’s certainly not the most effective tool, given the variable of muscular control. I don’t know why I did this. No one taught me divination. I was taught prayer to the Abrahamic God, but something in me said the most mundane moments can contain wisdom and clarity.
I was given these last December (wow, another divination gift, I didn’t realize), and I felt such an intense connection to them. I gave a reading right away that was potent and brutally honest, which is how I like my divination tools.
To read them, I close my eyes and move my fingers over the words until I feel a buildup of energy that tells me to dive in and pull.
Angel Cards
A different set of angels than the Enochian “Angels.” These angels are all of the Abrahamic pantheon. Each card gives an angel a virtue or symbol association, connects it to a Rider-Waite card, and more esoteric information. I use these the least often, but they are quite insistent when I do.
These cards solidified my understanding that one in my Realm of Beings is the energy known as the Angel Metatron—a creator guardian of Earth.
What can I say? Angels love me, and I love them. This is one of several reasons I named myself Malachi, which means my angel or my messenger in Hebrew.
Finally, I Commune with my Ancestor, Octavia Butler
To understand this sentence, I have to provide some context.
I first heard of Octavia Butler in college. I was the only Black feminine person in the program, and I also happened to write sci-fi, fantasy, and spec fiction. I assumed my white professors were being reductive.
After college, more people who read my work would mention her. Oh, is this not just a coincidence? They would give me bits and pieces that led me to the immature conclusion that I didn’t want people to think I ripped off this writer in my stories, so I refused to read her.
As I matured, I had more mature conversations about the parallels in our work. That led me to a more reverent conclusion that I want our similarities to remain an unconscious, spiritual connection. I decided reading her would be the reward for publishing my first novel. I’m on my way.
One day, a beloved friend reached out to me. This is a friend with whom I have had many deep conversations about ancestor work, about seeking back and beyond even the humanoid Orishas we are familiar with today. I trust them completely. They told me they had a message for me from THEIR ancestors. UM, I’M HONORED. They said, “When you read Octavia Butler for the first time, it will be like communing with your ancestors.” That was all the confirmation I needed.
TWO WEEKS LATER! I was tabling at the Brooklyn Book Arts Fair, and our table was directly next to Diasporan Savant Press. I thought they were fine AF, so I started chatting with them. I spied a zine on their table that read, “Earthseed, The Books of the Living,” “Selected Verses from Octavia Butler’s Parables.” I asked, what’s that? And they said, “That’s a zine I made for working with Octavia's words like a divination tool.” OK ANCESTORS! HEARD BIG TIME.
I work with this zine often, especially as a tool for Mother Kow when I want to think about change, as that is a core theme of the book.
Like the word magnets, I close my eyes and let the energy build up in my mind and fingers until I’m told where to stop and read.
There you have it. My divination tools. I use them in support of you! As more arise, I will introduce them.
May you have the humility, divinity, and wisdom to listen to yourself and the energy that only wants your highest good.
Happy anniversary! This is so wonderful and rich! I love the charcuterie and the polls. Yes to more magic. I'm currently working with the Modern Witch Tarot deck which was a gift from a friend. I'm finding myself drawn to the Thoth Deck -- which, I know, I know. What do you think about purchasing a deck that's calling to you even if its creator may not have been someone you would have vibed with?