Death Meditations, Part 2

Who am I? “I think, therefore I am,” but what is that “am” that moves through this time, this space. I have worked with the question for so long that I have descended a void reverting to the nothingness of animate matter and ascended to the lofty heights of my own self righteous visions of grandeur.

As Fugazi noted, “You are not what you own.” I agree, the pathway to purchased personae provides many masks but not the easy answers answers of self-identification and belonging it promises. You also aren’t necessarily your blood. Sure, your family shapes you in some regard, but some of you (like me) have more in common with your beloved dead family members than those still here. I have sat shivering, afraid in the darkness with a dim lantern as my guide, looking for self-definition in the pursuit of a god(s), goddess(es), or divinity. Yet, I have found no solace in identifying myself within dominate religious communities. I have puzzled over how what I do might be a way to define myself but felt trapped in the endless labyrinth of trying to pick any one of my pursuits as the worthy catch-all self-definition. Yet, I have found myself scratching, scratching, scratching away at my actions until nothing remains, wondering if any one thing I do could provide the peg that I hung my identity on.

Possessions, family, religion, and action are the most common answers that folx give to that question. Each is rote response, a reflex, that attempts to collapse the mysterious nature of each unique blood incantation to something easily decipherable or knowable. After pondering it lately, I think one way to approach the question is to attack its blindspot: death. Yes, I think most answers to the who I am question ignore the eventuality that one day others will be asking: who were they? Yes, I think asking oneself what is my legacy is a great way to approach trying to understand who you are and who you will continue to be after you have continued on. This sort of approach grounds you fully in the domain of acting as a tender of the future, whether that be of your blood, important family heirlooms, religious traditions, or important folkways or crafts. In short, it becomes a mental tool that allows you to synthesize all the reductive definitions of self into a syncretic one that can hold the complexities of being a living, breathing human in this life and when you have continued on.

When I have recently thought about what I will leave behind, it helps me move to a much more reflective, open-ended definition of who I am that empowers me to act in a value-aligned way in my everyday life. Rather than getting caught up in any one of those possible rote responses, I engage with what each perspective offers me as I try to design my life in accordance with what I value the most. On an ongoing basis, I am looking what I am spending my time, what I possess, what family I am keep up with through the lens of what I want my legacy to be and adjust my approach if I feel like it is not in alignment with my values. For example, I have been working with the time I spend on my phone. I know that my time spent on my phone can be enriching, but I put some limits on it to give more space for other things, like family tending, listening, reading, writing, weaving, and participating in rituals, that are essential to being the person I want to be right here, right now. In short, it’s through this sort of everyday action→reflection→redesigned action loop (referred to as praxis) that I am able to work everyday on embodying that complex, multi-layered person engaged in the work I care about and want to be remembered for. Because, dear reader, behold death, for you too will die.

I Went into the Maverick Bar

Gary Snyder in “Turtle Island”

“…

America—your stupidity.

I could almost love you again.

We left—onto the freeway shoulders-

under the tough old stars—

In the shadow of the bluffs

I came back to myself,

to the real work, to

One practice that is very important to my legacy is teaching but it does not play a large role in my life currently. For most of my life, I have been a teacher. I taught people tennis for 10 years, sociology for 5 years, and now weaving for the last 3 years. Its something that really fills my cup up when I think about being remembered as a teacher. Yet, I had to let go of teaching when I left academia about eight years ago. I knew that I would not be able to keep up with the demands of an academic life teaching two or three classes each semester, doing research, and raising a family while working through my obsessive compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety. Well, that is, I could have done it, but I wouldn’t have been teaching the way I want to. No, I would have been stuck watering things down and taking short cuts to get through the days. Coming to an understanding that the current state of academia does not support teaching was one of the hardest things for me to face. It was the right call to leave the ivory tower, but I have been looking for a way to get back to teaching since I got treatment for my mental health issues.

Why you might ask? Because teaching is one of the most powerful forms of death work that you can participate in. To align your own legacy with the information, skills, and presence you are able to teach others is the most powerful way to ensure that you continue on in this world. I think about the lessons in enchantment my mother gave me. I think about the wisdom in expanding my horizons beyond tennis that my friend James gave me. I think about the lessons in trust and teamwork my friend Luna gave me. Yes, I have learned in each of the losses I have experienced that it is what the beloved dead teach us while they are here that we hold most dear to us. With that, I hope to pass on many things, but most importantly, I want to pass on simple weaving skills to those who want them.

A key part of my pedagogy (teaching philosophy) is to teach skills to empower individuals to become active participants in the creation of their own world. I am not a fool to think that ideas alone can teach someone to have the courage to develop their own set of ethics and values or to be bold enough to act upon those values. It is possible, but I think a more efficient strategy is to teach someone first to make or build something with their hands. There is something ineffable that happens when one learns the magic of working with their hands and rejects the readymade culture that they are born into. I know I became much more courageous in expressing myself and living out my values when I pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat with creating my first weavings. That is because, I was no longer solely relying on other’s words, music, or art to describe my world. No, I was expressing my own inner landscape with my art now and knew that if I am capable of that then I don’t need some corporations readymade solution for any problem I face.

