A MODERN OCCULTIST VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL
"THE LOVERS"
Bringing Magic into a Healthy Relationship
A Valentine’s Day Special
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Today in Modern Occultist, we are taking the time to stop and celebrate the truest and most universal of all spiritual energies—love.
In wishing all our readers a happy and beautiful Valentine’s Day, we would like to showcase just one of many couples out there who have found creative, romantic, and healthy ways to bring their personal esoteric and occult beliefs into their relationship.
Newlyweds currently living in Amsterdam, Ben and Thelia admit that the individual paths which led them into each other’s lives were often tricky and winding. Originally from the U.K., Ben works as a research nurse with an emphasis in Respirology, who, for years, had been nurturing pagan rituals his daily life; Thelia—a linguist and high school educator originally from Greece—found her way to a more nature-based Wiccan system after years of traveling and studying abroad.
But sometimes, destiny lies
in the cards…
MODERN OCCULTIST
Okay, guys—first off, congratulations on your wedding! Can you tell us a little about yourselves and how you met?
THELIA
So, I met Ben when he moved
into another friend's apartment as a third roommate. To be honest, at time, I wasn’t
really thrilled—I was a bit bitter about my former roommate
having to move out, and was like, “Oh, so who is this new guy?”
BEN
I can add a bit of context to this (laughs). I first went for the viewing of the apartment, I didn't actually get to meet Thelia—but I did look at her bookcase. I saw all her books, and I thought to myself, :I think I want to live with these guys because seem so cool.” But that was my first “interaction” with her, and without even realizing it. the first sort of interaction I had with her without even realizing. I also noticed that she had some artwork on the wall, some ballet posters; I didn't know it was hers, but I thought, “Okay, whoever lives here, these are cool people.” So, I really tried very, very hard to impress the landlord, and maybe talked too much or came across as obnoxious. But there was five people trying for this apartment—five of them, man—and [Thelia] told the landlord, “Okay, not the British guy.” I think she asked for the Italian chef (laughs). And then a few days later, I heard that I got the apartment. And I remember very vividly the first time I saw Thelia—because she was beautiful, and, I think she has the best posture of anyone I've ever met. Which is an odd thing to bring up, but my parents were obsessed with posture. But, the look she gave me! If looks could kill, I wouldn't be here right now. Thelia didn’t look happy to see me. At the time, she was actually sitting in between the bookcase and myself, so I didn't have a chance to walk over there, but I kind of wanted to find out whose books they were. Turns out they were all Thalia’s. All of them.
But at the time I was quite
intimidated and a bit nervous to speak to her. Soon after, I had to “cat-sit”
for a friend on holiday and, just before I was heading out the door, Thelia
said to me, “Since we’re roommates, we should probably get to know one another.” And I was like, “Oh yeah,
okay! That sounds like a nice idea. We sat down at the kitchen table, and I
think we didn’t stop talking until about two in the morning…
THELIA
That's a very common theme in the early stages of our acquaintance, shall I say (grins). Because at the time we were not dating, obviously. We were getting to know each other. And we would talk and talk and talk until the early hours of the morning. If you ask us now, by 9:30 we're in bed!
At the time, we would just talk about anything and everything. At the time, I had a broken heart. I'd been single for a year by choice because I was just done with men, and I kept telling this to Ben. So, I was very open about my broken heart and how I struggled with the male presence and the male side and the masculine side of things. And what I remember was that he would listen.
He would never try to tell
me, “Oh no, don't say that because of this and that. I remember that he fully
accepted my words because he recognized that this is coming from a place of
hurt and this is coming from a place of ‘where I am right now.’ So, he
made space for that. But, at the time I didn’t know how I felt about Ben. So,
my friend actually reminded me that I told her, “So yeah, I spent so much time
with him and I always want to listen to what he has to say and I can't stop
thinking about him and I think he's really hot and I want to spend so much time
with him. I
just don't know how I feel about him.” And she said, “Girl, you are in love.
