#this claim is backed by nothing but divine intuition

[slutforluna]

I have an unfounded suspicion, that the venn diagram of [people who don't wet their toothbrushes before use] and [people who eat nutella on bread with no butter] is a perfect circle

[ome-magical-ramblings]

Good deeds, virtues don't sell.

The idea of talking about Virtues and Good deeds isn't as big or popular but it's a good enough topic that I feel deserve a post here. Mainly that the results from our livelihood deserve this aspect of action in the world...that sounded a bit weird writing it out. What I am saying is that your action in the world, your behavior with other, and a lot of the stuff you do "off the cushion" or "with normies" matter a lot when you go and do the rituals or even meditate.

The essence of all the practices is some kind of finicky adjustment and the real meat is what you do when you talk to people, when you act with people, and how this feed back into the whole equation. It doesn't matter how you talk to random people politely, what matter is how you talk, deal, and act with people close to you.

What are you doing in the world, how are the stuff manifesting in the world, is it all internal? you have to ask yourself these questions.

"The wrong person even with the right knowledge will come to no good end. But the right person even with the wrong (or incomplete) knowledge will make it work."

Some people might think of it as "oh I don't have a lot of money", it's not even about the money, if not by the money then you can help with time, with effort, with talking, with guiding, etc. It's not about always gain and loss in that sense. I think you can see it yourself, but if you don't do anything bad or anything good which is most of population they just tend to "blob" along the sea of life not sinking nor floating, most of their action are morally ambivalent or not even considered "actions" just motions. Paul Sedir in his book about how to Pray have a very good quote on this:

To make ourselves heard, our heart must speak the language of Heaven, and that language is charity; our person must become aware of his nothingness, and in this inner void infinity rushes in to fill it. Thus, belief is not enough; believing in God and not obeying Him is what only too many Christians do. I prefer those who claim not to believe yet obey the Divine Law. Praying without previously performing an act of charity can do nothing; whereas charity without faith still moves Heaven. Remember the wonderful stories of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. It isn’t faith that begets charity, it is charity that begets faith. Faith isn’t an opinion of the brain, it’s a conviction of the heart. To have faith in someone isn’t to believe that the person exists; it’s to trust them, and to trust them wholeheartedly.

Faith means love of God, as charity means love of one’s fellow beings. These two flames grow through one another and feed one another.

I hope, this doesn't remove the importance of the experiences, the rituals, the practices, and so on. One of my friend said he didn't appreciate the Quran or wasn't moved by the Quran until he worked with Jaljalutiya prayer. So again it's a very tricky situation, there's no one way to crack this egg and some people who over-emphasize the charity too soon don't realize it could be a bit too bad for the people who didn't have the experience or understand why they would do that. I am not telling you to go out right now and do charity just because you read it in the internet, but think about it and contemplate it. Just like Paul Sedir said, they're two flames(prayer and Faith) working in conjunctions, your rituals, invocation, spellwork, etc AND your behavior irl, how you deal with people and how people see you, your actions, thoughts, and words. You can't just practice 1 hour a day and do shit for the rest of the 23 hours. The WHOLE thing is your practice.

Let me end this two points, first a quote and lastly a technique. The Quote from G.O Mebes' Minor Arcana course:

An isolation for too long could harden your heart and damage the intuition. A period of self-analysis lasting too long, developing the principle of reason, could take place at the cost of sensitivity, which is also necessary. This is the first danger that the disciple encounters on the Way and that you need to avoid, instituting an adequate "modus vivendi" in your environment. Ethical Hermeticism teaches that it is preferable to take just one step forward and advance your environment - even a tenth part of that step - than to take ten steps, giving nothing to the environment. It is by giving that man receives.

The technique is either the Planetary Charity which you can read about extensively here and the other one is that aim to just do one good deed a day, to counsel a friend, to drop one cent in a charity box, to pray for the dead, or to help a friend with a problem. Again, Charitable and good deeds have a lot of ways to come about them so why not try praying to be in the position to help people ;) maybe that prayer can be answered. May the Divine Creator open the way for us to help one another as brothers and sisters.

Sincerely, From the Heart.

[giankumar-blog1]

SUPERCONSCIOUS MIND

The superconscious aspect of the mind is beyond the conscious and subconscious, arousing the soul's consciousness in the present moment within any individual human mind. This precognitive section of the mind is that silent area of the brain where no past or future thoughts prevail. It spontaneously acquires immediate ability, due to which creativity emerges without the presence of the intellectual mind, instinctive and intuitively, through innovative intelligence.

Since it expresses beyond the conscious cognitive awareness, it is considered spiritual. The soul is where one discovers true creativity, that eureka, say when a scientist exclaims – bingo, I've got it. It is that divine section of the mind beyond cognition. Creativity in science, medicine, arts, music, and mathematics emerges from those unpredictable eureka moments leading to humanity's most outstanding achievements. These creative insights are the domain of the superconscious mind, which differs from analytical conscious thoughts and is the fundamental cause of all we know about the universe. Spirituality considers the same to be divine intelligence from which we discover the stars to the subatomic particles, followed by the intellectual ability of the conscious and the subconscious thoughts to take over and expand further from such divine innovativeness.

If you notice, it is futile to discipline, suppress, or control the mind. It bounces back to its original framework. We have no option but to go beyond cognition and enter into the zone of the superconscious field to awaken and kindle the universal spirit. To enter this superconscious state, we must first understand the mind inside out. It gives us that understanding to get a grip on our true self, which is beyond cognition, and consequently, be able to know the difference between the physical, the thinking, and the spiritual self.

Spiritual knowledge takes us beyond the physical body and brain to what Quantum Physics claims today; physical reality is an optical illusion (Maya). All that fundamentally exists is only waves of constant metaphysical energy flowing in unity and continuity, manifesting and expanding in different transient particles. It also elaborates that there is no physical reality unless there is an observer, implying after energy becomes aware through observation, there is consciousness to perceive and conceive.

Let us go deeper into these waves of energy from the spiritual aspect: a) body—the physical self, b) mind—the thinking self, c) soul—the witnessing/observing self, d) spirit—the beingness or the spontaneous flow of aware energy (spirit). The cognitive mind is nothing but thought. But who is aware and conscious of those thoughts flowing in the mind? The witness-er (soul). For anything to appear in your mind as ideas, someone needs to make the mind aware of making it conscious to feel, think, experience, and infer in the manner the mind desires. Meaning spiritual intelligence (awareness) is the universal self, and the observing self is that individual soul. Further, the cognitive mind is the thinking self, an operating system functioning mechanically on autopilot like a computer in sub or lower consciousness, unless checked and guided by the aware-conscious energy.

I rephrase that universal energy makes the mind/soul spontaneously aware. Without an alert individual observer (soul), the mind before that is neither aware nor conscious nor feels, thinks, or experiences anything. It implies we are that subjective self in a state of 'I-lessness' as a witness/observation, and the nature of our actual reality is in its beingness or awareness. The individual objective self/soul, a part of the mind, takes the observer's role in penetrating the inner state of consciousness, providing an 'I-ness', the identity of a gender in body and mind for both to perceive, conceive, feel and act in its physical body and brain.

Spiritually, you must be constantly alert, attentive and aware from moment to moment. You go deep into that superconscious section of the mind, which is untouched by the conscious or the subconscious thoughts, away from memory and intellect. It is that third eye or the sixth sense in total silence, which only watches and witnesses to make your cognitive mind aware and conscious. The superconscious/soul connects to the infinite cosmic expanse to transmit and receive aware energy. It justifies what our ancient sages declared, 'That Art Thou—Shivohum'. It means the true self (soul) in its original, pure, and primordial state is identifiable and at par with the ultimate non-dual spirit or the absolute aware energy in its totality as one.

As a witness, the mind is free from all the entanglements it identifies and attaches to. However, as a witness-er, you become the objective, a notch less than the subjective universal self. The subjective witness is neither the seeker, knower, believer, doer, enjoyer, or experiencer. As the soul, your mind witnesses all that body and mind engage, experience, and effectuate in absoluteness. We refer to such a sublime state as being super consciously spiritual.

Therefore, spontaneous awareness or the spirit exists outside the purview of the cognitive mind and is beyond the limitations of gender, space and time. It is present everywhere - non-local, inside (soul), and outside (cosmos) of the brain. For this reason, the spirit, being pure and aware, is considered absolute, independent, and eternally distinct from the conscious mind. It only watches and witnesses from within the superconscious section of the mind where no thinking prevails, allowing the brain to become aware and mindful of what it performs merely to check and guide the cognitive mind.

If you wish to be free from the mess and misery the human mind has created for the material self, providing technology, money, power, and fame, the price we pay today for all the advances and comforts we enjoy. We must balance worldly life with spiritual means in higher consciousness. The level of consciousness, higher or lower, depends entirely upon the degree to which each mind reflects the quality of self-awareness from the extent of experiencing with the conscious (aware self), subconscious (thinking self), and superconscious (the witnessing or spiritual self), which the mind goes through during its psychological and physiological experiences in life.

The subconscious state of mind is that reservoir in the form of memory, forming 'what' you are as the 'remember-er'. Since the mind primarily functions from the subconscious section in an auto mode from the memory and intellect, it becomes emotionally bound to the ego with a name, gender, and identification—continuously demanding and attaching what the mind unconsciously and mechanically desires for its me and mine. The conscious section represents the field, or the individual quantum of aware energy, and the superconscious area expresses the force or the unique quality of aware energy, presenting itself in an energetic force-field relationship as the true witness-er and observer of what you are within the human brain.

The intensity is designated by its suffix  -ness (awareness/consciousness). Both the conscious and superconscious sections determine your self-consciousness/self-awareness level, whether it flows towards the divine or the devil. Therefore, consciousness presents itself in three different attributes—the first two play the role of consciously or subconsciously conducting the functions of the mind, symbolizing what you are. Besides that, we have the third operating independently as the witness (spirit) originating from the superconscious sphere, representing the actual who you are in absolute awareness, that, too, in a realm of no mind, no thought, impersonal, and impartially signifying 'That Art Thou'.

Therefore, the superconscious mind represents the subject-object relationship in any human mind between the spirit (awareness) and the individual soul (pure consciousness). The observer influences what the mind observes, deriving its understanding from the cosmic cloud of aware energy. Approximately 95 per cent of the mind's functioning is in auto-mode at the subconscious level, about 4 per cent by the conscious, and the remaining 1 per cent by the superconscious: a disorderly mix, the primary reason for chaos and concerns in our imbalanced material world. I repeat that the spirit is that aware energy that turns on the ignition, making the mind active and alive from its frozen state. The mind becomes aware and responds, either proactively in choiceless thoughts super consciously to any stimulus or reactively thinking emotionally, consciously or subconsciously in desires.

Super-consciousness is the fountainhead of the actual 'who you are'. It is that beingness in the profile of your third eye, between the eyebrows. That spiritual centre draws instantaneous cosmic energy to manifest in the mind as awareness. It is responsible for your instincts, intuition, and intelligence and goes beyond the conscious and the subconscious. It is that creative eureka, the sixth sense, which is beyond the cognitive mind's capacity. I repeat, the being is that body and mind comprised of 'what you are', which appears and disappears in the cycle of birth and death, and the beingness is that awakened awareness of the eternal divine of 'who you are'.   

The alertness divulged during the superconscious stage is the verity of any present moment. It is that pure and straightforward witnessing where no thinker, thinking of any thoughts, is required. It is that still and silent mind alertly observing and seeing any situation, as it is, where the mind focuses on the subject of its observation without any constraints from space and time. It is that wholesome meditative state where no psychic efforts are required. It is purely existential and full of aliveness. It is proactive, spontaneous, and immediate without allowing thoughts to interfere and analyze. This state of mind is what we refer to as the superconscious realm of who you are.

The mind is thoughtless when it independently and impartially watches and witnesses inwardly or outwardly, which is responsible for making the mind proactively aware and conscious. This sort of spontaneous observation emerges from the superconscious section, which our sages referred to as that divine residing within: 'That Art Thou'. We refer to this flow of supreme energy as the 'spirit' in the subject of Spiritualism. It is that distinct, non-dual and absolute state of the mind that does not think or participate but purely assists the soul in witnessing. It neither discriminates nor chooses nor determines what the mind selfishly wishes for. It simply introspects the cognitive mind and, if utilized regularly, is enough to keep the mind in its rightful place. The mind is the software for the brain's flow of electromagnetic chemical energies. Similarly, the soul containing the spirit is also a part of the mind; it is seated within to watch and witness its thoughts communicating internally and externally and directly connects to the heart.

You can only awaken the spirit or that inner divine by reviving your superconscious section, developing and enhancing it, and being mindfully alert. When the mind is alert, it becomes aware and, if attentive, becomes conscious. After that, the intellect takes over, making the mind function in autopilot mode in lower consciousness. It is called the subconscious grandstand, where your presence of awareness is no longer required. The mind is primarily a storehouse of all your emotions and desires, reacting from the memory and intellect from past understanding and experiences in lower or subconsciousness.

You already know the first two levels—the conscious and the subconscious. The emphasis here is more upon the superconscious state, the ignored state of mind, which you critically require to usher in a holistic balance in your life. The superconscious has the power of a supercomputer. Being the source of all creativity, it provides limitless, unique impulses of intelligence, instinct, and intuitive energy. It provides flashes of insights or those eureka moments which all scientists, composers, writers, and artists unthinkingly and spontaneously attain when they go beyond the capacity of their cognitive, intellectual minds. Superconscious energy gives the mind an extra boost to discover futuristic discoveries and innovations; people get ideas far beyond their intellect.

Therefore, the superconscious mind is nothing but pure creativity instinctively emerging when your mind is alert, attentive, determined and focused on any object. This state of mind is above the other two levels; it occurs when the mind functions in total meditative silence without your thoughts knowing about it. Say, if you go to sleep with a problem, this section of the mind, even then, works on its own and invariably has the answer ready for you the following day.

Therefore, watching and witnessing the inner thinking self, submerged in the emotional desires of this and that - is the highest reflective activity of the superconscious section of the mind. When you are alert, you are fully awake; the superconscious area awakens when you observe or introspect. It is an effortless state of meditative awareness where thoughts are silent during those moments. At this moment, the cosmic energy from the outside spontaneously manifests into your mind. Quiet and effortless meditation is what we call constant 'witnessing' of all around with a still mind, acting both as a transmitter and receiver.

Let us again recapitulate. During the first stage of superconsciousness, there are flashes of absolute non-dual perception with immediate awareness. In this state, the mind is most creative. Your mind unquestionably and unconditionally pro-acts and does not react at this stage. It is neither thinking nor emotionally desiring anything. We refer to this section as the potential divine within. The second stage commences with extended awareness, filtered by the mind's attentive thinking in the duality of what the sensory organs perceive and feel of this and that, here and there. This comprehensive awareness makes the mind consciously perceive via thoughts of what it observes in dichotomy. The third stage occurs when the mind subconsciously thinks, chooses, and determines how it wishes to react to its past awareness from its memory and intellect. In this case, the mind is in auto mode and performs all its activities without support from the other two sections.

The spiritual state of every human mind demands more meditative awareness in the present moment, existential and spontaneous from one moment to the next. In this state, the mind is alert and attentive in every moment for any duration—pure and still—an I-less state of beingness in totality. Sigmund Freud was the first to discover the conscious, subconscious, and unknown unconscious sections of the mind. Later, another area arose by Carl Gustav Jung, called 'the collective unconscious mind'. However, long before these discoveries, the Hindus had declared the third unknown section to be that divine, the third eye of the superconscious mind.

For more information please visit www.giankumar.com

[beyondcuckoo]

The Akashic Records—Counterpart to the Physical World (Shared from Mu the Motherland) has been published on Elaine Webster - http://elainewebster.com/the-akashic-records-counterpart-to-the-physical-world-shared-from-mu-the-motherland/

New Post has been published on http://elainewebster.com/the-akashic-records-counterpart-to-the-physical-world-shared-from-mu-the-motherland/

The Akashic Records—Counterpart to the Physical World (Shared from Mu the Motherland)

The Akashic Records—Counterpart to the Physical World

~Elaine Webster (Shared from Mu the Motherland)

Think about the Akashic Records as the universe’s computer database. Next think about what search results would show if you typed your name into the engine. For most of us, we’d see past lifetimes, actions, people, places, and things that continue to be part of our essence. A belief in reincarnation is helpful, but not necessary, to understand that nothing disappears forever, that past actions remain as records, and that history repeats itself until issues are resolved.

Rooted in the Sanskrit term “Akasha,” meaning ether or sky, the Akashic Records are believed to be an ethereal library where every soul’s journey is meticulously recorded. This concept transcends time and space, offering a vast repository of information accessible to those with the spiritual acuity to tap into it. The idea of the Akashic Records can be traced back to ancient cultures, particularly within Hinduism, where the concept of Akasha represents the fundamental etheric field that permeates and sustains all existence.

