The Beginning
Originally published on January 15, 2020.
What consists of a new beginning? Is it feelings of excitement, curiosity, vulnerability, or fear? When we have fully shed our old skin? Does the new beginning start at the sign of death or when the decomposing has stopped? Do we choose when the beginning starts or does it choose us? I’d like to think that beginnings start in all kinds of ways, circumstances, and in mutiple stages.
The beginning of Mourning Light Divination started a long time ago. To be completely honest, I would have to say it started the day I was born. As a premature baby, I waivered between life and death seven weeks before my duedate when my mother had to get an emergency c-section. Thanks to modern medicine and the love in that hospital, I survived as a one pound baby. As I got older, my comfortability with death and the dead grew. I have often felt as though my choice to live was taken from me and because of my birth, I have always felt that I existed in two worlds: this earthly plane and the spirit/spiritual one. Balancing the two has never been easy for me, but it has given me unique experiences and gifts that I cherish.
As a child, I remember the dead coming to talk to me, trying to get my attention in dreams, mirrors, and in dark spaces. I was terrified of it all then but as an adult, I have come to appreciate and welcome it. While navigating adulthood, I felt that I finally found my own spiritual beliefs and when I did, my life started to come together in ways I hadn’t imagined before - experiences started making sense as not signular events but as peices to the whole. It was then when I went to London for my third time to study Norse Shamanism that I met my Devotee and realized I had been meant to do Death Work this entire time. I had my “coming into witchdom” a few years prior and started the quest for knowledge - knowledge to understand my craft and what it meant to be a Witch and a Spiritual Worker. It felt like the greatest coming home. To myself, my ancestors, my guides, and this entire universe that had been waiting for me to own my truth and my power.
For just about my whole life my parents have been entrepreneurs and naturally, I always assumed I would own my own business. The older I got the more it became not just something I expected to happen but it became a dream of mine. After I graduated university, I was granted the wonderful opportunity to start practitioner work at Apothecary Tinctura and my soul started to feel something truly fulfilling. I have been so lucky to have been supported in my work and encouraged to celebrate who I am by my place of work, friends, family, and even strangers. Mourning Light Divination is the culmination of all of these stories. It is my absolute pleasure and honor to be able to offer this work and to be trusted with it.
This is not only a beginning but a reveal, a start, a vulnerable and safe place where I get to be in company with you. A place where we get the opportunity to learn from each other and offer pieces of our stories to the collective. My dearest hope is that Mourning Light Divination will be a platform for service, education, product creation and collaboration. It has been a long time coming and I am so absolutely excited to be here. Thank you for coming on this journey with me.
With Love,
Hannah Haddadi