This is it—you’re in love.”
BEN
I think something that's
probably quite relevant to this as well, [is that] we would talk every night,
and I was able to ask her about books—the same books that actually caught my
eye that I found. I mean, obviously I saw Lord of The Rings and I was
like, “Okay, that's an interesting thing. I really love this.” But I noticed that she had,
there were several books that stood out to me the most: [Alice Tarbuck’s] A
Spell in the Wild, [Rae Beth’s] Hedge Witch, and another one…
THELIA
Wicked Botanica ?
BEN
Yes, Wicked Botanica.
MO
Were you intimidated when you
found those, or did you think, “Here is someone like-minded?”
BEN
Like-minded, one-hundred
percent. Up until that point, my interest in paganism stemmed from my interest
in [its] history; hearing about the Norse, specifically, and Beowulf—those are where my initial interest
came from. Then,
as I got older, I started thinking that maybe there were some practices in there
that I'm also kind of interested in—but I don't really know anyone who [practices]
it. And I've never known anybody who does it. It turns out I have known people
who practice it, but they call it different things. And my mom and my grandmother,
for example, do things without knowing what it is that they're doing, or
where it comes from. And so, then when I finally met Thelia, who had these
books and who knew about the history and practices, I was just sort of like, “Okay,
but how do I ask her about this?” I don't remember fully why we started talking
about paganism, in general but we did talk about it a lot. Like for hours, actually.
THELIA
See, what this guy here did?
[laughs] He stole my heart. He asked me what my favorite books are, and then
he went and read them. So,
he read Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson, and Hedge Witch by Rae
Beth. And not only did he read them in a very short amount of time, but it was
like he was studying for his SATs! He was like, “Oh, I've got to study this!”
BEN
And I wrote down so much. I
became fascinated that contemporary people still followed paganist beliefs, I
just wanted to know more.
I was very hungry for it.
THELIA
Then, we would have conversations about everything he was reading. Rae Beth even acknowledges in her books that she has a very yin-yang approach to the energies. At the time, that spoke to me, as well—the recognition of the masculine and the feminine. And there are also my negative experiences with men in the past; Ben and I were able to talk about that, and the concept of the “Green God.” He is within us all, and he is the masculine form. But when the masculine form has been damaged in some way or another, part of you is also suffering then, because you carry him within you—as a woman, as a man, as a binary person, I assume.
I remember talking to Ben
about these things that were deeply personal and highly spiritual. Oh, and he
bought the Hedge Witch for himself! I had initiated myself in my room, in my
tiny room, in my shared apartment.
MO
You performed a
self-initiation?
THELIA
Yes. Remember, this was during
COVID, so there were no groups to turn to, no people to meet with—and I was
struggling with trust issues leaning just on people online. Especially about paganism,
right? Because it's deeply personal and it's also a deep topic. So—for example—my
biggest fear, let's say, or insecurity, is that I would love to learn more
about runes and divination with runes and all that stuff. But then I think to
myself, “What if I come across people who are neo-Nazis? And then unthinkingly,
I accidentally join a community and unintentionally show support for that
community without realizing what they truly stand for.” It can be a little
scary learning navigating at first.
BEN
That's actually been one of
my biggest worries and concerns when I first started, too. Like I mentioned
before, specifically the Norse history of paganism. Before I met Thalia, this
actually really put me off the whole thing for many months until I started
studying it with her. I was watching this YouTuber, and ... at first, he just
talked about history, but then there was always a slight element of
spirituality to it that I enjoyed. But then, it turns out that this guy started
getting into ancient race theories… So, I considered Rae Beth with her book,
and later A Spell in the Wild as, perhaps, spiritual guides I trusted.
MO
Do you both solely practice
paganism, or are there some Wiccan elements, too?
