#death work

TW: Death

Things are still really, really difficult right now. They say there's no "right way" to grieve, but I still feel like I'm doing it very wrong. My Mother and Brother are both absolute messes, barely functional. And here I am, being the deep connection to the Earth. I've been watering the garden, planting basil seeds, and trying desperately to keep my life on track. I'm eating fresh, nourishing food even when the last thing that I want to do is plan what to eat. I'm taking myself for stupid walks for my stupid mental health.

I'm focusing on living because I'm not the one who's dead.

I'm very deeply not okay, but I've also lived most of my life in a state of not-okayness. Living while sad (heartbroken even) was my default for a very long time.

I'm slowly trying to put the broken pieces of my world back together (...again). We finally moved the Fabrikor cabinet into what I think will be its final position - it sat in my living room for nearly three weeks because we brought it home the night before my dad died. Now that I've acquired a key to open it, I need to take the time to do a good cleaning (and cleansing). I bought grow lights (1-ft Barrina T5s) and am researching the best fans and other accessories for a plant cabinet.

My goal is to have it done by January, which is generally when our humidity levels really start to tank.

My gardens (cottage and container) are looking quite good. I'm going to get a first tomato harvest soon, with another couple later in the Summer (probably August). The first flush of spring flowers has faded, but my summer perennials are quickly working to take their place. We're forcast to have a "wet" summer, which we desperately need after two years of drought.

I still need to switch over my seasonal altar. It's going to do double duty - represent the summer season and hold the memory of my Dad until the hollows. His favorite place was the beach, so it feels appropriate.

I need to be where I am right now; I can't rush this.

This is my first time grieving in opposition to the Earth; every other time I've lost someone, it's been in the Fall, where I've cried in time with the trees.

The suddenness of this is really hard on my family right now, and I empathize with them, but feel completely differently. I am so grateful that he didn't suffer for months, wasting away in illness.

And he died doing his favorite thing in the world. We should all be so lucky.

It's hard to know how to be with people who only see loss where I see transcendence.

The next time I set foot in a cemetery (that's not my cemetery, which doesn't count), it will be to lay him to rest. And it's a forest; his plot is a tree.

Where did June go? It went down the river.

And as I learned half a lifetime ago: when you step into the river of life, you have three choices: you can sink, you can swim, or you can float along.

It's always been this river running through my veins. He gave me that.

There's a lot I have been thinking about and want to write about. But I am raw, bare to the bone. As fragile as I can ever remember being.

I used stores that I didn't know I had.

To me, being a death witch is working through my grief.

It is mourning loss, both tangible and intangible.

It is learning to approach change with grace instead of irrational fear.

It is slowing down and appreciating the small things.

It is accepting the beauty of imperfection.

It is noting life's transitions and cyclical nature.

It is a way to come to terms with my own immortality.

It is living, even if tomorrow isn't guaranteed.

Uncovered these dog food cans in my trunk that were part of the emergency go bag I made in California when I lived there with Laddie. They were, in fact, the only things still in the bag, whereas everything else had spilled out and was rolling around the trunk for months, because it was important for me to put his food in first before mine.

A few pages from another commonplace book I started a couple of years ago, this one focused on death practices and beliefs across cultures

Tuma sham klat Sylveon 🫡

photo by Camilla Heed

A couple of months ago, Lucifer and I were discussing my rejection at the hands of Persephone, which occurred a number of years ago when I was first starting my spiritual path. He laughed at the situation, elaborating, "She's picky with who she chooses as a follower."

"Well, I don't think I would have been much use for her anyway," I'd said. "After all, I don't work with the Dead."

"You will," he had replied, very seriously.

I was slightly surprised by this, but chalked it up to work I was already doing by conjuring demons. The assumption about grimoire spirits is that they're a mix of recharacterized Near Eastern deities, elementals, and some dead people (particularly relevant to the necromantic focus found in the Faustian tradition). Currently, I work underneath the cosmology—true it may be or not—that many of the demons throughout the grimoires are paying off some kind of karmic debt by assisting humanity when conjured.

But that's not all Lucifer meant, turns out...