Accessing the Akashic Records is often described as a deeply meditative and intuitive process. Various methods have been proposed, ranging from guided meditations and visualizations to specific prayers and rituals designed to attune the seeker to the higher frequencies of the Akasha. The famous psychic, Edgar Cayce, accessed the records that produced personal readings for thousands of souls seeking an understanding of their current lifetimes as they relate to those of past lives. His readings, especially on health-related issues are legendary and compiled into a vast database of information at the A.R.E. library in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Many continue to view these records for help with serious illnesses and spiritual challenges.

Cayce’s use of the Akashic Records brought significant attention to the concept in the early 20th century. His readings often revealed detailed information about individuals’ past lives, karmic patterns, and soul missions, which Cayce believed could aid in their spiritual evolution and healing. Despite his lack of formal education, Cayce’s readings were remarkably accurate and provided profound insights, cementing his legacy as a pioneer in the field of metaphysical exploration.

Proponents of the Akashic Records assert that accessing this vast repository of knowledge can yield numerous benefits. These include:

Self-Awareness and Personal Growth: By understanding past life experiences and karmic influences, individuals can gain a deeper awareness of their current life challenges and strengths. This insight can foster personal growth and transformation.

Healing and Resolution: Many believe that the Akashic Records can help identify and heal unresolved emotional or psychological issues, offering a pathway to forgiveness and inner peace.

Guidance and Clarity: The records are seen as a source of divine guidance, providing clarity on life purpose, career decisions, relationships, and other significant areas of life.

Spiritual practice that enhances one’s connection to the divine and promotes higher states of consciousness Development: Engaging with the Akashic Records is often viewed as a spiritual.

Scholarly analysis of the Akashic Records tends to focus on their cultural and historical context rather than their metaphysical claims. Researchers in the fields of anthropology, religious studies, and psychology explore how beliefs in such esoteric concepts reflect broader human quests for meaning, understanding, and connection to the divine.

For instance, scholars might examine how the Akashic Records function as a modern myth, offering a narrative framework that helps individuals make sense of their lives and the universe. This perspective aligns with Carl Jung’s theories on the collective unconscious, where archetypal symbols and stories play a crucial role in human psychology.

The Akashic Records continue to captivate those seeking deeper spiritual insights and a greater understanding of their place in the cosmos. Whether viewed as a genuine metaphysical phenomenon or a symbolic construct, the records offer a rich tapestry of ideas and experiences that resonate with the timeless human quest for knowledge and enlightenment. While controversies and skepticism persist, the enduring appeal of the Akashic Records underscores the profound and often mysterious nature of the human spirit’s journey through the realms of existence.

  Here are five websites that provide valuable information about the Akashic Records:

Gaia – This site offers a comprehensive overview of what the Akashic Records are, how to access them, and the experiences of those who have accessed them. It includes practical steps and advice for beginners looking to explore this spiritual realm. https://www.gaia.com/article/akashic-records-101-can-we-access-our-akashic-records

MindBodyGreen – This resource explains the Akashic Records and offers guidance from experts on how to access them. It covers the benefits of working with the records and provides tips on how to prepare and document your experiences. https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/akashic-records

Learn Religions – Learn Religions provides historical context and practical advice for accessing the Akashic Records. It explores the concept from the perspective of various spiritual movements, including Theosophy and Anthroposophy. https://www.learnreligions.com/akashic-records-4783264

Wikipedia – The Wikipedia entry on the Akashic Records offers a broad overview of the concept, its origins, and its significance in various spiritual traditions. It also provides references to notable figures who have contributed to the understanding of the Akashic Records.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_records

A Little Spark of Joy – This site offers a detailed guide on accessing and understanding the Akashic Records. It includes practical tips for preparation, meditation techniques, and the benefits of working with these records for personal growth and spiritual development. https://www.alittlesparkofjoy.com/akashic-records/

[36monthplan]

Today is my 37th birthday and is also Day One of my case study of The 36 Month Plan. 

I am using myself as a living test subject for this divine theory- with three years of continuous, conscious effort one can completely revise their existence from the ground up. 

This theory is predicated on several assumptions. One, that the person who chooses to undertake such a commitment is experiencing severe suffering that is driving them to seek relief and two, that they feel aimless and lost in the process despite their desire and willingness to change. And my most hopeful and yet untested hypothesis number three, that with connection and support, that which is considered impossible can be reached much more easily- especially when one is backed by the divine. 

Those first two factors are certainly applicable to me. My spiritual awakening has been a slow, dragging process most of the way through my life. I’ve always been aware of “more” in the universe than what meets face value, even as a small child, but as a person who came into this world to achieve awakening, life has continually kicked me in the teeth the whole way through. But despite this I am repeatedly called back to this path. There is nothing else for me to do in this world but grow, it is all I know. But it has been so impossibly hard at times!

Which is precisely by design, of course. Why does the army begin with boot camp, an exercise designed to break you down so that they may rebuild you in their desired fashion to be an ideal soldier? That is what happens on a macro scale throughout this entire planet. We are all born with a higher purpose however we need to navigate our way through the ranks of society which seeks to break us, inevitably dulling and maybe even destroying our divine spark, rendering us castrated cogs for this life if we do not wake up and fight for our very spiritual lives.

You are a soldier indeed, but not fighting for the vested rights of a nation but for the ascension of your very spirit and that of everyone around you as well. Your ascension is their ascension- as once these human forms that we wear are pulled away at the end of this life span we see that we are all ultimately just leaves from the same tree anyway. 

***

And so for me the process begins anew, as I take my lessons and now apply them with consistency and dedication I know I will bloom and grow again in ways I cannot yet fathom, just as I have already done innumerable times before. 

Day One begins with quiet reflection and gratitude for the individual journey I have thus far completed. The first 30 years of this human life were spent cultivating an understanding of the mundane, karma cycles and the purpose of pain. The last seven years were spend rewriting myself completely as a spiritual being. The Lace that once was is no more. I gave myself to the universe and I have been reformed for this purpose, to guide others onto their own personal paths of spiritual development.

The introductory stage to the 36 month plan lasts 96 days. This time is focused on healing, grounding and clearing the energy fields to allow for the important work that will follow. The remaining 999 days will unfold themselves as it is meant to, I do not claim to see it all at this point. I am providing a conduit for this information from the divine. I am sharing it as it is shared with me directly into my intuition from Source. If it resonates with you please receive it with love.

***

Day One- on this day I enter my 37th year on this planet as the human Lace (Lacey Tasty). I vow that I will use my intuitive energy for good and stay devoted to the path that is being laid out before me. I trust that with completion of this process I will have grown further into that which I am meant to be. As a leaf on the tree of life I will not resist the winds that gust around me but have faith that I will stay anchored securely for as long as the universe wishes for me. In my heart and soul I know this to be true. 

[dr-kas-energy-healing]

How do you choose an Energy Healer?

There are so many Energy Healers out there, as well as so many different healers: Reiki Masters, Shamans, Quantum Healers, Light Workers, you name it.  Lots of these can be self-proclaimed. 

The question now is, what makes an Energy Healer ‘Good’ or ‘Credible’?  

A high quality healer's time and wisdom is valuable.  They will concentrate their efforts in helping people, and not taking advantage of their clients.  Therefore, they will not be cheap or free.  

That which is ‘free’ has no value.  There is such a thing as the ‘law of exchange’

Beware of individuals professing long histories of healing, but have nothing to back up their claims.  That is nothing but a large tree that bears no fruits. 

The nature of Energy Healing is that you are allowing that person to connect to your Spirit.  It is crucial to choose someone you can trust and rely on.  Evil intentions, such as narcissistic manipulation can put you in a worse position than when you started.

The more the healer is connected to the purest intention and the Divine, the higher vibration of their healing energies.  The higher the vibrations, the more effective the healing would be.  

Client reviews can easily tell you if the individual is credible.  They will contain intriguing experiences of how the healer operates within their practices. They will also show how caring, compassionate and attentive the healer is.    

If you have questions not covered in this article, please feel free to send me a message at: dr.kasenergymed@gmail.com, 

I will get to you as soon as I am able.  Until then, Light, Love and Happiness to you all!

[samwisethewitch]

So You Want to Learn Tarot

Tarot is one of the most popular forms of divination, and my personal favorite tool to use when I’m seeking answers. I talked about tarot a bit in my last post, but I feel like it deserves further discussion here since a lot of new witches are intimidated by it.

Before we get into what tarot is and how to learn it, let’s discuss some popular misconceptions.

Tarot is not…

… evil, demonic, or Satanic. This one probably goes without saying, but tarot has a very mystical reputation in pop culture, and some people genuinely believe that it is evil. In the Christian group I grew up in, tarot cards were viewed with the same fear as seances and Ouija boards. So, for the record, tarot has nothing to do with demons, and in fact classic tarot decks contain a lot of Christian imagery. (There are also modern decks on the market that really play up the Christian themes, if that’s your thing.)

… negative or scary. Some of the most well-known tarot cards are those with frightening names and/or imagery: Death, the Devil, the Tower, etc. For this reason, some people think that tarot only contains negative messages or that using tarot cards invites negative energy into your life. Actually, I find tarot to be very balanced between light and dark, with several cards that are purely positive (like the Sun or the World). Even cards like Death or the Tower aren’t 100% negative — their meaning depends on the context in which they appear. While it’s true that tarot does sometimes hit us with difficult messages, this is true of every divination method if you’re using it right. Part of the appeal of divination is that it allows us to see the truth of a situation, even if that truth isn’t pretty.

… ancient. One popular myth claims that the cards are based on the Book of Thoth, an ancient Egyptian wisdom text. In reality, tarot comes from a card game that was popular in medieval Italy — originally, the cards were just entertainment. The use of these cards for divination was popularized by the French in the 18th century. It wasn’t until 1909 that Edward Waite and Pamela Coleman-Smith created the Waite-Smith deck (or Rider-Waite-Smith deck, as it is sometimes called), which established the “classic” tarot symbolism that we all know and love.

… something you can only use if you’re psychic. As I’ve mentioned before, we all have psychic senses, although most of us are not aware of them. However, you don’t have to be a professional medium or be deeply in touch with your psychic abilities to read tarot. Tarot is a tool, and like any tool it has a variety of uses. Your experience with the cards will be exactly as magical or as mundane as you choose to make it. You don’t need to worry about tapping into magical energy you can’t control, or anything like that.

… hard to learn. Learning tarot is not difficult, although it is time-consuming. No one becomes an advanced reader overnight. However, it isn’t actually very hard to learn how to read the cards. Most readers interpret the cards intuitively, which means that how the images make you feel is more important than the traditional interpretation. Being familiar with the traditional meanings helps, but there’s no rule that says you can’t keep a couple of good books on hand to help jog your memory. If you’re trying to memorize all the card meanings so you can just repeat them later, you’re doing it wrong.

Now that we know what tarot isn’t, let’s take a second to discuss what it is. 

Tarot is a modern system of divination using illustrated cards. Most tarot decks contain 78 cards, which are divided into two groups: the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana is what probably comes to mind when you think of the tarot: these are the named cards like The Fool, The High Priestess, Death, etc. The 22 Major Arcana cards represent major themes, patterns, and events, so they tend to be the dominant energy in any readings they show up in. The remaining 56 cards make up the Minor Arcana, which deals more with day-to-day life. The Minor Arcana is further divided into four suits, which are each associated with one of the classical elements. The suits are wands (fire), cups (water), pentacles (earth), and swords (air).

If you want to learn to read tarot, the first step is to find a deck that you resonate with. Because tarot cards act as a conduit for your own psychic abilities, you want to make sure that the energy of your deck vibes well with your own energy. You can absolutely order your deck online (and you’ll have a wider selection to choose from if you do), but if picking one out in person is important to you, most bookstores and metaphysical shops will have several to choose from.

Some questions to ask yourself as you’re choosing your first tarot deck:

Are there any themes or motifs you feel called to work with? There are tons of themed tarot decks on the market, from goddess decks to crystal decks to pirate decks. What symbolism speaks to you?

What art styles do you enjoy? You’ll spend a lot of time looking at your cards, so it’s important that you like the artwork!

How does this deck make you feel? It’s best not to choose a deck that makes you uncomfortable, at least while you’re still trying to learn the basics. For me, the decks that I end up working with the most feel like an old friend — comforting and familiar. (Note that some of my favorite decks have dark themes and imagery, but I still find them comforting on an energetic level.)

If you don’t feel called to any one deck, starting with the Waite-Smith deck is always a good idea. Most tarot books base their interpretations on this deck, so it’s helpful for beginners who are still learning card associations. There are several versions of this deck on the market — my personal favorite is the Universal Waite Tarot, because I find it easiest to read. (It’s also cheap and widely available, so it should be easy to find a copy.)

Once you’ve chosen a deck, take some time to get to know the cards. Before you begin reading with your deck, go through the cards one by one and write down how they make you feel, as well as any associations they draw up for you. It’s best to do this exercise before you begin learning the traditional meanings for the cards, so you can capture your authentic first reactions to them.

There are other ways to get to know your deck. There’s an old superstition that says you should sleep with the deck next to your pillow for several nights, so that it can become attuned to your energy. Another option is to meditate with the deck, allowing yourself to feel it out.

Once you’ve gotten to know your deck, it’s time to learn the traditional meanings of the cards. Don’t get too hung up on this part — remember that readings are done intuitively; the traditional meanings are only a guideline, and you may find that the information you receive in a reading differs from tradition. In those cases, always trust your intuition. What the Ace of Wands means FOR YOU is more important than what it means for so-and-so author of such-and-such book. (This is why it’s a good idea to write down your own thoughts and feelings about the cards before you begin studying tarot books.)

The book I recommend starting with is Tarot For Beginners by Lisa Chamberlain. At just over 100 pages long, this is a very brief, accessible, “just the basics” introduction to tarot. The book is just long enough to give you a taste of what reading tarot is like, to determine if it’s really right for you.

Books can be very helpful, especially for learning the traditional meanings of cards, but the best way to learn to read tarot is by doing it. Once you’ve found a deck you resonate with, connected with your cards, and learned a little about card meanings, it’s time to start doing readings.

Start by pulling one card each day. Write down your immediate reaction and any messages that come to you when you look at the card. Experiment with it! Try holding the card in your hands and trying to “feel” it energetically — what vibes does it give off? Does a certain word or phrase pop into your head when you look at it? Do certain images on the card leap out at you? Write all of this down. Once you’ve written your own interpretation, look up the traditional meaning of the card in Tarot For Beginners or another book, or online (the website biddytarot.com has a really great guide to card meanings and is 100% free). If anything you read about the card resonates, write that down as well. The goal here is to see how your initial intuitive reading compares to the card’s traditional meaning — eventually, as you get more familiar with the cards, you won’t need to look them up at all.

As you go about your day, keep your daily tarot card in the back of your mind. How do the card’s messages relate to what happened to you throughout the day? Before you go to bed, write about how you saw the card’s message in your life.

Eventually, you’ll begin to get the hang of reading tarot intuitively. You’ll also begin to develop your own readings styles and your own rituals for doing a reading.

[fw00shy]

Prophesy

For @drarrymicrofic prompt, better than fighting. This is a 1.4k "microfic" lmao. You can read on AO3 as well as here.

You know when you look at someone and just know they're no good? Pansy says it's a sure sign that they pissed you off in a past life. I tell her that's about the funniest shite I've ever heard. I don't need divinity to explain myself; I've always been good at reading people. That's just how I am.

Say, Pansy. I knew we'd hit it off the moment I saw her head-to-toe in Prada, her hair as glossy as volcanic glass. That's not fate: that's good taste. And Crabbe, well — that one is a bit odd, I'll give you that. Lord knows why I have a soft spot for him when he's far too much trouble for his worth. Nearly got me killed once or twice, even. Not literally, of course — just at the bars, when he drinks me under the table. Pansy says he's "mine" the same way Theo is "hers"; I've never cared for Theo. He seems the type of guy who holds back while you make a rash of bad decisions. Mind you, Pansy isn't much better either, but at least she's always right there, too, making the same damn mistakes.

Pansy asked me what Theo did to piss me off so much. I made up some lie about how he didn't warn me about a rotted foundation on a house I was trying to sell, but really, I don't know why I think that about Theo. I'm a genius people-reader, alright? And I don't question intuition.

So I'm not worried when Blaise calls me in to meet a high-profile client. Rich geezers, they're all the same. And I've seen this one plenty in the newsstands before, so I've already sussed him out. He always looks like he doesn't want to be there. A bit sullen — dead inside — but harmless enough.

