Conversations with Color: The Power of Therapy in Pagan Practice with Wolf of The Esoteric
The interviewer: A magpie deck representing the color Dark Blue.
The interviewee: Wolf of The Esoteric.
The Esoteric are a disabled & neurodivergent plural system with strong spiritual connections, including sysmates of spiritual origin. Wolf has been a witch (to varying degrees) for almost 30 years, studying an eclectic variety but with a focus on Celtic traditions. Sy main goddesses are Brigid and The Morrigan; sa is currently partway through a 1-year dedication to Brigid with sy sysmate Gavin, which is characterized by targeted research, trying various traditional practices, and blending this tradition and research with sy existing practices to create a personalized form that works for sa.
If you're unfamiliar with plurality and want to learn more, visit https://morethanone.info
The subject: How therapy has affected Wolf's Pagan and witchy practices.
Dark Blue:
"Thank you for collaborating with me!"
Wolf: "A pleasure to collaborate with you! Looking forward to our conversation!"
Dark Blue:
"Has therapy helped you to be more generous toward yourself when you haven't put in all the work to achieve what you want yet and your instinct is to be 'claws out'? Elaborate if you wish!"
Wolf: "Therapy has helped me realize that nobody is perfect, nobody can do everything, everything takes time and effort and more time…and, most importantly, therapy has helped me realize that I’m not the exception to that rule. I was taught as a child that only perfection was acceptable; therapy has helped me be more comfortable with being a work in progress. I think the most important word in your question is 'yet' - we will get that work in, and we will achieve."
Dark Blue:
"When you're unable to move on and there is no solid truth, how does therapy help you embody and communicate your inner spark?"
Wolf: "Oh that’s a hard one.
"Our therapist is Native Hawaiian and brings her own polytheistic views to our sessions. While we don’t share any god/desses or a lot of practices, she will remind me to check in with my goddesses and ask my cards when I need clarity or direction. She has also offered her own spiritual context for a card before, which is fascinating. She encourages us all to express ourselves artistically when we can’t find words for something & helps us get words out of the art. It’s really very cool the way she’s helping us blend therapy, spirituality, and art! She reminds me that sometimes there are no solid answers for mortals, that sometimes we just have to muddle through the best we can and see what happens - in mundane life as well as in our spiritual ventures."
Dark Blue:
"How does therapy help you translate joy into magic and new emotional beginnings?"
Wolf: "First of all, therapy helps me recognize when I'm feeling joy, accept that I'm allowed to feel joy (without guilt or anything else crowding in, but also at the same time as those emotions), and accept that I can and should express my joy.
"Having a therapist so open to witchy things is...just amazing. Knowing that I can talk openly about our practices in therapy makes me more likely to practice, because I know I won't have to hide it or talk around it. When it comes to joy, therapy has given me the confidence to express it in all areas of my life, which of course includes magic. Having our therapist encouraging the blend of therapy, magic, and art has really helped - I've felt joy and felt drawn to craft something both artsy and magical, to create a spell to express and share my joy, and more.
"And honestly, the recognition and acceptance of joy is a new emotional beginning for me. That took years and multiple therapists, haha, but our current therapist has probably made the biggest difference, even though we haven't been seeing her for very long yet, just because she's so open and encouraging when it comes to our spirituality, our art, our plurality, etc. So that encouragement and the creation (of art and of spells) that has come from having such a safe place with her to stand on - that has been a new emotional and spiritual beginning."
Dark Blue:
"How do embodiment and movement bring you closer to your hopes?"
Wolf: "So we’ve always been a little disconnected from our body. Not recognizing signals from it & therefore not being able to take great care of it. We’re trying to be more intentional about it - our watch reminds us to get up & move around every hour, & we also use that as a reminder to check in with the body very purposefully. Hello, body, how do you feel? Are you hungry, thirsty, in pain, tired, etc? So that is helping with the overall goal/hope of better health. Going on regular hikes with a friend helps us with that connection, getting movement/exercise in, and connecting to nature, which is an important part of our spiritual existence, too.
"We’re also getting better about stimming when we feel the need instead of repressing the urge, and sometimes that’s an autistic thing & sometimes it’s the body needing to get some movement in a specific limb or joint (shaking out stress or muscle tightness or pain). Moving towards a more authentic life is another goal.
"We are doing EMDR with our therapist in the hopes of dealing with some stuff & being less affected by PTSD. For us, because of various other factors, this looks like bilateral drumming-on-body most of the time (also good for making us more connected to/grounded in the body) and sometimes things like stomping on the ground with alternating feet, getting that vibration running from the earth through our legs & whole body. We’ve not gotten very far into the EMDR, but when we remember to do that in a high-anxiety moment, it helps bring us down & avert panic attacks, which is kind of a big deal.
"And some of us, myself included, see dance as a way to connect & celebrate spiritually. I would call myself an awful dancer, tbh, but releasing judgment and expectations around it (an ongoing effort!) is a necessary part of this ritual. Just moving in the ways that feel right in the moment, whether there’s music or not…it is a thank you to the deities and to nature and to the universe for being able to move, and it is reaching out to the energy around me and letting it flow through me and come out the other side. It leaves me with a charged feeling, most of the time, a sense of greater connection, energy, and purpose for whatever comes after. And it feels like whatever comes after a spiritually-charged dance is more natural and just better than it would be otherwise, whatever it is. I can’t name a specific hope that this experience lines up with; it’s more like it’s adjacent to all goals because it supercharges whatever it is."
Dark Blue:
"Where do you see yourself as a beginner aspiring to celebrate future attainment?"
Wolf: "Haha, oh boy, everywhere. I feel like I'm a beginner at everything. I have the worst imposter syndrome any time I'm asked to teach someone something. (So please explain to me why and how I was offered the university peer tutoring job, I/we keep giving presentations at a conference, we're pursuing a peer support specialist certification, and other things?)
"But I would rather feel like a beginner and be open to learning, have goals for the future, and be looking forward to future attainment than think I'm the expert and be close-minded with no idea of what I could do to further myself in any given area."
Dark Blue:
"Goodbye! May you dodge life's slings and arrows!"
Wolf: "Thank you; I’ll try!"