The Book of Fire – Seyewailo

Journal Entry 1/17

February 28, 2023 chollasoledad

Looking back at old stories reminds me of two things. First of all, life was much more dangerous and difficult than I like to remember. I want to somehow brush it off and make my memory more palatable. That is hard to do when you live with spirits who are witness to your life, and remind you, “no, girl, you lived through that. Good on you!” Somehow it does not feel like a compliment to me, even though I know I am surrounded by both protectors in the wilderness world, and protectors in the magical world as well. They are trying to tell me they are proud that I have managed to stick around. Sometimes they have to remind me that I came here at great effort and cost, and that if I duck out early, I will have to come back and do high school again. Yeah, no. Why that still feels like a such a threat is beyond me.

But it also reminds me that I am imperfect, and that I have managed to live my life in this imperfect way. It’s my way. This wound on my hip that weeps may simply be weeping the tears that I can’t, or won’t, shed on my own. I fight them, even though I cry all the time. As I get older, crying is harder. In some ways, the past is farther away, which is something I am grateful for. In some ways, it means it is harder to access and to heal from a vague point, often beyond the reach of memory. I have fenced off moments that were supremely painful in order to continue. When I can recover those moments they are fresh and sharp as if they have simply been in some kind of suspended animation.

Imperfection is not pollution. I am acutely aware that my belief that I am somehow contaminated by the violence I have experienced impacts my body and the solid reality that it holds. What does this wound want to say? Why has it been screaming this message at me?

The Mighty B is always full of strange suggestions. She asked me to ask my hip what it has to say. I need to stop fighting and listen to what is being said. To that end, I decided to ask the cards and let the wound speak to me in some other way than just trying to purge this corruption that I insist on believing in. And it was pretty clear. There is nothing wrong with me. Not essentially. It is venting the waters that hold me together, the waters of which I am made. And these fluids, the blood and snot and tears and lymph and piss and shit, are what constantly wash over me. They are what carry away the blood and vaginal fluids and cum from the violence. They bring fibrinogen to torn flesh to form scabs and create the chrysalis in which I can transform. Normally, they simply wash through my system over and over, like the tides, until someone creates an opening for my blood and vomit to flow out of me onto the floor while I wonder if I will die.

I will not die.

It comes as almost childish defiance. I will not be easily disposed of. I will not make this easy for you. I will find the exit, and if you stand in my way, I will go through you. Like this fluid that will find a way, even if it has to open a hole in my hip to escape, I will flow. Not with hate or with anger, but simply with determination. It speaks to me and reminds me that I need to cry. All these years later, I am still waiting for someone to come finish me off. They aren’t coming. The only things left to fight with are my body and my memory. I have to cry that reservoir of unshed tears, or my hip will do it for me.

I listen as my wound vac makes its quiet slurping sounds. This is aggression. I am at war with my hip. I need to end this war and let it help me. The doctors have given up. Ruby is treating me with Chinese herbs, because the doctors have given up except for this machine that is attached to me day and night. I want to call a truce.

I sit in my window and hold the 6 of wands in my hand as sunlight warms one side of my face. Victory. I am victorious. It does not mean that I will be safe and the travail is over. It reminds me that Victory comes both in peace and in chaos. As long as I am looking for peace and security I cannot be victorious. The battle is in accepting that we are always in the ebb and flow of chaos. There is no security. All I wanted as a girl was a place to be, and place to belong and be accepted. Those places are not places. They are moments. I have to remember to rest in those moments.

The place is always here. Wherever I am. And the ebb and flow are literally my own blood and lymph. I had so much pain after that time, but I was never in more danger than I was at that point. Even sitting on a bench in Lelystad, I was safe and watched over. Victory. It was what carried me through. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.

I sit back now, and I can feel the slight frown on my face. I want the small life as much as anyone. A place to call home, someone to love, a good book, a nice cup of tea, and some sunshine feel like the only goals I have in life. That is a lie. It is absolutely a lie. I am a witch, a restless spirit that is never satisfied. I long for more. To make a mark on the world, to have great adventures. I realize that I would never have met the spirits I have known if I had just kept to the paved roads. I’m not saying that the particularly unwise path I took was destined. I’m sure that I would have found more trouble to get into along the way, and likely will in the future.

