Hello friends! It is my little book goblin’s birthday! The Art of the Occult is officially summoned into our realm today, October 13th, 2020, published by Quarto Knows. I never dreamed I’d see a stack of my own books on my own sofa, so I thought I’d commemorate the occasion with a capture of it cozied up next to some of my favorite gremlins and gargoyles.
Speaking of wee goblins and gremlins: Megan Rosenbloom was sharing with us last night that her toddler is obsessed with flipping through the pages of The Art of the Occult, marveling at all the pretty pictures “in a grown-up book.” This gave my heart such a rare and beautiful thrill. Do you remember how old you were when you first became aware of magic and beauty? I reckon it was very young. You may have seen something so thrillingly gorgeous that it haunted your dreams and has guided every twist and turn in your life’s path ever since. I hope The Art of the Occult can serve as that initial portal, that gateway to mystery and inspiration and a lifelong curiosity, never quenched.
Many of you are awaiting copies and I truly hope you like it! Please tag me in your photos and reviews, and speaking of reviews, It would be great if you could leave a few words about the book on Amazon or Goodreads or both!
If you would like a signed copy of The Art of the Occult, please message me, and I’d be happy to work that out with you. Please keep in mind, though, I ship things out once a week, so you might have to wait a little bit longer for your copy then you would if you had ordered it through a major bookseller. Just an FYI!
I currently have a giveaway for a signed copy of The Art of the Occult, and today is the last day to enter! Check out the Haute Macabre blog for details.
In super-extra-exciting news, the beloved aroma artists at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab have created a series of scents celebrating and inspired by some of the esoteric works in The Art of the Occult, and you can learn more here!
Lastly, thank you for reading my writing here, my blog, where ever else you might have found me. Thank you for your support and encouragement over the years. And thank you for purchasing a copy of my little book of magic and art and wonder. It’s HERE!
The above photo? That is concrete evidence that even if it takes you forever, you may eventually become better at something. I’ve been attempting to bake bread for decades and this is the year that I finally got it, if not “right”, well, it’s definitely not wrong, either. Don’t ever give up on your dreams! Especially if they involve pillowy loaves of delicious sandwich bread.
This loaf makes wonderful toast, and there’s no snack so enchanting as a thick-sliced, crunchy piece of homemade bread, toasted and slathered with butter. A drizzle of honey is nice too! Buttered toast calls to mind keeping warm and safe on blustery nights in cozy pajamas with milky tea and nursery rhymes and Mother Goose and it’s just…simple-gentle, magical nourishment for your inner child, as silly as that might sound.
When we were very young, our mother would prepare a supper of scrambled eggs and toast for my sisters and I when we were having a rotten day (or maybe she was having a bad day?) Even now, these many years later, the comforting fragrance of slightly carmelized and charred bread, the soothing hum of the heating filaments, and even the mechanical whir of the toaster gears springing up the now toasted bread is enough to lower my blood pressure and slow my breath when I’m feeling off-kilter and panicked. Buttered toast forever, please.
https://www.buzzbybakes.com/post/don-t-discard-the-discard…And for kindred spirit kitchen witches who are interested, this wonderful recipe is courtesy Buzzby Bakes.
Late this past summer, I was directed by a friend* to a post in a folk horror Facebook group that featured some utterly delightful illustrations for Ukrainian Witch. Studies in Ukrainian demonology by Vasyl’ Myloradovych.
According to original poster, Maryna Moynihan, this classic 1901 text was beautifully illustrated by Ihor Vyshynski and published by children’s book publisher Veselka in 1993. Many thanks to Maryna for allowing me to repost these beautiful images here at Unquiet Things. If you’re interested in further details about the images, be sure to check out the original Facebook post, wherein Maryna provides some context and explanations.
*Shout out to Jennifer W.–not hateful 8th grade Jennifer W., but instead lovely Jennifer W. from the book of faces, and who I wish could go back in time and swap places with shitty-Jennifer, so that we could be friends!
Maryna also shared some imagery from The Flower Lady by Valeriy Shevchuk (1990) and illustrated by Olha Rubina. Of Shevchuk, she notes, “[this] writer is very unique – I’ve called him a magic realist, but actually there’s a wholly original genre called “Ukrainian chimerical literature”, and it’s probably closer to French/Belgian “fantastique. ” She observes that, “this book of fairytales is different: Shevchuk has written it with his little daughters’ help. It turned out surprisingly creepy, but it also became quite ubiquitous in the 90s. I had a copy, my school library had a bunch of them, and probably most of my friends did, too.”