"Seems a trifle odd, doesn't it?" I tell Pansy that morning. "He could've called me direct. My number's on half the park benches around his neighbourhood."

"Maybe he thinks you'll say no," Pansy says. She has that faraway look in her eyes she gets every morning before the caffeine kicks in.

"Why would I say no?" I laugh. "I'd be an idiot to give up a million-pound commission."

She's not paying attention to me. Her eyes bug out and her lips part. It's like she's in a bloody trance. I swear she does it just to piss me off.

I'm still thinking about her ugly mug when I'm going up to Blaise's office. He's got the entire penthouse of the building for him to sign papers, and the elevator ride up the twenty-three floors leaves plenty of time for spacing out. So I'm caught off guard when, coming out of the elevator, Harry Potter smacks straight into me and all I want to do is kill him.

Oh lord, how I want to kill him. My rage builds so strong that I'm taken out of my body. Where I go, I don't know. But when I come to, Potter is gone and I'm sitting across from Blaise.

Blaise has his pitying face on, the one he practices in the mirror. His hands are clasped over the expansive walnut desk (live edge, of course), his suit as green as Potter's eyes.

Potter's eyes. Merlin, I barely remember meeting the man, but it's all I can think of now. That luxurious, deep emerald. Green as everything I ever wanted.

"No," I say. "I won't take him on."

"Dee," Blaise says, gentle. His brows raise.

I'm on the spin bike at the gym trying to blow off some steam when Pansy calls and says, "Blaise is right, you know," her voice tinny above the whirl of bikes around me. "You'll be stupid to walk away from a million pounds over a premonition."

"He's a lying tramp, I swear. I'll put in all this work, set up the listing, stage the place, and then he'll change his mind and walk right out. I know. He's a ticking time bomb."

"So...." she giggles, "what'd you think he did?"

I'm confused for a second, but then I realise she's probably talking about her reincarnation theory again.

"Don't you dare start on this past life shite," I warn. "I'm not in the damn mood."

"Maybe he razed your lands. Ohhh, can you imagine, Harry Potter — a viking? All that fur… mm, and those horned helmets. Sure makes me horny —"

"Jesus, woman. I'm at the gym."

"Okay, okay," she says. "Since you're at the gym, what about this: Harry Potter as naughty, lying George Wickham. And you: the poor Lydia Bennet, tricked into a life of poverty and ridicule for the rest of your days. Embittered, you —"

"That's Jane Austen, that's not even real life," I say before hanging up.

I meet Potter at his Islington townhouse the following Tuesday. He's a capital C celebrity so he's got no regular day job, which makes him horrifying easy to slot into my schedule.

"You're late," I say as soon as he opens the front door. He runs a hand through his tangled hair — soft, I know — and bleats out an apology as I brush past him into the grim, old place. The hallway is long and dark. There's a kitchen in the far west corner overlooking the garden. And upstairs there are three bedrooms, of which the medium-sized one is his because it faces east, and he enjoys waking sun-rumpled and satisfied.

The floorplan, I pulled from public records. The rest, I — well, I don't know. I just know. I know it with such vivaciousness that I can see us there, on his — no, our — bed, his arm thrown across my chest, and I —

"Draco?" he asks, tentative. Like he's found something he's lost but isn't sure what to do with it, yet.

My hands clam up, my heart racing back to the present. He's only a foot from me, his doe eyes searching. I know what it feels like to pull him in by the waist, to watch those lids flutter shut as we kiss. And I know he knows this too, so I lean in and punch his face.

"He called me Draco," I say to Pansy later. "Draco. Only my mother calls me Draco, and she's been dead a full decade."

"You're crazy, Dee," Pansy says, patting my hand with hers on the bar counter. "What did you do after? Get on your knees to kiss his arse so he'd keep you on?"

"Bloody hell, no. I bolted the fuck out of there thinking I lost the biggest deal of my life. But then the next day, Blaise calls and says Potter stopped by the office. Says could I get him a list of stagers, all cool and shite like nothing had happened!"

"Hm… maybe you two are more Troilus and Cressida than Brutus and Caesar. Ohh, or Achilles and Patroclus. God, yes. That fits so well —"

"Good God, woman! Unless Patroclus was trying to sell Achilles' ionic column abode, I don't want to hear another peep of past lives from you."

Pansy pushes her martini to me and waits for me to drain it before signalling for another round. "I'm only saying," she says, tapping her square-tip nails on the stem of the glass, "Kissing. Fucking, even. Wouldn't that be better than fighting?"

Naturally, I choke on my drink.

I meet with Potter the next day and manage to get through the walkthrough without any further hallucinations or fisticuffs. I call Greg up to stage the place and we go through the house again the following week. Potter's in the kitchen when Greg leaves and offers me a cup of tea while I wait for my car. I'm out of excuses and exhausted from the day, so I accept.

"Draco," he says when he hands the cup to me. Two sugars, a splash of milk. I try not to think about how he knows.

"Why do you call me that?" I ask instead, blustering.

"Why do you call me Potter?" he retorts. He's smiling, but I can tell he's not really happy. It's the same smile the paparazzi catches him with.

"I don't know," I say because I don't. My tongue knows his name better than I do.

I can't keep my eyes off of his as he comes up to me. "Draco," he says my name like he had a claim to it, long ago. I let him loosen the cup from my hand and push me up onto the counter. The angle's better here; perfect if I want to slide my hand up to his cheek and through his hair. He smells like broomstick and phoenix ash. I love him, I know. But it's not supposed to be this easy.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Wrestling with the Bible’s most disturbing stories

An excerpt from Rachel Held Evan’s book Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

“Growing up, I noticed the ugly details in the Sunday school stories; children always do. I remember I was deeply troubled by the fact that God drowned all but two of each kind of animal in the Great Flood (to say nothing of all the people), and wondered aloud at the dinner table how God could be all-knowing and all-powerful, but also filled with regret. A friend's seven-year-old captured the angst well when she recently asked, 'Mom, is God the good guy or the bad guy in this story?'

This question of God's character haunted every scene and every act and every drama of the Bible. ...Feminist scholar Phyllis Trible aptly named these narratives 'texts of terror.'

'If art imitates life,' she wrote, 'scripture likewise reflects it in both holiness and horror.'

Rereading the texts of terror as a young woman, I kept anticipating some sort of postscript or epilogue chastising the major players for their sins, a sort of Arrested Development-style 'lesson' to wrap it all up -- 'And that's why you should always challenge the patriarchy!' But no such epilogue exists. While women are raped, killed, and divided as plunder, God stands by, mute as clay. I waited for a word from God, but none came.

...When I turned to pastors and professors for help, they urged me to set aside my objections, to simply trust that God is good and that the Bible's war stories happened as told, for reasons beyond my comprehension. 

'God's ways are higher than our ways,' they insisted. 'Stop trying to know the mind of God.'

It's an understandable approach. Human beings are finite and fallible, prone to self-delusion and sentimentality. If we rely exclusively on our feelings to guide us to truth, we are bound to get lost.

When asked in 2010 about Joshua's conquest of Canaan, Reformed pastor and theologian John Piper declared, without hesitation, 'It's right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.'

Piper's dispassionate acceptance represented pure, committed faith, I was told, while mine had been infected by humanism and emotion -- 'a good example of why women should be kept from church leadership,' one acquaintance said.

And for a moment, I believed it. For a moment, I felt silly for responding so emotionally to a bunch of old war stories that left the rest of the faithful seemingly unfazed. 

But this is the deleterious snare of fundamentalism: It claims that the heart is so corrupted by sin, it simply cannot be trusted to sort right from wrong, good from evil, divine from depraved. Instinct, intuition, conscience, critical thinking -- these impulses must be set aside whenever they appear to contradict the biblical text, because the good Christian never questions the 'clear teachings of Scripture'; the good Christian listens to God, not her gut.

I've watched people get so entangled in this snare they contort into shapes unrecognizable. When you can't trust your own God-given conscience to tell you what's right, or your own God-given conscience to tell you what's true, you lose the capacity to engage the world in any meaningful, authentic way, and you become an easy target for authoritarian movements eager to exploit that vacuity for their gain. I tried reading Scripture with my conscience and curiosity suspended, and I felt, quite literally, disintegrated. I felt fractured and fake.

Brené Brown warned us we can't selectively numb our emotions, and no doubt this applies to the emotions we have about our faith. If the slaughter of Canaanite children elicits only a shrug, then why not the slaughter of Pequots? Of Syrians? Of Jews? If we train ourselves not to ask hard questions about the Bible, and to emotionally distance ourselves from any potential conflicts or doubts, then where will we find the courage to challenge interpretations that justify injustice? How will we know when we've got it wrong?

'Belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man,' Thomas Paine said. If the Bible teaches that God is love, and love can look like genocide and violence and rape, then love can look like...anything. It's as much an invitation to moral relativism as you'll find anywhere.

I figured if God was real, then God didn't want the empty devotion of some shadow version of Rachel, but rather my whole, integrated self. So I decided to face the Bible's war stories head-on, mind and heart fully engaged, willing to risk the loss of faith if that's where the search led. 

I listened to sermons. I read commentaries and theology books. I became a real downer at dinner parties:

'If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?' 'Have you seen any of the Oscar-nominated films this year?' 'What's your Enneagram number?' 'Do you think God condones genocide?'

The explanations came hurried and certain. Oh, God told Israel to wipe out the Canaanites because the Canaanites were super-duper evil, like the worst people ever. They worshipped idols and had orgies and sacrificed children to their gods. So God condemned the practice of child sacrifice...by slaughtering children? Well, that's just how things were back then. It was kill or be killed, tribal warfare and all that. Israel did what it had to do to survive....

I began to feel a bit like the disheveled Berenger, a character from Eugène Ionesco's play Rhinoceros, who grows increasingly bewildered as the people of his provincial French town acclimate to the sudden presence of rhinoceroses in their community. In one scene, a rhinoceros thunders through the town square, trampling a housecat. After their initial shock, the villagers get sidetracked debating whether the rhino had one horn or two, and whether its origins are Asiatic or African. And on it goes throughout the play, as the townspeople themselves transform into rhinos, one by one, arguing all the while over pointless trivialities, until only Berenger remains human.

The play is about fascism, I think, but it reminds me a bit of Christians and their Bibles. Sometimes it seems as if there are all these rhinoceroses barreling through the pages of Scripture, pooping on sidewalks and flattening housecats, but we've grown so accustomed to defending their presence we end up debating the length of their tails.

...

My questions came with consequences. We left the church in which I was raised, and rumors of my 'rebellious spirit' circulated around town, prompting more than a few well-meaning interventions. ...

But accepting the Bible's war stories without objection threatened to erase my humanity. ‘We don’t become more spiritual by becoming less human,’ Eugene Peterson said. How could I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength while disengaging those very faculties every time I read the Bible?

So I brought my whole self into the wilderness with God – no faking, no halfway. And there we wrestled."

[lighthearted-science]

Arcturian Group Message

via Marilyn Raffaele -  February 14, 2021 onenessofall.com ​ Welcome dear readers. Know that we are here to guide and assist, but never to force for only you yourselves can acknowledge and reclaim the innate power that throughout the course of many lifetimes you ignorantly allowed others to take from you. ​ The time is now to be what you always have been but have not known you were. It is time to stand in your identity as a spiritual being formed of Divine Consciousness no longer subject to the third dimensional nonsense and false claims that feed a sense of inadequacy and prevent you from trusting in your ability to make wise choices and decisions. ​ You have traveled through many lifetimes and have experienced all skin colors, both genders, and most three dimensional experiences. Because of it, you have reached a place of wisdom and spiritually evolved awareness that in turn has left you at a fork in the road of your evolutionary journey. You have done the work required to bring you to this fork and now you must decide. ​ Path 1- "Should I continue believing that others (family, friends, experts, newscasters, government, religious doctrine) know what is best for me even when or if it does not resonate with me? Do I believe that I am unable to make wise decisions for myself? Do I believe that I am powerless or that victim-hood serves me by providing comfort and attention?" ​ Path 2. "I Choose to trust my intuition because I know it is the voice of my real SELF. I choose to stop giving power for good or bad to everything outside of myself. I choose to begin living life from my highest attained awareness of truth in spite of what others may believe". ​ Today is a time of indecision and confusion because on one hand you are continually being told what is true and right while at the same time you are feeling that much of what you are being told is not true. We do not speak so much of politics, but rather about the unrecognized duality present within the small and seemingly ordinary aspects of daily living. ​ Most are accustomed to simply allowing commonly accepted beliefs and habit to guide their decisions and actions. Every day when driving, shopping, simply being at home, answering the phone, at work, or taking care of basic family needs, you are faced with ordinary situations in which you can be loving or not loving. ​ These daily events offer you opportunities to practice your highest awareness of love which in certain situations may not even seem like love to the three dimensional mind. There may be times when being loving means taking no action at all, allowing another to suffer from their choices in order to learn. Love must be a part of the small everyday activites rather than being reserved for grand gestures that result in praise and adoration. ​ Small and ordinary expressions of love and kindness that flow from a realization of oneness eventually become an attained and permanent state of consciousness. Because you are consciousness and not just a physical body, love then automatically expresses itself through you without thought or effort because consciousness is who and what you are. ​ Example: You no longer need to practice or make an effort to be honest because honesty is your attained state of consciousness and is who you are. It is the same for unconditional love. As a realization of oneness becomes the state of consciousness of the majority, it will then become the collective consciousness and you will begin see world peace. ​ Love is the connecting energy that flows between all individual expressions of the ONE. Everything, all life, is connected by virtue of there being only One omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient Divine Consciousness, the only substance--that which is called GOD. ​ This interconnecting energy between all life is interpreted by every individual according to their attained level of awareness. If this interconnection is interpreted by a mind (the translator of consciousness) that is fully enmeshed in separation and duality, it will interpret it in forms of self service, even rape, abuse, or violence. ​

In spite of how completely oneness may be misunderstood and falsely interpreted by minds conditioned with beliefs of duality and separation, the Divine interconnecting energy between all within the ONE never changes and the realization of this is the door leading out of the hypnotism of human-hood that has plagued mankind throughout time. ​ Your job as a spiritually evolved person is to help mankind ascend out of three dimensional energy and into frequencies that are higher and real. In order to do this you must learn to see through the manifestations of duality and separation that have and still are presenting themselves so realistically. The third dimension can be likened to the lower rung of a very high ladder. ​ This does not mean approval or simply looking the other way. In order to be effective, words or actions must be expressed in a way that the person's level of awareness allows them to understand. At the same time a Light worker never loses sight of the fact that the individual needing reprimand or guidance is at their core, a Divine Being. This allows the energy of the necessary words or actions to flow on a stream of higher dimensional energy. ​ Stand back and allow the debris to settle, dear ones. Don't judge the state of things by staring at cloudy water swirling with hundreds of different substances because it is being shaken. Allow everything to be what it is, not judging by appearances. Hold to the knowledge that floating debris never becomes the water and will at some point settle to the bottom. ​ Be patient with yourselves and others while continuing to hold your highest awareness of truth in spite any outer circumstances you may find yourself in. . Know that there is light at the end of the tunnel and the energy is quickly moving toward it. You will soon begin to see positive changes. ​ You came to shine Light on the world's collective shadows and thus assist in dissolving them. Shadows are simply places without light and as such are never real because they have no substance regardless of how menacing they may appear. ​ Shadow energies are beginning to manifest everywhere because high dimensional light is exposing them. Rather than being shocked or going into fear in the presence of shadow energy, look at it and laugh for appearances that arise from the nothingness of false beliefs are illusion, having nothing to support, maintain, or sustain them other than belief in them. ​ We do not say this to diminish the struggles that many are experiencing at this time, but rather to help you to see and detach from continuing to feed them with the energy of belief in them as being reality. This is why you are seeing so much chaos at this time. The shadows are being exposed in order to be recognized and dissolved through mankind's awakening into a higher state of awareness. ​ You have attained a consciousness of truth and are able to view the world with awakened and evolved eyesight which is why you are on earth at this particular time. You may think you are doing nothing if you judge by traditional concepts about what light work is, but light work is not and never has been limited to healers, channelers, shamans, and metaphysical teachers. ​Light work is the automatic flow of higher dimensional energy in every ordinary aspect of life from those who have attained a high resonating state of consciousness. ​Everyone who has attained this high level of spiritual awareness is a Light worker. You are here to silently and secretly be the Light as you live what may appear to others to be an ordinary existence. Your evolved consciousness automatically assists others to awaken to their own light which will eventually lift the balance of truth versus false in the collective. ​ Divine Consciousness is omnipresent and therefore every bit of Light you attain and carry in your consciousness has the power to effect anyone able to align with it. Someone ready and receptive to truth may shift to a new level of awareness simply by being in the presence of a truth filled consciousness. The receptive person may be far away across the world but because there is only ONE, they can be lifted by your awareness. ​ ONE is the key word--one Divine Consciousness. The truth you hold in your consciousness allows it to be available to anyone able to align with it. This is how Jesus healed, those seeking help aligned with and became one with his consciousness that held no belief in disease as a reality. ​ This is the vital work you are doing as Light workers and it is more powerful than protesting, proselytizing, or seeking three dimensional solutions. However, not all are spiritually qualified to work at this level and wise world leaders are needed at this time in all levels of life. Some of you may be guided to work in the "trenches" and if you are, don't resist, for all work is spiritual work when done from a place of love. ​Regardless of what your life may presently look like, never lose sight of who you are. Cease seeking, and be. You are ready. ​ ​We are the Arcturian Group 2/14/21