But the violence was not my own. It is in my astrology chart, actually. That awkward thing that makes astrologers look at me nervously, not wanting to tell me. I always just say, “I know. It’s already happened. I’m still here.” They exhale audibly and go on to tell me how this configuration usually expresses itself. And I’m aware it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen again. The thing is that it isn’t mine. I did not do these things to myself. The blame lies elsewhere. The violence was not invited. In this moment, my hip decides to make a noise. The wound vac burps and gurgles, as if to say that it has been heard. Message received. I am not corrupt or polluted. The lymph and blood have washed me clean. I have no power to contaminate anyone else simply because I am hurt and different now and can never undo that. But healing is my part of this. The only corruption here is in the heart of people who wanted to get rid of me, and could not see my humanity enough to just tell me to go. It is simple and just. I am not contaminated, because my waters have washed them away. It is time for me to accept that this is true of my mind as well. If I have to play charades with a ghost to learn this, so be it. That I once was loved this deeply. I was a treasure who was admired and helped, protected by angels and a Romani woman on a bus station bench, as if she knew…

As if she knew what? That I was precious? Different? The cinnamon bun of the Old Gods? Well, kind of. Somehow she knew I was supposed to be saved. I think that is the challenge of Pride in every witch. To admit who we are is terrifying. To understand our value and greatness is more than most can bear. Except for witches. It is expected, or demanded, of us. We have contracts to fulfill. I feel South slide along my back. They whisper “finally” and feel something like satisfaction and hope mixed together. Moon to My Sun is finally picking up the clue phone. She’s not letting it go to voice mail. I am trying to make sense of this. That I am beautiful and dangerous. I am rivers and wetlands. I am ancient and yet new every time. I smile at their touch, and in that moment, I am victorious.

The Swords of Holy Will

February 22, 2023 chollasoledad

My beloveds, I want to speak to you of Holy Will, and how you are part of the design. The Swords of Holy Will are also under the province of Pride, the Fire that shapes the world. For nothing is born in the universe that is not first born as desire. When you came here, you desired to learn. Witches are strange creatures, restless and never satisfied. The Buddhists speak of this as Dukkha, a haunting dissatisfaction that drives one to seek enlightenment. For all that we do not wish to suffer, it is suffering that leads us to compassion and freedom. It is the same for you. You see, to be a Sword of Holy Will, you accept that you will suffer to learn. So you gave up being the scouring winds that cleanse the desert, or the currents ceaselessly stirring the ocean, and you were born. With your birth, you accepted your sword and began to learn.

You were forged so long ago, before even your memories of millennia began. Your times of being in the In-between have not erased it from your memory. It still calls to you like a song. These Swords are the shards of the Hir Holy Will, and you are one of them. Together, you create the universe, over and over. After all, this is why you were made.

The swords are a calling, some talent that you have that is crucial to the warp and weft of this world and others. You, your embodied life, is how the will of the Starry Swirl creates. Overseen by the Watchers, those ever-conscious keepers of purpose, you live lives that touch other lives. You are the means by which Gods achieve agency. You are in no way insignificant. We have all stood where you are now. You will say, “Grandmother, we do not know how to be this. We will fail.” And I am here to say, “Oh hell yeah! Oh, my shining one, you will most certainly fail, and that is how you will learn.” You are here to practice, to nurture the talents you are called to. I didn’t say it would be easy. In fact, it will be the thing that you do not believe yourself capable of doing. But do it you shall. All you must do is to be willing to learn, and to continue when you fail, even when it feels like there is nothing but darkness. In fact, that will drive you, just as dukkha drives one toward freedom. Learning to flow and move and create will alleviate not only your own suffering, but that of untold thousands. It is this reminder that we will hear whispered to us as we stand, that even a broken sword still cuts.

Your fuck ups are holy. Listen, I will tell you a secret. Because is there any other reason for you to be reading a Book of Shadows? And this is it. The Star Hirself is perfect, as are the Guardians and Gods. Perfection does not change. It is static and eternal. But in the physical world not one thing is perfect. Change is a law. It is the brilliance of the design that the Star made us, for we are imperfect, and it is that imperfection that introduces randomness into the plan. Our imperfection is how change happens, how the vastness of diversity occurs. And it is not just us, but the whole of the physical universe. It is all a dance between chaos and order, of dark and light, of destruction and creation, of energy and matter. Your imperfection is the holiest thing about you, beloved. It is the greatest gift that you have to offer. You are the motherfucking hand of creation. Sorry, but someone had to break it to you.