THELIA
I'm still figuring it out, to
be honest with you. In terms of paganism, I'm closer to Celtic paganism, so Cernunnos, the
“Green gods,” and the triple goddess of
rebirth. Those are the two deities that I primarily
work with. And I
practice spellcasting and love tarot.
MO
Falling in love can be
nervous enough, but was there an additional nervousness in sharing your
personal practices with each other?
BEN
[To Thelia] I think
you could better answer this, because you were practicing before me.
THELIA
Hmm… Well, I was at a point
in my life when I actively said, “I don't want to date, and I don't want to
find someone—I want to be by myself. These practices are for me
and myself only, and if my beliefs scare someone, then maybe they’re not meant
to be in my everyday life.” You know what I'm saying? I wasn’t going to hide a
part of me, or try to water it down so that it's more palatable for people that
I don't want to be associated with. So, I admit I thought, “Well, let's see if
this scares him off, because then it's another sign that I'm going to be by
myself, which is great.”
But, then he was genuinely interested, and I was like, “Ah, okay…”
BEN
I thought of Thelia as more
of a mentor in this, because she was the first person that I'd ever met that
actually practiced those beliefs. And then shortly afterwards, I got to meet
other people, which was very strange. But I saw Thelia more as somebody who could,
like, teach me and show me. [To Thelia] But, I know that I carefully
brought up tarot to you, because I had done that for quite a long time—although
I will confess, my reasons back in England was mainly for flirting. So, maybe I
was testing the water a bit with that, too. But then you told me that you’d
made your own deck—which I found to be pretty amazing. You didn't show me them
straight away. I think I had to wait a week or so.
MO
Was that the first activity
based in your beliefs that you did together?
BEN
Nope—it was stargazing … looking
up at night, and then the idea that we're sort of part of it. And then [I
thought], “I'm here sharing this moment with somebody that I'm really into.” It's
such a special moment for me to be completely lost in something that's
infinite. But then you're also sharing that experience with somebody right next
to you, despite us being so small. That was something that I found very, very,
special.
THELIA
Quite early on, we also did
the tarot. And Ben did the tarot for me using my deck that I made … For me, that
felt deeply, deeply personal. I could see his fingers touching and hovering
over my cards and sort of caressing them. And since I truly believe in energies, I could
feel myself opening up to Ben. I don't know if he realized at the time, but to
me, it would have been less intimate if we had hugged naked. You know
what I'm saying? Him touching and running his fingertips through my tarot cards
and drawing cards for me was deeply intimate and personal. At some point, [before we
were officially dating] Ben moved out and I asked the cards, “What does this
man mean to me? What is he here for in my life?” And I drew, I think, two other
cards. I don't remember now, but I drew the lovers.
MO
Is that your primary deck,
the one that you made yourself?
THELIA
Yes, that has my true
essence.
MO
As a couple, did any of these practices bring
you closer as a couple?
BEN
Well, it certainly helped
initially. But before I confessed my feelings to Thelia, I had been talking to
the cards quite a lot. And
very often getting the exact same answer.? And I actually tried to get more in
touch with Thalia's practice. [To Thelia] It went very differently to yours, by the
way. It could have had a bad omen. It depends on your perspective, but as I was
doing it, a rat came into my room. And I was like, “Okay, that's interesting.”
It was about a meter and a half away from me—a little bit closer than what I
would like. But I decided to write it down as survivability, adaptability,
creativity. And I
thought, “Okay, that could be a good omen.” I also started trying some
meditations where I would specifically try and do a visualization and try and
get some guidance from either the maid, the mother, or the groom—figures that I
knew had resonated with Thelia. And I found that I was very open to the idea—that
this was my subconscious, and I kept getting the same sort of feeling every
time I was doing this. The same imagery in my head, like a stern “talking to”
from the groom telling me to stop asking the same question and talk to
Thelia. And
that was actually what really pushed me, because I feel like the cards are
saying the same things to me.
MO
And this leads up to an
actual pagan wedding?