[hermaea]

Uno Cards for Divination

Format: [#] — Upright meaning; reversed meaning

This is my original guide ! Do not claim it as your own ♥

Red Suit — Wands

0 — Enthusiasm (childlike), taking on a new project, spontaneity, initiative, excitement; energy block, wasted/missed opportunity, burning out

1 — Confidence, open-mindedness, fertility, opportunities, positive parental figure, passion; misguided, missing opportunities, boring, stagnant, disappointment

2 — Clear choice, difficult decision, limited options, trusting intuition; unclear path, no good options, further thought required

3 — Payoff, success after taking a chance, ambition noticed, energy boost; exhaustion, frustration, sexual ineptitude, too afraid to try

4 — Marriage, family, celebration, community, peace, joy; tension, different values, failed teamwork, unnecessary restraint

5 — Conflict, competition, argument, diversity; conflict with self, stalemate, compromise, end of conflict

6 — Triumph, success, acclaim, pride, achievement; failure, disdain from peers, hubris, opinions falling

7 — Perseverance, courage, standing ground, sticking by morals; abandoning ship, compromising beliefs, burning out

8 — Sudden action, renewed energy, vacation, payoff for very hard work; sudden exhaustion, overworking, delay, bad timing, hysteria

9 — Final stretch, staying resolute, persistence, unforeseen path; not learning from past, severe fatigue, unwilling to learn or listen

+2 — Taking on more than one can handle, overwhelmed, many projects at once, trouble prioritizing; energy boost, renewal, zeal, return of sex drive

Skip — Efforts in vain, failed plans, losing prestige, failing to rise to the challenge; successfully taking advantage, opportunity taken, manipulating someone for own gain

Reverse — Cancelled plans, work being claimed by another, theft, loss; flattery, thinking ahead, dodging questions, laying low, suspicious behavior, suspicion

Yellow Suit — Pentacles

0 — Life change, prosperity, comfort, stability; poverty, greed, lack of opportunities, insecurity, shortsightedness

1 — Grounded, good advice, maturity, material comfort, stability; chaos, anger, abusive situation, bad outlook, poverty

2 — Minor financial trouble, stay level-headed, do not abandon responsibilities, embarrassment; disorganization, running self thin, material losses, overwhelmed

3 — Learning, mentorship, commitment, wisdom beyond years, encouragement, reward for attentiveness; shortsightedness, hedonism, aimlessness, immaturity

4 — Materialism, greed, nostalgia, sentimental, obsession, need for control; minimalism, sharing, losing some money to generosity or addiction, self-soothing

5 — Entering a negative period, hardship, pressure, neglect, temporary but impactful loss; getting back on feet, relief, outside help, accepting aid, recovery

6 — Charity, reward, authority, support, value seen; manipulation of power, manipulation of finances, inequality, dependence

7 — Returns on investment, reward, manifestation of goals, cultivation, effort finally paying off; bad business, abandoned projects, idleness, waste

8 — New line of work, success, concentration, making good connections, confidence; dissatisfaction, tired of routine, workaholism, lack of qualifications

9 — Independence, profit, elegance, indulgence, freedom, wisdom; overworking, dependency, deceit, cheapness of character, shallow character

+2 — Major financial loss, bad karma, enemy succeeding, punishment for bad decision; seizing a risky opportunity, succeeding with some conditions, chance to impress peers

Skip — Bad investment, theft, trusted person taking advantage, misplaced loyalty; taking an opportunity from someone else, thriftiness, stealing from another, selfishness

Reverse — Risky partnership, older partner, inexperience, trust not quite earned; divulging secrets, new addition to the family/household, making room, pet, inferiority

Green Suit — Swords

0 — Stroke of genius, intellectual or philosophical breakthrough, pursuing a new interest, ideas; failure, restlessness, wrong path, overlooked

1 — Sophistication, discerning, politeness, cool & collected older figure, wisdom; rudeness, tactlessness, acting foolishly, oppression, judgmental

2 — Difficult decision, crossroads, blindness, repressed emotions in the face of change; learning a painful truth, emotionally guarded, overwhelmed

3 — Heartbreak, removal, loneliness, loss, depression, grief; overcoming hardship, optimism, recovery, CAN ALSO MEAN emotional repression

4 — Need for escape, solitude, overstimulation/overload, introspection, relaxation; recovering mental health, return to world, restlessness, CAN ALSO MEAN breakdown, mental collapse

5 — Surrender, self-sabotaging behavior, gratuitous violence, resisting a threat that is too cumbersome to beat; taking a big risk to get out of a tight spot, moving on, compromise, communication, suddenly taking action

6 — Progress, calming waters, spirit guides, journey, running away; very strenuous & long journey ahead, abandoning plans, entrapment

7 — Lack of conscience, holding onto beliefs too tightly, manipulating others carefully, getting away with something; confession, coming to senses, descent into perpetual deceit of the self & of others

8 — Trapped in a bad situation, forced to face demons, victimization, major anxiety, sick with thoughts; escape, freedom, taking control, survivor, end of a long punishment

9 — Overthinking, making something out of nothing, at breaking point, negative thinking; recovery, accepting little joys, accepting help, CAN ALSO MEAN complete mental breakdown, giving up

+2 — Something to think about, making connections in head, learning quickly, realization; teaching others, taking on a mentor role, letting thoughts flow, self-expression through words

Skip — Forgetting, repression of a memory, distancing self from past, trying to renew self; nostalgia, (painful) reminder, sentimental, missing something that is gone forever

Reverse — Ideas shut down, not allowed to express thoughts, treated like an idiot; leading a discussion, censoring inappropriate ideas, speaking up

Blue Suit — Cups

0 — Happiness, new fulfillment, conception, new relationship; emotional loss, bad news, unlucky in love

1 — Charming person, emotional maturity, warmth, sensitivity, affection; emotional immaturity, self-serving, cheating on a partner, bitterness

2 — Partnership, compatibility, soulmates, strong connection; incompatibility, breakup, bullying, toxic relationship

3 — Reunion, socializing, partying, indulgence, wedding, graduation; over-indulgence, gossip, loneliness, cancelled plans

4 — Refusing an offer, apathy, yearning, self-absorption as a result of depression or anxiety; accepting an offer, seizing the day, letting go of regret, self-awareness, optimism

5 — Grief, trauma, despair, sudden & unwelcome change, misery; moving on, resolving grief or trauma, acceptance of situation

6 — Children, nostalgia, homesickness, youth, innocence, goodwill; looking ahead, thinking about the future, move to independence, CAN ALSO MEAN looking too fondly on the past, childhood abuse, losing innocence, stuck in the past

7 — Fantasizing, lots of options to choose from, uncertainty, procrastination; reality, clarity, sobriety, restriction, limited choice

8 — Abandonment, escaping, self-discovery, withdrawal, moving away physically but looking within; stagnation, fear of change, fake happiness, low self-worth, staying in a bad situation

9 — Fulfillment, dreams realized, pleasure, spiritual accomplishment, recognition; nightmare scenario, desires turning out to be undesirable, devastation, unrewarding

+2 — Emotional outburst, stuck in a bad relationship, wandering eyes; good communication, equal power dynamic, healthy self-disclosure, learning someone’s true feelings

Skip — Emotional abuse, neglect, not being listened to properly, deteriorating physical health; ignoring someone unpleasant, insults, brushing off others’ comments

Reverse — Becoming aware of toxic tendencies, unsavory self-discovery, learning who true friends are, road to self-improvement; venting to someone but never listening to them, backstabbing, telling secrets, using someone

Special Cards

Wild, upright — Balance, order, reflection on the self; peace, contentment with the self

Wild, reversed — Disorder, neglect of one particular aspect of life (card above is too present, card below is not getting enough attention)

Draw 4, upright — Overly punishing the self, mistreatment by a loved one, feeling stuck or stagnant, needing change but not having the power to

Draw 4, reversed — Settling the score, revenge, taking power back from one who has abused it; in extreme situations, being the abuser

Shuffle Hands — Denial, deceit, poor reasoning, foolish or immature person

Trade Hands — Retribution, taking a calculated risk; showing someone something inappropriately, shared trauma

[astrology-with-charu]

New Moon at 23º Pisces and 2022 Preview

============================================

New Moon in Pisces brings an opportunity to all of us to mutate, to change, shift, see a new perspective. The last two weeks of Virgo full moon brought up tasks to finish, problems to address, order to be maintained, health to take care of, responsibilities to cater to. We move from there to the opposite side to give the situation another perspective.

I find Pisces perspective always the end of the life scenario but not the morbid kind, more of if you were at the end of life would you be doing this, would you be holding onto this, would you be making enemies or showing compassion. Different perspective same problems. Adding color of love and enjoyment to life. Colouring daily chores, making an uninviting prospect into fun production.

Bookmark this post - http://emailabuddy.com/blog/?p=936

Try to give it an aim over next two weeks so you can seed this and see it grow over next 6 months. Writing, advertisement, marketing, service in healing, life coach, theatre, inspiration, art, music, drama, dance, video, telepathy, entertainment, love, care, devotion, deep sensuality, meditation, philanthropy, films, media, psychic signs, channeling, psychology, naturopathy, self development, volunteering, gardening, paranormal interests, hidden mysteries of life - so many ways to activate & honour this ethereal energy which would stimulate your imagination.

Imagination fuels invention right now, lateral thinking opens a door to something rational. Pisces sitting in between the Sagittarius south node and Gemini north node activates the need to balance the left brain and right brain. Things that seem like creative distractions or even self indulgence can help create specific oneness of focus and bring a much needed bend in the road much like a yoga session, meditation, a swim, emotive music or art does.

Venus Neptune Conjunct New moon

==============================

I will though warn on financial and romantic matters - we could be very much idealising some financing and romantic situations - no muss if you do it flexi Pisces style and stay open to possibilities of things changing. Pisces always see the world that should exist in our dreams cause they are here to create heaven on earth but we should remember this during financial and romantic declarations right now we could be walking thin line.

I always say with Neptune aspect Idealise life not people - idealise the life path, the synchronicity that got you to the right person the right time, the right money, value, creative idea at the right time. Idealise your life path not the person you meet on the path. He or she may not be perfect but your life path is - it’s giving you who you need in that moment.

Heaven or Hell

============

All dual signs have the superpower to create heaven or hell - they can divert their immense ability to change directions and situations to shift the current in either direction. Pisces archetype do that with emotions and intentions.

23º Pisces in Sabian symbols stands for “A Materialising Medium giving a seance” This new moon gives opportunity to each one of us to induce our vital energy to substantiate either our conscious ideals or our unconscious desires. If you feel you have a gift, a mission, a mandate in life - we all do - a gift that can be of value to community - you and me need to substantiate that belief with results. In the seance the medium gives her everything - her body, her energy, her soul to what she is creating. There is an underlying sacrifice of self always embedded in Pisces - Neptune life. People don’t acknowledge this fact too many times, but Pisces face many unexplained circumstance in life that don’t allow them to live on the surface. They learn this devotion to life’s meaning and have very clear knowing of life’s fragility. This is realism but not the kind Virgo archetype holds or shines on - this is realism of life - of understanding of life - the kind of understanding & clarity normal humans only get at the end of life of what really matters. Soul enlightenment. Now from that place - what would you create - what you give your life energy to, all of it. All consuming that will survive death of body.

Duality though gives us two roads - heaven or hell - constructive aspect leads to substantiation of a dream an ideal. Shadow aspect leads to deception - sometimes self delusion. What is the motive induced into your seance cause that would determine what we create.

You will seek something beyond your daily experience - we may not know where it is leading. Intuition and faith is a muscle and Pisces new moon helps us flex it strengthen it with a practice. Saddle of Pegasus the winged horse is what the star Markab is called at 23º Pisces. A steady point within us - which helps us go to bigger things - a steady force within you from which will come focused action, knowledge, learning and a new world view of service. We would look at old problems with new glasses, new prespective. We find our saddle in Pisces practices - yoga, meditation, swimming, art, fashion, creation, music, emote - all things that balance our left brain and right brain. That shake off the rigidity, opening our muscles, our body, our chakras - releasing trapped energy - inviting fresh energy of upcoming fire season - new vitality in each part of our body.

2019-2020-2021 : The bridge

=======================

I see 2020 as the bridge between 2019 and 2021 - most of the new moon full moon we are in process of right now - we went through those degrees of activations in 2019. Like this new moon is happening close to the degree of full moon in Sept 2019. So if anything was completed, ended, declared, announced in Sept 2019, you will get a new perspective on it now and you will make a different choice. 2020 changed the structure of our existence, the rules we follow of our life that help us decide the forward course. So when presented with similar choices, you would choose differently now.

2022 Next Cycle

===================

Neptune would go retrograde at this degree of new moon on 25th June 2021 so some of the idealistic quality of this new beginning will come for discoveries after that - there will be things we would be missing right now. Neptune retrogrades opens those blind spots to us so we have that coming and we should be ready for that. Some of the demystifying idealism is coming up in June - we would be a bit rosy in March but thats part of the charm of Pisces - live a little dream and creativity is killed if its bombarded with reality checks. But in financial matters know that we may not have the full picture.

Jupiter the planet of expansion is moving into Pisces fully after 28th Dec and it will meet Neptune at yes at this spot on 12th April 2022 which would be a outer planet meet colouring global events of 2022. This is a once in 166 years of divine cycle when optimism hits up our dreams and inflated expectations are very much at root of this cycle. We are seeding that cycle right now with this new moon so a bit of inflated expectations are in. But so are prospects for creative genius, compassion, inspiration, positive thinking, divinity. In 1856 when this cycle was last seen in Pisces - Sigmund Freud was born; Frank Baum the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was born ...Robert Peary who claimed discovery of North Pole was born... I can go on... Nikolas Tesla was born - creative genius underlines this cycle which is about to begin in 2022.

But there would also be delusional leaders, bad intention false hopes and inflation which would come with this. Seeds of that also is being planted now in inflated expectations and idealism. This cycle has deep implications for change in religion and spirituality. Also on weather patterns especially linked to floods, hurricanes - the Last Island Hurricane in US which destroyed Last Island was part of last cycle as was a massive church explosion. This was also first year when the Third Party in US called “Know nothing American Party” fought elections. Seeds of American civil war were grown in this cycle as well back in 1856.

End of March - Mars Conjunct North Node

==================================

Mars will be in Gemini for 6 months next year when it would be making a hard aspect to both Jupiter and Neptune. Infact Mars would in conjunction with North Node end of March on 26th March. Words would be said. Last time Mars in Gemini Conjunct North Node was in Jan 2002 - Axis of Evil speech. So time after 21st March when Mars comes close to Rahu or north node and it goes out of bound, it would give us immense energy to get over our fears, its fearless strength which helps us go beyond our bounds but it also makes us go beyond our bounds in words - we can get a bit impulsive reckless and hurtful - be careful of that around 26th March and we would see that pan out in public sphere. World’s most famous whistle blower - Edward Snowden was born with this aspect so you know what I am talking about - we will hear about it in news. But I do expect another Axis of Evil speech from US on Russia with this aspect possibly. Words have power and force and they can be used for intellect at work or imbalance in world.

As I said all dual signs have super power of ability to create heaven or hell - for Gemini that super power is in words. Channel this immense superpower wisely during this time.

[neurosengarten]

• Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe.

• Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.

• Always demand a deadline. A deadline weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary. It prevents you from trying to make it perfect, so you have to make it different. Different is better.

• Don’t be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid because 99% of the time everyone else is thinking of the same question and is too embarrassed to ask it.

• Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them “Is there more?”, until there is no more.

• A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.

• Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at.

• Treating a person to a meal never fails, and is so easy to do. It’s powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends.

• Don’t trust all-purpose glue.

• Reading to your children regularly will bond you together and kickstart their imaginations.

