Painting the Light Part 2: Lessons from Watercolor

The hardest thing about watercolor is retraining one’s eyes to see differently. Highlights are created with the glowing white of untouched paper and to manage that, one must begin any picture not by painting that which the eye is naturally drawn to—the shine and light of the foreground—but rather by working from the deepest of the shadows outward into the light.

My Mother's Magician

So the big news around town is that the roof partially blew off of our high school during the windstorms this week. 60mph sustained and 77mph gusts. For several days. (Not entirely true…there were a few times when the wind dropped down to 54mph.) That kind of wind takes the siding and shingles off of homes as easily as normal wind whisks autumn leaves off of foliage. Every tree and bush in town is stripped bare and the mess of dry still semi-green debris got powdered into a fine dust that chokes anyone trying to breath in its vicinity.

 All of the commercial signs came down except one which was already down: that one was blown back up and installed on a post three parking lots away. Conga lines of Semi-trucks dancing sideways into the ditches along I-90 prompted the government to close the interstate for a few hours during the worst of it and the weather radios blared all day long trying to get local residents to take the wind warnings seriously. The day after was an eerie kind of silence that had even us long timers flinching nervously whenever a slight breeze started up.

That’s not why I haven’t been online lately—though it was interesting enough that I thought I ought to start with it—if anything, it’s why I should have been online: hours trapped in my little apartment without much else to do. But I’ll be honest: I’ve spent the last week sleeping and feeling bad for myself. In the latter stages of grief, anxiety has given way to depression…or maybe that’s just me looking up after the storm of her death and realizing how deathly quiet it is in my life without that. I try to think back to how things were before the diagnosis, but the memories I find are not pleasant. I have always been close to my mother in that compulsive sort of way that led me to confess everything to her, but I was only really emotionally close to her during those last five years.

My therapist keeps pestering me about whether or not there was something I wish I had said to her before she died. No. There isn’t. I’m glad I never said any of this to her. I’m glad I didn’t know about it soon enough to disclose…

Do you know the difference between an illusionist and a charlatan? Do you know why one of them inspires us and the other feels like a betrayal personified? Consent. That is the core of the thing. We give our consent for the illusionist to lie and deceive us so he can bend our realities slightly and give us the magic we hunger for. The stage is an agreement between performer and audience. But the charlatan has no concern for our consent. There is no contract.

Our reality as the close-knit mother and daughter was largely an illusion. There was a time when it may have been real…but near the end, it was a careful charade suspended between us. It was a gossamer web of lies holding out on its last threads as it waited—like so many other things waited—for her death…I will forever ask myself if my mother suspected that much of our relationship had been created out of dreams and fantasies that we had endeavored to make real, that we were quietly playing the part of illusionists, putting on a show that hid the pain underlying it all.

Maybe she really did believe. Maybe she truly forgot the things she said to me once, the things she did to me once…or maybe she never saw any fault in what she had done. That last week, she had cried and apologized to my brother for an argument that had never sat quite right with her. 

Where was my apology? 

Oh, she offered me a chance to air my grievances some weeks before that, but it was in such a confrontational and critical way…it was nothing more than an offer to argue with her—an offer which I refused, because that wasn’t what I wanted. She never offered me what I wanted, and what I wanted wasn’t the sort of thing I could ask for.

So I kept my mouth shut and continued the show. It was my greatest, and final, performance for her. After she died, I told her I was a magician, and that I would see her again…perhaps sooner than she thought. I was speaking of a different kind of magic: the kind that makes the world of the dead accessible even to our modern minds. However, in retrospect, there were layers of meaning in that statement. I meant what I meant, but I was simultaneously being far more literal than I realized at the time.

It’s only 50 degrees outside right now, but all the fans in my apartment are on because it is too quiet in the absence of the wind. The fans don’t really cover up that silence, because it isn’t a real silence. It’s the same silence that is in the white noise of my conversations with my brother and father. It’s the same silence between me and my friends as we banter on the phone or around a dinner table. It’s the same silence underlying every meeting with my coworkers and every session with my therapist. The silence between the notes of my favorite songs, between stitches when I bead, between the clatter of dishes as I do my chores….

Her magician does not speak anymore.

I do not know what to make of that. 

Why I am Studying Illusion...

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” --Albert Einstein

This is why I still haven’t written much about my work with illusions. Any explanation cascades through pages of incoherence the way my cards cascade across the couch, table, and floor when I lose control of them mid-flourish. It would seem that, just like performance-coated cards, these concepts are slick— I need to get this deck of ideas firmly in hand before trying to put it all down properly in writing.

There is frustration bound up in that: partly due to not having the money, at present, to acquire the texts I need to finish properly studying the subject and partly due to a continuing and irrational sense of shame for even engaging in this work. The latter is something I hope to tackle head-on by posting this blog entry.

