I Live by a Code
I was watching Fast & Furious, the fourth installment of the Fast and the Furious Franchise, while I was working this week and a line from federal agent, turned outlaw Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker’s character) really resonated with me. It was that sort of half-paying-attention watch of a movie where it almost feels like you are practicing a bit of magic. All of a sudden, you are locked into a scene after not paying direct attention to it for 20 minutes, and its speaking right to you. You are locked into that scene like its the first time you have ever watched the movie. This week, I got locked into the scene where Brian was talking to Mia about why he let Dom (Vin Diesel) go in the first movie, and he said: “One thing I've learned from Dom is that nothing really matters unless you have a code.” Mia then asks Paul what his code is, and he responds, “I am working on it.” YES, this is what hit me right in the chest this week, I think most of my meander existence trying to take a stand for what’s right in the face of insurmountable odds is just my attempt at putting together my own code, but I am still trying to figure it out.
One of my favorite things to do in these essays is keep folx guessing. Did you guess I was gonna start off this week by quoting Paul Walker’s character from that American movie franchise behemoth? I bet you 1 jabrillion dollars you also didn’t guess that I would be taking life advice and insight from the movie. You prolly thought I would come up with some artsy-farsty, high-falutine theory that would rock your socks off instead. If that was your guess, you wouldn’t be wrong. That is what I do most weeks, but I am also someone who was raised on my Family Video rental card. Consequently, I am someone that believes in the power of movies, even movies meant to reaffirm most of the ideas about American society I disagree with. Consequently, You can find me quoting from Fast & Furious in the same essay where I talk about boundary magic.
The quote got be thinking about what sorta code that I live by though. While thinking, it quite suddenly occurred to me that there are some aspects of my code that have withered and died. For instance, I thought I would be friends with the same three guys I grew up with my whole life. I thought they were my “Ride-or-Die” friends. Then one of them stopped answering my calls and didn’t invite me to his wedding. Another tried to get me to drive myself and a pregnant Lily across country to attend his wedding in the summer of 2020 in the heart of pre-vaccine COVID. I know I have written about this before, but I just need to keep airing these losses out. I write about this repeatedly, because that experience still means something to me. I am not happy that aspect of my code is dead. Maybe I will get lucky and find some new brothers, or maybe I won’t.
There are other aspects of my code that have mutated heavily. As I have talked about before, I was raised as a liberation-theory catholic (Jesus was a anticapitalist, antiracist rabble-rouser who lived on this earth as a person) by the jesuits who watered all the seeds of me wanting to pursue a social justice path. I don’t think I am the public servant dedicated to eradicating discrimination, domination, and inequality without those essential moments where I was shown an example of someone (Jesus) who stood against all those things as well. However, as I found my own existence and spirituality far from the dogma of the church, I found my own spiritual code. I live by a hardscrabble code, cobbled together from my own experience at my altars and in the world living out my values, aided by a small community of fellow practitioners that believe they are surrounded by an animate, intelligent beings of all sorts; immersed in a rich web of interconnections with such beings; and surrounded in the magic of a polytheistic universe. Gone is the need to draw on the interpretation of any clergy. In its place, I lean on my trusted friends and community. We kicked out all the demagogues in favor of mutual trust, solidarity, help each other grow.
One of the key folx I lean on to guide my practice is my friend Hannah Haddadi of Mourning Light Divination who taught me how to be a death worker and whose counsel I trust. Each week I tune into their weekly divination to hear what she has channeled for the magical outlook for the week, and once a month I listen in for the magic forecast for the month. Those divination posts help me orient my actions and guide my reflection for the time. I use them as my own channeling mediums where I can get messages from my own goddesses and guides that I work with. The Div serves as the anchor of my own magic practice. Its a ritual that calls me back to my essential belief in the magic that surrounds me and that is in my being as I navigate political, economic, and cultural systems that try to obfuscate that essential truth. The div isn’t meant to set the course for the big picture destinations that I have on my horizons, because we aren’t living in a community of demagogues. No, each person is free to make that decision on what their horizons look like. However, That magic outlook helps me decide how to get there, what tools to bring along, and what I should remember along the way. Do you have rituals or practices that tether you back to basic, grounded truths that you know to be immutable for you? If you don’t, may I suggest thinking through that process! I think it is indispensable.
