The Scarlet Muse
My first encounters with magic were at Solstice and Equinox, the turning points of Vermont’s distinctive seasons. Bonfires, smoke clearing and stories once it got dark. Sometimes a special cake. I was raised by my mother (paganism-lite, manifestation-heavy) and for many years, the two of us farmed chickens with interludes featuring other poultry and a memorable dalliance with sheep. With the animals, I learned about the rhythms of death, some were sacrifices, the bad day at the end of a good life, some were surprises, hard to overlay with meaning, and some were mercies, a strange kind of relief. Each had its place in the larger mosaic and though the deaths were felt they did not bring calamity with them.
We didn’t discuss magic at home so much as operate under the principles. It was a given.
The next magical chapter was opened under two of its covert modern names, psychology and sex. I read everything I could get my hands on and even folded my research into my degree, Cultural Anthropology with a focus on sexuality, death, and religion.
This triad of topics formed a waterslide vortex into the crystalline matrix of Tarot, Astrology and Ceremonial Magic. When I could no longer resist , fascination spilled over from just mind into somatic knowing, this next triad folded in to reveal sacred container magic, ritual practice, and an initiation into The Mysteries in community.
For many years I found endings to be achingly difficult, dissolving what had been to make room for the next felt awful. I always wanted to linger, to make it somehow beautiful or tied up right. It caused me a lot of pain before I figured out that magic could help me do this sacredly, that magic already was—it was the sweetest remembering and it became obvious from then on that magic had been romancing me through every ending and change in my life—and so with each alchemical death a tremendous amount of energy was returned to my internal waters. When I placed myself consciously in service to that process, it worked so much quicker, the air smelled sweeter and I was reconnected to the power of playful, identity-level, magical change in my life. In the last year I left the social work field and I am now happily traveling the world with my partner, visiting sacred sites, resting deeply, and doing magic.
My name is Noelani June, I am from stony riverbeds and sunlight on moss. I am devoted to Babalon, Neptune, sacred endings and the metamorphosis of the dream through the veil.
