MONSTERS! MOTHERS!

I went from sending a newsletter every eclipse season to a few times this month. It’s only to keep up with the pace of Fall happenings and crazy spirit season downloads. They’ll soon slow down as I breath more words into my Patreon and Substack, but if you made it to the end of this labyrinth, there is a spooky prize waiting at the end.

A couple letters ago, I expanded the analogy of sharing good news to playing double dutch and reflected on my experience at the Nashville Film Festival. The next contained Molly Nilsson, birthday feels, resistance to fascism, and symbiotic space between joy and rage. If you miss a newsletter, you can always peruse my archive here. There are critical musings and resources woven into time-sensitive event/ art updates.

For empaths, all time is sensitive. And any astrologer will tell you, this New Moon dives to emotional depths. Today is SENSITIVE and the veil is thin. I write with big news from two free-bleeding open channels: Missing Witches’ Samhain Special and Boston Art Review’s fitting Issue #13: Make Believe (more info below!)

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MONSTER’S TOOLS for MOTHER’S WORK

One thing has always been true. There are Monsters and Mothers. And before you go applying good guy/ bad guy frameworks to political figures or family constellations, I mean to tell you that Monsters and Mothers are not opposites. They’re two sides of an ancient coin, to the tune of Mars in Cancer. Like Medusa’s spilled blood, one drop destroys, one restores. There is a reason that the Star follows the Tower in a deck of Tarot cards. In my own Stelle Scopa deck of cards, various asteroid goddesses, often cast as monstrous or maternal figures in mythology, occupy the deck’s suit of “I Trionfi”, like a Major Arcana.

Medusa, whose name can mean Ruler, Guardian, or Protector, serves as a “king” of sorts in my deck, complete with a Medusa mosaic image referencing a traditional Italian deck’s “tax stamp”-historically this was required for distribution and depicted whomever was in power at the time. When our heads reconnect to our hearts, Medusa consciousness will take back the throne and “govern” through restorative justice models.

But I’m also here to speak of cemetery dirt

… which I accidentally pulled from my bag at a Shaker Gift Drawing opening last month when someone asked for my business card (oops!). Shockingly, the genuinely un-planned antic gained me a show on hallowed ground that I’ve anxiously, cosmically courted for years. My journey with Shaker spirits has been a long road. But I’ve persisted on the path of Mother’s Work and the “Shaker Era of Manifestations”. Hope may be magic, but it’s more than wishful thinking. It’s dirt under the fingernails of Utopian ideals.

And in case you’re thinking what I’m thinking… YES it’s incredibly hard to talk of blood, dirt, and burial grounds… to see skeletons strewn across front yards and dark mirrors through two Octobers. Though I do appreciate how transparently unhinged everyone’s decorations are becoming- and I love that Halloween brings out the weirdo, apocalipstick-witch in my otherwise very conservative father- I can’t look at the violence and costumed gore without thinking of Gaza.

And here, a more polarized Monster/ Mother paradigm is hard to dismantle, as we continue to see photos of Mothers clutching shrouded angels and pleading for powdered milk. I see images of brainwashed young killers holding women’s underwear like a trophy and shout “MONSTERS!” into my phone. Sometimes the delicate lace they mock is red as the blood they drained from the body of someone’s Mother. How can we allow this? Consider supporting these Mothers with whom I’ve been in active conversation: Doaa + Baby Maryam or Amira + her daughters Wafaa and Masa.