I heartily wish I had these amazing books on my shelf when I was a little girl, that’s for sure!
At Haute Macabre this week, I share a few of my favorite pages from The Art of the Occult, as well as giveaway details for a signed copy of the book! A winner will be announced on the date of publication, October 13, 2020.
A gathering of death-related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From heart-rending to gut-splitting (sometimes you gotta laugh, you know?) from informative to insightful to sometimes just downright weird and creepy, here’s a snippet of recent items that have been reported on or journaled about with regard to death, dying, and matters of mortality.
I received my author copy of The Art of The Occult this week, and I’m so excited that this beautiful book (can I call my own book beautiful? I think I can, because it *is* a thing of beauty) will be making its way to the rest of the world in mid-October.
I’m so excited, in fact, that I may puke! Is this normal? Maybe, right? It’s a big piece of my heart and maybe a little morsel of my soul as well, bound up in these pages, and I hope that my passion for magic and mystery and beauty comes through in the words I’ve written, at least a little.
I’ve dedicated this book to the seekers, the dreamers, and the magic-makers, and I hope you all find inspiration, delight, and a breathless rekindling of curiosity each and every time you flip through these pages.
If I could have told little Sarah that she would have a published book on the shelf one day, she would probably murmur a spacey “yeah, I know,” and then disappear into whatever daydream world she was lost in.
As a child, I wrote little books and magazine articles all the time. I recall one provocative headline I wrote about how the earrings that Tina Turner wore in Mad Max made her head fall off!
As an adult, I am never not writing. It’s not always smart or beautiful or meaningful stuff, but I can’t imagine not taking moments every day to sort out on the page the things whirling around in my head. Did adult me ever know this might lead to a book on a shelf? I’m not sure. So I’ve got to thank little Sarah, that dreamy scribbling weirdo, for believing in me.
The New Faces of Death was a series of interviews I originally wrote, beginning in 2015, and which were published elsewhere on the internet. That site has not been active for quite some time now, so the articles are now housed at Unquiet Things–I have been meaning to resurrect and continue the project for a few years now and I believe it is finally time! I think that ultimately I will be changing the name of the series. The New Faces Of Death worked at the time, for that particular venue, but I’m not really feeling it now, and it doesn’t seem quite appropriate, somehow.
These conversations on death (ah, there’s the new name!) were a series of profiles and interviews in which I chatted with a handful of remarkable individuals passionately involved in the Death Awareness/Acceptance movement– funeral industry professionals, academics, historians, artists, writers, designers, and more. Pioneering mortals who seek, in different ways, to educate our repressed society regarding the various facets of death and how to cultivate a relationship with death that is liberating, humanizing – and ultimately – life-enhancing. From mourning and memory to pathology and the intricacies of the human body, from the meaning of a “good death”; I invite you to read further, learn much, and expand your own conversations on death in the process.
I am thrilled to kick off our return to this column in the form of a Q&A with writer and photographer Claudia Crobatia from A Course In Dying. I’ve followed Claudia’s blog for several years now but it’s only been recently (generally speaking, I guess, because we’ve all lost track of time in 2020) that I’ve worked up the courage to begin tweeting/messaging etc., with her!
Claudia’s writings on her blog, A Course In Dying, are intended to help communicate and disseminate death awareness through exploring the theme of mortality–these offerings include unique interviews with wonderfully unexpected individuals, to personal essays brimming with insight, to hauntingly gorgeous explorations of exquisite cemetery spaces.
Photo by Nona Limmen
Unquiet Things:How did you become interested in death as a way of life (so to speak) and how did that lead to the writing and the work that you do for A Course In Dying? What drew you to explore death & dying & matters of mortality?
Claudia Crobatia: “Death as a way of life” – I like that! And it connects to one of my core beliefs: that death is a part of life and should be treated as such, instead of being ignored or tabooed.
To answer your question more comprehensively, I have been intrigued by death from a very young age on. My father was quite old, at fifty-eight when I was born, and growing up I was confronted with his various health issues. Most of them were heart related and he eventually lived to be eighty-three, but one example that stands out for me was witnessing him having a cardiac arrest when I was ten years old. These experiences definitely confronted me with mortality and made me think about the impact of death. Not only in practical reality-based terms, but they also triggered my interest in the big unknown in a more metaphysical and spiritual sense, and wanting to figure out what death could potentially mean.