• Never use a credit card for credit. The only kind of credit, or debt, that is acceptable is debt to acquire something whose exchange value is extremely likely to increase, like in a home. The exchange value of most things diminishes or vanishes the moment you purchase them. Don’t be in debt to losers.

• Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.

• Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed.

• Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Hangout with, and learn from, people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will disagree with you.

• Rule of 3 in conversation. To get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they just said. Then again, and once more. The third time’s answer is close to the truth.

• Don’t be the best. Be the only.

• Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them, they are waiting for you to send them an email, they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.

• Don’t take it personally when someone turns you down. Assume they are like you: busy, occupied, distracted. Try again later. It’s amazing how often a second try works.

• The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth, to flossing.

• Promptness is a sign of respect.

• When you are young spend at least 6 months to one year living as poor as you can, owning as little as you possibly can, eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent, to experience what your “worst” lifestyle might be. That way any time you have to risk something in the future you won’t be afraid of the worst case scenario.

• Trust me: There is no “them”.

• The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they find you. To be interesting, be interested.

• Optimize your generosity. No one on their deathbed has ever regretted giving too much away.

• To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just re-do it, re-do it, re-do it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.

• The Golden Rule will never fail you. It is the foundation of all other virtues.

• If you are looking for something in your house, and you finally find it, when you’re done with it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you first looked for it.

• Saving money and investing money are both good habits. Small amounts of money invested regularly for many decades without deliberation is one path to wealth.

• To make mistakes is human. To own your mistakes is divine. Nothing elevates a person higher than quickly admitting and taking personal responsibility for the mistakes you make and then fixing them fairly. If you mess up, fess up. It’s astounding how powerful this ownership is.

• Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

• You can obsess about serving your customers/audience/clients, or you can obsess about beating the competition. Both work, but of the two, obsessing about your customers will take you further.

• Show up. Keep showing up. Somebody successful said: 99% of success is just showing up.

• Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgement.

• If you are not falling down occasionally, you are just coasting.

• Perhaps the most counter-intuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more you’ll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.

• Friends are better than money. Almost anything money can do, friends can do better. In so many ways a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.

• This is true: It’s hard to cheat an honest man.

• When an object is lost, 95% of the time it is hiding within arm’s reach of where it was last seen. Search in all possible locations in that radius and you’ll find it.

• You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.

• If you lose or forget to bring a cable, adapter or charger, check with your hotel. Most hotels now have a drawer full of cables, adapters and chargers others have left behind, and probably have the one you are missing. You can often claim it after borrowing it.

• Hatred is a curse that does not affect the hated. It only poisons the hater. Release a grudge as if it was a poison.

• There is no limit on better. Talent is distributed unfairly, but there is no limit on how much we can improve what we start with.

• Be prepared: When you are 90% done any large project (a house, a film, an event, an app) the rest of the myriad details will take a second 90% to complete.

• When you die you take absolutely nothing with you except your reputation.

• Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen. Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.

• For every dollar you spend purchasing something substantial, expect to pay a dollar in repairs, maintenance, or disposal by the end of its life.

•Anything real begins with the fiction of what could be. Imagination is therefore the most potent force in the universe, and a skill you can get better at. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.

• When crisis and disaster strike, don’t waste them. No problems, no progress.

• On vacation go to the most remote place on your itinerary first, bypassing the cities. You’ll maximize the shock of otherness in the remote, and then later you’ll welcome the familiar comforts of a city on the way back.

• When you get an invitation to do something in the future, ask yourself: would you accept this if it was scheduled for tomorrow? Not too many promises will pass that immediacy filter.

• Don’t say anything about someone in email you would not be comfortable saying to them directly, because eventually they will read it.

• If you desperately need a job, you are just another problem for a boss; if you can solve many of the problems the boss has right now, you are hired. To be hired, think like your boss.

• Art is in what you leave out.

• Acquiring things will rarely bring you deep satisfaction. But acquiring experiences will.

• Rule of 7 in research. You can find out anything if you are willing to go seven levels. If the first source you ask doesn’t know, ask them who you should ask next, and so on down the line. If you are willing to go to the 7th source, you’ll almost always get your answer.

• How to apologize: Quickly, specifically, sincerely.

• Don’t ever respond to a solicitation or a proposal on the phone. The urgency is a disguise.

• When someone is nasty, rude, hateful, or mean with you, pretend they have a disease. That makes it easier to have empathy toward them which can soften the conflict.

• Eliminating clutter makes room for your true treasures.

• You really don’t want to be famous. Read the biography of any famous person.

• Experience is overrated. When hiring, hire for aptitude, train for skills. Most really amazing or great things are done by people doing them for the first time.

• A vacation + a disaster = an adventure.

• Buying tools: Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford.

• Learn how to take a 20-minute power nap without embarrassment.

• Following your bliss is a recipe for paralysis if you don’t know what you are passionate about. A better motto for most youth is “master something, anything”. Through mastery of one thing, you can drift towards extensions of that mastery that bring you more joy, and eventually discover where your bliss is.

• I’m positive that in 100 years much of what I take to be true today will be proved to be wrong, maybe even embarrassingly wrong, and I try really hard to identify what it is that I am wrong about today.

• Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist you don’t have to ignore all the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve problems.

• The universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success. This will be much easier to do if you embrace this pronoia.

[lisarichardsonbylines]

How to Tell Your Husband You’re a Witch

Witches we need you. Now more than ever. In the time of COVID-19 we can find respite in place-based reverence, plant magic and the divine feminine. So writes Lisa Richardson, who came to witchiness with nothing but white hetero straight-lacedness and a crush on a yoga teacher.

Lisa Richardson | Longreads | April 2020 | 15 minutes (4,084 words)

On a Friday afternoon, pre-COVID-19, my husband dropped some ice-cubes into glasses, ready to make us screwdrivers and cheers to surviving another week of working/parenting/wondering where the hell the years were going, only, the vodka bottle was empty.

“Oh yeah,” I said, my eyes sliding sideways, trying to not cause a fuss, “I used it for medicine.” The previous week, the kitchen counter had been cluttered with a giant mason jar full of oily plant matter. “Balm of Gilead!” I explained, brightly, as he wiped away the breakfast crumbs around it.

“But what is it?”

“Cottonwood tips in oil.”

His eyes had flicked, then, over to the brand-new bottle of extra virgin olive oil that was now nearly empty, as I enumerated the medicinal benefits of this old herbal remedy (and all this from a tree in our backyard!). Twenty-four years together means I could hear the abacus in his brain clicking, as he wordlessly calculated the cost per milliliter of a gallon jar of plant matter masticating in top-shelf olive oil, against the cost per unit of a bottle of generic aspirin tables, overlaid with the probability of me losing interest in this project.

First the olive oil. Now the vodka for dozens of little jars of tinctures — garden herbs and weeds soaking in now-undrinkable booze. My midlife quest to attune more deeply to the rhythms of the natural world was starting to incur unexpected, but real, costs.

He was quiet, as he opened the fridge and pulled out a beer instead.

* * *

In my defense, I could have pointed my finger at Natalie Rousseau, a yoga teacher living in my 5,000 person village, who I’d first encountered leading a solstice yoga class billed as a way to survive the madness of the holidays (in slightly more gracious language). Thanks to her offerings of insight I did survive the commercial horror of the “festive” season, and a few months later, as the new moon entered Aries (whatever that actually means), I plonked down $200 to subscribe to her online 13 Moons course — my foray into “slowing down and being more present,” as I pitched it to my husband when he inquired about the strange entry on the credit card statement.

But I did not deflect the simmering tension between us by naming Natalie as the instigator of these “kitchen witch” experiments. Even though I am not a member of any kind of coven or cult, (I don’t think book club counts), I know deep in my bones to never throw another woman onto the fire for helping you. That has been done too many times.

But there it is. The word. Witch. The wound.

* * *

Every day, after COVID-19 entered our world, Natalie Rousseau has responded with an offering, a teaching — a meditation, an ancient mantra of protection, a yoga practice for managing anxiety, a how-to video on harvesting poplar medicine. It’s as if she’s been resourcing herself for this moment to develop the richest arsenal imaginable, to navigate, not the public health crisis, but the billion personal crises each of us is forced to confront as life as we know it slams into pandemic mode. It’s not what I thought a witch would do, if I ever thought about them at all.

Natalie doesn’t look like a witch either — not in the way I conceived it for last year’s Halloween costume, with my long black skirt, dollar-store pointy hat, and heavy black eyeliner, walking alongside my 6-year-old vampire-werewolf. Natalie is petite, just a few inches over five feet, her long blond hair still evoking the decade she spent living in a west coast surf town, her chest and lean muscled arms bright with full sleeve flowery tattoos and Mary Oliver quotes. She moves like a dancer, demonstrating yoga poses as if she’s transcending gravity. As a teacher, she speaks exactly, even in Sanskrit, and guides movement precisely, padding gently and soundlessly through the room, making an adjustment here, offering an instruction there.

So, I was surprised when she used the word “witch” to launch her new online offering, The Witches Wheel. The lure was irresistible. Natalie was claiming the word “witch” without flinching, without anger, without provocation, not as a way to reclaim feminine power and stick it to the men, warranted as that may be: It was essentially an invitation to observe the cycle of the seasons.

A threshold beckoned.

* * *

Natalie, a recent empty-nester, lives with her husband Paul and two dogs in a modest townhome, with a creek and a dozen rogue gardens installed by various residents running behind it. The garage is full of motorbikes. The porch is swept clean on the day I visit, six months into the 13 Moons program, wanting to talk with her about this radical word and why, in a world still unsure what to do with powerful women, she’s not afraid that she’s exposing herself to pitchforks and fires, haters, and trolls.

Even though I am not a member of any kind of coven or cult, (I don’t think book club counts), I know deep in my bones to never throw another woman onto the fire for helping you. That has been done too many times.

A tea blend of her own mixing — vanilla chaga chai — is brewing on the stove in an open saucepan. She tends to it, as I settle in, sneaking glimpses around the room, looking for evidence of witchcraft — pentagrams, cloaks, bottled frogs. Nothing. The space is uncluttered, a throw-rug on the armchair, a couple of stark white deer skulls are mounted, European-style, on a wall against a reclaimed barn board — definitely more Soho chic than occult-goth. Her husband returns from town, where he has picked up fresh croissants for us. He’s tall and strong, with a tightly cropped red beard — he looks like a guy you’d run into at the gym, at the surf break, at the hardware store.

“So, what’s it like living with a witch?” I ask him as Natalie attends to our tea, a light-hearted question sprouting out of the great compost of fears I am thinking. Is it impossibly hard to be with a woman who comfortably claims her own power, magic, cycles, voice? What kind of a man can love and honor a witch? And lurking deep beneath it all: Will my husband be one of them?

Paul rolls his eyes, overly-dramatically, pointing up to the light fixture in the kitchen — light bulbs housed in mason jars of all sizes, evoking summer cabins and fireflies and Kinfolk magazine dinner party lanterns. “I made this for her because everything ends up in jars. Have you seen inside these cupboards?” He walks around the house, in faux-exasperation, opening doors to reveal neat stacks of jars, full of dried petals, leaves, syrups, tonics, salves, salts. “And there’s more upstairs!” If it hadn’t been for the dinner party they’d hosted the previous night, most of their apartment’s horizontal surfaces would be covered in jars, he tells me, and the front porch would have housed a dead raven and a dead Cooper’s hawk.

“She’s always sending me out in search of dead things,” he jokes. He picks up roadkill in case she can salvage feathers or skulls.

“When he first met me, I was already a skull collector, and now he goes and finds them for me and brings them back,” says Natalie. “He’s gotten really good at living with witchy stuff.”

The two of them are remarkably self-sufficient — an animal lover (“he loves animals more than people”), Paul realized veganism left him tired and undernourished, so took up hunting to procure his own meat humanely; one of the deer skulls mounted on the wall was harvested this fall, its meat now fills their freezer. They grow a garden, wildcraft, eat well. There is an ease between them — a tidal push and pull as they navigate their modest shared space and the morning routine, without evidence of fake niceness, of power trips or struggles.

Witchcraft, in Natalie Rousseau’s mind, is too non-dogmatic and non-hierarchical to submit to a single all-encompassing definition. “As a practice, it’s so highly individual,” she says, “but across the board, it is very place-based, land-based and body-based. For me, it’s about cultivating a relationship with your own body, your own mind, your emotions, and subtle sensing faculties. It’s learning how to trust your intuition. It’s about reclaiming your own instincts, but also being able to feel: this is what stress feels like in my body, this is what relaxation feels like, this is what it feels like to say yes to something out of a sense of obligation or pressure, this is what it feels like to have a boundary. This is what it feels like when I’m safe. These cues come to us from our bodies. It has to be, for it to work well, otherwise, you’re always reaching outside yourself for another authority.”

This is what she wants to help women, particularly, to reclaim: their sense that they are the first authority on themselves, that they can trust their bodies’ wisdom.

“The biggest thing I want to share with people,” says Natalie of her teaching and online courses, “is how to trust themselves. Everyone can very easily make the medicines that their household would need for common household complaints — colds and flus and chest colds and menstrual cramps — so many basic things that anyone can make very simply, quite affordably. I’m not anti-pharmaceutical. There are many medications people have to take daily to live. And if I have a serious infection, I’m going to take antibiotics; if I am seriously ill, I am going to go to the doctor; if I have any kind of trauma, I’m going to be so grateful for that form of medicine. But I believe the role kitchen medicine has is in the maintenance and prevention of illness.”

One of her biggest laments, though, as she makes videos and handouts and shares them with her online community, is that even people who have paid to do her course don’t feel that they have the time to take it into their kitchens. “Making a tincture is literally pouring vodka over plant materials and leaving it on your counter for four weeks!” she says. But it is easier for most people to just buy one online and have it delivered to their doorstep. “I am saddened by how easily women give their power over. This is the biggest thing I’ve noticed as a teacher in the past couple of years — how quickly women will say, ‘but how do you do this? I don’t know how to do this! I’m afraid to try this because I might not be good at it, I might be doing it wrong. I’m an imposter.’ I really struggle with this. Where is it coming from?”

But she knows. We have relinquished our power, over a thousand years or more, of wounding, of witch-burnings, of patriarchy either convincing us we have none or forcibly stripping it away, (hello Harvey Weinstein), until all we feel empowered to do, now, in 2020, is consume. And we’ve been doing that with all our might.

We override the listening, we ignore the nudges, we push through, like good soldiers. “Most people are running so hard,” observes Natalie. “Our culture is so focussed on productivity. We are so overly heroic — it’s all or nothing. I can’t do something unless I’m an expert. I don’t want to try. But this is a craft. It’s a path of education.”

Natalie’s invitation is gentle, and she’s crafted her online course to serve that: Start with one plant and learn its taste, its smell. Spend five minutes a day on meditation or in conscious ritual and begin to notice what’s going on in your nervous system, in your mind, in your body.

“When he first met me, I was already a skull collector, and now he goes and finds them for me and brings them back,” says Natalie. “He’s gotten really good at living with witchy stuff.”

Don’t get so distracted by the word witch, that you fail to notice that it is connected to craft. Witchcraft, for Natalie, is a path of learning “how to trust and problem solve, from within, knowing that we are in a system of power that, for better, for worse, will strip us of any ability to trust ourselves and to always feel empty so we have to keep buying more stuff.”

When she says this, a deep thrill of recognition hums in me, accompanied by a shiver of fear. Those are revolutionary things to say out loud, to cast into the open air. I recognize it viscerally as the kind of talk that gets people in trouble.

* * *

Last summer, before I met Natalie, I had stepped from my backyard patio stones onto freshly cut grass and spied the sinuous form of a wandering garter snake. I leaned in quickly, excitedly, about to call my 6-year-old over to glimpse the garden visitor before it shimmied away. But it was eerily still. Ugly slash wounds marked its body. It was dead. Innocent victim to the ride-on lawnmower. Obliterated by our oblivion.

“Oh no,” I muttered. “I’m so sorry!”

I had already begun to wake up to the natural world, it’s rhythms, it’s offerings of medicine, it’s otherness, but it had come with a shadow side, a growing despair at what we were doing to the world. Even without a malicious intention, I was causing death and destruction — just mowing the lawn, drinking my coffee, wiping my ass: My actions, all our human activity, had compounding impacts that were destroying the snakes, the ocean, the atmosphere, the forests, the icecaps — beyond repair.

I wanted my garden to be a habitat. I wanted the bees to waggle-dance directions to my sunflowers to their hive-mates, I wanted the wandering garter snakes to nest in their hibernacula through the winter and bask in the long grass in the summer, I wanted to lie on my back and watch butterflies dance through the flowers and the hummingbirds zoom in and out, I wanted to inhabit innocence again.

