Brandi Amara Skyy wants to open doors with her magick
Brandi Amara Skyy’s new book Magick for Transformation: Rituals and Alchemy for Manifesting Your Wildest Dreams is a beautifully illustrated guide to transforming your life.
MELISSA WHITLER | NBCU Fellow
Melissa@DallasVoice.com
Brandi Amara Skyy has had a lot of experience with Dallas Voice; they worked with the publication for a few years, but this is the first time they’ve been interviewed for it. This week they talked about their most recent book and their experience connecting back to their ancestors.
Dallas Voice: First off, I’d love for you to describe your magick and what it means to you to be a witch? Brandi Amara Skyy: My magick is rooted in being in relationship with spirits. I am third generation native to this land but still rooted in Western civilization, so I’m straddling both those worlds. It comes from an intersection of Western occultism, hermetic principles, my indigenous roots. It’s magic in the sense of acknowledging the context in which I’m living but also reclaiming what was colonized out of me.
That is what this book has helped me do, find the bridge between the medicine of my ancestors and the magick of Western occultism. You could describe it as a blend of medicine and magick.
Can you describe your new book? It’s about transformation. We are whole as we are; we just need help along the way to live into that fullness and grandness. This is not a transformation into something else that is better or outside of us, but about transforming into the highest version of ourselves. It’s an evolution of the self to who you were meant to be.
I wrote the book in a way that is not linear, more of a seasonal spiral. We go through cycles, there is never an end result.
What was the journey like for you, connecting with your ancestry? My parents were born and raised Catholics and then became born again Christians. They always wanted what was best for me and tried to clear a pathway away from tradition. Because of this, they pushed me away from the medicine of our people.
The journey was that reclaiming of ancestry while living in a modern world. It has taken decades of research and ancestral work. The process is really hard in a society where there is so much call to have proof. I’m still doing a lot of that work.
What helped me connect to that is my experience of being queer. A lot of our blood lineage is gone or erased, so we have had to piece together family and what it means to live in a community. I really want to pay homage to that. I learned a lot about how to create divine spiritual connections with people that are not blood relatives. That was a skillset I learned. When I came into ancestry that really helped me as a way in with spirit.
The way that I pay tribute and I live is always in communication with my ancestors and with the land. If I let myself quiet my mind I can hear them. Writing this book was so important and special because I did it in communion with my ancestors.
How has connecting with your ancestors and your magick helped you connect back to your land? It has allowed me to open myself more to the land and focus on the connection I have in relation to space and the land. It didn’t click for a while that I was residing on my native land, and that was a turning point for me. It blossomed my relationship with the land and my ancestors and spirit.
My grandmother was a curandera and could walk out and know what plants were medicinal. It’s been a slow process of recognition with her through the lands.
Another part of the journey was wanting to buy back my land. I never wanted to do that before, but in working with and listening to what my ancestors wanted, I knew it was something I needed to do for me and them.
What do you want readers to get out of this book? This book was carefully curated so that the only thing readers need is an open mind and open heart. It’s a personal quest for them to find out more about who they are, and really be everything they are meant to be. They just need to come in with curiosity and play and walk through the portal that has been set up for them. The transformation begins with them saying yes.
I want people who pick up the book to feel like they are being stewarded. I built that into the book. I also hope readers feel like it makes esoteric things tangible. There’s a praxis component that makes the adventure practical and achievable.
To purchase Magick for Transformation, go to SimonAndSchuster.com/Books/Magick-for-Transformation/Brandi-Amara-Skyy/9781800653740.