In my life I have watched numerous Swords at work. None can know the extent of the tasks others are called to. I am a Love Sword. Now mind you, this does not mean that I am an expert at love. Indeed, I have lots of failed loves and I am full of mistrust, but I know a lot about how to love. It is much harder to learn how to be loved. The difference is that I have worked my long life to learn what love is and how to enact it. Most humans think that love is an emotion, something we feel. But love is so much more than that. Love is the very fabric of the universe. By loving, a Love Sword builds. We are the holy architects. Each time a Love Sword lets their heart open there is a line that is established between lover and beloved. This is not about romantic love, but a willingness to be tethered to the whole. It is longing for communion and creating the opportunity for that to happen. Each time there is a line established, those lines grow and grow each time they are connected. Those lines become yarns. Those yarns become ropes. Those ropes become cables. Those cables are knitted into the gates of heaven.

What do Love Swords build? They build containers! We are the makers of pots and weavers of baskets. They create containers to hold groups and families and moments and events. Have you ever had such a dear memory that you feel like you go there as a place, not a time? That is because you are visiting a place. You belong in that basket, and your group or the spirits of the place you remember contained a Love Sword. They created a place in time, for all time. You may even remember these places in other lives. They do this by establishing relationships, and each time they do this, they lay down a path, part of the great network of lightning roads that can be traveled with just a thought. The lightning roads traverse great expanses in both time and space. The lace they weave is alive, and deeply intricate. Magic emerges from the interstices and enters the world. This is no small task. My dear Grey is a Love Sword, like me. And perhaps you are his student reading this and are a Love Sword, too. He is adept at social structure, at moving other hearts to where he needs them to go. He knows the hearts of others and the great plans. He is rather like a conductor leading a great symphony. Your cooperation is blessed, and if he is conducting, you won’t even know it is happening, for the most part.

My dear Angus is a Beauty Sword. It is with her that I build the great cables of the lightning roads. These seem rarer, and in all my time, I have only known a handful of Beauty Swords. Their work is to bring beauty into the world. They must be seen. The mysterious thing about this is that, to a one, that is the very last thing they want. Beauty Swords long to be left to themselves and their art, to draw out the sacred parts of others, to sing to their souls and remind them of the long ribbon of time. In some ways, they need Love Swords to create a basket around them, for history has been risky for them. Powerful people want to collect them. Those who revel in their beauty want to consume them. Their gifts have made them irresistible, and this has made them warriors, who always must be defending their freedom and boundaries. Powerful people have always been threatened by Beauty Swords because their voices and visions have never been under control of government and church. Beauty Swords hold the gift of patterning. Be it terror or ecstasy, they can only create what is true. Art is truth. And artists they are, but the medium they work in can be anything. Even things unseen. I have also noticed that they avoid each other like the plague. I have never understood why. Perhaps the pain of being recognized by another like them can only be a reminder of their glory. And for so many of us, to be haunted by our own greatness is far more frightening than our imperfection.

My dearest Serafina, my first student, is a Sword of Desire. Her talent is to turn desire into reality. In many ways, it is born of love and beauty, in that this brings the underlying structure and pattern into the dense world. Swords of Desire stand at a crucial point in the wheel of creation. They move desire from the spiritual state into the physical. They have the ability to imbue the song with heft and weight and seeming solidity. Of course, everything is energy, but they have the ability to make things dense, and this allows their use not just by Swords of Desire, but by everyone. It is true that the swords of desire usually act on behalf of community. It is not just for them. They are not capitalists, although they tend to be excellent at working in any economic system. They are hedonists, sensualists, and this is a blessing. I know that the greatest religions in the world have preached a gospel of hate about them, but in the end, religion can never win. Because of all the Swords, the Swords of Desire dare to be human in its most elegant form. Because our power as human springs from the very thing that has been vilified by those seeking control. Our bodies. It is the very density of our bodies that makes us so powerful. It is also what makes us mortal. We live short lives, but we can move energy to matter through our wills. Although we all can do this, it is the Swords of Desire who can do it most expediently, and with unflagging determination. They carry desire within their frames almost as a burden, it burns them and drives them forward. Their own dukkha is a craving for what should be. And yet, they are the first to jump to fan the flames, to luxuriate in pleasure, to feel magic as they can feel their own heartbeat, because the Swords of Desire remind us that this is what makes us human. And indeed, what makes us free. The Swords of Desire are the cogs of the future, always pushing it toward progress. It is not unusual that they are born into marginalized groups with historical exclusion from the benefits others enjoy. Remember that being a Sword does not mean you are good at something, only that you have been given a calling and a commensurate talent. A Sword of Desire knows that if they achieve a dream, it changes the world permanently. They fight for legacy. Their plans span lifetimes.

