I try to perform a mediumship session with my ancestors and spirit guides once a week, ideally on Sunday evening to give thanks for the week that has just passed and prepare for the one that is to come. This practice helps me navigate life and maintain my emotional balance.

Listen to your favorite song from ten years ago, the one you had on repeat that summer. What do you remember about that period in your life? How did you feel back then? How was it different from how you feel now?

Their household religion was the entire world writ small.

Fresh mugwort can be bound into a bundle and dried in order to create a smudge stick for clearing out spaces of negative energy or ghosts.

others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists.

induce an altered state of consciousness comparable to a mild psychedelic. If you are sensitive to its psychoactive effects, you might prefer to make a charm out of dried mugwort and sleep with it under your pillow instead of drinking the tea. Either way, you might wish to say a prayer or state your intention before doing so. For example: “It is my

Think of your descendants: perhaps biological children, or the people who will inherit your art or join whatever groups you are a part of after you’re gone.

At first this will seem like greater self-knowledge—that is, a better understanding of who you are. But then it will expand into conscious awareness that transcends your lifetime and what you think of as yourself. The story that

I’ve heard it said that a spell is a prayer in three dimensions.