Nameless - Part One

In which we visit the past, so we might move forward in time.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about the power of the names and titles we are permitted to carry and my dreams and thoughts around this have become acute as it gets closer to the point in time where I’ll be teaching the foundational elements of my practice at the ‘Ancestral Healing and Transforming Trauma Weekend in Bristol on the 7th and 8th of May’.

How we perceive our role in the experiences we encounter on our path are critical to the limitations that are placed upon us by society and also impact the skillset we utilise to tell our story.

Over time, I’ve learnt that society and the gatekeepers find it easier to accept a spiritual or ceremonial practice when it exists within easy to understand silos of experience. This may cultivate an easier acceptance of work that exists in realms that explore mystery and wonder, but it comes at a cost and is problematic, when the highest form of ritual that I’ve encountered is both formless and nameless.

I shared this earlier in the year.

This new stage of my life is about integration. About utilising all of who I am in service of my community and my family. I’ve no interest in trying to position myself in relation to what a teacher, artist, writer or filmmaker is supposed to be. Our power comes from all aspects of our story. Not from slicing ourselves up, to make ourselves more palatable to trends, society or to fit the needs of others.

I’m not sure how successful I’ve been, it’s an ongoing process. Three steps forward, two steps back.

What interests me is the fact that it wasn’t always this way.

Initiation clarifies. Fifteen years ago. At a key point on the path and in my work, I felt the clearest description was that of Magus, Mystic or Gnostic.

I didn't’ feel comfortable with other titles, it didn’t feel accurate in terms of my journey and what had unfolded. My teacher was loss. Grief. The Graveyard I grew up within.

I’m not sure there’s a name for my core experience and what it has lead me to encounter.

I felt it might be interesting to share a conversation that was conducted during the ‘Dark Nights of the Soul’ anthology by my dear late friend David Blank in the Oracle Occult Magazine. Dark Nights was a thirteen month ritual that took place in public at the Horse Hospital. This was a singular point in the occult revival, the point in time where London became a focus for what people were titled ‘Occulture’. Another signifier I hated. I know why, but we’ll get to that in part two of Nameless.

The experiences that have proceeded this interview have dynamically altered many of the firm beliefs I held at this point in the timeline of my existence.

Travel with me through this portal into the past, so we might meet the future head on…