Yes, I feel shame—stemming, I think, from my early explorations of paganism. I remember distinctly the arguments on the pagan forums at the time over the spelling of the word “magic”. One of the main contentions of those who spelled it with the notorious “k” at the end was that the extra letter was needed to distinguish “real magic” from “stage magic”. The guardians of the English language insisted it wasn’t necessary because the context of a proper sentence would be enough to allow a reader to make the distinction, and if not, the writer was doing English wrong.

What I took away from the argument however, was the insidious suggestion (by both sides) that “stage magic” was somehow less valid, less important, and less useful to the pagan path than was “real magic”. Stage magic, I was subtly taught, was the domain of entertainers and charlatans—it was not a topic of serious religious study and had no bearing on the religious variety of magic. It made sense at the time, but my views started to shift once I found myself on a Kemetic path.

I wound my way back to it when I started to study Heka as it related to myth and story. I stumbled on some research about how even modern storytelling has a greater impact on both ourselves and our societies than we often give it credit for and may be the most “human” thing about us. Then I found this:


And something clicked into place.

Traditional stage magic is a form of storytelling. It turns out that even a superficial survey of the not-so-secret world of magicians reveals that stage magic is one of the most written about topics in modern history. It also has the distinction of being one of the few forms of stage art which has not diminished at all in popularity in the 4000 years of its confirmed history—even we modern folk still flock to see living mysteries, like David Blaine and Chris Angel, perform. There is something there in that ongoing fascination which I sense is eminently useful to my broader study of how storytelling (and media/art in general) is related to our more formalized religious magic.

 I have been trying to unravel exactly what that revelation means and figure out what I’m supposed to do with this wisdom once I have it all parsed out. If what I have experienced so far is any indication, I think I will be with this task for a while yet.

But that’s the news from the front for now…I’ll keep you posted  ;)

Nightmares and Illusions

It is always the same dream. The circumstances change and set up changes, but the events never do. Over and over. It used to be traumatic, but now I just roll over with a sigh and go back to sleep.

In the dream, she is alive again, but still ill. Deathly ill. I desperately try to get a hold of my brother—to tell him that she’s back and that she’s still dying and that he needs to come and be there.  She never speaks, and she always does the kinds of things she did before she died…

She is confined to a wheel chair or bed. If she has her mobility, she uses it to stumble endlessly around a kitchen island claiming that she just needs to walk (as if she could walk off the cancer—I hated watching her do that, watching her struggle). She does not understand that she is dying. She can’t breathe. Sometimes, my brain likes to mix it up and make it her heart which is failing instead of her lungs, but the end result is always the same: the wide eyes…the fear…that haunting look of surprise and terror…

 She was not ready to go. I don’t care what she said or what anyone else said about what happened that night. I was the one who was there when it started. Death surprised her. She was terrified and all I did was tell her it was going to be okay when I knew damn well that it wasn’t. Her death was not peaceful and no matter how many people tell me it was “for the best”, in my dreams the horrible truth is ever present and gruesomely clear.

This time, I called 911.

That was new. Usually, I just stand there and watch like I did when it happened. Or at most, try to get my brother to come. This time, he was already there in the dream, using a defibrillator to try and restart the heart that was failing in her chest. Her eyes were wide like my last memory of her and I couldn’t take it anymore. I called 911.

The operator answered and with a small pause said, “My records show that the last time you called this number it was because your mother had died, is that correct?”

“Yes,” I said, “She’s alive again, but she’s having a heart attack.”

“That’s to be expected, ma’am. It’s probably for the best. This is much better than respiratory failure.”

I look over where she is arching off the bed, her eyes bulging. It doesn’t look better to me. But I can’t think of anything to say and the operator hangs up. My brother kept trying to save her.

I wake once again left with the image of her eyes showing pain and fear….

I don’t dwell on it for more than a few seconds. I have a life to live—I can’t spend it remembering her eyes.

It isn’t on my mind as I drift through my day. But later I am driving to Wal-mart and suddenly realize I am thinking casually about how different the world is without her, and yet, how nothing seems to have changed.  I don’t push the thought away, and a moment later my mind has continued the train of thought and arrived at musing about how I now know exactly which songs on my mp3 player will make me cry with the memory of her because they are the ones I never play. I am surprised at the next revelation: I could use those songs to make myself cry. I now have the strange ability to feel deep, genuine pain whenever I want to. It’s a strange thought to have, I realize, and I let it pass, returning to the normal order of my day.

I spend the evening practicing card illusions and wondering at my choice of activity. Shouldn’t I be beading? Writing? Meditating? Anything other than practicing silly card tricks… I am suddenly seized by guilt. I haven’t made any offerings to Netjer or Akhu in a while. I haven’t been in the shrine room formally in days due to purity, but I don’t have that limitation anymore. I should go. Surely I am shirking my duties to the Names and to the faith. I even missed the Dua on Wednesday because I was practicing illusions and lost track of time.

It was not required of you to go, says a small still voice from beyond my conscious mind.