I have known my share of Freedom Swords. Always born into some kind of limitations, their task is to free themselves, and then to free others. My dearest Roland is a Freedom Sword, born into a world that judges any desire that is different from the status quo, he is perhaps miraculous in how much he has learned about what he wants and longs for. And trust me, it is all taboo. Because, why not? He has found the more and more he pursues his own path, the more he becomes a beacon for others who suddenly realize they could do the same. The truth is, and he would shudder to hear me say it, that he is by every breath granting permission to do the impossible to anyone who needs it in the moment. He is completely cognizant of his burden, too. It is always done with kindness, even if he is making fun of you. But once you meet him, you have to own that you create your own prison. He’s kind mostly because he remembers what that cell feels like.

Is every witch a sword? I do not know. But I do know that some seem to not hold them, mostly because they are already happy with what they have been given. I can’t imagine that those with the most privilege are willing to flap hard enough to fly when they can fly first class. They seem to bend their power toward maintenance of the status quo and live off the dreams that others have birthed into the world. That isn’t our job. If you’re reading this, this isn’t you. You are the change, and you will find yourself vilified for it. You will be called divisive and destructive and chaotic. Some of those will even be correct. The Gods ask those with power and privilege for tribute, ask them to do something they do not know how to do, and those people can’t imagine that they can possibly do more. You don’t have to worry about that, love. You have been born to work those muscles so that you can fly. And I know that your teacher has stood in your place, perhaps are even named here as those most esteemed examples. They have already made a place for you to come to learn this. And you have already decided to learn your craft, which is why you are reading this. So step into your destiny and pick up that sword, the thing you believe you cannot do and yet crave and long to do it. You’re going to drop it on your toe, just like every witch before you. Even me. Eventually, you learn, and your toe will thank you.

So, we dance across time and space, beloved, driven by the gift of our own mistakes. And one day you might open this book and show your student a sigil painted in my own blood. I might look at you in wonder, to see my first name written there, the name the void calls me by, and I will look into your eyes and remember that I am Moon to My Sun, child of the Fallen. And that I shall ever remain. I am a basket weaver, like my grandmother. When I am done, those brass-voiced angels will tell me I have done well and then hand me more willows. You didn’t think we get to be done, did you? That is for the pampered children of colonizers. We are never done. That is why they fear us. We built this world, as we have always done. As we have always done. In glorious imperfection.

Book Chapters- The Moon to My Sun, The Book of Fire

On Pride

April 15, 2020March 7, 2023 chollasoledad

When you close your eyes and let yourself enter the realm of fire, all guides will take you to a cave. If you enter the cave, it takes you to the heart of the everything, a river red as blood that flows hot and steaming under the world. The River of Fate. Fate is not nearly as rigid as we dream it is. It is simply the pattern of all things, the natural law that moves stars and oceans and cycles of the moon. It is the song that vibrates the lines of the world. The River is the heart of the pattern and its twists and turns are not known to us. But if you find yourself standing on its banks, you will know you have come to the place of surrender. We want to fight the idea of fate, to say that we must disprove it in order to be free, as if freedom is chaos. It is not.

Pride is the feeling one has when one stands on that bank of the River of Fate. It is the knowledge that you stand at the center of the pattern, and that makes one feel great and small all at once. Fate is potential. It is the law that bends the lines of the world. You, my love, are part of that law, subject to it and the creator of it all at once.

Witches are the blades of the Goddxs, the forces that carry holy will into the world. So if you find yourself there, know that you are being called to imagine what has not become yet, and to jump into that river. There are rapids, but you won’t know where they are. There are falls and torrents, around the next bend. There are long slow stretches and sandy beaches, and secret pools and gentle eddies. The witch understands that to jump into the river is to surrender to desire and to allow fate to take its course. You do not get to decide how to get there. We are tools of outcome only. We know where we belong. We know we are entitled to this. The River of Fate is our birthright, the freedom to surrender.

