The Smoked Mirror - Issue #20

Feral Heart Season: Permission

Last week was about noticing desire.

This week is about something harder: letting it exist without apology.

Most people don’t deny what they want outright. They pre-emptively soften it. They add disclaimers. They apologize before anyone has asked them to. Over time, desire becomes something that must justify its own existence.

This week’s work is permission. Not permission from others—but the quiet, internal kind where you stop asking whether it’s acceptable to want what you want.

Question for the week:

What would you want if you weren’t trying to be reasonable?

Hold that question gently. I’ll answer it at the end.

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February 12–18

The week opens under a Waning Crescent Moon, following the Last Quarter earlier in the week. This is a thinning phase—energy pulls inward, attention narrows, and tolerance for pretense drops. Emotionally, people often feel less patient with their own self-editing. Things you’ve been excusing or minimizing may suddenly feel heavy or unnecessary.

On February 17, the Moon slips into New Moon, marking a brief void point. This is not an action window. It’s a reset. New Moons don’t ask you to decide yet—they ask you to clear space. If something feels flat, stalled, or hollowed out, don’t rush to fix it. Let the quiet do its work.

By February 18, the Sun enters Pisces, shifting the collective tone from mental frameworks into feeling, intuition, and permeability. This transition favors honesty without explanation. Desire doesn’t need a thesis in Pisces. It needs acknowledgment. This is a week for releasing apologies you no longer believe in.

If you have to keep explaining why you’re allowed to want something, you probably don’t believe it yet.

Permission starts when you stop arguing your own case.

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The Permission Circle

You’ll need:

• One candle (white or blue preferred)

• One crystal associated with truth or calm (sodalite, blue lace agate, or clear quartz)

• A quiet floor space

Correspondence:

Element of Water, governed by emotional honesty and release.

The Working:

Sit on the floor and cast a small circle around yourself—no tools required, just intention. Light the candle and place the crystal at your throat or chest.

Breathe slowly and allow a desire to surface. When it does, notice the urge to justify it. Instead, say aloud: “I allow this to exist.”

No follow-up. No explanation.

Let the candle burn for a few minutes, then close the circle. Carry the crystal this week as a reminder that permission does not require consensus.

A quick note before you go further: if you’ve been curious about the deeper ritual work behind this project, the shop has a range of offerings—from wearable statements to ritual-friendly tools and earlier volumes of the Fleshcraft Codex.

If you want a clear example of that lineage, The Ecstatic Breath is available here:

It’s a practical, embodied entry point into breath, sensation, and altered state work—useful both on its own and as context for what’s coming next.

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