What do you want people to take away from the work that you do?
My aim with A Course in Dying is to break the taboo around the subject of death. When I created the platform back in 2016 it started out as a place to share my research. I wanted to know how aware we currently are of our mortality and how death influences us nowadays. Through the interviews I’ve done I discovered that our modern-day society in general does lack a personal connection to death and everything that surrounds the dying and grieving process.
The platform has now evolved into more of a death awareness resource where I encourage people to contemplate death. I am currently working on my first online video course on how to cope with mortality – this way, the name A Course in Dying can finally be taken literal! The course will guide you into exploring your own relationship with mortality and help you integrate death awareness into your life, and thereby possibly even reducing your fear of death.
Photo by Nona Limmen
What are some of the most common misconceptions you’ve run into about your work, your blog and to a larger extent, death and death awareness in general… and what do you do to disabuse people of those notions – or not?
The most typical type of misconceptions I get are comments on my work that dismiss it as being too gothic, morbid or just straight up dark. I do try to break this cliché with the general look and feel of my work, for example by shooting all of my cemetery footage in bright colors, but for some people an interest in the subject of death automatically equals a morbid obsession.
Now, the thing is that I don’t necessarily mind these stereotypes being projected onto the work I do. I love everything dark and macabre myself, so yay! But what does worry me about it is that labeling anything death related as morbid and scary will stop people from interacting with it on a personal level, and acknowledging it as an absolutely normal, natural part of life. I suppose this is where ouroboros gets to bite its own tail and the endless cycle of my death awareness journey continues, with the aim of letting people know it is okay to think and talk about death.
Many people find working with the dead or talking about death creepy, or macabre or morbid – how do you enroll those people into the conversation? Conversely, if you have a particularly creepy incident in your experiences, I would love to hear about it!
I think I answered the first part of this in my previous question! As for creepy incidents, here is one that immediately comes to mind:
I visited an old Jewish cemetery in Amsterdam, where I live, during semi-lockdown recently. We never went into full lockdown here in the Netherlands but social life was heavily restricted. Luckily I was still able to go for walks and visit nearby cemeteries. I had wanted to visit this one old cemetery for a while now and thought this was a great opportunity.
However, once I stepped in through the cemetery gates, a very eerie feeling soon came over me. In hindsight I believe it must have been a combination of the surreal semi-lockdown situation I was in, where for a couple weeks on end I hardly interacted with any living being, and the unkept state of decay the cemetery itself was in. It is situated on the edge of a residential area and very small in size, but it was hard to spot any gravestones at all. Most of the area was overgrown with tall grass and shrubs, and the headstones that were visible were in very bad shape. Regardless of it’s tiny size and lack of visible graves, the cemetery holds 100.000 interred bodies! I felt sad for the souls who were laid to rest here, for the state this place was in and for the state the world in general was in. Walking around exploring the graves I felt my heart almost started to race and a voice inside of me was screaming “get out of here please”. I think this was my saddest cemetery visit ever.
I love your cemetery reviews! Where is your love of cemeteries rooted and how did it flourish over the years to lead to writing up reviews of your experiences in them?
Thank you! I honestly love everything about cemeteries – the variety of tombstone sculptures and typography, the way a grave can reflect a persons life and interests, the element of nature that can take over or complement a grave, and of course the immense historical value.
I believe cemeteries can teach us a lot about the world we find ourselves in today. Visiting a cemetery of a specific place tells you about the people who were there before you, who helped build and shape this place into what it is now. I often look up names of specific graves I find that catch my eye and write about the interesting historic facts I stumble upon during my research. I hope my cemetery reviews will inspire people to visit these places more often.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuarzdTP1IM&t=7s
You recently started up a YouTube channel to, I assume, supplement the writing you do for your blog, and reach/connect with your audience in a different kind of way. Can you share a little bit about what your viewers might expect to see over there?
Yes definitely, I think video is a great way to connect with a bigger audience! In fact I plan to do most of my cemetery reviews only in video in the very near future (editing one as we speak). Fun fact: I actually used to be a video director and have my own production company. I did mostly music videos and some artsy short films. My last project was for a Dutch musician and as the song was about death I made a video about a young woman preparing herself for her impending death. This project was actually a big turning point for me, where after completing the video I decided I wanted to fully focus on my own work. It was then when I founded A Course in Dying.
