Hello to the inquisitive Inglenook readers. My name is Malachi Lily (they/them), and it is my distinct honor to join the illuminated Inglenook team as your monthly Transformation Features Writer. What are Transformation Features, you ask? Essentially, I offer my trained skills as an energy worker, diviner, and writer to ask relevant questions about and for artists and writers of the current moment. I will use my various divination tools to interpret the answers and bring them to you. For my readings, I use a variety of tools. I follow the ones that call me. Before every reading, I say a protection, and I encourage you to say your own protection before engaging in any divined, energetic, or intuited work.
You can read more about my tools here. They include:
I’m not an oracle or prophet, and I am not in the business of telling others what to do. My work is to offer guidance for transforming your life, work, and practice into the forms you want. Take or leave this guidance; it is entirely up to you. This is your reality.
Let’s get right into it. The question I will be investigating is: How should artists and writers prepare themselves for the next calendar year?
For this reading, I will use my Enochian tarot deck and magnet poetry.
Keywords: Purification, purity, a deliberate sacrifice in order to purify
Our visual associations with the symbolism, like the artwork portrayed on this card, are deeply negative and, I suspect, particularly poignant to many of the readers of Inglenook: witch burning.
Let me make the intention of this card clear. This is not a punishment. The figure burning in this card is a part of a ritual and has fully consented to this purification through fire as initiation.
The card gives us a symbolic image to interpret in the realm of the conceptual, namely, the intangible journey of our consciousness. No two divination tools are the same, and each has its specialties and goals. The primary goal of my Enochian cards is to support us in learning the lessons of our soul or consciousness; they are almost always speaking to things beyond this material life.
The card does come with a tangible action, however, and it is calling us to create our own initiation ceremony.
The consumer-focused culture in the United States, where I live, has many traditions. December is a hyperbole of them. You’ll find hundreds of articles about avoiding season burnout because we feel the pressure to uphold the season’s traditions: get presents, visit these friends, have this party, visit these family members, travel, get more presents, eat these foods, etc. While a ceremony can be a tradition, a tradition is not inherently a ceremony.
Ceremony calls for slowness, intentionality, preparedness, and deep consideration into each aspect of the ceremony.
We’re being called to an initiation ceremony as some newer, different, or more prepared version of us is required for this next calendar year.
If you want to take this call of initiation, these are some suggested questions to bring into your personal intuition, divination, or guidance practice:
Remember to set your intention and say a protection before entering your own questioning space, even if you are not using any tools. Here is a suggested protection: I am safe and secure, always, in my discernment and discovery of myself and all versions and aspects of who I am.
I will leave you with these final words from my magnet poetry tool as an offering to guide the first steps of your ceremony or personal inquiry:
Moon
Pool
Wave
A fascinating call to water in contrast to this initiation of fire. I suspect a call to move into this process with balance, mutability, and openness to change.
Wishing you easeful transformation.
In Abundance,
Malachi Lily
Malachi Lily, also known as The Magick Artist, is Inglenook's Transformation Features Writer, with over a decade of experience in the art of divination.
Inglenook Lit is an online literary magazine for magic enthusiasts and enchantment seekers
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