I knew a long time ago that if I were going to do a backpiece, it would be a Hecate backpiece.  I had no idea how I wanted it to look.  As I mentioned on our latest episode, I found an artist who I thought would do something rad of her own accord, without a lot of design input from me – just elements.  So, on a weekend last August while I was steeped in the mythos of death, I told Mary Joy Scott how Hecate appears to me.  She listened and, as someone who is also familiar with my protectress, created a vision that we both could see.
I’ve spoken before about how not every tattoo on me (and I’ve lost count now how many) has some sort of deep meaning.  Sometimes I get tattoos because I like the design.  Sometimes I get something because it’s fun or silly.  Sometimes, however, they ARE meaningful.  I don’t have to explain why this one is perhaps the “one” tattoo that will end up defining everything I am.
I am not usually a person who is in a great deal of pain during the process of being tattooed, but after hour 4 and a half, even I knew I was really just a fucking mortal.  All this talk of sitting like a rock – which I can, and do – but after 4 or 5 hours, your body does stuff that you can’t control anymore.  What better metaphor could possibly tell the tale of my path with Hecate?
When I see her face, it is lava breaking through the dark earth.  When I hear her voice, it’s like a sweet but dirty gravel.  She doesn’t smile.  But she does command.  What she asks of most, however, is that I let go.  Just let the fuck go of whatever I think I can control.  I may be at the center of my own magic, but the only way I truly ever get there is to deeply, intrinsically understand that I am just plucking out swaths of ether.  That I am part of a wave, and while manipulation is one thing, true control is another.  I don’t control.  I just am.
At hour 6, I was waiting in great anticipation for the machine to go silent.  At 6 and a half, it did.  I said, holy shit, she really has my back now, in the most literal of senses.  Mary said, go make offerings.Hecate said:  Your blood is enough today.

Blessings –
Blackbird

Let’s be real, witchy mammas and pappas and caregivers, no one gets it. No one understands what you’re going through except someone who has been in the trenches themselves. I’m talking war-born camaraderie, the type of understanding that comes from equally powerful bouts of newborn induced sleep deprivation, I’m talking about how your brain has changed and your body has changed and everyone around you is going on like it’s business as usual but how can they possibly be doing that because nothing will ever be business as usual again because now you have one (or more!) tiny human that relies on you for everything.

And it’s glorious.

And terrifying.

And beautiful.

And terrifying.

No one understands how the most joyous time in your life is juxtaposed next to what could also be the scariest. Your heart has been taken from your body and placed into someone else and you are watching that little person carrying your heart walk around and interact with a world that you suddenly, painfully, realize is imperfect. The world is going to hurt them.

You have to stop it! You have to change the world or keep them away from it! Your child is amazing and beautiful and how dare the world think it can harm your child. But it will. And oh gods, what if you’re the one to do it? Your parents, even the most loving, didn’t always do the right thing, they hurt you, didn’t they? So inevitably you will hurt your child.

So then everything you have ignored or didn’t need to examine, all the ugly feelings you could just stamp down because it wasn’t relevant or whatever- they come back. Because motherhood, parenthood, pulls all of that to the surface.

Suddenly I am acutely aware that my daughters are hearing and internalizing how I talk about my body.

How my husband and I communicate.

How I express myself.

The way we behave as a family.

The manner in which I interact with the world in its entirety.

And oh my gods, how am I supposed to get this all right?

I won’t. I won’t get it all right.

It’s overwhelming.

This was supposed to be about self-care, so let’s circle back around.
No one understands what you’re going through except those of us who have also been in the trenches and let me tell you I am still there. So I get it.

For the last two years my entire focus has been on my children and for the last few months that neglect has caught up with me. My body has suddenly demanded the attention I have been withholding. So, from one warrior to another, take care of yourself.

It’s hard.

Lily’s Daily Acts of Self-Care and Self-Love

Morning Tea

I gave up coffee over the last few months after some deep reflection regarding if it was really good for me or if it was causing more problems and have recently switched to green tea. When I take my first sip of tea I drink slowly, I imagine the warmth of the tea is flowing through my whole body. I imagine the tea is an offering I’m making myself, the same way I would leave an offering for the spirits.

Calming Hands

When I feel myself growing anxious or becoming overwhelmed, I place one hand over my chest and one on my stomach. I breathe in deeply and then I exhale for just a little longer than I inhaled. I thank my body for taking care of me, for protecting me, because anxiety is a survival instinct, but I reassure myself that there is no danger, that I’m safe.

Make Art

I call them doodles because not much is expected of a doodle and that’s very freeing. I grab napkins or little strips of scrap paper and I just draw. I don’t think, oh this needs to be something special or important, instead I try to reframe the experience as the act of doing this is important or, conversely, I think, this is just a doodle and it doesn’t matter at all.

Take care, witchy mommas.

I jokingly refer to myself as possessing “benevolent narcissism.”  I try to use my powers for good and so can you!

These are some practices that have helped me to be more open about experiencing feelings of empathy, but they are great foundations for all sort of other witchy work.

Extending you awareness to objects, plants and animals

Fostering empathy with other humans can be ooky, so a stepping stone is testing out clairvoyance (-audience, -sentience, etc) with your crystals, magical tools, spice rack, or random shit on the ground while you wait for your train.

Try to see what impressions come to you: it may be a color, flavor, a temperature, or a kinesthetic sensation like floating up or sinking down.

Healing and energy medicine

I got Reiki attuned on a whim when it was offered for free at a workshop.  Full disclosure, I don‘t really think a person needs anyone else to impart healing powers or unlock one‘s energetic potential.  That being said, the lark of being told, “shazam, now you can reiki people!” (my paraphrasing, of course) and being put on the spot to try it out with partners was a fantastic ” ok, what the hell” push to try something I always told myself was not in my nature and did not come naturally to me.  It turns out that rather than feeling nothing or being squicked out, I enjoy healing and it seems to be pretty effective. Win win!

Nondual Meditation

The schools of tantra I study (including Kaula and Kashmiri Saivism) are academically categorized as “nondual.”  In more plain terms, this means that they believe that you and the divine are not two separate things, but actually one thing (nondual = not two).  Everything in the multiverse is the divine including you, your pets, nature, dirt, even that annoying guy at work who clicks his jaw. The illusion of egoistic consciousness is a game Shiva-Shakti plays to observe itself from different perspectives.

Anyway, the feeling of non-duality is obviously a pretty heavy antidote to a self-centered outlook.   I like a breathing technique that is simple to do, but will probably be very difficult to explain. First, one focuses on the breath inhaling IN cosmic radiance, absorbing it, then exhaling cleansed breath back OUT.  After some time, the flow will reverse: breathing OUT releases a flow of universal divinity and breathing IN ingests your mundane metabolizing of that energy. The shift in perspective is one of going from experiencing reality as one normally would– as one‘s own microcosm– to experiencing it as the macrocosm.  Like I said, not a thing that is easy to describe with any lucidity. I recommend Sally Kempton‘s work for meditation guidance.

-Scarlet