High Vibes

Tarot with Tirrell / Sigils on a Stick / Fire Ceremony

We all gathered wood for the fire. Each of us found and imprinted a special stick with an intention for release and an intention for calling in. We used watercolors, charcoal, lipstick, and ballpoint pens to mark these intentions with sigils on opposite ends of our particular pieces of wood. Each one was different and beautiful.

After dinner we sang the chorus of The Mermaid over and over, ramshackle and piecemeal as we clamored down the sandy stairs to the beach, sigiled sticks in hand. Gonzalo and Juan built the fire out of driftwood and set benches around it so that we all faced the ocean and the fire at once, cliffs on either side and the Casa behind us. The full moon glowed silver above and the fire burned gold below. The ocean was black and inky and felt like the sum of all things. 

Everyone stood and cast their sigils into the fire, some silent, some shouting, all grateful, all beautiful. Gonzalo went last, riding his piece of driftwood like a broomstick and shouting ABRACADABRA as he threw it into the flames.

The driftwood burned hot and fast and sparks and sand danced around us as we sang songs from childhood in rounds, the wind carrying our voices out to sea.

As goodbyes were said, the little clay pots that we got in town were produced one by one and filled with the white sandy ashes settling around the edges of the dying embers - our intentions alchemized, released and transformed, to be carried forth into the world and used in the ignition of future fires. 

Well the ocean waves may roll
And the stormy winds may blow
We poor sailors go skipping o'er the top
While the landlubbers lie down below below below
While the landlubbers lie down below

A ritual for cleansing the energy in your home:

October 2013

At a friend's house.

This ritual is a cycle of six processions through the home. The first three loops are designed to clear the space of stagnant, negative energy and the last three are designed to hold space for the new and to invite in the positive. This is DIY energy magic adapted from Carole Fogarty's Rejuvenation Lounge. Adapt and revise at will!

1. Gather your tools. 

You will need: salt, a sound instrument, something from the earth, holy water, fire/candles, a few bowls, and an intention of your own design. Arrange your tools in a way that is pleasing to you and that offers ease of access. I think it is useful to write your intention down and keep it here, on your altar. 

We used salt from the kitchen, sage from my garden, bells from my altar and a gong from my friend's house, tea candles, a small notebook and pen, assorted bowls and spoons, and a tea tray as our altar.

We made our holy water with basil from the garden and a few drops of Chanel No. 19. We held the bowl in our hands and breathed together, clearing our minds and relaxing our bodies. We visualized our intention and chanted OM three times to seal the deal.

2. Light your fire/candle and state your intention. The ritual is begun.

3. Start in your chosen location (front door or altar is best) holding your bowl of salt. Move around your home sprinkling a handful of salt across doorways, in corners, and anywhere you feel the energy is heavy. You might focus on a bed due to illness, in the kitchen due to lots of arguments, or along the window sill next to troublesome neighbors. Leave for 12 hours if possible. Trust your gut feelings.

4. Clap away stagnant energy. Now you will be moving around your home for the second time - clapping continuously. Clapping is a fabulous way to sense and read the energy in your rooms. When a clap is crisp, clear and easy to do then it generally indicated the energy is light and flowing. When a clap is heavy, dull or flat sounding this generally alerts you to the fact that there is stagnant/stuck energy. Stay in these spots for longer, continuing to clap until you feel your clap become crisper and clearer. 

5. Use your sound instrument to amplify the resonance begun by clapping. Move through your home for the third time, using your sound instrument to activate the space. Bells, cymbals, gongs, or pots and pans work well here. Make a holy racket! Chase those demons out! This is like shooing a bear from a campground - use your voice and your body if you feel the urge. Make a noise, let it out, scream and shout, bang a gong, get it on! Again, linger longer in areas that you feel a thicker energy in. Trust your gut. Shake it out.

6. The first cycle is complete. The slate is wiped clean. The fourth loop is a turning point and a pause. Breathe deeply and absorb the charge of the silence in the wake of your holy racket. Walk through your home with your mind clear and calm. Feel the infinite space around you. Now use your forefinger to trace an infinity symbol into the space along each wall and room of your home. The repetitive motion of tracing this powerful and ancient symbol invokes balance and harmony in you and your home.

7. Uplift with holy water. On the fifth circle of your home, flick or spray your holy water into the center space of each room to infuse your blessed intention and healing energy into your home.

8. The sixth and last time you walk a circle the energy of your home. Simply walk into each room and offer a prayer, affirmation or mantra. Don't rush, be calm, and mindfully repeat your mantra to each room. Leave each room with gratitude. 

9. Seal your practice by returning to your altar and doing something to clarify your own energy. We used Lion's Breath followed by three OM's and the pinching out of our candle to conclude our ritual. 