But truly my business, especially on this day, is to reclaim the MONSTER and MOTHER and speak to the dangers of the Master’s Tools when dominant culture seeks to monsterize groups of people they see as Other. READ & LISTEN BELOW

~~~~~~~~~~ Today on Missing Witches Pod ~~~~~~~~~~~ Two Gorgons and a Lunar Priestess

I’m happy to share that we just received word from the Rose Kennedy Greenway that Gateway to Infinity (An Anti-Monument) gets to live a bit longer - at least through the end of 2024- you can keep walking its labyrinthine coils until then! We’ll be in touch about a possible closing ritual or film screening that might be open to the public.

But on this very special witches holiday I’m honored to present a conversation between myself and my magical collaborators on the project. Two Gorgons and a Lunar Priestess, Maria Molteni, Vin Caponigro, and Laura Campagna, join one of our favorite witches Amy Torok and her Missing Witches coven. We have a great conversation about the energy of Samhain, the power of collaboration, art as spirituality, art as politics, public art, public ritual, rewriting prayers, heirloom magic, tearing down monuments, and how to conjure Medusa consciousness. It really brings our powerful collaboration full circle and we’re grateful for the opportunity to get our message out, particularly off the back of so-called Columbus Day controversy and conversation.

*You’re also welcome to listen to my solo interview with Missing Witches from 2022, I Believe That Art Is Magic, just after I launched Stelle Scopa.

In this episode we also discuss the expansive media that carries our magic to the world:

The film: TRISKELE & THE MONSTER’S TOOLS: A SOLSTICE INVOCATION OF MEDUSA CONSCIOUSNESS

The zine: MEDUSA ~ MYTH, MEMORY, ANTI-MONUMENT which is for sale in my shop or accessible as a black and white PDF linked through the project page as well as the Center for Liberatory Practice’s Resource Library!

A couple of excerpts from my zine essay that speaks to monsterization and reclaimation

Monster Theory explores how the monsters that a culture invents or depicts in media, from advertising to literature and cinema, often reflect particular fears of difference that constitute an individual or dominant group as normal or protected. The marginalized may become monsterized by systematic holders of power who fabricate barbaric stigmas or characterizations based on gender, race, ability, faith, status, etc

For many descendants of American immigrants there is a complex conflict between the desire to honor those who endured hardships, choosing protections for their children, and a responsibility to recognize privileges gained by false narratives, and at the expense of monsterized Others who remain oppressed and targeted. Given the chance to opt in to the constructed protections of American whiteness [referring to Italian Americans in this section], the monster’s torch is transferred onto still targeted groups of Others.

We see many people today using these same principles of monsterization to justify genocide.

~~~~~~~~~ HOLDING A MIRROR TO HEAVEN ~~~~~~~~

In Boston Art Review’s spirited Issue #13: Make Believe

Many of y’all know that I’ve been “studying” the Shakers since ~ 2007. I use quotes because I don’t think of them as subjects or objects, but as part of my community. For nearly 10 years, I mostly attended their meetings, quietly, shyly. I obsessed over and channeled them into my work subtly, from inside the broom closet. I didn’t want to bother or overwhelm them. I didn’t want to exploit or tease them (as in pose as an interested member unless/until I was sure). The first Shaker book I read was Sister Frances’ memoir which she gifted me herself when I was 23. I’ve been digging through used bookstores, archives, dreams, manuscripts, somatic memories ever since. I wrote about this journey in my essay Dance to the Fountain which you can still purchase in the Unseen Hours catalogue on my site. About 7 years into my slow-paced courtship, Brother Arnold lovingly called me out- he hugged me and recognized the years I’d been coming around. He told me “not to be a stranger.”

I almost became their beekeeper at one point, but was spread so thin as a full time mentee/ employee of Golden Rule Honey- I couldn’t squeeze in the commutes to Maine. In 2018 and 2019 I was waitlisted for a rare opportunity to attend Sister June’s very small “Shaker Sisters Retreat”. In 2020 I finally got into it, but, to my devastation, it was covid-canceled. This was not the first or last of my Shaker heartbreaks. Perhaps I’ll save the full story for my own memoir… or maybe I’ll find one on a random bookshelf and know that I wrote it a lifetime ago. In some ways my film Sacred Sheets is about turning that page and re-awaking Shaker spirit-work from another era.

Let’s just say that, upon the most recent wave of Shaker hype leading up to their 250th anniversary, I finally stepped out of the broom closet to try and participate in broad Shaker discourse. It felt strange. It still does. But I couldn’t stand to see another hard-edged, minimalist wood-boy or big-wig, blue-chip cherry picker be put in some Shaker spotlight they didn’t fully understand or even respect. Shakers are more than skillful, nostalgic Americana. The span of 2019 to the present has truly been a roller coaster for me and my work. I’ve received some of the coolest opportunities to share and make new Shaker-inspired artwork. I’ve also been gate-kept out of spaces where my voice should be heard. I’ve had my proposals straight-up punted to more famous artists after months of writing and planning (as a young artist I’d have never dreamed this could happen among adult professionals). I’ve received offers and cancelations that run the gamut, with some real saints and villains pulling strings on what feels like my spiritual destiny. Melodramatic as it sounds, I can’t tell you how seriously I take this Shaker ancestor work, even when I package it in playful humor. I sincerely believe in continuing MOTHER’S WORK. I think that some of these new-born Shaker-philes (some true devotees and others just Shaker pirates) don’t know what to do with my work since it’s rooted in genuine belief of the Spirit world, psychic labor, and contact with the heavens. I’ve never shied away from Shaker spirituality and I didn’t come to it through boxes and chairs- much as do contain the divine.