I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. My penitence froze me in place, scared to make a move for fear of ruining something else. Then, regret overriding my squeamishness, I fetched the flat-bladed shovel and edged it under the dead snake. I carried her body over to the vegetable patch, and in a space between the beds, where the mower never goes, I laid her down. I picked marigolds and calendula from around the garden, where they’d been planted to keep the snails away, and lay the bright orange blossoms in a circle around her.

Grandmother snake, I whispered, hoping that some force that exists beyond the definitively dead snake at my feet, might spread the word among the entire species, “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean it. I will try to be more careful.”

It was a made-up ritual, the kind that a kid might perform deep in her dream world at the bottom of the garden, and it made my 44 year-old-self feel a little bit better. At least I’d made a gesture of repair, had expressed my desire to return into balance with the living world around me. If it had any effect, I’d never know. I went back inside, said nothing.

A few days later, out in the garden, my husband tripped over the skeleton of a decomposing snake, ringed by wilted flowers, half consumed by ants.

“That was spooky,” he confronted me. “What’s going on? Are you some kind of witch?”

* * *

* * *

Natalie has always been comfortable with the word. Now she’s having fun inviting people to consider the archetype, circle it, unpack it, stumble upon some kind of recognition: Wait a second! Maybe I am a witch!

“It’s cool how people in the western world can take a description that has been used mostly as a slur, and turn it around to use as something empowering,” she says.

For thousands of years, witch was a term used to incite violence against women. By the most conservative estimates, half a million people, mostly women, were executed in the European witch craze between 1300 and 1650. Accusations of witchcraft were used against women, says Rousseau, “in ways that were extremely dangerous and terrifying. It was really about getting power from them, and getting land back. So, to use a word like that in an empowered way, even today, you have to know you’re safe to do it. And it’s important to realize that in many places in the world, it’s still not safe for women to say that. But if we can, in safe places, take that word and turn it around, that, to me, is extremely powerful.”

I wanted the bees to waggle-dance directions to my sunflowers to their hive-mates, I wanted the wandering garter snakes to nest in their hibernacula through the winter and bask in the long grass in the summer, I wanted to lie on my back and watch butterflies dance through the flowers and the hummingbirds zoom in and out, I wanted to inhabit innocence again.

Natalie herself embodies empowerment. Not in the traditional way I have come to recognize power — as someone standing over, dominating someone else, her source of power comes from within.

She doesn’t need to take any from her partner.

“Do you find this relationship at all emasculating?” I joke to Natalie’s husband.

“I don’t. Not at all. No,” he replies.

“We’ve always given each other space to be ourselves.”

But that’s not always a guarantee of safety.

If it is dangerous to be an empowered woman in the world, then it’s dangerous, too, for the men who love them.

Lyla June Johnston is an author and activist of Diné and European heritage. Her inquiry into her disowned European heritage led to a realization: The millions of women burned alive, drowned alive, dismembered alive, beaten, raped and otherwise tortured as so-called, “witches,” were not witches at all. They were the medicine people of old Europe. Her lens, as a contemporary indigenous woman, and as a survivor of sexual violence, helped her identify that those were the women who understood the herbal medicines, the ones who prayed with stones, the ones who passed on sacred chants. And the all-out warfare of the witch burnings didn’t just harm the women. It had a profound effect on the men who loved them, their husbands, sons, brothers. She recognizes the echo of this in the story of her own time, of her own people. “Nothing makes a man go mad like watching the women of his family get burned alive. If the men respond to this hatred with hatred, the hatred is passed on. And who can blame them? While peace and love are the correct response to hatred, it is not an easy response by any means.”

How many men have kept their women down, tried to keep them at home, have become the handcuffs that the women fought against because they were answering to their own unarticulated primal instinct to keep them safe?

Natalie Rousseau speculates, “I am sure historically you had lots of husbands telling their wives to tone it down, not because they didn’t respect their power, but because they were genuinely afraid. I’d apply that to any women described as uppity — getting involved politically, or getting involved in local stuff that’s happening, fighting for the environment: Stop getting noticed so much. This could be dangerous.”

Some dangers are too great to be able to protect each other from. And so we turn the fight on each other — little domestic power-trips that distract us from the fact that we’ve relinquished all our power any way to the Great Machine.

* * *

My tentative inquiries into witchcraft, becoming fluent in my own moods and emotions, and paying attention to the seasons, barely prepared me for the abrupt slow-the-fuck-down order that came when COVID-19 landed in British Columbia, in my village, as school broke for spring break. The emergency handbrake was pulled. Everything came to a squealing stop — all my plans, canceled; all the stores, closing; the whole damn world, under house arrest and in a panic. The whiplash from the stunning speed of that shift has left my whole being hypersensitive to any sudden movement, to being jerked around. But the first things I have staked my trust in, in that space of uncertainty, were Natalie’s teachings: First, trust your body. Pause. Listen.

In self-imposed isolation with my husband and just-turned-7-year-old, I dance with anxiety and curiosity and disconnection and too-much-information. The well-trodden pathways we have all been racing along, flexing our power and exercising our entitlements as consumers, are suddenly bordered up with emergency tape. This invitation that Natalie has been dripping out, month after month, takes root. There is far more potency available to us, than shopping, driving, holidaying, consuming, endlessly moving around the planet.

There is potency in all the feelings that have been showing up at my door. Oh, good morning frustration. Ah grief, yes, I suppose you’d like a cup of tea. Hello there, existential terror, I wondered when you’d pop by. There is potency in sitting with my back against a huge cedar tree and listening, in slowing down so much that I can give my 7-year-old my full attention. There is potency even in my words, when I soothe him down from a tantrum by saying, “you know, this is a really hard time for everyone in the whole world right now because no one knows what’s going to happen and no one can play with their friends. I’m really proud of you.” And I can feel his body relax into this space of being acknowledged in his struggles and his efforts.

I don’t know if there are any medicinal properties in the tincture of St John’s Wort and valerian that I drop into water and hand my husband, to gentle his nervous system. Or in the jar of immune-boosting oxymel, that I brewed up with grated ginger and turmeric and orange peel, and shake every day. But even if it’s a placebo, there’s a relief for me in feeling I can do something, can offer my people some kind of healing intention in a little glass, that I can acknowledge that this is hard for my husband too, and that acknowledgment isn’t a concession that takes away from my own sense of struggle.

For decades, we’ve bought into the illusion that our power is as consumers. Now that stores are closing and the shelves are emptying and we have to stay home and not immediately indulge every whim that arises, we all feel powerless. But that was never our truest source of power. There’s another source that we can all plug back into, our deep relationship and interbeing with the life force. Maybe, this is our threshold moment. Maybe, this is a chance to craft a few little spells, to speak the words of the world we long to inhabit — a place where the currency of kindness and wonder flow, where humans return to a deep memory of belonging among the plants and creatures, and to brew up a cup of tea, light a candle, and dream it into existence. Maybe it’s an invitation to say, “I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to, I will try and be more careful,” and to build a little altar, even if you feel kind of cray cray doing it. Let your nervous system settle as you invent some small ritual, (just ask your inner 5-year-old for guidance, she probably remembers exactly what to do), and make a gesture of repair.

“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have on my Apocalypse team,” I tell my husband, the night the global virus countertops 400,000. He’s been chopping wood, auditing the pantry, getting our kid across the finish line of the LEGO project that has absorbed him for four days. My husband was a farm kid. He’s always been practical, my polar opposite. Even when we have battled each other, (am I giving up too much of my power to him? If I acknowledge his pain and his needs, will that cancel mine out?) I’ve always known he would do anything to keep me safe. “Not that I can request an upgrade now,” I joke. “But I bet you’re glad to be stuck with me. One always wants a daydreamer at your side in a pinch.”

“Oh yeah,” he spoofs me: “’ The stock market is collapsing, let me just go check my Tarot cards.’”

We laugh. And hold each other. We can’t buy our way out of this. None of us. Our entire species, our global community, is being vividly reminded that we are all in this together, inextricably connected, epidemiologically entwined, in our vulnerability and our sweet potential. We didn’t need Amazon and airlines and online shopping to know what the witches have been telling us all this time. All the power we need is right here — between us, around us, within us. We just have to remember it.

* * *

Lisa Richarson

is a senior contributor to Coast Mountain Culture magazine and a columnist for Pique newsmagazine and edits the hyperlocal websites,

TheWellnessAlmanac.com

and

TracedElements.com.

She’s deep into a decade-long mission to slow the fuck down, but still optimize life for happiness and productivity. Born and raised in Australia, she has lived as a guest on the unceded territory of the Líl̓wat Nation since a ski vacation went rogue 20-odd years ago.

Editor: Carolyn Wells

Posted by

Lisa Richardson

on

April 8, 2020

https://longreads.com/2020/04/08/how-to-tell-your-husband-youre-a-witch/

[nerdybirdy6602]

Prompt S: Sacrifice

I’m back with another fic for the @dimension20alphabet event! This is a glimpse into Lapin’s mind while he was in Comida! Major Spoilers for ACOC episode 6!

Chancellor Lapin Cadbury felt that his days were numbered the moment they arrived in Comida. He would never claim to be able to see the future the same way the great Archmage Lazuli had been able to; the comparison would only sully her good name. Still, call it foresight, intuition, or merely common sense after the events on the Sucrosi Road, Lapin knew.

Since forging his pact with the Sugar Plum Fairy, he had been told to protect the Rocks family at all costs, his life included amongst the collateral damage. She told him that their survival was vital, and he didn’t dare question why. He didn’t necessarily disagree with her, as much as he had a distaste for their relationship. Candia was one of the few remaining kingdoms in Calorum that respected the old traditions. Should anyone but the current royal family rule, particularly someone from the Church, the last arcane strongholds could be lost forever.

When Belizabeth Brassica declared the entire family had no claim to the throne, he could practically smell the sickly sweet presence of the Sugar Plum Fairy. He could practically hear her inescapable whispers, commanding him to get the royal family to safety. The warmth of Candian magic swirled within him, but it did nothing to combat the chill of dread coursing through him.

This is the day I die, he thought weakly. I suppose I’ve lived a long life.

But was it a good one; a fulfilled one?

He cast as many spells as he could to be helpful. There were no longer any pretenses that he was a man of the faith as the purple and pink tendrils of sugary magic filled the cathedral. Looking back, he would always take pleasure in the shadows of betrayal in Belizabeth’s eyes when she realized. Fooling that wicked woman was an honor in and of itself.

When he lay half-conscious on the floor of the cathedral with the quiet squeals of Peppermint Preston as his only solace, he mentally groaned at the indignity of it all. His powers had failed him, and now he was left to pray for a swift and merciful death at the hands of some carrot paladin. He felt pitiful up until he realized the divine connection between these people and their Bulb was… meaningless. At least the Sugar Plum Fairy was a being with thoughts and emotions. The Bulb was nothing but light and warmth. It was welcoming by nature, but there was no judgment in its golden glow. So, when he finally croaked out, “The Bulb cares for no one,” it was the truth, but he couldn’t help but grin at these poor bastards who blamed their nasty prejudices on a ball of light.

In a last painful effort, he curled his bloodied paw around Liam’s animal friend, who had done nothing except try to help and clearly didn’t deserve this fate. Keradin raised his mace, and that was the last thing he saw of this world.

The stench of sugar plum dragged him into the dark, whispering the praises of his sacrifice.

[pippki-writes]

An Ill-Fitting Name: Snippet 4

NOTES:

Snippet 1

Snippets 2 & 3

Features lyrics from Danny Schmidt’s “This Too Shall Pass”

Faoust belongs to @thebiggestnerd - she writes him, the healer (whose contribution I summarized in this snippet, I don’t think she comes up again much for our murderboy here so I didn’t go too in depth with her) - everyone else is mine.

Longer post, 8,066 words folks! Buckle up.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The name is like an ill-fitting coat, but it’s either wear it, or go naked in the cold, metaphorically speaking. He knows Faoust will kill him, but he’s not dead yet.

The officer sitting outside the room tilts her chair back on its legs, in one ear her radio turned low and largely ignored, holding her phone out playing music and keeping her other ear tilted to the room and its occupant for signs of life. He listens to the music coming from her phone:

We think too big

We think our self is one whole thing

And we claim that this collection

Has a name and is a being

But deep inside

When every cell divides

Well, it sets upon the rule that states

Self-interest is divine

He scrapes out an involuntary cough, and the officer lets her chair fall forward as she twists to check on him.

She tries to interrogate him, but he can’t talk, and only whispers “no.” He writes on her notepad, “I’m expecting a visitor,” and refuses to communicate further. His intuition is that Faoust will come here for him eventually, though he doesn’t know how long Faoust will let him live. Maybe Faoust won’t come while he’s in the hospital. But hovering over the edge of the pain, death feels certain and he knows where it will come from.

Finally, a visitor arrives. He hears the footsteps approaching, certainly heavier than any of the nurses that have tended to him, and the sound of a respectful shuffling in place, acknowledging the officer guarding his hospital room.

A familiar voice speaks. “Hey. I’m here to see my friend Asmodai, officer…?”

He can hear the sound of the officer crossing her arms, but she neither gets up nor offers her name. “Don’t suppose you might be able to tell me what the hell happened to him and how he ended up here?”

“Nah, wish I could. Is he ok?”

“He’s not in great shape. I’m not a doctor but he’s bad off. And not the kind of bad off that happens accidentally.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Almost as crazy as whoever did this. You don’t have any ideas?”

“Nah. I’m not really an ideas guy. Just a guy who worries about my friends. Can I go see him or...?”

The officer gives a defeated little grunt. “Yeah, sure. Go ahead. We can talk later.”

Dorien walks into the room as though he belongs there. Machines. IVs. In the middle of the room, bed propped up, staring at him, there’s that bastard Asmodai. Dorien takes a moment to breathe, staring back, looking angry. Dorien reminds himself why he is here. Not to kill him. Not to bring retribution. Just information to help Faoust. He clenches and unclenches his hands.

It takes Dorien a moment to realize what Asmodai is doing. The slight, strange sound, chest heaving—he is, very quietly, laughing.

He hasn’t come to terms with how to refer to himself—he is no more Isaiah than he was Asmodai, but he supposes, out of respect for the wish of a self who once knew what it wanted, he will call himself Isaiah until it fits. Or until he’s dead.

Isaiah laughs until the sound breaks into a cough. For starters, this was not the visitor he was expecting. And he can see why he would have been drawn to Dorien. Tall, dark-haired, handsome, and vulnerable. So many of his favorite things. The wizard Asmodai, before he stole his name, had been much the same.

Dorien keeps himself in check, and comes closer to the bedside. He doesn’t want the officer to hear him.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Dorien growls quietly.

Isaiah frowns. Talking will be an effort. He can’t even breathe too deeply, thanks to Dorien’s best attempts to slowly crush his ribs the other night after what he tried to do to Faoust. This is merely a fact—he doesn’t feel particular malice over it. He tries to choose his words carefully, so as not to waste them. There’s no volume, only whispering, but even the whispers are so resolute, so final. The playfulness of Asmodai is gone.

“Too much...to explain. What ...do you want...to know?”

Dorien folds his arms, lest he be tempted to do anything. “C’mon, what do you think I’d be here wanting to know. The magic-blocking cuffs. How do we take them off? Where’s the key?”

Isaiah shakes his head. “Didn’t get...a key. Wouldn’t...have wanted it.”

Dorien glares down at the bastard who nearly succeeded at killing the love of his life, and proceeds to try to get information out of him while texting Faoust. The conversation is slow going. The answers Dorien gets are halting and unsatisfying.

Faoust texts Dorien: "I want to know what he thinks should happen next."

Dorien looks down at Asmodai. “So what do you think should happen next?”

Isaiah sighs, unfazed. “Talking...not exactly....easy. Paper? Pen? Your phone?”

Dorien looks around for paper. He’s dumb, but not dumb enough to hand over his phone. He finds a notepad and a cheap pen in the desk drawer, and throws them on Asmodai’s lap.

Isaiah scribbles, handwriting messy and difficult on the flimsy pad, “He kills me for what” a scribble then, crossing out an “As,” and the writing resumes, “I’ve done. Why wouldn’t he? It’s inevitable.”

Dorien tears the paper off the notepad and holds it up, taking a picture to send to Faoust. “You’ve really fucked up, Asmodai.”

Isaiah’s mouth twitches a little at the name.

Above the top of the note, in the picture, Faoust can see Asmodai staring at the camera. There is no fear, nothing pathetic in the way he looks. Resolute. Certain. Final.

Faoust frowns. He had hoped for a bit more fight. But this is sort of like putting down a rabid dog at this point. It's not enjoyable for anyone involved.

