To Beauty. To Spirit. To Balance.
September Newsletter ~ Birthday Edition
Welcome to my monthly newsletter!
Many offerings. One email.
This month, your offerings are:
Beauty Blog ~ Goth Shop Stop
Custom Clothing Form Drop
Bday Tarot Reading
Writings on Numerology, Astrology, and Age
Children of Harvest ~ Fall Playlist Drop
Event Announcement?! Le gasp!
Last month was this newsletter’s launch, where I introduced myself/my letter.
If you missed that, you can read it here!
It’s my birthday month! When is my birthday?
I’ll answer your question with a question:
Do you remember the 21st night of September?
Oh yes, I was convinced as a child this song was about me, even though it was written 16 years before I was born.
I perceive time as an illusion—only as real as we ascribe to it, malleable, responsive. Many of my African ancestors believed in cyclical time. We can influence in all directions. If you’ve ever partied with me, you know I’m one to dance all night with nothing but the power of coconut water and a beat. Who's to say I didn’t inspire a little something shaking my ass throughout the time-space-continuum hm??
I was born September 21st.
In the offering this month, you'll notice that I've added my first beauty blog post. That is because, in Tropical Astrology, I was born on the cusp between Virgo season and Libra season. This means I was born on the Cusp of Beauty and Aesthetics.
To learn more about my perspective on astrology, click here.
I wanted to bring you an offering that aligned with the cosmic theme of my birthday. Ask anybody; I love a theme.
To Beauty:
The custom form for my airbrushed clothes is ready for you!
Take a look at all the instructions before ordering.
My website shop has new items, but I tend to be quicker on the draw to post on Depop. Feel free to shop on either or message me on Depop to hurry up and post an item on my site (where it will be cheaper).
My new fall/winter line is just around the corner!
Goth Shop Stop is a lil fashion article that’s my gift to you! I adore curating, costumes, and shopping small, so I’ve combined those loves into a list of Depop shops with handmade and upcycled clothes perfect for the haunting season.
My relationship with clothing has never been a desire to dress “well” but rather authentically. Which to me means shapeshifting, costume, adornment, poisonous nudibranch, bird of paradise, and decorator crab.
Last beauty offering: Children of the Harvest
I’ve curated an autumnal Spotify playlist for your enjoyment. Making playlists is a love language of mine, and for the past couple of years, I have been rotating seasonal playlists for summer, fall, winter, and spring.
My playlists have expansive genres. This playlist ranges from metal, jazz standards, alternative R&B, freak folk, and more. It’s about cultivating the breadth of experience in a season.
Autumn is a brooding, moody season of turning inward like the curling edges of browning leaves. It’s for longing and remembering and mourning. Yet, there is also this feral streak to autumn, the time of raving ghouls and primal fantasy! The veil is thin, the spell is cast, and the shadows will come out to play! Cue the distant howling!
We begin with the opening track to Over the Garden Wall, a required autumn watch if you ask me, as we step into the “unknown” of autumn. The playlist ends with a tranquil, eerie track by Ana Roxanne that foretells the coming silence of winter.
Please listen to the whole thing through once. So that you get the arc of experience, then you may do what you wish.
To Spirit:
First reflection, then announcement.
For my Birthday Tarot Reading, click here. I once again provide reflective questions at the end to support your journey if you desire it.
My 28th year was spent reacquainting myself with ambition and leadership. This theme is in alignment with the Lifepath of this past year. Because I was 28, 2 + 8 = 10, 1 + 0 = 1, I was in my Liferpath one year. Numerology, like astrology, is just another illusion of patterns that can be useful for understanding our lives. Mathematics is such a strange phenomenon. Of course, numbers are magick!
Much of my life has been several versions of the same leadership training or opportunity. I felt valued when I was heard and craved reward. An obsession with leadership is a slippery slope. I no longer move through the world that way as it requires more collaboration with capitalism and racism than I can offer. I seek collectivity. I listen first to those more marginalized than myself, to my Realm of Beings who guide me, and then to my intuition. I listen deeply to my peers to understand better what they need from me so that I can meet them where they are, and hopefully, they can do the same for me.
I came to this healthier and more sustainable relationship with leadership by completely stepping away.
In 2020, I stopped curating events, and I stopped forging community gatherings of many kinds. When the Black Visioning Group, a black, queer mutual aid group, started out of my house by my roommates, I did not get involved beyond nurturing them. I ensured they were fed and the place was clean so they could focus on the organization.
I also rededicated myself to my personal practice, trusting my dreams and ideas and not just lifting others up. Writing has become the center of my life again, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve attended two writing fellowships this past winter, Tinhouse and Roots. Wounds. Words. Thus far, for 2024, I’ve received two residencies! The StoveWorks residency in Chattanooga, TN, and a residency in France at the Chateau d'Orquevaux. Both are writing residencies. I also look forward to attending a writing class with Ploi Pirapokin this October. This commitment is a risky choice, but I feel it is worth it in my bones.