Smudge

April 2013

FLOWN

 April 2013

FLOWN

 

photographed x Sandra Esther Ciriello

jewels x Naked Label

styling x Caroline Yes

April 2013

Bedroom Music/Bedroom Magic

FLOWN x Naked Label x Sandra Esther Ciriello

April 2013

Bull & Snake / Sage for the Future

Mom's Present

Christmas 2012

Altar

Day of the Dead 2012
The Bronx

Bardo Thodol Halloween Show 2012

Secret Project Robot
Brooklyn, NY

"In an attempt to slay ego of herself and the show audience, and to show the necessary duality of harmony and chaos, and in an effort to reconcile any childhood issues with mothers, the Delphic Sibyl will perform a Death and Rebirth ritual invoking and dedicated to the Hindu Goddess of Chaos and Destruction: Kali. A young man will be chosen, killed, and escorted through the halls of hell to meet Kali, his mother, and ultimately become Kali, while Kali is reincarnated into our current reality."

Choir feat. FLOWN (Caroline Yes, Margot Bianca, Kate Ryan) + Faten Kanaan, Sandra Esther Ciriello, Laura Leontine.

Delphic Oracle

Bardo Thodol Halloween Show 2012

Secret Project Robot

Brooklyn, NY

Wheel of Fortune

Projections for FLOWN performance
Death by Audio
Brooklyn, NY
September 2012

A Ritual to Abolish Fear and Self-Doubt

FLOWN enacted a public ritual to abolish our intimate demons of fear and self-doubt at a punk show with friends and strangers on a Thursday night in September of 2012 at a dive bar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. 

On the day of the show we gathered around the kitchen table and engaged in a stream-of-consciousness writing exercise using strips of newspaper and colored pencils. We scribbled down the litany of insults, hate words, fear-driven vitriol, undermining assurances, condescending fuck-you's, and iron-clad inadequacies that echo in our minds, distorting themselves in the echo of their emptiness and looming large in our psyches. We have magnified the power of these demons by keeping them silent and hoarding them for ourselves. On this day we choose to expose them, to name them, and to destory them. 

"Lazy. Stupid. Is this what you have done with your privilege? This is terrible. Give up. Why even try? Dumb. Slut. Ugly. Waste of time. Worthless."

We inflated a balloon, filled with hot air, and sealed it. Then we slathered each strip of hate in a petrifying bath of flour and water. We covered the balloon with this cavalcade of vicious fear and we let it dry. Once dry, we sealed it with a layer of paint. Each of us inscribed a face on this hardened head, our ritual sacrifice. Illuminating the faces of our demons made us laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Soon we will destroy you.

...

We went into the garden and breathed the lingering evening air. We placed our hands on the kitchen herbs in their boxes: rosemary, sage, lavender, thyme, lemonbalm, peppermint. We reveled in their earthiness, their goodness, their promise of healing. We felt the sun on their leaves and felt the roughness of their branches. We inhaled deeply, filling our heads with love, connectedness, and the smell of dirt. We plucked stems and leaves and thanked the plants for their gifts to us.

Back inside, the table overflowing with herbs and seeds, we sat and wrote love letters to our demons. 

"It will be ok. You are loved. You have time. Thank you. Trust yourself. You are beautiful. You can do this."

We opened up a bowlful of little plastic prizes from the gumball machine at the supermarket. Emptied of candy, we filled each plastic shell with affirmations, herbs, seeds, heart-shaped rings, crystals, and tiny blessings of love. 

With great fanfare, we popped the balloon inside our hateful demonhead. Shriveled bits of plastic stuck to the inside of its empty skull. Then we scooped up piles of our little plastic love-bombs and filled our demonhead to the brim with affirmations and herbs from the garden. 

...

At midnight, when all the other bands were done, we processed, three hooded witches, through the spilled beer and cigarette butts and strung our demon from a broken mic stand in the middle of the concrete floor in the back room at Tommy's Tavern. We chanted our hate-speech, hardened in the skull of this effigy. At first in a whisper, it grew quickly to a cacophony of shrieks: ragged, bilious words, spit out with greater and greater urgency, a whirling dervish of the most wretched thoughts amplified and echoed until they became an incomprehensible noise, transformed into a litany of feedback and decaying screams. Who knows delivered the first blow. The demonhead swung like a pinata, its faces blurred in the dark and distorted by the guitars crashing into it, ripping it asunder.

...

The smell of fresh dirt and white sage explodes into the room. Geodes fall on the beer-slick concrete and shatter. Prizes scatter across the floor. Friends and strangers shout and grab in the dark for a piece of the light or the noise. 

FLOWN
September 2012

Kitchen Table

The Morning After 

July 12, 2012

FLOWN

 

The Bell House w/ White Mystery & Shonen Knife
July 2012
Photos by Lucia Harmon