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It’s nothing new that cannabis can help us access new creative worlds. Artists, witches, and stoners all know the power of ganja to help us align with unseen energies, opportunities and experiences; after all cannabis is a door to an altered state of consciousness. When we intentionally tap into this medicine, both as a tool for creativity and healing, we can not only gain a new sense of inner awareness and peace, but we can also learn to own our darkness and inner demons as well. And when we work with cannabis, alongside other modalities like meditation and tarot, then we really have the opportunity to unlock new insight and modes of consciousness, typically unseen and unfelt in our mundane life.
What better time to dive deep into the shadows of Self than in Scorpio season? This water sign season is a chance for us to commune with our inner darkness and shadows, and to transmute this heaviness into light through intention and artistic creation. I talked to double Scorpio, artist Linda Chen, who’s created a filthy, freaky, kitschy fantasy world known as Creepy Gals, that includes art prints, shirts, patches and most notably full fantasy scale immersive art experiences like “Love Motel” and November 9th’s “Haus of Divine”. I talked to Linda about meditation, tarot and how cannabis can help us tap into our inner creatrix.
Meditation is key
Something Linda and I both share, besides having Scorpio Moons, is our devotion to meditation. Meditation can take on many forms; seated, laying down, walking, chanting, dancing. No matter how you take this time to come back to yourself, it’s vital that you do; especially if you’re creative or spiritual.
“Meditation has been such an integral part of my healing practice. I found it extremely important for me as human to step back and reflect and process the traumas and the joys I experience in my daily life. I do a lot of self reflection and letting go of unhealthy attachments through my meditations,” Linda explains. ”As a Scorpio Bitch I dive deep into the annals of the darkest, most hurt part of myself to learn what I truly need to be kind to myself. I used to exist not really understanding why I was hard on myself, feeling hurt , bitter, scared, shy, lonely, etc. It was because I didn’t know the face of my traumas . Now I do because I take a long ugly look at myself everyday through my meditations.”
Meditation is like a mirror to the self; an opportunity to see your truth without any judgment. Once you take the time to truly be with yourself, you’re able to hold more compassion for your healing. And you can work with cannabis to do just that. Before you begin meditation, try working with CBD through a tincture, drink or high CBD strain of flower. Or maybe, you like to smoke a little bit of THC to help you relax and center enough so that meditation becomes easier. There’s no right way to meditate, and apps like Insight Timer, Headspace, and Calm all have guided meditations that can help you with a specific intention. You can also simply meditate on your shadow, sending love and acceptance to all the parts of yourself you feel are hardest to love. Don’t be afraid to work with cannabis, intentionally and carefully, to help you become comfortable with this expression of who you are.
For Linda, meditating on her inner demons is how she lets go of old limiting beliefs and pain. And this is a wonderful example to follow for anyone struggling to embrace and accept their depths. “Once I face that devil, then I can begin to be kind to myself. I tell myself that I love myself and I have my own back. I commit to myself everyday. I let go of limiting beliefs about myself. Not every day is going to be a winner, but I fucking got myself and I’m gonna grow from this. I’m the Daddy; my traumas, that dirty devil, is my bitch,” Linda explains.
Meditation can help us release fears, anxieties and worries about our life and see things from a new, more motivating lens; much like cannabis can. And when you work with the two together with reverence? That’s when things get juicy.
Tarot As Another Tool Into Your Truth
Besides letting go of all negativity and repeating positive affirmations to herself while in meditation, another key to Linda’s meditation and creative practice is working with tarot. In my own meditation practice, I do a seated meditation for about 20 minutes before pulling 4 tarot cards to help guide me through my day.
The Tarot is a 78-card divination system, originally created in Italy in the 15th century, though some say the origins of the system date back to even earlier in Egypt. The tarot, like meditation and cannabis, is another path back to ourselves. Yes, it can divine things to come, but it mostly acts as a reflection of the energies in the current moment.To work with the tarot, you can pull cards from the deck and interpret them, or you can pick cards that focus on what you’re experiencing and work with them through meditation, visualization, and creating art like poetry, free writing or drawing.
