The being.
Very little is so difficult as writing your own biography. What is important, and what is not?
Already as a child, I’ve experienced a sense of being different, of not belonging. The things that seemed so important to me, were not to the people around me. The things that seemed so important to them, seemed so strange to me. I’ve struggled in the education system and I’ve struggled to cope with society’s expectations as an adult.
It took me many years before I noticed that my sensibility and incapability to adapt to malfunctioning modern systems and ways of being is actually my strength. I see through systems and structures that we built around our being and see where they serve us and where they don’t. It is my mission to maintain a balance between our origin and nature, and the demands of the modern era. To restore and nourish a connection with our natural state.
What I love: the sunrise and the sunset. The stars and the Moon. The cycles of Life. Natural, clean, flowing water. Deep, dark, primeval forests. Floating and the sense of weightlessness. The mountains and the caves. Wild foods and medicine. Language that goes beyond words. Finetuning the Senses. Exploring the limits of Time and Space. All Wonders of Creation.
The Name.
Anca means gracious and merciful.
Artemisia is the herbal magic and alchemy that I practice. It is called after the Artemisia plant, that I identify with very strongly.
Arcana is the name of my art project. It means secrets or mysteries. Arcana is the wisdom that lies beyond the veil of waking consciousness.
The Journey.
Life hasn’t been exactly easy on me. I’ve known mental illness, depression, debt (for 10 years of my life) and even homelessness at some point. No matter how hard I tried, the coat of living-as-expected didn’t fit me. I failed education, I failed at being financially stable, I failed at keeping myself standing. On the other hand, people were admiring my many talents, my creativity, and the quality of the work I did.
A few times I got knocked down by this double-edged sword. The first time I slept for 18 hours a day, lost the roof over my head and lived in constant stress about my financial situation. The second time was different. I was unable to keep up with any of the roles I had in life and had to quit everything I was doing. Everything that I identified with, got stripped away. In a matter of days I lost everything: physical health, safety and stability, a functioning brain, a lifelong of social conditioning, any sense of who I am and what I was even doing in this life.
This process led to a remarkable rebirth and a reconnection to Source. Throughout a few years I walked on this Earth looking through the Ancient Woman that was at the origin of my Soul. Like the Phoenix that rises from the ashes, I was reborn from the flames in the depths of Hell and got gifted the gift of unlimited, unconditional, healing Love. From that day forward, my perception of the world has changed. I looked at the world around me through the eyes of a 30.000 year old cave woman. I faced many difficulties (not in the last place to deal with adult responsibilities with a fried mind that had completely forgotten how this modern world works), yet from that day forward, I tried to make every day an adventure filled with wonder and teachings.
The process I went through wasn’t just a spiritual awakening or a mental episode. It was a spiritual crisis that had no place in mental healthcare. I was unable to find the words to describe what I was experiencing and my situation was very misunderstood by my surrounding. The symptoms just didn’t line up with the available diagnoses or levels of understanding of care providers. Therefore I had to walk the Path (of regaining my stability and sanity, rebuilding my life, gaining understanding, dealing with my newly gained abilities, and finding closure) alone. Everyone who walked a bit with me on my side, saw only a small part of the full story. The full story is still too crazy to comprehend, even for myself. Only now, after years of self-discovery and encounters with people who were able to provide me with some context, I understand that I experienced what is referred to as a reverse initiation process.
Terminology, myths and tools that helped me to find context: the journey through the Underworld, Inanna and the seven gates, the dark night of the soul, spiritual psychosis, reincarnation, the Qabalistic tree of life, the crossing of the Abyss. The lowest low is truly a bridge to the highest high. When the Body and the Mind are out of the game, the Soul takes over.
The Calling.
My rebirthing and initiation process gave me the deepest understanding of why I am here in this life. I received a calling to create a safe space in nature to serve those in greatest spiritual distress, the people who are very misunderstood by modern mental health care, who want to live through their experiences instead of suppressing them. I see my journey as a shamanic illness and initiation that gave me the wisdom of death and rebirth. I am very convinced that working through these episodes, how crazy and intense they might be, is the Way. I am also well aware that modern society isn’t the most safe and stable place to do so, which leads to people being protected from society and society being protected from people with suppressive meds. I myself have been very close to being the next confused person making the news and I am convinced that a safe place to return to nature and our natural state is what it takes. From the moment I received my calling, every single day has been in service of it. I am not yet there, but I am always learning and growing on the way. The calling gives me a great sense of fate and destiny. I follow a path of visions and are trusting of the process.
The Magick.
My Magick is a natural magic that partly has been with me since a very young age and partly has been inherited on my Soul’s Journey. For years it has been difficult for me to capture it in words, since the experience so often goes beyond words or is barely a conscious or systematic process. My magic is often highly intuitive and the more intuitive I allow myself to be, the more magical I am.
Out of pure necessity (to get rid of nightmares) I taught myself lucid dreaming on a very young age. I often explored the borders of sleeping and waking consciousness, consciously navigating the astral world and often experiencing sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations. I have a few sacred spaces and tools that I actively work with in the Astral. My loved ones get treated with awe-inspiring heavenly cosmic shows in the night sky.
One of the first forms of magick that I specialized in (long before my rebirthing process) was that of invisibility.
Nowadays the things I do can mostly be described as: travelling through space and time; sensing and communicating and working with the subtler of spirits (especially plants, herbs and trees); ritual healing; herbal magick and healing; magickal crafts; restoring balance; creating safe spaces.
I refer to myself as a witch and practicioner of the Sacred Arts. I’ve been recognized by an Amazonian healer as a shaman. He gave me the name “Cabello de alma, ojos del mar” (her hair has the color of the soul, her eyes as the sea).
The Cards.
My birth cards in the Tarot are the 3 of Cups and the Queen of Cups. Both are very dear to me. The 3 of Cups; Overflowing; is a symbol for my emotional world. I feel and sense so deeply. My love (of life) is limitless. Often I am considered “too much” or “too emotional”. Often the world around me is too much for my sensibility. I need my alone time to recharge and rewind. To wash off the energetic residue that isn’t part of my natural state.
The Queen of Cups, water of water (so much water!). The original Goddess. Her image is of extreme purity and infinite subtlety. The Queen reflects the nature of the observer in great perfection. Some find it hard to look me in the eyes. My presence is very confronting to them. Under the reflective surface lies the subconscious that many cannot face.
One of my biggest strengths is to see through walls, through conditioning and behind masks. I have the ability to distinguish what is real and what is just an image. What is nature and what is learned behaviour. What is true and what is false.