Nearly a decade into my Shaker work, largely focused on the Era of Manifestations (also called Mother’s Work in reference to the ghost of Mother Ann Lee), I also took my interests in Spiritualism to a new level. I joined Lake Pleasant - the oldest Spiritualist community in MA and committing to years of attendance at Shannon Taggart’s annual Lily Dale Symposium. My Shaker research often intersects with other matriarchal societies like honeybees, but a key area of my focus has been the intersection of Shaker and Spiritualist mediumship. I was so proud to finally speak at the symposium on the Era of Manifestations. This was last stop on a 1 week educational art pilgrimage that I hosted with Melissa Nierman of Now Age Travel last summer. Great Awakenings was attended by incredible mystics/queers Shay Curran, Lauren Van Mullem, and Laura Campagna. Together we traveled to sites considered abolitionist and “Utopian”- largely Spiritualist and Shaker sites between Salem, MA and Lily Dale, NY. The pilgrimage was partially a reclamation and expansion of aforementioned project that I’d worked on for a museum, but was canceled during Covid. I hope we’ll get the chance to run Great Awakenings again with some kind institutional support?!

When Boston Art Review put out a call for their issue theme “Make Believe” Laura Campagna and I knew it was time to write about our shared experiences and research discussed during our pilgrimage travels. We originally pitched it as an interview, but Jameson Johnson tasked us with writing a historical overview. It was a challenge to summarize so much history and complexity in a short essay, but I’m so proud of what we ended up writing together. Our collaborative essay Holding a Mirror to Heaven covers: the transit of Neptune through the sign of Pisces, the sharp and recent rise of mysticism in art and culture, the practice of believing women and creative mystics, Spiritualism as a religion, science, and industry, Shaker spirit communication, historic periods of Great Awakening, Utopian dreaming, political campaigns and activism, and how to simultaneously create space for the living and the dead. It may be a controversial piece- at least the editing process got a bit heated! This is how I know it’s important work. I hope you’ll snag a copy of the issue and dig in. I hope you’ll follow my Shaker work and spread the word. I come to this “research” with extensive expertise and with my whole heart.

There is SO much more to say. And much more will be said. See below for some upcoming programs I’m involved in. I’m likely to offer a 4 part class on the Era of Manifestations this spring- will keep you posted. If you want to check out the other Shaker publication I curated + contributed to, I still have a few sellable copies of Unseen Hours: Space Clearing for Spirit Work. Huge thanks to Shana Dumont Garr for supporting us in getting this publication printed against many odds.

👇Photos link to each project

☄️🧹 CLOSING THIS WEEK! ☄️🧹

BEAUTIFUL SEVEN @ SLOMA (CA) CLOSES NOVEMBER 4!

I can’t believe Beautiful Seven is coming to a close, but it’s going out with a full sweep of magical events!

On November 2nd many of my friends will be presenting at the Modern Witches Confluence in San Francisco. My show in SLO closes a few hours south of SF on November 4th. About a week later, on November 12, Golden Dome - of which I’ve been a board member for the last couple of years- will host its very last annual Resurrection of Care ceremony at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles.

The full show statement + photos can be found here, but scroll down for some playful highlights on this double, triple, quadruple entendre of an ode to the magical number 7. Featuring the first set of handmade brooms I made from sticks found in spirited forests, my full Stelle Scopa deck of cards, and hand cast stone-rosary beads suspended between Marian palms, this is a charmed show. I couldn't be more pleased that it’s sandwiched, geographically and chronologically, between two very magical events in California.

READ BELOW ABOUT THE LAYERED MAGIC OF THE NUMBER SEVEN

AND IF YOU’VE MADE IS THIS FAR, YOU’RE A TOTAL BEAST! (In the best way).

This Halloween I’ve made the above essay that Nathan Mondragon and I wrote together in 2020, about Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 film Suspiria, available for individual purchase on my Patreon. It’s really quite chilling to re-read it today.

Thanks for following along and being interested in what I’m up to. With love under the stars,

❤️‍🔥 Maria 🌹

ONGOING MUTUAL AID CALLS!

Contribute to the “Build a well in Gaza” campaign through Cactus Mutual Aid and/or the two mutual aid campaigns I’ve posted to my new “Special Offers” page on my site.

Hawk-Eye painting and La Leonessence fundraisers support devastated communities in Appalachia + Palestine. Click here to learn more!