Apprentices Needed, Not Disciples

Wm. S. Coperthwaite “A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity”

I can think of no more consequential piece of death work to complete in one’s life than to teach another how to be an apprentice. That is why I try and remove every single barrier to a person learning the skills I know. I will buy the looms, prepare the yarn, and warp the looms. I will pay for the zoom membership or room. I will do the scheduling just for a chance to open that door for someone else. Yes, it is that important, because the empowerment I found in the loom changed me forever. I learned how to be an apprentice at the loom. My only hope is to spur on more folx to take up the apprentice path and find the same empowerment I did to craft my own world.

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Studio Notes

I finished a new weaving that I described in depth in last week’s essay “For the Tender of a Portal.” Gosh, I just really loved the depth of that weaving. It felt like every little section was jam packed with magical intent. I created it in a flurry over a few days and was so happy to deliver it to its home with head-witch-in-charge of the witchstater revolution, M. Graves VI, ESQ. Go check out that article if you missed it. I also taught M. Graves to weave, which was incredibly rad. However, we ran out of time for me to learn quilt hexing, so that will have to wait until we can find a suitable time to jump on zoom and do it. I am excited to bring those principles into my fiber practice though.

I am now working on a piece for a trade with the exquisite, Colorado Springs tattoo artist Shanna Keyes. I have warped my loom for a 10 in. x 10 in. piece and will be doing another protection piece. I am excited to see what boundary design comes through for the piece. I have really enjoyed not doing any design work prior to starting the weaving. I just open the channel with the spell work and see what comes through. I have found that sort of approach to be tremendously engaging of late.

I am almost out of nettle dyed handspun, so there will be a dye day coming up here soon. I will have to rely more on my burners inside than I typically do with my summer solar dye sessions. That should be interesting as I am more skilled at letting the pots back in the sun than I am monitoring them on the burners. However, I will be just peachy keen, as I will have my natural dye guide “The Wild Dyer” by Abigail Booth close by to answer any questions that might arise.

I am also down to one skein of black Shetland handspun as well, so I will be spinning and a spinning here soon. I have enjoyed working with the charcoal-colored Shetland roving that I got from Dyers Wool, located down near Durango, CO. Even some four years into spinning, I still am shocked at the variability within each set of roving or fleece that I spin. I suppose that’s why I did a whole series of weavings with yarn from one sheep’s fleece, letting the natural variegation in the yarn tell the story the sheep wanted to tell. UGH, that was such a fun series. It didn’t set the internet on fire, but boy did I enjoy it.

Finally, I got a virtual weaving class coming up on the 12th. I have to get that parcel in the mail PRONTO. I have been feeling so tired from the flurry of last week that it has been difficult to get myself going. But that is easily changeable with a few nights of good rest and ticking things off the to do list bit by bit.

Spiritual Notes

As for my spiritual practice, I am still in the thick of my spiritual deathworker training with Hannah Hadaddi of Mourning Light Divination. We entered into this Samhain portal, the Irish and witches new year, as a collective learning some foundational information about death work related to the different types of dead and possible rituals to perform in this Samhain season. We learned of the possibility that their are benevolent ancestors waiting to be invited into my circle or offered an opening to contact. That was just what I needed to hear, because the minute I opened that invitation a female ancestor came through and put a black shroud on my shoulders, a gift that I did not know I needed. Any one have any leads on an all seasons black shroud/hooded garment I could wear?

During that ritual, I also pulled an Ogham fid (letter), while asking what will be the theme that I will explore and grow into this year. After my fingers fumbled in the bag for a moment, I pulled Beith, the first fid of the Ogham and typically associated with the Birch tree. Consulting Erynn Rowan Laurie’s Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom, as I customarily do after a pull, I find that “magically, Beith is a good fid to use for rituals involving purification or self-discipline. Invoking its energy clears the working space and cleanses the energy fields of the body….It is also useful for … encouraging the discipline to stick with a healing practice….”3 Rowan Laurie also noted that "in divination, Beith’s appearance may indicate a need to purify yourself or your intentions before beginning a new project or phase of your life and work.... It can be a hint that clarity and discipline are required."4 I cannot help but laugh at this reading, given my emphasis on protection magic of late. Clearing my own energy field and practicing my devotional discipline are both key parts of my protection magic, which i learned from Hannah. Consequently, this reads to me that we are going to stay the course with our protection magic foci.

The only other note worth mentioning is the birds that have been visiting me. I have me olde crows all around me now, which is very nice. I love those little babies very much. Yet, a new friend, a white and black speckled hawk visited me recently. I opened up the door to let Winston out one morning, and voila! there that hawk was just staring at me from a nearby tree about 20 ft. away. Its gaze was so striking that I had to say hello and nod to it to acknowledge its presence. Then I got distracted helping Winston with something in the backyard. By the time I looked back up at the tree, the hawk was gone and I did not hear any sounds of flight. According to the Carr-Gomm’s Druid Animal Oracle, hawks are one of the three animals, along with eagle and salmon, that Fintan shape shifts into in the Irish Book of Invasions, which shows him to be a true druidic shapeshifter and one of the oldest animals in the world. The Carr-Gomm’s also interpret the Hawk to be “the great ancestor” giving us the insight to remember the own nobility of what we come from in our ancestry and the inspiration to walk forward from a place of pride. Much to chew on there, isn’t there? Methinks so.

Be well, y’all,

James

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