The cards that Linda has been inspired by, and that have helped inspire her next art installation “Haus of Divine” (which is all about inner healing and committing to/ marrying yourself) are the Tower, Death, The Empress, The Sun, The Devil, and The Magician. These cards speak of our dimensions, of our regenerative abilities, of our connection to choice, spirituality, magick and the material. “During my mediation I would reflect on the tarot cards I pull. It is an excellent tool for self reflection. It helps me contextualize the things that I am going through and helps break down the illusions I might have about things. It often spills the tea about things I don’t want to hear about myself, but it’s so important to hear some hard truths sometimes. It helps me to grow.”
A Scorpio Season Tarot Spread For Embracing Your Darkness And Dominating Your Demons
Inspired by Linda, here’s a stoner-approved tarot spread you can do to dominate your demons. Work with cannabis however you feel most comfortable, whether that’s smoking a sativa to get you creatively inspired, an indica to help you relax and center, or CBD to get you more present in the moment. Then, shuffle your cards as you focus on a question you’d like to receive an answer to. When you feel ready, pull the cards and use the Internet, books, the booklet that comes with the tarot deck, and your intuition to help you interpret the pulls. Keep in mind, the cards aren’t afraid to show you what you’ve been ignoring. Sometimes they’ll bitch slap you; but take it as a word of loving warning. The tarot isn’t meant to scare or hurt you; it’s meant to act as a mirror to things you may be too scared to see.
Card 1: My current situation
Card 2: What my darkness is telling me
Card 3: The demons I need to dominate
Card 4: How to dominate these demons
Card 5: How cannabis can help
Card 6: What to know about my healing moving forward
Cannabis Helps Put It All Together
Although I don’t work with cannabis every time I meditate, I do know how much it helps me get into the right state of mind and heart when I’m experiencing something difficult, or when I just want to have a new creative experience. Working with cannabis as an aid in a spiritual practice can help us examine and understand our experiences in new ways, understand ourselves with more compassion and feel our feelings with more fullness.
“Weed puts me in a headspace of elevated consciousness which helps me tap into other worlds within me. I feel my emotions more intensely. Things are more vibrant and sexy. I feel more open, free to explore the things that make me FEEL. And FEELING is a big part of my work,” Linda explains. “All the imagery that I create gives me that visceral feel of sexiness, of being gross and cute. That excites me and weed helps me feel it more deeply. I can’t help but want to create and spill my creatives guts out to the world.”
But like with anything else, moderation and honesty are key. While Linda didn’t smoke for five years because she was afraid of having panic attacks and being drawn too deeply into her darkness, moving to LA three years ago helped her realign with the medicine of cannabis. After going to a dispensary and having a knowledgeable budtender help her out in realizing she’s a sativa and not an indica girl, Linda was able to work with cannabis once again. Weed then became a central part in her healing journey. But Linda also reminds us, “Weed is not a cure-all. It helps as a supplement alongside other practices that are important, including going to therapy or taking medication if you need it.“
By working with meditation, tarot, and cannabis as additional methods of spiritual self-care, you’ll be able to more easily see and understand your demons, your inner devils, your darkness, and your shame. It’s when you create intentional space for observing these pieces of yourself that you see they really don’t have that much power over you. Let the space that these practices offer you act as a bridge into total acceptance of the self- and don’t be afraid to transmute these energies by crying, screaming, laughing or whatever else feels right. Happy Scorpio season, don’t be afraid to embrace your divine darkness and depths!
You can check out Linda’s art work on her Instagram here, and make sure to come to her immersive art installation and show “Haus of Divine” on November 9th at Foxblood Studios in Downtown Los Angeles.
The post The High Priestess: Owning your Demons with Cannabis, Meditation, and Tarot appeared first on High Times.
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