This sounds so poetic, but it is not always easy, especially for those of us who have not known freedom from the time we were small. For so many, we were told that we were not entitled to our own wills and desires. We were born to serve. What happens when the descendants of slaves stand on the banks of the River of Fate? They scream. They rage. They fight every chain, literal and metaphorical, that has ever been placed on them or their ancestors. They writhe and struggle and curse. I have watched my students do this, confounded by the feeling. “What is this feeling?” they scream. And I carefully place my hand on their shoulders and say, “Entitlement, my love. That feeling is entitlement. The knowledge of your birthright.” And they scream some more. Freedom is painful at first. I remember standing there, too, with a white woman as a guide. She brought me here, to the River of Fate and was mystified by my screaming. I remember when I got my acceptance to graduate school. My grandfather said to me, with tears in his eyes, that he was born on a hacienda, with a name that was not his. And now this famous university was going to pay his granddaughter to get her PhD. He looked at me as his destiny. That sometimes your actions set the future in motion. Our people have always played the long game. It’s why any of us are even still alive. He stood there, eyes shining, with all the pride of a possession that was a possession no more, looking at the glory of his own decisions. My grandmother just rolled her eyes. I think she always knew about Fate, and it was no more mysterious to her than the action of yeast rising, or scrubbing the tile. As if to say, we knew this one was going to do this. Stop being weepy, old man.

I am not mystified. I understand that all those times that I have been told no have built a tether that prevents me from jumping in. But being Wo’I, a coyote through and through, I chewed my way through that tether. I am a child of Father Sun and I am going to jump into the goddamn mother fucking River of Fate. It’s a fight. It’s why Fire is a sword. This is the moment that I pick up the knife that my Grandmother gave me and carve a place for myself in the world.

We often look at fate as something already written, predetermined. But that only works in the Western way of things. If you are part of the world, made of the same stuff, then you are an active participant in fate. Unlike that idea of predetermination, fate is pattern. Pattern is the face of God. Fractal geometry, Fibonacci sequences, the paths of the stars in the sky. All of these are expression of a deeper law that dances underneath. The difference for Witches is that we know where the River of Fate lies. And we know that every time we close our eyes and surrender to it that we set a path in motion that is guided by higher patterns that we cannot see. But as Witches, we also know that something called us there. Something that needed to be born. And so we surrender to the labor pains that birth new things into the world. We are the bridge between the worlds.

This is often where white witches ask, “but how do I know?” Oh, babies, let me tell you something. You are not like them. You had to chew through the tether. You had to break through the chain. You fucking know. And as you stand there, finally, in possession of your birthright, panting from the effort with sweat dripping in your eyes and a maniacal smile on your face, you will know. No one gave you your sword, you had to forge your own. This wasn’t just some guided visualization exercise. You are here and you are fucking ready. At some point, you will say it. You will give in to South holding you and stroking you and asking what you want. You will turn in his arms and yell in his beautiful face the name of your desire. In that moment you will deserve it. In that moment you understand what Western witches do not know. He will laugh and shove you into the River of Fate. And you will burn down the world. Every one of you will burn it down. It’s why I have dedicated myself to dragging as many of your beaten down sorry asses here as I can. Because at some point, you will give in to his embrace and make a new world.

This is the secret that is held in fire. That fate is woven not by some force above us issuing decrees. Fate is the collected desires of those who enter the River. And interdependent souls are weaving a world not just for themselves, but for the whole. We know how it feels. When one of us fucks up, it reflects on all of us. White people are individuals, and endlessly tell you this, especially when you call them out on being white. But we know that we are never individuals. And where that may be against us with stereotyping, it is in the end our strength. We never jump into that River alone, but accompanied by every ancestor, every child, and every family spirit that our blood remembers. Every baby born to labor until death and every granddaughter who rose up out of the suffering and sheer cussedness of those who came before her. We understand that our actions affect all, even the dead. Our will is holy will. We know.

El Canto Hondo, the deep song, sounds in the River of Fate that flows beneath all things. We are awash in it. This is the song of mountains and hummingbirds. Of the rivers that flow in those tiny veins and arteries that power the tiny wings you cannot see but can only hear. The desire to be born. The desire to become. It drives the ever-shifting Self toward creation. We never change without shifting the pattern. It is our obligation and duty to make a world for all.

And when you get out, my love, dripping and exhausted, you have arrived. You have changed the world. Now you fall and weep, because your labor is done. The pattern is made. Now he lifts you, beloved South, and kisses your lips. Well done, he whispers. He told me once, when I was afraid, “there is nothing in this world that is not born of desire. Everything is a creation of love. If you can dare to speak it, mountains will fall at your feet.” I have no need for mountains to fall at my feet. But I understand what he is saying. Dream bigger. Create more. Take up your sword and meet your destiny. After all, you crafted both sword and destiny. Be the pattern and accept Fate. Not in resignation, but as a faithful companion. It is what you were born to do, Nephilim, it is what you were born to do.