Take a Breath With Me
An introduction to The Magick Artist
Did you breathe?
I mean it. Big belly breath. Let the air make refuge of your ribcage before being reborn as atmosphere again.
And here we are,
together again
or for the first time.
To all,
Welcome to
Animation by Gurleen Rai
Fanfare! Beetles burst from pupas! Formless beasts howl! Star systems collapse!
“The whole forest is expecting you” ~ Francis Bebey
Click for an optional meditative moment before reading.
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.
What is this?
Here at the Magick Artist, you will get all the complex notes, textures, and umami that oozes out of my brain in the form of offerings (listed in the Art and Magick sections below).
Monthly
You will get juicy letters, like this one, full of links to many kinds of offerings. My monthly letters act as an energetic hub for you to find the pathways that align with you the most. These letters will often include a themed message/tarot reading.
Sporadically
You will get individual articles about specific topics or readings that are too voluptuous and too eager to wait for the monthly letter. These articles will exist on Substack, and you will receive them as solo emails.
The topics oscillate between and within my various mediums and throughlines. I’ll break down the throughlines below. But first, the basics:
I am a writer of speculative fiction, cultural commentary, silly screenplays, and spiritual direction.
An artist of editorials, symbolistic art, fashion, and fantastical biology.
I am a director of animations, my favorite art form.
I have left social media. Instead, I am pouring myself into this newsletter. This hydra with many snarling, nipping, licking, and singing heads.
You won’t find a hyper-focused brand here. I am exceptionally ADHD! Why should you/I be just one thing? WE CONTAIN MULTITUDES!
I look to my childself to guide my passions. They were born exactly who they were meant to be until societal programming flooded in and fried the circuits. I’m returning to myself—indulging in myself.
Baby Malachi was a genderless world-building child who danced naked in the rain, aggressively believed in fairies, and had a crush on EVERYONE.
Little Malachi fuels the throughlines that are present in all of my work, regardless of medium.
Some Throughlines:
Science Rocks! - Baby Malachi wanted to be a marine biologist. Now I interpret fish dreams over document fish facts, but I will special-interest dump animal facts on you any day. Science is also a colonially organized structure to be interrogated.
Magick is Real - Magick comes from thoughts. I believe in magick as energetic manipulation: formulas and chemical reactions. I do not see a binary between science and magick. You’re not likely to find a binary here.
Monsters are Beautiful - Monsters show us what white men are afraid of. Monsters are liminal (in-between) beings that reveal us, teach us, devour us. I am grateful for all these roles. Monsters are shapeshifters, and that is what I am—becoming and summoning new versions of myself, of characters. You’ll find many monsters here.
The Divine is Everywhere - A belief that beings/forces beyond humanity seek to aid us, move in/with/through us. I do not worship them; I work with them. My world-summoning practice is divine. I see you as divine. I am divine. We’re just having a human experience.
Death is a Transition/Horror is Healing - I want to explore horror--the fear of death—as transformation. I want to reclaim our relationship with death by returning our stories to source: Earth. Our deaths do not belong to the police, the economy, or the state. Death is a part of the cycle of all things. I believe we can take our deaths back.
A Feral Hunger - This newsletter is 18+ because you will find erotica here in different speculative fiction forms. I am committed to dismantling the shame that was forced on me as a child. It’s important to me that erotica is treated with respect. The taboo around sexuality is a result of Christian colonization. Sex work is work.
But also Abolish Work - Baby Malachi opposes capitalism. I oppose capitalism. I am balancing surviving in this world while also trying to dismantle this world. I’m a Virgo working on my cosmic lesson that my value doesn’t come from my achievements. There is no liberation without the destruction of capitalism. No one is free until all black transwomen are free.
Why Art?
Because I have to.
Dancer and educator Andrew Simonet talks about this “foundational apology” of artists. We want to say to our family and friends, “I am so sorry I am called to make art.”
As the eldest child of a single mother, I know what it means to parent the self. Parent a younger sibling. Parent a parent. Despite the wavering financial fluctuations of my freelance artist career, I am my family’s caretaker. I’m trying to peel off this apology—a flytrap of guilt.
Perhaps, I could take my skills and do anything else that has consistent pay or health insurance. But I can’t. Not yet? Maybe never. I must devote myself to telling the stories that live in me.
I am compulsively an artist. I am stubbornly an artist in a world that does not value what art is.