Faoust: "tell him I'm disappointed that it came to this"

Faoust: "tell him I'll be there soon. As soon as my magic is back"

Dorien reads his phone, and before he can speak another note is being waved at him that reads “tell him come talk to me himself. This is fucking ridiculous.” Dorien sighs and snatches the note, snapping a picture for Faoust. There is a touch of defiance in Isaiah’s eye.

Faoust's lip curls in irritation and a tiny bit of embarrassment. Fine.

Faoust makes his way to the hospital, to the third floor, to the charge nurse.

“Looking for my friend,” says Faoust, “A John Doe?”

The charge nurse points with a pen. “The room with the officer. There’s already a visitor and technically I shouldn’t let too many people visit at once, but you know what? The world is hell. This hospital is hell. Go nuts.”

“Amen,” Faoust replies, heading over to the officer. “Hi, I'm here for my friend. I guess I have to answer questions first?”

The officer squints up at him suspiciously. “Damn, did the city call a prettyboy convention and I missed the memo?” She lets the chair rest back on all four legs. “I dunno, what do you know about what happened to your friend?”

“Not much. We were out partying, I know pandemic and all, but spare me the lecture. I told him goodbye and to call me when he got home but he never did.” Faoust pauses. “I heard he's bad. Maybe a hit and run?”

“Sure. Sure. Right.” The officer eyes him for a moment. “You’re a better liar than your friend. Go on in.”

“Liar? I- ugh. Fine.” He gives up on the officer and goes in the room.

“Alright you piece of shit. I'm here. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Isaiah looks at Faoust appreciatively. Yeah, he can see why he did all that shit. He sighs, wishing he could just fucking talk, and settles for hurriedly writing on the notepad.

Dorien mutters softly to Faoust. “He can’t talk..apparently.”

Faoust chuckles a little. “I should expect so.”

Isaiah rips off the note and holds it out. It begins with “A” scratched out and then “I resented the power you had over me. Wanted you to suffer. Wanted to kill you, and Dorien, and take your name, take your power. And didn’t want to kill you. Wanted to fuck and kill with you. Poorer judgment won out. Tried to make you suffer.” He sighs, frustrated at the time it takes to write, already writing on a new note.

Faoust reads the note and sighs. It was just as he thought.

“I wanted to just keep it fun and casual.” Faoust grits out through his teeth, “Why did you have to complicate things?”

Isaiah tosses Faoust a finished note: “No point in apologies. Won’t change what was done. No actions to right it” and starts writing a response to the question, tapping the pen on his chin, thinking.

“Wasn’t as fun fucking and killing without you. Didn’t like that.”

“That's called friendship, you absolute dolt.”

Isaiah pauses, and writes “Asmodai didn’t do well with having friends.”

Faoust runs his hands through his hair in exasperation. “Wait-Asmodai? Third person? Who the fuck are we talking to then?”

Isaiah makes a face. It’s difficult to explain. He writes. “I am. Was. Asmodai. For too long I think.”

He pauses, rolls his eye. He doesn’t feel like Isaiah either.

“I did what he did. But don’t feel what he felt, anymore. Memories, yes. Feeling? No.”

Faoust pauses. “So is..is Asmodai gone?”

“Depends on what you mean. The me that felt what he—I felt?”

Isaiah makes a quiet frustrated noise and slams the pen down. He is so tired of writing. He jots another note, mindful of trying to do magic around either of them. “Can I try magic on my voice? You mind?”

Faoust shrugs. “Go for it.”

Isaiah holds his right hand around his throat, eye closed. Healing has never been his strong suit, but he knows enough to get by. He just needs to be able to talk. His hand glows faintly.

When he speaks, his voice is rough, not much volume to it but it’s more than a whisper.

“If I don’t feel the things I felt when I called myself Asmodai, am I Asmodai?”

Faoust thinks. This complicates matters. “I'll be frank. If I were to leave you be, what would you do? Don't lie to me.”

“I would leave you alone.” Isaiah shrugs. “The things I ...Asmodai...I felt, I know them. Factually. I don’t feel them anymore.” He looks at Faoust sharply. “But I am responsible for what I did.”

Faoust thinks for a moment. “This is complicated. I'll need some time with this. What do you think you'll do when you're out of the hospital?”

“What do you mean, when I’m out of the hospital? You’re going to kill me. No further planning needed.”

“Well, I was thinking about waiting when you got out of the hospital regardless.”

Isaiah sighs. “Wish I’d known that sooner. Might’ve kept this magical existential crisis at bay.” He shakes his head. “No. Probably not. Asmodai—I. Fucked up too much. There was no way he...I...would win. It’s certain. You will kill me.”  He shakes his head again.

“Look. I don't want to kill you. Asmodai. At all. At this point it's about putting down an animal. That's all. And now there's this whole thing that you're not even who I knew anymore? This complicates things. Shit, if I were to kill you, it wouldn't even feel right.”

Isaiah makes a frustrated noise. “Fuck. The only reason I’m like this is because you’re going to kill me.”

“Do you want me to kill you?”

Isaiah dodges the question. “Back when I started killing to take power and names, I bound my own name away, far beyond my memory, and it would only come back if I was certain I was going to die. So I could die not as whatever fucking asshole whose name I stole. But as myself. Or at least. In the name I was born with, right?

“I was Asmodai. I was happy being Asmodai. But now?

“I’m no more Asmodai than I am this damn name my shit mother gave me.”

Faoust thinks. “Well, look. Fine. I'll kill you. Put you down. But I have to wait. I can't do anything until I have my magic back.”

Isaiah twists his lips a little. “Hm. Can’t help there. Told your boy here, I don’t have a key for the cuffs.”

This whole time, Dorien has just been watching, arms crossed and not believing this bullshit.

“Yeah,” Faoust says, “I heard. I've just got to wait. So you've got to wait.”

Isaiah sighs again. “Isaiah. Isaiah James. My name.” He shrugs. “Me. Not me.”

Isaiah twists his lips briefly in disgust at the taste of his own name on his tongue. “If you’re going to kill me, you ought to have my name.”

Faoust nods and rubs his face. “Look, I'll put you down. I will. But it's going to take like at least a week for me to get my magic back.”

Isaiah gives another shrug. “You know where to find me. I know what I’ve done. It’s only right.”

“Alright. You're not going anywhere?”

Isaiah gives him a flat look. “Where and how the hell would I manage to do that?”

“I mean, you've got magic. I don't. You could pull out some magic to take yourself somewhere.”

Isaiah rubs his fingers together on his right hand, little sparks arcing between them as he stares vacantly at his hand. “Where would I go? For what purpose? I know my fate.”

Faoust nods, satisfied. “Alright. Well then, we'll be on our way. You've got my number.”

Isaiah nods, dismissing the sparks. “I’ll be waiting.”

Isaiah wonders if it’s worth healing himself--physically, at any rate. He closes his eye and takes stock of all his pain. So many choices. And what else is he supposed to do with his time? The burns, he thinks, he will work on those. He hovers his right hand over his burned forearm, wrapped loosely in the day’s fresh gauze, and slowly works a healing spell, distracted by memories of the fight. Remembering the moment it all turned on him, when help came for Faoust while he had no one. He shakes his head, his thoughts wandering around. So many emotions that ruled him that he’s no longer bound by. Though perhaps he should be. He ought to be more angry. But he is mostly hollowed out. He does not even notice when his thoughts slip over the witch and his magic doesn’t so much as flicker, the healing steadily and slowly knitting in his skin.

Those were Asmodai’s problems.

The worst part is the waiting. Or perhaps the worst part, right now, is the burns on his arm—his healing magic is slow, the process tedious, and his head is empty of any warming memory to draw upon to make the healing go faster. There are memories, so many memories, but as he turns his mind to each of them in turn he feels nothing he can pull from. Perhaps it would have been better not to restore the nerve endings that had been burnt away—as they return, so too returns the opportunity for fresh pain to scream through his senses. And the drugs have trouble working their wonders as his magic interferes with the natural order of his body. Too late now, he’s already started this project. When the nurses aren’t looking in on him, he hovers his hand over the burned arm and continues the laborious process of working healing magic. Healing was never his forte. It still isn’t. Good to know, though it still seems like all he knows is a catalogue of things he was, and now isn’t.

Though perhaps, Isaiah thinks, it’s pointless to dwell on. Does he need that badly to know who he is now, if he’s only going to die? Not that he wants to die. Though, he can tell, Asmodai didn’t want to die in a particularly crazed and desperate way that Isaiah no longer feels. He doesn’t want to die, but then, he doesn’t feel a clear sense that he wants much of anything right now. From the moment the spell he placed upon himself fell away, he has simply accepted the fact of his death. Imminent. Inevitable. Deserved.

Asmodai was awful—not in a way that Isaiah feels, merely as a summary of fact considering the things that he’d done. The drives that motivated him. But to be fair, Isaiah had not been a good person either. No. He had been awful too. Killed people. Tortured them. Enjoyed it. Sought power beyond his measure, and took it.

Killed the dark wizard who taught him everything.

Sealed himself away.

What had he thought would happen, if this spell had ever had cause to come undone? He can’t remember, but he is pretty sure he would not have guessed it would leave him like this. So...uncertain.

Regret implies a level of sadness Isaiah doesn’t feel. He...wishes he had been someone different though. He wishes he had acted differently. Had recognized his limits. Recognized battles he wouldn’t win, and had the sense not to fight them.

The nurse surely notices when Isaiah’s arm does not look as bad off today as it did yesterday, putting fresh gauze on, but says nothing. Discreetly checks the patient chart—yes, third degree burns. It definitely said the patient had third degree burns. But you don’t last long in this town by asking inconvenient questions. Since the patient is conscious now, staring out the window, the nurse offers him his phone from his belongings and plugs it in for him. There’s a crack across the screen, but the phone works.

Isaiah has been working on healing his arm. It is such a slow, deliberate process. He isn’t sure why he’s doing it, but now that he’s started he’s committed to continuing. After all, what else has he got to do? His arm is still a mess of burnt tissue and pain, fresh nerve endings and the testament to his limitations.

Later, he looks through his phone, deleting pictures that bring him no particular joy to look at. Eventually he texts Faoust, “Have you decided how you’ll do it?” and nothing else.

Faoust: “something quick. Could stab you right in the heart.”

The heart had been Asmodai’s favorite, ripped from his victims—sometimes raw, other times he’d toast them before devouring them whole.

Isaiah: “poetic. fitting.”

Faoust: "look man. I really don't want to do this. You could go about your business. I don't care"

Isaiah sighs, and leaves the message on read for a few minutes. He thinks.

Isaiah: “I did wrong by you. I accept responsibility for it.”

Faoust: "and I'm telling you it's fine."

Isaiah waits again before responding.

Isaiah: “now I’m the one that needs to think on that”

Faoust: "Asmodai tried to kill me. He failed. You're here now. Not the same as Asmodai. It's not the same kill for me. Look, I beat the shit out of you. That should cover it. Do you really want to die?"

Isaiah sighs to himself.

Isaiah: “no, I don’t”

Faoust: "then I'm giving you your fucking out. Take it."

Isaiah pauses. Again, Faoust giving him the opportunity not to die, after everything he...Asmodai...he did. After so many times he honestly deserved to die. He was a warped and twisted thing, not right, and surely not to be trusted. But fuck. He didn’t really want to die.

Isaiah: “...ok.”

Isaiah: “fine”

Faoust: "want me to call a healer for you?"

Isaiah: “...seriously?”

Faoust: "otherwise you're going to be stuck at the hospital forever. No offense but I want you out of here."

Isaiah: “sure, sure. If I’m healing myself it’ll take forever”

Faoust: "you can't kill her"

Isaiah: “of course”

Isaiah thinks about the warning, which is fair, considering his history. He doesn’t even feel like killing anyone right now. Which is strange to him. He wonders to himself as he waits if this is the right thing to do, not insisting Faoust kill him. If he’s just avoiding fate and what he deserves. But when Faoust arrives in his hospital room with a healer, and she uses magic to transport the three of them out of his hospital room, he just watches quietly, making no protest. The empty alley she takes them to is cold, and Isaiah’s broken body falls to the ground painfully without a bed beneath him anymore.

He sucks it up, grits his teeth, and withstands the pain and the cold. Not out of any sense of pride, but because he feels he deserves it. He lists out for the healer the procedures the doctors had done, along with his own meager attempts at healing, and in turn, she tells him what she’ll be able to do. The metal they used to set his bones will always bring him some pain and discomfort, and there’s nothing she can do for his eye, the curse--

“The eye,” says Isaiah, touching his cheek lightly, “has been there a long time now. It’s fine.”

The magic of healing is painful, and there is a lot of it to be done. Isaiah doesn’t scream, not the way he did when Faoust beat him in the first place. He endures, and tries to focus on the fact that he deserves this pain. This doesn’t stop a few strangled screams and growls from bubbling up. Faoust watches impassively, satisfied.

When it’s finished, Isaiah breathes heavily for a moment, feeling every nerve on fire, taking stock of how he feels. He sits up, slowly, impressed and in awe. He gives thanks to the healer, to Faoust, and stands up shakily on knees that are no longer shattered. He summons up the illusion of clothes over his hospital gown, with no idea where he ought to go, what he ought to do. When Faoust tells him to get the fuck out of here, he readily agrees. Not the first town he’s been kicked out of. Always violent. Always deserved.

He could teleport himself, but where the hell would he go? There’s nowhere he belongs. There’s a dull ache in his bones, and he picks a cardinal direction and starts walking toward it. The speed doesn’t matter. Isaiah doesn’t strictly need actual clothes. He could use magic to keep himself warm. But the first window shop he passes, he swaps his hospital gown for the outfit on display, and keeps walking. He walks until he’s passed by a sign indicating leaving/entering, the liminal space of one town bleeding into another, goes to the first clean motel he can find, uses his magic to procure a room, and passes out after having walked for hours.

At the hospital, a call is placed to 911. A patient is missing.

The officer assigned to take the report is the same one who had been guarding the room when Dorien and Faoust visited. With the most deadpan expression, she questions the charge nurse on duty, intoning dully, “wow, just fucking vanished, huh?”

She files a missing persons report for “Asmodai / Isaiah James,” because in spite of trying not to hear things she doesn’t want to have to question, she hears them anyway. She makes note of possible contacts / persons of interest, “Dorien” and “Faoust,” and submits her report to see if she can get away with not following up on anything further.

She doesn’t even bother running any checks on any of the names. She doesn’t find anything out about a decades-old missing persons report for a runaway boy of the name Isaiah James out of Ohio. If anyone bothered to fingerprint the victim at all to try to ID him while he was unconscious, the prints have been lost.

After all, a lot of people go missing in this town.

It’s just one more.

Her supervisor literally flips a coin to decide if such absolute bullshit shoddy work will be accepted. Tails. That’s a nope. He rejects the report, and sends her a CAD message: “hit the streets and try again sweetie.”

Officer Dannic “Dani” Voros swears, loudly, in her patrol car in the hospital parking lot, and slams her computer shut. Growls, and opens it again to search for any information she can find about Dorien and Faoust. If she can find anything, she’ll talk to them at least.

Here’s what she finds: no drivers licenses. No arrest records. No voter records. Nothing in any database she has access to. No hospital records, which no, her friend in the hospital records should NOT have looked up for her probably but dammit, this was important. Well, not important to her, but it’s what she was supposed to be doing and she was getting very annoyed with the lack of any hints of paper trail for those two.

She starts angrily and haphazardly googling search terms, and some combination of tall, mysterious, handsome, and Dorien does bring back a tabloid article about the enigmatic artist, which brings up several printed interviews and connections to a particular pre-teen punk rock band apparently bankrolled by Mr. Dorien Godforbidhehavealastname, and the names of its musicians. Actual names. First and last names, unlike those recordless bastards Dorien and Faoust. She searches the names. Property tax records. Bingo. A lead. And an address. She puts the patrol car in drive and heads out. One conversation largely conducted through the few-inch gap of a chained door later, Officer Voros has both probably offended another citizen with an inappropriate joke, and obtained an address for the two handsome strangers that called on her missing person.

The cold rain makes all this work extra annoying. She debates putting off the follow up until more clement weather. Or just never. Reluctantly she puts the patrol car in drive and heads to the address.

She looks at the apartment building as she pulls up. No, correction. She looks at the giant skeleton covered in Valentine’s decorations outside the apartment building as she pulls up. The apartment building itself is an afterthought. As she arrives, the weather around the apartment changes. Suddenly it is clear and 59 degrees.

Officer Voros just stares at the atmosphere and blinks at it like it has personally offended her. She twists in her seat to look back down the street at the weather there, then stares at the apartment again, and sinks back in her seat for a moment, closing her eyes, and thinks to herself, “thiiiiiiis. iiiiiis. some buuuuuuuullshiiiiiiiiit.”