So now, after four years, getting back to working with video feels quite special. Although the way I do it now is very different – not only am I the one working behind the scenes, I am also on camera myself, preaching death awareness and hoping to speak coherent English! It has been a nerve-wrecking ride getting to this point, but I do feel like video is a great medium for connecting with people.
I have a lot of video ideas in store for the coming months. Viewers can expect a couple very epic cemetery reviews, tips on how to deal with grief, and *cue spooky music* a video in which I share my paranormal experiences!
What can we do to open up the conversation on death? To not just increase awareness of it, but to make more sense of death & dying, to allay our death anxiety?
One thing I think is crucial in normalizing death and reducing death anxiety is acknowledging death. Acknowledging death as it announces itself, as it unfolds, and as it happens. Either for ourselves in our own process of dying when our times comes, or with someone in our environment who faces death or loss. Being present and open to whatever arises can be a catalyst for death to be transformed from something we fear into something that connects us.
Also, I happen to know a certain someone who is releasing a course on how to cope with mortality soon…
How have your views on the afterlife affected your work in promoting Death Awareness, or vice versa?
My views on the afterlife only affect my work in that it endlessly fascinates and inspires me.
I do not see death as an ending, but rather as a transition into any kind of scenario that one can imagine. I believe death is as personal and individual as each person’s life is.
…with a guest appearance by our neighbor’s trailer. We don’t know any of our neighbors very well, but this man has a kind smile and always says hello and asks about our garden, and last week he gave us a whole wheelbarrow full of very nice soil and compost. Things like this make me feel hopeful. I know a gift of dirt doesn’t immediately make for a better tomorrow but I believe the hope that it brings my heart is a good place to start. That’s what I’m thinking about on this sad, rainy afternoon in a world that has one less vital light in it. No matter what, I won’t lose hope.
The title of this post is inspired by a friend’s thoughts over on Facebook, accompanied by the following quote:
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
I’m afraid that I have used these last five or six months as an excuse to become even more squirrley and sequestered than I already was. I’ve had all of my groceries delivered, I haven’t dined out at restaurants, and I haven’t seen friends or family since March. Other than leaving the house for a diagnostic boobs squish and a few dentist appointments, I’ve been nowhere and have seen no one. And little by little, I’ve become more scared and small as a human. I don’t care for that.
Today I made a resolution. I put on my favorite shoes, I donned a nice mask, and I made a Very Important Outing. Here are the fruits of my courage and reclamation!
I know you know I am just kidding about that last part. I’m seeing lots of friends going out in the world – – safely – – and doing things and seeing people again, and I admire you all for that. This really isn’t a big deal, I guess, except… for me it is, just a little.
I’m curious, though. How do you decide when it’s okay to do these non-essential things again? I can’t even imagine going to a restaurant at this point in time (but obviously I felt the need to mask up and run to the store for candy corns, so no judgment) so…how do we prioritize and decide? What is OK and what is not?
I am almost asking from a social perspective rather than a safety perspective, although I am not sure it’s wise to separate the two in this instance. I suppose part of me is asking this– because if I am being perfectly honest–I am nearly as concerned with what people think of me as I am with my health and safety. And the thought of someone saying “wow, that is super irresponsible and selfish!” with regard to me starting to do normal-outside-the-house things again is just as much, if not more of a deterrent as actually becoming sick or making others sick! So…I might not be venturing out again for a while. I can’t deal with that kind of scrutiny and the consequences. But I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Does anyone else spend a ridiculous amount of time rearranging their coffee table so that they’ve got a revolving selection of the most splendidly tempting titles and wonderfully intriguing cover art in front of them at any given moment? Or …is it just me?
I always used to think that it was important to have an interesting array of things on one’s coffee table to keep your guests occupied –and if I am being honest, to give your guests the impression that you are A Very Interesting Person. Why was this important to me? I don’t know, but I’ve always found the idea of someone visiting my home and coming away with the impression that I was dull and boring to be an outrageously disagreeable prospect which always left me aggrieved and indignant. This was mostly an imaginary scenario anyway, as we didn’t have many guests in the best of times, and now, during the era of pandemics and quarantines, the thought of people visiting your home, well–no thanks to that. So I guess at this point, the only person I need to impress is me!
