Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Shiva Honey. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Shiva, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I was self-taught in many of the areas I work, including music. Aside from a few guitar lessons when I was 13, I really had no formal training. Both my parents were musicians and I all of it just came to me easily. My mom had horror stories from some of her formal training – she told me her teachers discouraged her unique style and instead encouraged her to blend in, which harmed her voice in the long run. These stories made me weary of formal training.
I think I owe a considerable amount of my success in various endeavors to being unafraid to experiment and pave my own way. I never waited for permission or compromised my vision. Even though I harbored insecurities, I believed in myself and my work enough to push forward. Now that I’m more established in my career, I actually would like some artistic and business mentors – I’m excited to expand to new worlds and opportunities.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a an artist, author, death doula and Ordained Minister of The Satanic Temple. Much of my work surrounds the transformative nature of ritual, finding empowerment through grief, end-of-life planning, self love, and health care advocacy. In 2021 I was awarded The Satanic Temple’s Anatole France Literary Award for Contemporary Literature for my best-selling book The Devil’s Tome: A Book of Modern Satanic Ritual which contributed significantly to the understanding of non-theistic ritual and stoked a Satanic ritual movement. In 2021 I released the first ever Satanic ritual deck, The Devil’s Deck and in 2022 I released The Devil’s Death: Your Satanic Companion for Grief and Dying and its companion website My Death Wishes. In 2023 I released the first album with myband Serpentīnae, Devotion: Ritual Music for Love, Loss & Desire and my two companion books to The Devil’s Death – Memento Mori and My Death Wishes.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
As I was writing my first book on death and grief – The Devil’s Death: Your Satanic Companion for Grief and Dying – my father died. Earlier this year, my mom passed. It’s been a really difficult few years, but I’ve chosen to cope with the loss through focusing my energy on sharing my lessons experiences so that others won’t feel alone in loss, or experience these inevitable occurrences unprepared. I had a complicated relationship with both parents, and was estranged from my dad for a number of years. I wrote about his death very frankly in The Devil’s Death in hopes it’d help others dealing with the strange grief that accompanies losing someone you’ve had a bad relationship with. In the wake of my mom’s passing, I decided to write two books to accompany The Devil’s Death and further assist people with end-of-life planning and legacy work – My Death Wishes and Memento Mori.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
I think artists are often viewed as superfluous characters within the American economy and as such our labor isn’t valued. We need to have a tremendous culture shift to change this. Art is an essential part of the human experience. It brings magic to the mundane. It’s crucial to building a better world.
I think there should be more public funding for artists. A recent study found that only 8% of artists in the UK (which provides better support to artists than the USA) are from working class families. I talk a lot with my friends about the frustration of being a working artist from a working-class background. We’re shut out of so many opportunities, education, and funding because we lack the inherited connections and cash many come into the field with. I’d love to see this world open up to people who aren’t wealthy. We need training, art incubators, and financial assistance like grants or supplemental income to support working class artists
Contact Info:
- Website: www.serpentinae.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shiva_honey/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/shivahoneyofficial
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq9C97-6-eEInFbIwJYFVCg
- Other: www.mydeathwishes.com https://open.spotify.com/artist/4mDVrhgtHM2MpewUGBJLco
Image Credits
Light Witch, Oliver Marsh, Kelly Christopher Luttrell, Dre Naylor