Kate Scelsa - Luminary: A Magical Guide to Self-Care

Luminary

A Magical Guide to Self-Care

Kate Scelsa

FOR

ALL

THE

witches

I formed my first coven when I was seven years old by passing a note to three girls in my second-grade class. My proposal was that we would learn to cast spells, communicate with animals, and eventually be able to fly. I still have a tiny note written on a ripped piece of notebook paper in which one of my friends agreed to join me. The coven only met a few times, our potions were improvised collections of liquids from the kitchen cabinet, and our animal familiars were stuffed cat dolls, but at seven years old I knew without a doubt that the magic was real.

Fifteen years later I found myself standing in a new age store in suburban New Jersey, having recently graduated from college and suffering from a particularly persistent bout of anxiety and depression. The store was filled with old-school new age dcorlots of fairy figurines, capes, and crystalsall things I had loved without judgment as a kid, and now regarded as deeply cheesy.

It was not my idea to go into this store. I was there to use a gift certificate for an astrological reading that my aunt had given me as a birthday present. She was into all things witchythere was a tiny cauldron on the shelf in her home, she wore a pentagram around her neck, and she regularly attended drum circles and spirit guide meditations. I loved talking to her about all her mystical practices, but I saw myself as just a curious observer. Even if I was intrigued by my aunts commitment to it, at the end of the day any sincere belief in magic was pure silliness. This was the attitude that I used to protect myself for a very long time.

Starting in middle school I had been dubbed too loud, too emotional, too nerdy. I cared about school too much, spending hours each night on my homework until I decided that I had done it perfectly. The things I liked to do for fun were often deemed weird or immature by other kids. If I was invited to a sleepover party, I would inevitably spend most of it alone, too scared to watch whatever horror movie was on. My feelings were easily hurt, my laugh was too loud, and I cried at the drop of a hat. I just couldnt bring myself to be that weird witch girl on top of all that, no matter how much I might have loved the magical and mystical when I was younger.

So my only reaction to standing in this cheesy new age store waiting to use a gift certificate for an astrological reading was to write it all off as slightly embarrassing. I certainly didnt like this kind of stuff or believe in this kind of thing.

I was called into a back office by a man who looked like a cleaned-up version of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. An elderly terrier followed us into a room that was decorated with tapestries and crystal balls. I sat down in a chair at a small round table that had a stack of papers on it, a color-coded circular chart on the top page. This was my natal chart, the astrologer explained to me, the position of the planets relative to me at the moment that I was born.

He pressed record on an old-fashioned tape recorder.

Youre going to want to listen to this again later, he said, as the little dog curled up at our feet.

He then proceeded to change my entire life.

When Comic Book Guy started the tape recorder, I imagined playing the tape for people later as a joke. I assumed that the recording would be full of vague movie-style fortune-teller predictions about money and love. Sixty minutes later I was just grateful that I had a record of the most transformative hour of my life.

As the astrologer broke down my chart for me, it was as if someone was telling me my own life story, explaining parts of myself that I had never been able to explain, that I didnt know could be explained. They were the parts that activated the big neon sign in my brain that flashed the word FLAW over and over. Suddenly all this mystical astrology stuff started to feel a lot less funny. How could he not only know these things about me and be able to explain them to me in specific detail, but also talk about them as if they werent flaws at all, but simply parts of who I am?

As I sat in that chair and listened, the astrologers dog curled up at my feet, I felt something in me start to relax for the first time in a long time. I realized that I didnt even fully understand how unhappy I had been feeling. I knew that I had been suffering from anxiety in my post-college life, but I couldnt put my finger on what was wrong. Now a picture was beginning to formI was exhausted all the time no matter how much sleep I got. Not having accomplished anything yet in my life depressed me. I had finished the mandated sixteen years of education. I had worked hard, gotten good grades, followed the rules set out in front of me. I was twenty-twowasnt I supposed to have everything figured out by now? Shouldnt I feel happy and fulfilled, with a clear direction in my life and constant outside assurance that all my hard work was paying off? If none of that was happening, then it must mean that I was doing something wrong. And if I was doing something wrong, it must mean that there was something wrong with me.

And here was an astrologer casually implying that there was nothing wrong with me at all, and that everything that was happening to me was right on time when it came to astrological alignment.

I started asking questions. I needed details.

Im totally anxious living in the city all the time, I said. Why cant I calm down and just deal with it the way everyone one else seems to?

Of course youre overly sensitive to your environment, he told me. Your chart has tons of water in it. Youre an emotional person. Just look at your moon placement.

Im an emotional person????? Thats it? I was just allowed to say that and point to a place on this chart that explained it? Not presenting it as an excuse, but as a part of me that needed extra attention, that I might even learn how to work with rather than fight against?

If this chart was able to explain things to me about myself that I had never even been able to articulate, was it really possible that there wasnt anything wrong with me at all? Could it be true that it wasnt my job to change in order to conform to my perception of what other people expected of me, but just that I needed to figure out how to work with these elements of my personality, and, heaven forbid, even celebrate them????

I believe this is what they call an aha moment.

By this point in my life, I had already seen multiple traditional therapists, gone to wellness retreats, and sat through tons of visits to doctors to try to raise my energy level and make me feel like a normal person. And in every single one of those situations my takeaway had been, There is something wrong with me, and if I cant fix it, then I am a lazy, pathetic failure.