 But I should have gone. Failing that, I should have gone to the fellowship chat the next night. There is no answer from the quiet part of me which is watching the cards tumble deftly through my hands. But I cannot leave it alone. I am ignoring terrifying dreams about my mother, I think, and I am the only one still honoring her so late in the wake of her death. Shouldn’t I make an offering at the Akhu altar tonight? Shouldn’t I be focusing on her?

You will attend the Dua on Sunday and honor her there.

 There is no arguing with that: I fully intend to make sure I am at that gathering. As well as the other gatherings scheduled for the weekend. I start for the second time on a flourish I am having trouble with. I am engaged in the task, but I still feel guilty. I still feel like I’m just goofing off. Shouldn’t I be doing something productive?

This is productive, the voice reminds me, it is part of our work. The answers we seek lie within. Now focus. 

I do.

Cards

My Akhu got to claim a deck of their choosing today.

Yes…to my relief, they somehow got the package back for me: it was mysteriously “found” somewhere other than where it should have been and was then delivered to me, late, but with apologies from the post man. Sadly, my neighbor did not get her packages back…so I am doubly grateful that mine was ultimately recovered.

As I said before, despite being “just some playing cards” these decks are important to some of the current work I am doing. To give a brief explanation, each of the decks in the order was purchased for a different purpose...

 I am working with playing card divination and, having come to it from fully illustrated Tarot cards, wanted something a bit more special than the standard bicycle deck to learn with. The deck I ultimately chose, the Black Warrior deck, serves the purpose well, with beautiful court cards and half shaded pips which can allow for double meanings if I so choose.

However, given that I have several self-created divinatory decks which I have mentioned on the blog and, as many of you may know from having spoken to me, a fairly extensive collection of tarot cards as well this probably begs the question: why do you need yet another form of card divination? The short answer is that some of the work I’m doing now relies on listening to signs and omens, and because I tend to over analyze, I’ve had to resort to double checking everything via divination. While I’ve developed a strategy for that using my tarot decks, the truth is, I can’t keep a deck of tarot cards, or even a homemade oracle deck, on me at all times.

There is a constant worry that someone might see them in my purse and ask about them (a real fear for a public figure in a small town). There’s also the fact that tarot cards are expensive to replace if something happens to them, and depending on whether they are still in print or not, may even be impossible to replace. Not to mention that, in the interim, switching between tarot decks is a pretty big deal for me—I get used to a particular set of symbols and images and find it jarring to learn new sets or even apply the same set to more than one purpose. This is why my tarot decks have designated uses.

Playing cards, on the other hand, are cheap, easily replaced, and basically the same from deck to deck even if the art styles differ. They are a good option for on-demand divination because, as long as I am not too remote from civilization, I can always pick up a deck from a convenience store if I find myself caught without one. And of course, if someone sees an interesting playing card deck in my purse, it may start a conversation about collectible playing cards but it won’t tarnish my public image. In fact, if I can learn a few card tricks to perform when someone does notice them it even makes having a pack in my purse seem like an interesting facet of me as a person instead of a random oddity.

So…yeah. That’s why. I know that’s mostly just an excuse to buy pretty cards, but I am very happy with the deck I got and so far, the standard method of playing card divination has proved fairly easy to pick up with minimal practice.

I also ordered the Archangels deck and Artifice V3 decks—originally as alternatives to the deck I got for divination, but also just because I liked the cards and couldn’t help myself. Though one of those decks, the Archangels deck, is now claimed by the Akhu and I would guess the Artifice deck will eventually find a specific use as well.

Lastly, I got a deck of Arcane cards, which has a more complicated mystical purpose. I would explain in greater detail exactly what I am doing with it, but I’m not sure I have my thoughts about the project in order in a way which lends itself to being written about.

As a matter of fact, that’s partly why I got the deck in the first place: I needed to have something physical to represent this wordless *thing* which is building in my psyche so I can interact with it in more concrete terms. So in that regard, I guess you could consider it a talisman of sorts—though this specific deck won’t work for the talisman I have in mind. I was really just using it for proof-of-concept before I went scrounging up money for the deck I actually wanted but can’t afford right now. (In case you’re wondering: proof-of-concept is positive and I do hope to get that Moth Myth deck at some point in the future so I can make the concept a reality).

If this all gels into something useful, I will eventually write it up and post it here on the blog. In the meantime, I’ll quote from my notes the closest thing I have to a summary of the current phase of the project:

 “Illusions are, on the surface, a matter of hiding and revealing— but in more esoteric terms; they are the shadow of our fondest longing cast across the face of reality. In a way, they unmask us: they betray what we wish to deny and what we wish to create, and in doing so, betray the reflection of our deepest selves.” 

 (For anyone who read that and wondered: Yes, this relates to my trance work on an abstract level, and yes, I do think the magician dream factors into this as well though I am personally still uncertain of how or why.)