Through the Thinning Veil
October Newsletter - Ghost Edition
Table of Offerings
Thoughts Crossing the Veil
Fall Fantasy Clothing Line!
Storytime ~ Audio of “the silk farmer” ~ A Horror Fairytale
Exploration of Exorcism: Bastet
Afterlife by Spelling
I’m not only human for you// I was passing through ~ Spelling
Happy Samhain, Hallow’s Eve, Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, and many other holidays/traditions that recognize this part of the year as the thinning of the veil.
To all spirits passing through, welcome and safe journeys.
The veil is the veil between realities, between life and death. It’s a time to honor ancestors, protect your energy, and celebrate spirits of all persuasions.
How did a time of honoring the immaterial become a holiday of disposability?
Food with no nutrition - candy wrapped in plastic, and clothes thrown out the next day - costumes (mainly cheap and plastic-based).
Let me preface I’m not here to judge you for your Halloween parties, costumes, or candy cravings (I have a sweet tooth myself). My life is shapeshifting, monsters, and playing dress up, but I have been prompted to abstain and contemplate instead. Revelry is a key ancestral aspect of this season, but what it’s missing, what a lot of partying has been missing for me, is intention.
It might not be your query to hold, and that’s fine!
Skip to the bottom for my SUPER SALE and other offerings.
If you read my introductory love letter, you’ll know some of my basic tenets: Magick is Real, and the Divine is Everywhere.
When I talk about concepts like “magick is thought, energetic manipulation of chemicals and formulas” or “the divine is in everyone,” most people can nod their heads, saying, “I can dig it; sounds logical.”
But when I start talking about ghosts/earthbounds and nonhuman, immaterial entities existing alongside us, people tend to shift uncomfortably. That’s cool! Again, this might not be for you. Head to the bottom. Ok, that’s my last caveat!
Going Full Woo-Woo Shit From Here on Out!
I believe in ghosts. Perhaps I’ll tell you why someday.
I also believe in nonhuman beings that exist alongside us that are not 3-dimensional and, thereby, difficult to perceive. We’ll call them spirits for short. Someday, we’ll develop the technology to see them, much like we developed tech to see and understand germs, atoms, etc. Though I suspect it might be more of an internal technology than a machine…whole other topic.
My energy work practice is less spirit and more science. I don’t consider myself a witch or have a consistent “magickal” practice. I very rarely do rituals. I find ways to listen to forces/energies outside of myself, but it’s random, impulsive.
The first two Tarot readings for this newsletter had me pull the NTTM card from my Enochian deck. To summarize, this is a card of natural cycles. I heard “watch your patterns” but also “start a new routine,” which I have, and it’s been very supportive alongside my ADHD meds. The message grows beyond that. The closer we’ve gotten to Halloween, the more I felt this card’s energy pulsing.
The “WITCH” podcast by the BBC brought me some clarity. This alluring podcast opened my eyes to the real history of witch trials, contemporary paganism, and, most relevant here, sacred cycles.
The podcast focuses on Euro-paganism but brings in some other cultural perspectives as well. The last episode with Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining) had me weeping about the interconnectedness of all things. The primarily white perspectives felt appropriate as it was their history. Honestly, I love to see white people finding their souls, their indigenous roots. It’s necessary to their cosmic responsibility of rebalancing the imbalances they have wrought. The witch trials were a decisive carving of the divine feminine out of the souls of white people. They did it to themselves before the rest of the world. A topic I will return to in time.
Euro-paganism is all about cycles. Party for the full moon. Party for the new moon. On and on. If you live most of your life in cold and dark weather, you must cultivate your joy.
I don’t know if I’ll adopt a ceremony for every equinox, but I’m called to stop and ponder how to pace my life and move in rhythm with this planet. I could be anywhere, but I am a child of Earth, Gaia. What can her cycles teach me?
This is where I’ll start.
Tonight, I will be engaging in a solo listening ritual. Next week, a collective ritual I’m calling a Spirit Supper—inspired by a coven on the “WITCH” podcast. We will have food in honor of cosmic or biological ancestors. We will tell stories, laugh, cry, and support our beloveds on their journeys.
In my ritual, I will ask for guidance on intentionality within my time/life. I struggle with feelings of waste. Because of my undiagnosed neurodivergence, I have spent a large part of my life in a dilution of who I am. I could not focus on what I wanted to do, and I compulsively “achieved” in a way that hollowed me out. I’ve only started remembering who I am in the past two years—with my stories.
But there is a fog that haunts me. A fog of waste. It was only a few months ago, before finding the right meds/intentions, that my days felt like blurs of lost thoughts. We can capture time and mold it intentionally through rituals. This newsletter is one of my rituals. Time is an illusion, but it’s my illusion. I am the Magus, the wielder of magick/my experience. I falter on how to wield.
When I bring up ritual, many queer kin will ask me things like, “Well, what are you doing for the Aquarius new moon,” but I am wary of prescriptive phenomenon. Humans are porous. If we’re not careful, we can learn about the moon’s astrological placement and bind its meaning to our experience in the same way we can absorb someone’s grumpiness and ruin our day. There are hormonal cycles, migration cycles, and other tangible phenomena, but I’m talking about conceptual, emotional, and energetic concepts that are only as potent as you ascribe. I don’t want to be insular; all are connected, so I can’t be, but I’m seeking something else beyond Astrology.