BEN
[Smiles] I think it was pretty early in the beginning that we were going to have a pagan wedding. Personally, I just love weddings of all types, actually, all shapes and sizes [laughs]. The idea that you're an extra in one of the most important parts of somebody's life is just an amazing feeling. I love it. But with our wedding, as a pagan ceremony, I think the only doubt that we had was regarding our families. So, we ended up doing it twice because we did have some reservations with Thalia's parents—quite a Christian family. My parents, I don't think they cared that much. Not in that sense.
For us, we also had some
questions about how many people would be involved [in the ceremony]—and that
was quite a tricky one because the ritual has some requirements. We ideally
wanted to do this outside, but we’re in Amsterdam—a country that is arguably
got worse weather than the U.K.! And we didn't want to do is invite lots of people
who may have roles in the wedding who then can't come—so we were quite limited
with the amount of people that we could ask to help us. But that was the only
sort of drama that I think we had.
THELIA
True, and we were adamant that
we didn’t thrust our beliefs upon anyone, right? So, if someone disagrees with
my spiritual past, then I don't want to, like, spring it up on them.
BEN
Very much so. In this case,
we were just blessed that one of our friends, Melissa, was in a position to
officiate the wedding accurately, exactly how we were hoping for.
THELIA
Yes! In many ways, she's a
grand high witch. Like she's, she's the “witch of the witches” out there [laughs].
BEN
She checks all the boxes.
MO
So, it helps to know an
expert firsthand to make sure you get it correct?
BEN
And, definitely—and we were
also blessed that she offered.
THELIA
You know, like it's not that
easy to host any wedding, especially when you’re on a very tight budget.
But we have a friend who is a high priestess, and who was able to teach and
instruct the other members of the wedding party in all the important parts of
the ceremony which would, otherwise, I guess, be largely unfamiliar to most
people. But we didn't actually have a full rehearsal, I think because it's a
small group, and it made it considerably easier and a little more spontaneous
in the energy … I imagine that you would have to have some kind of rehearsal if
you had more people involved, because it was just the five of us. Melissa, she
really put a lot of thought into it—she thought of everything, found the
perfect place for us to do it. She found this young oak tree and prepared all
the decorations—environmentally friendly ways of having candles, things like
that.
BEN
Yeah, she was a lifesaver.
THELIA
And we wanted to have the
elements to form “the circle” and the other ceremonial parts. It's pretty easy
to have the element of water and the element of earth—but not so easy to have
the element of air. Well, we had a feather, so that worked. But then the
element of fire out in the woods is always a struggle.
BEN
Particularly a dry summer.
THELIA
You always have to be careful with the preparation, especially if you’re celebrating out in nature—things can go wrong so easily. So, what Melissa ended up with, which was an amazing idea, was to use a spice representative of fire.
For all the lovers out there, try this tarot spread inspired by Thelia and Ben’s beautiful story and designed specifically for couples—
The Lovers’ Constellation
Be sure to use a card well-adjusted to both of your
individual energies. Then, draw the cards together, one at a time, taking
turns. Set a candle between you and speak an intention aloud—love, truth,
healing, or magic. Lay the cards in the shape of a constellation: two stars
orbiting one center.
1. You (Querent A) – Who am I within this partnership at this
moment?
2. Your Partner (Querent B) – Who are they in the
relationship right now?
3. The Heart Between You – What energy currently defines your
connection?
4. Shared Lesson – What karmic or spiritual theme are you
meant to learn together?
5. Challenge or Shadow – What obstacle, tension, or
misunderstanding may be at play?
6. Gift or Light – What strength, blessing, or magic uplifts
this relationship?
7. The Path Ahead – A glimpse into the future: where is this relationship heading, and how can you co-create its destiny?
Optional Ritual Elements:
- Place
rose quartz or a shared object at the center of the spread.
- Burn
frankincense or sandalwood.
- End
with a written vow or intention to each other, drawn from the card
meanings.
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