The roles of author and director have become my primary focus; both are different types of leadership. When I received a few small grants for my short film, I hired a few artists to support me in the early concept development of my animated film. You can learn more about that here. My time as a curator cultivated my natural ability to guide multiple points of action, each with its leader, by uplifting the strengths of my collaborators. This is where I learned to anticipate creative problem-solving at the micro and macro levels while trusting those under my leadership. It’s been a wonderful experience to build community with my artists, support them in developing new skills, and feel inspired as their ideas help create the film’s world.
I also took on more leadership in the Black Visioning Group, but I’ll discuss that more in the Balance section.
The other side of Lifepath one is isolation, being alone. I’ve experienced more romantic relationship breakups this year than my whole life. It feels like my life is sifting itself, honing the path. I’m still in a few poly relationships, but not nearly as many as I was, and the relationships I do have now have a much more potent emphasis on friendship, balanced communication, independence, and spaciousness. They feel good. They feel healthy.
I’m coming into 29 with more clarity and peace than I’ve ever had before. I have my people. I have my tasks. Now what? Well, if you read my bday tarot reading, you probably have a good idea what, but also, what will Lifepath eleven bring to this next chapter?
29 means I am in my Life Path eleven or two year. Eleven is the spirit number of psychic abilities and high frequencies. Though I have a solid foundation, I need more spiritual exploration. I don’t spend enough time meditating, sitting in nature, practicing breathing, practicing astral travel, or fostering my magick practice.
With the clarity of this new year and the support of my Pisces Saturn return, which also calls for spiritual focus, I want to align my year with a more dedicated spiritual practice.
That spiritual practice includes my novel and short film, as world-summoning is my sacred purpose.
I am Malachi, after all: the angel, the messenger.
The Announcement!
Between 2020 and 2022, I worked on a short autoethnographic documentary film called Smile4Kime as the Conceptual Director of Animation.
A story of friendship that transcends time, space, and death.
The animation portions of the film act as a liminal space where the two friends, separated by death, can meet and process.
The film covers themes of mental health, lack of mental health support for black women, sexual assault, depression, suicide, and police brutality.
Because of the emotional nature of this film, we didn’t just want to have a screening. We wanted to create a ritual space for viewers to process the film, honor Kime’s life, honor their loved ones and ancestors, and honor the grieving process.
I've used my energy work in this film to connect with Kime’s desires, and I will show up again in my death doula role to create the altar and facilitate the space.
Lenée Voss will perform a grief ritual and hold an intimate processing space for attendees.
Sabrina Pantal will provide a musical performance. They also created the music for the film.
This will be a masked event, which will be FREE for all to attend.
To Balance:
In my Lifepath one year, I’ve taken more of a leadership role within the Philly mutual aid collective, Black Visioning Group (BVG).
It felt in line with my path to step up and offer my skills in this way again. Those more marginalized than myself had a need that I could fulfill.
Nearly all of the support from white people redistributing their energy, time, and resources to BVG dissipated into the wind as the Black Lives Matter trend of 2020 faded.
This left my friends and peers wholly burnt out and without the resources to even meet the bare minimum needs of this collective of Black queer and trans individuals.
As a Black person with more privilege, being light skin and biracial, and as someone who chooses to have close relationships with certain white people, I knew I needed to redistribute my energy by supporting BVG with onboarding more white and nonblack people to the Housing Redistribution collective of our group.
Every month, I organize meetings for the Housing Redistribution folks to meet and answer questions from those interested in committing to rebalancing redistribution. If you are interested in attending these digital meetings or have any questions, please email me at hello@malachilily.com.
The act of reparations and redistribution is about balance.
I discuss this in my astrology blog, but I will reiterate my spiritual understanding here.
One must understand that being one body, one Force, means we are all oppressed if one of us is. To be born in a white, privileged body is to work through the lesson of relinquishing power and righting injustice, such as through redistribution and transformative justice. We have cosmic imbalances to rescale together. Many ignore this lesson and become distracted by the pleasures oppression brings. Racism, classism, transphobia, etc., are lessons for all of us to overcome.
As we move into Tropical Libra season, the season of balance and justice, it’s time to take inventory of all you have access to.
Is your rent paid? Do you have food? Did you have parents or grandparents support you to get where you are? What has been your access to education? Jobs? Resources? Can you invest in your hobbies and passions? Will your children have secure housing for the rest of the year?
There is no scarcity. You have enough.
Redistribution is not just about money but also time and energy. If you want to redistribute your time and energy, please do not hesitate to reach out and ask me any questions.
Thank you for sharing your energy with me.
I leave you with the trailer for Over the Garden Wall. For those who haven’t seen it! It’s an autumnal classic, a retelling of Dante’s Inferno, a transitional portal, and a bowl of potatoes and molasses.