This past month Hannah had two affirmations for us to work with this month, one of which is incredibly important for the fiber work I am working with right now. “I trust my sacred boundaries,” Hannah said clearly. Their voice on the recording rang with the sort of resonance that leaves one feeling like they didn’t just hear the words, they felt them too. For those of you who have been following me for some time, you know how important boundaries are to me in my fiber work. I put my own naturally-dyed, nettle boundaries into most all my work to act as a boundary for all the people I make weavings for. Ever since I was tasked with being the man of the house at 14 years old when my parents got divorced, I have taken my job of being a boundary very seriously. I caste off that anchor of responsibility some time ago, but kept my emphasis on how I could always offer some magical protection to folx in all my work. With Hannah’s affirmation, I find myself deep in the fiber magic lab, dreaming up new boundary designs to use in my weavings.
As I have been riding around, I have been looking to the world around me for where boundaries naturally occur to inform my boundaries in my weaving. This is very much a nod to adrienne marie brown’s classic “Emergent Strategy” where she counsels us to look to our own direct experience of the landscapes we traverse and other-than-human kin we share space with for lessons on how we may move forward in imagine and creating a world that addresses the problems we see today. The dense thickets that protect the creeks and rivers I ride near from further human intervention are one of the strongest boundary patterns I see every day. Look at this photo I took this week. Would you guess that this creek is bounded by I-70 and industrial business warehouses on both sides if those warehouses weren’t so prominent in the left hand corner of the shot? I would venture to guess no, because the dense thicket in the center of the frame calls for your attention. It marks the boundary for this thin thread of water that empties into the South Platte River. This creek says, “I trust my sacred boundaries,” with this thicket. Seeing the thicket with these eyes, I can see beyond played out ecological notions of invasive versus native toward an ecological boundary protection practice.
With the autumn here, I am turning my boundary protection practice toward my own home, which offers me the opportunity to try out this newest boundary pattern in a work for my home. Specifically, with my baby quilt weaving for my niece complete, I have turned my attention to weaving up some enchanted boundary weavings to put above my front and back door. I want my practices at home to be worthy of my affirmation, “I trust my sacred boundaries.” This dense thicket pattern has been so gratifying to weave. I am using Flax and Twine’s dyed raffia in an eccentric weft technique, letting the fibrous strands of raffia jut directly out of the warp in a myriad of directions. Once I get the raffia’s ends secured into the warp, I am able to bend and fold the raffia into one another into the sort of chaotic thicket that will weed out any folx that wish me ill from coming in my door. May all those folx who wish me ill that come to my door be lost in that thicket and find themselves confused about whence they came with harm to none.
Aside from this boundary weaving, I have been trying to get back into the practice of pulling oracle deck cards for myself, as a way to trust my own magic inside myself. I sat before the candles lit on my ancestral and death altars and sprayed some rose waters on my decks as an offering for my guides and goddess. I asked them, “What else should I be focused on for my boundary work?” I closed my eyes and shuffled the Way of the Wild Oracle deck, created by Tonja Reichley. I fanned the deck out in my left hand and let my right hand run along the cards until I got that little ping of a hit inside my chest, which always marks that is the card my team wants me to pull. I opened up my eyes and looked at the cards. I started giggling to myself as I saw the blackberry card, which is a symbol for boundaries in the deck. The affirmation at the bottom of the card read, “You are fiercely wild, held by beautiful and strong boundaries.”
I couldn’t help be feel a sense of relief seeing that card. In it, I saw not just confirmation that my focus on boundaries was correct, but also that the dense thicket pattern I had chosen was also one that my ancestors, guides, and goddesses approved of. It’s moments like these that I live for, because it becomes so easy to rest in the belief in one’s own ability to conjure the answers and help one needs. Wouldn’t it be neat if all magic worked this way? hehehe. Regardless, I feel that in this practices I find part of my code. It’s why I immediately got some blackberry thorns and branches and a little leather amulet pouch to not only bring the medicine of blackberry into my boundary weaving, but also get tools to be able to carry it on myself as I navigate through the world. I honor the guidance I am given through these actions and demonstrate my discipline to my worldview. This isn’t just a passing fancy; this code, and how I live up to it, is who I am.
Photo Essay
A selection of polaroid and campsnap photos, including the grass fire I found myself in front of and informed the ranger station about, the portals I found myself before, and the Steve Roach show I went to up in Boulder. This grassfire polaroid might be the best I have ever taken. It still blows me away. I look at it like everyday.
I always look forward to your posts. I appreciate your re-sharing about the friendships you mourn, these things shape us. Be well.💚💚💚
Always incredibly honored to be alongside you on this wild journey, my friend. 🥲🥹🥹🥹🖤🖤🖤