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Piercing the Veil – Resistance Magick

Friday, July 22, 2022 | Piercing the Veil

By JILLIAN KRISTINA

We’re in the burning times.

Raging wildfires. Rising temperatures. Rising tempers.

Rising fear.

Literal book burnings, an hour away from where I lay my head. A crazed pastor leading his flock as they burned Harry Potter books, Twilight books, anything deemed ‘demonic’ or resembling ‘witchcraft’ – the work of the devil. I looked at my husband and said, “Should I be scared?”

It’s easy to get lost in the frenzy of fear. It’s so easy to feel powerless and hopeless in the current climate. But it’s during times like this – if there have ever been times resembling this – that we have to reach deep and pull from the most powerful well of resistance we have.

The power in remembering.

Remembering who we are. Truly, down deep. What our truths are. Our passions. Our personal principles and morals. That internal compass that has become muted beneath the battering of the noise and violence and literal fire around us – that needs to be dusted off so it can course correct us. Steer us in a better direction – the one we’ve lost. Maybe that direction points to our past and reclaiming it. So many people come from broken families, families who have forgotten their roots. There’s power in reclaiming our roots, and that can look like retracing them back to our places of origin, as far back as we can. This can bring incredible healing and recognition to those who feel lost, who need more than anything to feel seen; validated. To feel like they belong somehow, somewhere. These times are proof that the price of disconnection – the price of forgetting – is implosion and self-destruction.

This is where the power of remembering lies. We need to conjure the words to the stories we’ve forgotten. The stories that hold the ancient echoes of our ancestors, and as such, the echoes of pieces of ourselves we didn’t even realize were missing.

These stories begin with words – our words. Channeled and shaped and crafted and linked together with purpose and power. With intention. Like a sword and shield in one, both defending and protecting.

“By the words of my mother, and my mother’s mother, and by all the strength of my ancestors, I bind you. By earth and by fire, by air and by water, I bind you. By blood and bone, sigil and thread, I bind you.” OLD GODS OF APPALACHIA, Episode 25: The Siege of Pleasant Evenings 

Harnessing the powers of words and nature – the powers of, as OLD GODS OF APPALACHIA podcast co-creators and Virginia natives, Cam Collins and Steve Shell would call it, the green – has always been one of the greatest defenses of those who need defending. Combining our personal magick and will with the inherent, immense power of the elements, of the soil, of found bone and shed antler – these themes and abilities and recollections of Appalachian culture are given new life in this eldritch horror anthology podcast, or as I like to call it, lyrical horror. Because it is. These stories sing. They breathe. They conjure and create imagery and emotion and passion and desperation and degradation in such a way that listeners might find themselves swooning at the warm, rich deluge of bloodshed as it seeps into the soil, mixing and mingling in an ungodly alchemization of death and birth and regeneration and eternal life and the powers of the ancient beings that dwell in those mountains – one of the oldest mountain ranges on earth.

What they also do is weave tales of inclusiveness. Of the Black community of Appalachia. Of the Transgender community. Of same-sex relationships during the early 1900s. And of the ties that bind – of family. Community. Working together to defeat the dark forces that would seek to tear them – limb by limb, if need be – apart. These stories speak of empowerment, of personal agency and sovereignty, of magick, of protective wards, of individual gifts used to protect those who need protecting.

“See, like I said, my sister? She’s the best at binding things. But me? I’m better at severing ties and cutting things loose.”

The more time we take to hone our personal talents, the better we are. When we reclaim the magick of our bloodlines, we heal not just ourselves, but those who walked and bled before us. When we use this power for good, wielding it for the betterment of this world, we’re doing the work that matters. The work that will make a difference. We’re reforging that essential connection to our past that we’ve lost – a sense of self and sovereignty – the core of so much of what’s happening all around us right now. Because in a world ruled by the iron first of fear and consumption, the bravest thing we can do is be fully, courageously, unabashedly, ourselves. That is how we face down all of the rot and monstrosity that’s rising out of the spoiled fissures of this decaying society – we call it out. We name it. Because there is power in the naming of a thing.

Immense power.

“Soot-breather. Bottom-feeder. Hollow Man of black breath made. I see you. I name you. I call you lightless. I call you nothing. I call you gone.”

So gather your power. Deepen your practices. Craft your incantations. Call upon your ancestors, your guides, your deities. Ready your magick. Because this is just beginning, and the frontlines of your personal power are calling. Will you answer?

Old Gods of Appalachia podcast is available on all major podcast platforms, as well as their website, https://www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/

Jillian Kristina
Jillian Kristina blends her love of horror and magic to facilitate healing from the real horrors in the world. Stephen King's movies and books raised her; magic and the occult molded and healed her. Find her on Instagram @root_down, on Twitter @RootDownTarot, and through her website jilliankristina.com.