Magick at Dia de los Muertos
I had a beer and some Hav’a Chips with my great grandfather at the cemetery this weekend.
Whenever I come home close to Dia de los Muertos, I visit the cemetery where my grandparents and several other of my ancestors are resting. I typically look for my ancestors’ graves based on the view from the last time I had visited, and the proximity to a cluster of olive trees. I like to wander the cemetery barefoot reading the graves and waiting for one of my elders to draw my attention.
It’s a test of faith and connection.
I am blessed that my family never fails me and at least one ancestor wants to chat. But my Tata has never summoned me. My great grandfather nearly burst from the ground to catch my eye. I never found the others’ graves. He wanted all my attention. So I cracked open my Hazy IPA and ripped open the bag of the best chips on the planet and sat down with Tata. We never had a chat before and I was stunned to realize that I was eight when he died and I don’t remember meeting him.
Robert Ruiz was a different man to different people. He was known as El Tigre because he had amber eyes and wooed all the ladies much to my great grandmothers dismay. My aunt called him a hustler and when I shared this picture with my mom (who didn’t even know where the grave had been all these years), she said good night, sweet prince.
I swept his grave with a cinnamon broom from Trader Joe’s asking for his protection - not just from theft or harm or a virus but from my own dark thoughts. Tata was so grateful that I remembered him and in turn, he reminded me where I get my lust for life. He warned me to be careful of my actions and consider how they affect another. Ultimately, sitting with my Tata, he reminded me to honor my wild heart and never to judge that passion. He told me that ultimately ancestors are and were people just as we are all human. And we must love all souls, especially near Dia de los Muertos, a holy day deeply rooted in pre-Hispanic Aztec rituals tied to the goddess Mictecacihuatl, or the Lady of the Dead, who allowed spirits to travel back to earth to commune with family members.
Orange, a powerfully spiritual color, is connected to both Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. It is the color of sunrise and sunset a transitional color that glows between day and night. Orange represents the liminal place where magick occurs. Magick is spelled with a K because the K points to the SKY, heaven and male outward expressions of doing and ideas, similar to yang energy. The G in Magick symbolizes the GROUND, Mother Earth, rest and integration, the yin energy and the fertile soil. Magick occurs between ideas and manifestations. Orange is the path. Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos represent the twilight of the year with their ethereal vibes.
Bright orange marigolds adorn altars for ancestors on Dia de Los Muertos. Petals are strewn from cemetery to front doors of family members, guiding the beloved ones home on a festive bright path. Marigolds are known as Cempasuchil in Spanish a name derived from Nahuatl the language of the Aztecs, Zempoalxochitl which means twenty leaves. Twenty is a powerfully Magickal number in the Aztec culture. And Xochitl means flower. The petals sprinkle like confetti and leave your fingers orange and musky scented.
People often talk about shadow work at this time of year - facing aspects of our personalities that we keep in the dark. It’s a process of coming to terms with our least favorite parts of ourselves so we can grow beyond these self-imposed limitations or unconscious thoughts working against us. We shine a light on all of us. We reflect the Divine Light within to glow through our spirits. This force also illuminates the shadows of our past, our memories. Are there acts that you have committed that you need to forgive? Are there fears from your past that you must let go?
This is a picture of my childhood bedroom when I was 8-12 years old was a time I believed sharks swam under my bed and there was a doorway to an underground world at the far corner of our backyard. We had just moved to Olive where our ancestors built their adobe in 1806 just 300 yards away at the top of the hill.
My family decided I was an awake spirit and talked to me all night long. The constant barrage of voices frightened me into thinking I was going insane. Burglars broken into the house to rob us five times - each time, smashing through my window. I shudder to remember myself at 8 and 9-years old, holding onto the doorway of my bedroom seeing the shards of glass strewn over my quilt of the sun rising over the meadowed mountains. Again and again. This is a shadow self. These are the shadows I faced when I decided to let go of my anger - to not allow fears to define me. Healing myself is why I wrote The Teen Spell Book in 2000 when I was exiting my Saturn’s Return at age 33. I never realized until I took this picture and saw the protection for this room now, that I wrote this book for pre-teens, for the girls feeling the surge of womanhood who felt at a lost for what to do with their first taste of power. And something deep released in me and I breathed easy.
The Teen Spell Book came out on August 6, 2001, not exactly 1674. I do so adore the prankster who changed this image on Amazon.
Read about my process of writing The Teen Spell book in my essay Coyote Medicine on Rebelle Society.
In 2018, Ten Speed Press, now a division of Random House, asked if I would like to update The Teen Spell Book for a new generation of Witches. Up on my lonely mountain, I had NO IDEA that Witchcraft had billions of followers. It took months for me to accept the truth of our exposure to the mainstream world - at least on social media.
From my rural perch, I edited out all the spells related to school, anything performative, or parents, but kept in the spells and rituals for self-improvement and empowerment that begin with puberty and last a lifetime. Plus I added eight new spells inspired by the wisdom I learned in the 18 years between publication. No coincidence there. My book literally became an adult. You can buy The Book of Spells on Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble Hudson Booksellers, Indiebound, Powells, Walmart, select Target stores, or support your local independent bookstore and order your copy! Please, check out my thoughts on perseverance to the Craft of the Wise recently featured in our local Eastern Sierra, Ca, paper, The Sheet.
