In the golden age of the pagan blogosphere, sharing images of personal altars and details of personal practices were staples of the genre. In the decade or so since, though, these things seem to have fallen out of fashion. And yet I persist. Why?
Why am I so open and personal in this blog and on my social media? Why do I share altar photos? Why do I share personal devotional artwork? Why do I talk about my daily tarot readings, and my struggles to believe in any goodness in any god? Aren’t I trying to establish my credentials as a Wize Mystic and Professional Wizard? Aren’t I trying to sell jewelry? Aren’t I working my way up to selling classes and apprenticeships?
Yes. Yes, I am.
I think it’s worth noting, first and foremost, that these things haven’t actually fallen so far out of fashion as it might first appear. No, those few of us who continue to maintain longform writing platforms don’t seem to include so much of that content “on main” (to use the tumblr and twitter phrase), but many do continue to do so on their social media pages. On Instagram, it can be your entire brand.
I post about my personal daily practice – my offerings and my tarot readings and the visions and strange thoughts that sometimes accompany them – partly for the sake of having something to say. I do this for a living, now. The Great and Terrible Algorithm demands a steady stream of content. And the altars and cards that accompany my morning ritual are much more interesting than the coffee at the heart of it, or whatever carbohydrate disaster I make myself for breakfast, after.
But I also do it because it is the place where I am the least authoritative. Every day is a struggle to get up, to remember my dreams long enough to write them down. Every day is a struggle to stand before my gods, step past the anti-theism that partly appears to be a part of my nature and partly appears to be the clearest manifestation of the religious trauma I bring forward from my upbringing in Christofascist Amerikkka. (This anti-theism will get a post [or series of posts] of its own, as soon as I can come up with something more articulate than screaming-possum-aaaaaa.jpg) Every day is a struggle to lay out my cards, to study their meanings writ large, and come up with an interpretation that makes sense on the scale of “one day only” and which makes sense in context of the day that I have planned.
I am a competent witch and magician. I am a professional-grade artist and sorcerer. I am a veritable library of magical knowledge that I will never find time to put into use. But, contrary to what some influencer-esque personalities would generally have you believe, “competent” and “professional” are not “all-knowing” or “unerring”. At this point in my life and my work, spirits almost always come when I call. But that’s still only “almost always”, and it doesn’t mean that I always understand what the spirits are trying to tell me, or that they even often tell me what I want to hear.
I like telling stories of my successes as much as anybody else. But success stories don’t always sound like it. Every astrological image I make that resonates with the people who see it is a magical success. Every jewelry design that began with a vision is a story of magical success. Every piece of art that I sell is a story of my artistic and magical success. Every collection of astrological talismans that I list for sale is not just one but a whole collection of magical success stories. Shit, every day that my right-wing neighbors don’t burn down my rainbow-flag-waving house or report me to the city because I haven’t gotten to my lawn, yet, is a story of the successful effects of my protection magic.
At the same time, telling stories only of my successes feels dishonest, disingenuous. All of my peers now that we all struggle with some parts of our practice. I, for one, think less of any witch or magician who doesn’t speak as openly about their struggles as their successes. I mean, if you never fail, were you really trying that hard?
So I talk about the daily struggles to maintain my streak of daily offerings. I talk about my struggles to do divination for myself. I talk about the magical rituals that went wrong. I talk about my struggles to trust, let alone honor, the divine.
In doing so, I hope to be an inspiration to my peers, and to those who were in the position that I was in five or ten or fifteen or twenty years ago: full of inborn talent and researched facts, and desperately unable to figure out how to combine those two things into actual magic. Struggling to step up and put my skills and talents to use for the betterment of my community. At a loss as to how to take the things I’d seen, and the things I’d done, and double-down on them in a way that produced new revelations.
I also hope to model a different kind of expertise. Social media so often wants us to be self-proclaimed experts and elders, to claim titles and honors which may or may not be rightfully ours, to refuse to engage with material that we are still learning or struggling with, to treat everyone we meet as a potential student or customer (or, worse, a potential mark), all in the name of branding. Hot takes get more clicks than nuanced discussion. Wild accusations will always go farther than reasoned responses.
I can’t fight the algorithm, or the demons of human nature that it appeals to. All I can do is … well, this. Talk about the work. And talk about myself. And talk about my work as openly and honestly as possible. To do the artist’s work of being vulnerable in public. And to do the mystic’s work of travelling into the darkness and coming back with shining fragments of Mystery to share.
If you want to get my posts a week before everyone else, to see the magical experiments that I don’t share with the public, to get first dibs on my elected talismans and fine art jewelry, or just want to support my work, you can do so through patreon. If you’d like to make a one-time donation, or don’t want to deal with all the non-occult content I post on patreon, I also have a ko-fi.