Art is questions and messages and musings and emotions and effervescence and coagulation.
Little Malachi would sit in a corner for hours, drawing characters and writing stories about them.
I am proud to tell baby Malachi I follow their joy, our joy.
Now I just need to make a living wage from it.
With your support, I can.
My Artistic Offerings:
Exclusive audio stories and tarot readings for paid subscribers!
Film/Animation Updates: Read about Beast & Beloved Here (TW: death, suicide) Check out The Unofficial Manual of Monsters
Novel Updates: Read the first big one here!
Short Story Drops: Read previous work here!
Clothing Drops: Check out my online shop or my Depop!
Audio Story Time: Listen to the horror/fairytale, “the silk farmer.”
TTRPGs Games: Astral Adventures in the Pixie Verse!
Illustration Projects: Look at past work here!
Esoteric Cultural Commentary Articles: For the Love of Monsters
Some of these will be stand-alone Substack articles, and some will be links to my website’s blog so as not to bombard you with Substack emails.
Yes, I do love exclamation points! I am not ashamed!
Why Magick?
English once used magic and magick interchangeably. Occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) claimed magick to differentiate it from stage magic and illusions. Notice how my animation imagery is influenced by stage magic aesthetics? That's a cheeky F U to Crowley– colonizer of the Dark Arts.
I find the mathematical/numerology reasons to change magic to magick fascinating, and that "K" do be bringing an aesthetic sense of seriousness and devotion. However, I don’t actually believe that “magick” is somehow more substantial or even real than the illusions of a stage show.
Everything is illusion. (Stick with this newsletter to explore that concept more!)
Crowley was an obnoxious white man who was friends with many other obnoxious white men who believed the tools/gifts/energies of the universe served them in their pursuit of power.
So why am I using the word magick?
I am reclaiming magick as a collective term for the various tools and strategies for navigating existence and for experiential evolution—the concept that, as a species, we are evolving spiritually, not just biologically.
This is not to extract practices from their cultural soils but to acknowledge that a mycelial network connects all the methods deeper than those roots! (I will talk a lot about mycelium and mushrooms here.)
I vow to honor these cultural practices as the universe’s beautiful and valid fractal truths. Though I believe that magick and its many forms are all pieces of an infinitely large picture, I am aware of the constraints of my human existence, of what I shouldn’t take or even touch, not without explicit permission. I will mess up, but I do center listening in my practice (we will talk about listening a lot too). And that includes listening to feedback, so please let me know. We are all here to grow.
I also use the word magick because different concepts and techniques these men tried to horde have been reaching out to me, a black trans person, for years (more on that another time).
I’m still slowly learning/remembering. I’m here to share that journey with you and provide offerings given to me for you to receive.
My Magick Offerings:
Channeled divination messages to support our collective evolution.
Custom guided meditations.
Opportunities to book energy work sessions.
Paid subscribers will get group tarot readings.
Dedicated subscribers will receive annual energy work sessions.
Read the first Tarot message of this newsletter here (it’s a doozy).
Why now?
Well, we only have now, don’t we?
In addition to all of these artistic updates, I know many of you have followed me from social media to Substack because you care about me! Hi y’all!
I plan on sharing:
Slice-of-life joy and observations
Fashion posts
Big personal news
Travel diary
Mutual aid posts will also be a part of at least every monthly newsletter. I plan on writing Substack posts with spiritual messages about redistribution and reparations. I am a part of Black Visioning Group, a mutual aid network in Philly. We are not a nonprofit. We are a group of Black, trans, and queer people trying to survive.
In 2020, the resistance of Black people in the wake of George Floyd’s death ignited white saviorism and guilt like never before. Since 2020, the redistribution of time, energy, and resources from white and non-black people has dwindled to nothing.
As a Black person with white ancestry and other privileges, I redistribute my energy by engaging with white people on behalf of my more marginalized peers and educating whites about the spiritual and tangible weight of redistribution. Then I bring that support to the Black Visioning Group. You can support in monetary and nonmonetary ways. Email me to ask how: hello@malachilily.com
Welcome to my Holy Jungle
Morning in the Jungle - Black Flower feat. Meskerem Mees
Thank you for choosing to share your energy with me out of infinite possibilities.
I hope this experiment is fulfilling and ripe with play, mutation, necessary growing pains, a touch of drama, and metamorphosis!
we thank you
we thank you
we thank you
So excited for this!! 🌜 🖤 ✨