She sighs a very angry sigh, gets out of the patrol car, and goes up to the appropriate door. She raps on the door with her very best authoritative knock.

Faoust opens the door and clocks the cop. “Hm.”

Officer Voros puts her hands on her hips and brightens comically. “And they said I’d never find the secret prettyboy convention! Those bastards once again were wrong.” She smiles, and doesn’t offer her name. “Evening citizen. I’m hoping you might help me with this absolute crazy missing persons case I’ve been cursed with.”

“Oh yeah? Who?”

“Why, your dear friend or whatever bullshit you said at the time. Asmodai? Isaiah? You know, the guy SOMEBODY in this cursed plane of existence beat all to hell and put in the hospital.”

“Wait, wait, wait. How did he go missing? He couldn't stand, let alone walk? How did you lose him?”

“Yeah! That’s the crazy part, he just. Fucking. Vanished. Shattered kneecaps, pelvis, and all. Gone. Between you and me, that’s on the hospital. We weren’t watching him anymore at that point, but now it IS my problem to, you know. Figure out what the fuck happened and make sure there’s not a homicide investigation that should be happening here.”

Faoust shakes his head in disbelief as he tries to come up with a plan. “I could give you his motel room and location if you want? I mean, I haven't heard from him since I went to go see him?”

“Sure, sure. And it’s not like it’s illegal for him to leave the hospital. If he’s fine, I just need to lay eyes on him. It just seems real fucking suspiciously inconceivable how he’d have managed that in the state he was in, ya know?”

“Yeah, no, for sure. Let me go get some paper.”

Faoust leaves her at the front door and digs around in drawers looking for paper and pen. She stands at the front door, looking inside, pondering Faoust the whole while. He hands her a note with the address of the motel Asmodai had been staying at.

“Let me know if you find anything, yeah?”

Officer Voros takes the paper. “Of course.” She takes a blank card out of her pocket, a generic business card for the police department that doesn’t have her name on it. She writes down a phone number and offers the card to Faoust. “You think of anything else helpful, call or text me. Or if your prettyboy friend Dorien knows anything either.”

“Dorien doesn't know anything. At all. Not a braincell up there. But I'll keep it in mind.” Faoust takes the card and pockets it.

“Thanks. Stay safe citizen.” She heads down the steps and back to her patrol car, looking at the address. She knows the motel.

Officer Voros looks back toward Faoust from her patrol car for a long minute before she pulls out. She doesn’t have any sort of proof necessarily, just a feeling that Faoust was lying quite smoothly out of every side of his head right to her face. She types up a field contact for alias Faoust along with the address before she leaves.

Asmodai’s motel room ends up being a dead end. There’s nothing obviously off about the room, but she gets a weird vibe. Still a suitcase here. Some knives. Nothing much else. She does not discover that the room is under a stolen credit card in another name. She doesn’t look up any other purchases that stolen card might have made to connect it to an abandoned rental car that was impounded on Faoust’s street. She types up her report and deletes “went on a wild fucking goose chase because my corporal is a dickhead” from the report.

Officer Voros swears loudly, because she realizes she didn’t ask Faoust if the mysteriously vanished bastard had. a fucking. cell phone number. She groans. She decides she’ll pretend to have thought of that tomorrow, because she doesn’t want to follow up now.

The weak and cloudy light of morning is scattered further by the cheap, hazy curtains pulled loosely across the window. Isaiah wakes up, still dressed in his stolen clothes where he passed out on top of the covers. There it is—a dull ache in his bones, a twinge in his hips and knees as he pushes himself up to sit. He looks down at his palms, and they are smooth and untroubled, marked by nothing but the simple creases of where his hand folds. He flexes his left hand. The countless scars that had made a tangled nest there in his palm, the countless times he’d cut and called upon blood magic and done only a just-good-enough job of closing the wounds, when he remembered to heal himself at all, they’re all gone.

Isaiah doesn’t even have a knife, he realizes. His...Asmodai’s favored knives were either in the clothes left in the hospital, in the rental car, or in the motel room he has no intention of returning to. But it feels like he should have a knife. He has no money, but money isn’t too necessary when you’re flush with magic and short on moral qualms against stealing.

He heads out for the day to get a knife, zipping up his stolen coat. Something simple. New. He goes to the nearest outdoors store and sees a nice Benchmade folding knife with a black-coated blade and white handle and feels drawn to it. With an effortless bit of magic, the knife disappears from the case and appears in his pocket as he leaves the parking lot.

Isaiah flips the knife open experimentally, admires it, turning his wrist this way and that to see the sides of the blade. He unlocks the blade and closes it again, clipping the knife in his pocket. He doesn’t have a plan for it, but it felt appropriate in his hand.

Isaiah has been somewhat skirting around thinking about this fact, but taking the knife in his hand he has to confront it. He’s not someone who can go work a 9 to 5 job, take a little paycheck home, find someone sweet to love him and love in turn. Whatever he does next isn’t going to be some contented kind of life. That wasn’t the lot he was born to.

What he is good at...all he has ever been good at, is violence.

He walks slowly back to the current motel. He takes the knife out of his pocket, opening and closing it as he goes, thinking to himself. Magic, and violence. Magic and violence. This is all he’s ever known. Even if he wanted to do something else, how could he, at this point? He’s not a good person. And surely nothing he is capable of can be used for good ends. He hasn’t killed anyone in so many days now, and strangest of all, doesn’t feel particularly compelled to. Not averse to it either. But the stirring in his blood that craved to see the icy glint of fear through tears before an untimely death doesn’t move him, for now.

Officer Voros follows up with Faoust the next night, gets a phone number for her missing person, and puts in a request for a ping before taking a nap in her patrol car. She’ll follow up further in daylight hours. Before ending her night shift, Officer Voros tries to call the phone number Faoust provided for the missing person. It’s almost 6am, of course he doesn’t answer. She leaves a voicemail indicating for him to call the communications center so they can speak.

The next day, Officer Voros, as soon as assembly is done, goes to her patrol car and puts herself on a follow up before any calls can be assigned to her. She tries calling the number again. Isaiah looks at his phone. A blocked number. He silences the phone without answering, because who would be calling him? He hasn’t bothered checking his voicemail either, since he didn’t recognize the number that called. He’ll check it eventually. He sits in his motel room, opening and closing his stolen knife.

Officer Voros checks the latitude and longitude of the ping. Another motel. It’s within a mile of what technically counts as her jurisdiction, so technically she CAN go investigate her own damn self, OR she can call her counterparts in the next town over to check for her. She debates which sounds like more work. With an agonized groan that can surely be heard two counties over, Officer Voros puts her patrol car in drive and heads for the motel.

Officer Voros checks with the front desk, but thanks to his use of magic there’s no one checked in by the names of Asmodai or Isaiah James. She pulls up the coordinates on her phone to get as close as possible to the ping, and starts knocking on doors fruitlessly, starting with the ground floor. She has an idea, and dials the number again, and faintly hears a ring from a couple doors down. A little excited in spite of herself, she hustles down to the door and knocks.

Asmodai would’ve checked through the peephole before opening the door, if he opened it at all. Isaiah does not care, and opens the door as he silences his phone again, looking up from the phone at the officer.

“There you are, you mysterious bastard! Alive and unmurdered, and my hatred of paperwork thanks you for that.”

Isaiah feels a slight needle of panic, if only because he has done a lot of things that would not put him on the good side of the police. His eye darts briefly to her neck and back to meet her eyes.

“Here I am. Alive. Unmurdered, as you say.”

Officer Voros looks him up and down, frowning. This is definitely the same guy, that’s not a common scar after all, but he’s clearly not just unmurdered, but very significantly undamaged. “Didn’t you have a hell of a lot of shattered bones?”

Isaiah shrugs. “Modern medicine is a miracle.”

Officer Voros just blinks at him. She doesn’t believe him for a moment. “And I don’t suppose you might be able to tell me how you managed to make your way so secretly out of the hospital that they felt compelled to report you as a missing person?”

“Sorry, no. Not sure what the miscommunication was there. Quite obviously, I left the hospital.”

“Quite. Obviously. Of course.”

Isaiah smiles wanly. “Am I in trouble?”

Officer Voros continues looking him over suspiciously. “I suppose not. You left your paperwork from the hospital.” She hands him a stack of paperwork and billing statements. “Somehow.”

Isaiah takes the papers. “Oh, thanks.”

“And the belongings you came in with. Are still at the hospital.”

“Oops.”

“And a bunch of shit I’m guessing belongs to you is all left at another cheap motel.”

“You think?”

“No,” Officer Voros snaps. “I try to avoid thinking whenever I can. But I do think some weird ass shit is involved here with you.”

Isaiah’s hand twitches slightly, and he presses his lips together. “Hm.”

“But shit being weird isn’t my problem. Not my jurisdiction. So I suppose I don’t give a fuck. Glad you’re not murdered. Take care. Call your friends, they’re pretending to be worried about you.” She heads back to her patrol car.

Isaiah slowly lets out a tensely held breath.

Officer Voros sits in the parking lot, wrapping up her report. She tries calling Faoust from her blocked number. He answers, not knowing any better.

“Solid citizen! Faoust right? Your favorite friend-finding officer here. Found your friend.”

“Oh my god! Where was he? Is he ok?”

“He’s better than ok, considering the state I last saw him in. Damn near miraculous recovery. He’s just outside of town, another motel not far off the highway.”

“Oh man, thanks so much for finding him. I'll have to go see him. Are you able to give me the address?”

“That depends, are you going there to murder him?”

“Why the hell would Igo there to murder him?”

“Aaaa I’m just fucking with you. I’ve got a nice neat solved missing persons case here and if you went and murdered him it would just be an assfuck of paperwork that I don’t want to have to deal with is all.”

“Fucked up joke, officer.”

“Yeah, file a complaint on me if you’d like. Oh, right, address,” she says, and gives him the address and room of the Quality Inn where Isaiah is staying.

“Thank you. Despite the fucked up joke, I'm glad you found him.”

“Just doing my sworn duty and all that. Stay safe citizen,” she says and hangs up.

Without fully realizing it, Officer Voros has solved the first missing persons case in the department in nearly a year.

Officer Voros always keeps a spare portable radio among her belongings. She managed to get it more or less off the record, so that when she inevitably loses track of her actual radio again, she can make do with the backup until the original eventually resurfaces, and not get all manner of shit from her corporal for losing her radio AGAIN. She doesn’t think hard on the fact that her radio is once again MIA. It will turn up in time.

In his motel room, Isaiah switches the radio on, and fiddles between channels.

Isaiah lays on the bed, one hand manipulating the knife—open, closed, open, closed, each motion with a satisfying little sound—the other hand resting on the radio on his chest, occasionally following the chatter of traffic to a side channel. An officer keys up, her voice annoyed and muttering over sounds of entitlement in the background—“6676 to 200, switch to 2”—and Isaiah flips the radio to channel 2, partly because he is curious and partly because it sounds like the officer from the other night.

The officer keys up, he’s quite sure it’s her, and a voice that sounds like it expects the world laid compliantly at its feet cuts through the backdrop of everything the officer says

6676: 200 you on?

—this is AMERICA, I have RIGHTS, I demand to speak to your SUPERVISOR, I—

200: go’on whatcha got

—what is your NAME, no WHAT is your NAME—

6676: *you can hear the eye roll in her voice* can you just come over here and deal with this.

There’s a final indignant “do you even KNOW” in the background before the supervisor cuts over the traffic to advise he’s en route. Isaiah’s thumb closes the knife again with a sense of finality. He doesn’t care about the officers, but the woman in the background had the sort of voice you’d love to cut right out of her throat.

Isaiah sits up, goes to put the radio aside but pulls it back in front of him again. He focuses on the radio, whatever traces of grit and grime and little skin cells from the officer still stick to the plasticky radio, and does a tracking spell. He switches the radio off, puts it on the bedside table, and grabs his jacket on the way out the door.

Isaiah returns to his motel room. Hands clean. Knife clean.

He did not appear with an ear-splitting bang, as the witch does. He knows ways to move through shadows and though it isn’t instantaneous, it’s a hell of a lot quieter. Isaiah remained in the shadows, waiting. There, yes, the officer from the other night, and there, that must be 200, the human embodiment of an industrial refrigerator crossed with a boulder, and there. Jabbing her finger, practically frothing at the mouth, hair crisply cut, every line in her body set in the conviction of her own righteousness and that she should get what she wants. Isaiah didn’t even try to listen to what she was saying. It didn’t matter. He waited.

When the officers left, the woman turned to her minivan to get in. Or, that was what she intended to do. But she found as she walked, it was like her body was being pushed and pulled, and the sound had left her voice, and she walked into the shadows across the parking lot.

Without saying a word, Isaiah came up quickly behind her and slit her throat, and before a drop could hit the concrete sent her body and all its rapidly spilling blood deep, deep into the earth below.

Magic cleaned the knife. Magic cleaned his hands. He slipped back into the shadows and hurried to get the hell back out of Faoust’s town.

Isaiah returned to his motel room, everything clean. Feeling a certain ...satisfaction? Correctness? A bit of lost unease dissolved away within him.

Of course, Isaiah reflects on how different this murder was. He flicks the knife, open and closed. When he thinks of himself as he was, he has gotten in the habit of thinking of himself as an entirely separate person now. Asmodai was. Asmodai would have. So on. Asmodai would have taken far more enjoyment from the killing. Asmodai would have tasted the blood on the knife. Asmodai would have savored the delicious fear in her eyes, for as long as possible. Asmodai would have had the possibility of someone to share the experience with, though he resented so much about that fact. Asmodai was an idiot.

Isaiah switches the radio back on, quietly, to have something to listen to, since that’s all he has.

When Officer Voros was handling the latest missing person case early this morning, part of her was perversely satisfied—maybe that bitch descended back to hell where she belonged—and that other part of her, the part made of intuitions that guessed too correctly, that had long ago tried to bring up things that had since gone ignored, the part that she did her best to keep buried, that part felt a sharp jolt of unease. She was, officially, the last person to have seen the missing person. There was a security camera on the other side of the parking lot, and the footage made no sense. The victim—victim? Why was she already thinking victim?—missing bitch, then, started walking to her car, and then turned, and walked off to the far side of the parking lot, into grainy shadow. It didn’t look like someone had called out to her, she just...decided to go on some random bitch walk. In the dark of early morning hours, Officer Voros walked around the spot she went off to, clicking on her flashlight, looking for clues. Nothing.

It seemed appropriate for Isaiah to return to murder on his own...it’s all he knows. He’s not suddenly a good person. He’s not full of remorse for everything he did. It’s all just facts. Things that happened that can’t be changed.

He listens to the radio again today, and thinks with a sort of mirthless chuckle how hypocritical it would be for him to kill some of the people he’s hearing about. “If I were cutting throats for that, have to start with myself,” he thinks, over and over and over. Asmodai craved victims, sought them out. Isaiah is content to see what serendipity will bring.

Isaiah struck out into town yesterday to find a charger for his stolen radio. Listening gives him something to do besides think. He could have just gotten a commercial police scanner, or used an app on his phone to listen in, but that didn’t have the same appeal. He listens carefully, mentally keeping track of the addresses and where the officers are, when it’s announced anyway. The officer from the other night he can find easily enough, but without addresses and nothing to trace them with, magically speaking, finding any of these other officers would be incredibly difficult. Well, to do in a timely fashion anyway.

So he listens, and waits, hoping to feel that same jolt of dead certainty, knowing a voice spoke that would be his to kill.

Isaiah knows. An officer keys up “put me out with an animal problem at” and gives an address, and just before the radio cuts out he hears a man in the background, derisive, say “I don’t understand, it’s just a stupid—“ before being cut off by the end of the transmission. That voice. He felt it, like a nail being slashed at high speed across a chalkboard, a string plucked so hard it snaps, THAT is a man he needs to kill. He is equal parts thrilled and yet feels the calm certainty slipping over him. His knife is ready. He knows where to go. He slips out into the cold rain.

Sliding through shadows. Waiting. The man goes inside, alone. Isaiah slips inside, without a word, the only sound made is his knife blade locking into place. The man finds his voice is gone. The man walks toward Isaiah, against his own will, and kneels before him, fear shining in his eyes. Isaiah looks down, cold, comes around from behind, threads his fingers in the man’s hair and pulls back, hard, exposing his neck. He draws the blade firm and fast across the neck, and like the woman before Isaiah sends the body hundreds of feet into the ground below before a drop of blood can hit the floor.

He looks at the blood on the knife, for a moment, imagines the taste on his tongue like a mouth full of pennies. It doesn’t appeal to him, not right now. Magic cleans the blade, cleans the bit of blood on his hands, cleans the scene of any trace evidence, and Isaiah slips away.

- NEXT SNIPPET -