But what does this have to do with ghosts and spirits?
It does not need to be Halloween for “the veil to be thin.” Every moment is sacred, but generations have ascribed potency to this time. Thousands of people have set out lights, scared each other, covered their homes in bones, and dressed up all because of this time of year. I’m choosing to harness that attention in this ritual. Again, all you need is your attention, but I want to honor this collective time of acknowledging death.
That’s what we’re doing—playing with the concept of death. We should play! The pageantry of this holiday is a sacred technology, but it can distract us in consumptive hands. Reclaiming death is a key to my ethos, as talked about in my film project. Play is a part of that reclamation, holding death close like a childhood friend, but capitalism has turned that relationship into a profit of fear. Western society and capitalism use death as a tool to evoke fear because fear is what makes money. If you’re afraid you’ll pay dividends to protect yourself, listen to anyone who offers protection. Halloween no longer delights in death but festers in fear. They want you to fear the unknown, but I say embrace it! In that embrace, you may remember death is not so unknowable after all.
There are those spirits who feed on fear, and they flock to times like these. There are also spirits, guides, and little deaths that want nothing more than to show us our life is beyond our physical body—neither are good nor evil. They just are, and they have their roles. What is your role?
No Tarot reading this month, but I’ll return to you in November with the information I divine from my ritual. There are still reflection questions for you:
Remember to say this protection before reflecting: “I am safe and secure throughout all existence. My attention and energy only call what is of the highest good for myself.”
What spirits do you want to call to you? They’re there regardless, so what do YOU want?
How can you harness your intention to call the energies you need to support the reality you wish to see? Can you divide it into tangible tasks (ex, making a routine) and conceptual or emotional tasks (ex, shadow work or spending time before an ancestor altar)?
Can you practice learning from your environmental factors instead of absorbing them? Ex: What can the Sagittarius full moon teach you instead of how it controls your mood/day?
How can you protect your energy? How can you delight in the boundaries you forge?
What ancestors are asking for your attention, and can you ask them why?
Fall Fantasy Clothing Line
And now for something completely different.
I have new airbrush paint! Better paint! Paint that is softer and will last longer.
Here are some pieces from my 2024 Fall Fantasy line! You can find them in my Depop Shop. Feel free to email me if you want to work with me on the price. Depop prices are higher because of the “offer” feature.
I am also offering $1 retouches if you just have to pay for shipping.
Exploration of Exorcism
I want to start uplifting my beloveds’ work.
We’ll begin with Bastet’s Zine, “Real Petty Person Involved.”
My names are Lluvia and Bastet. I am a Biracial trans fae (Black and Indigenous to Turtle Island). I grew up along the Rio Grande and have stayed near the water. I subdue at once the belief that the stories of survivors should be obscured and lay it all bare.
“Real Petty Person Involved” is an exorcism—An expulsion of an abusive experience from Lluvia’s existence. $10 or FREE for Black sex workers ONLY.
I invite you not just to purchase and read this zine, don’t only let it boil the blood. Support Bastet in the exorcism. Lluvia invites you to “Ugly cry with it. Write your reflections. Throw it in the river. Bury it next to a tree. Burn it. Share it in secret hallways and encrypted rooms.” Don’t just hold the energy in; release it to support Lluvia’s release and yours. I am sharing the work into the digital wind to be burned/drowned/buried. I will likely print and burn a copy.
Storytime
What I’m about to share will be content that will be behind a paywall. It takes a lot of work to record, edit, produce, and I don’t do it alone.
Please consider signing up for a paid subscription. When I hit my subscriber quota, I will start doing tailored tarot readings for you and creating audio stories more regularly (and more).
I’m sharing this story here, but I will/have also posted it as its own “podcast” on Substack—no need to search this email to find it if you want to listen again.
On With the Show
“the silk farmer” is a horror fairytale I wrote in 2022. It’s a Southern Gothic tale.
The story’s narrator is an unknowable entity that feeds on energy.
They’re inspired by tales of “Hags,” fae or witches that are the villains in stories, making horrific deals and games, particularly dangerous to children, eldritch magick!
I love them.
Tiny archetype rant: Hags are a part of the crone archetype, the elder feminine energy that appears time and again in our stories. Patriarchal history has villainized this archetype; what is the use of feminine energy, of a person/woman, if they are not providing for a man/bearing offspring? Turn that energy into a villain, into a consumer of children—the anti-woman. Sometimes, you gotta eat some kids. Sometimes, an elder subjects the youth to a trial to catalyze their growth, even sacrificing their body so that the children can become heroes, grow, replace them. The Hag can help you develop or swallow you whole, both valuable.
This story is not about the Hag-like entity sacrificing themself for a hero child. This story is about the children who don’t “make it” and what happens to them, at least in this case.
Content warnings: whimsical child death, reference to chattel slavery, reference to childhood neglect, protohuman body horror, cosmic horror
Best listened to with headphones/earphones.
Writing, Performance, Art, and Direction by Me
Production and Music by Honey House Records
May you move with wisdom and intent to pursue all you are beyond a physical body. May you flourish in the remembering of your soul and the embracing of death. May you look death in the eye and ask it its name. May you be tender to yourself. May you go slow. May you be a sustainable transmutation of revolution.