Five Spirits:
The Secret Book of Shadow and Light
Transform Your Demons into Allies

Five Spirits: The Secret Book of Shadow and Light is v1 in the Secret series.

(You can find v2, Dragons Turning Into Snakes, here.)

This book emerged while on the art team producing a three month social club in an historic downtown NYC six floor mansion. It is conceived as an oracle and device to traverse, warm, tune and engage our inner radiances as we enter the longest nights. 

From the dungeon basement through kitchens, grand foyers, dance floors, terraces, slanting hallways, dark painted mirrored bathrooms and outdoor patios, we wove themes of darkness and light to match the magic of the deepening autumn season.

Inspired by the theme, I curated poetry throughout the building creating & choosing works from darkness to light, lower chakras to higher, matching the energy of each floor. 

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD:  5 Spirits Secret Book Delux

I wrote the poems longhand on heavy black card stock using silver and gold paint pens. Except for an extended mural for Muriel Rukeyser’s Speed of Darkness near the basement coat check and Holding the Light in large lettering on the top floor walls, all poems fit on one page– like 3D dark insta posts. 

This curation wove, during several evenings, into the seductive activities of the Five Spirits Bar with the Broken Clock Oracle. Honoring its tagline, Transforming Demons into Allies, this special spirits bar served as a front for exorcism, oracular readings and participatory adventures. Fortune seekers rolled three dice on the Oracle of Broken Clocks, where time has stopped, to determine 1) what poem they would seek 2) on what floor and 3) how to use it to cure them of very specific demons. 6 essential oils enhanced and secured their destiny. These were marvelous interactions adding poetic magic to life at the mansion. (The Oracle of Broken Clocks had the feeling of being at the center of something much larger that we find out about in later episodes…)

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD:  5 Spirits Secret Book Delux

For the poems, I drew on troves of books, digital databases, my own treasury, muses and allies. 

Consulting the i ching. The Question: What hexagram best expresses the meaning of this collection and this moment for all who read it? The answer: 64, Before Completion. Consider the Cafe au Soul readings.

Hardcopies and distribution. See below! I printed two “master” copies on cardstock bound with large rings and ten more on regular paper bound with smaller black carabiner rings. These I distributed to the close circles. I also made 30 smaller pocket sized volumes freely shared with friends, poetic strangers and people who’d shared in the project in some way. Magnifying glass not included! Anyone is welcome to print the volume and share however they like.

Many thanks to the poets, the publishers, the muses, the CX team, Will Etundi, Jr, Art Director and Photo-maestro Jaclyn, Emma the Sorcerer’s apprentice and all the art crew and adventurers. 

I enrich the darkening horizon
with chills of the great secret.
All that is hard to know
becomes a greater riddle
under my very eyes
because I love alike
                  flowers, lips, eyes, and graves.              

 –Lucian Blaga