The Medfield State Hospital was built in 1892. It was used as the Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane in the 2009 thriller, Shutter Island. It was abandoned in 2003. The grounds are open to the public but entry into the buildings is prohibited.
On Tuesday, my shadow told me to go next door to the abandoned property and view the place closely. There, guided by his influence, my eyes went straight to the ground, where I located remains of red bricks once used for the house. The housritself having been razed to the foundation, this felt like an interesting opportunity. “On Tuesday, no less,” I mutter to myself.
Reaching down, I grab as many pieces of brick as my hands can carry, and walk home. Once at my altar space, I begin grinding down the brick. As I do, memories of uncertainty and unsafe fill my head. I feel my heart beat pickup when thinking if my step-dad pinning down my mother on the couch. I feel my breathing increase when I recall being chased out of the house by my father. My mind pulls up the memories of being beaten by a babhsitter, told I will eat whatever I throw up.
And as I grind, I give these feelings to the powder. I pour them into the red brick, which pours it’s own knowledge out to me:
As the house is spared from wind, so as the walls hold up the roof and the roof protects from rain, so too shall I protect and defend they who hold me on their person. I shall stand strong against strong enemies, and crush with martial force those who seek to overstep or harm. I shall, by my creation and then destruction, imbue any working with these same gifts. Use me in your witch powder, and I shall further grant it power and strength, the fortitude to do all you need and more. I break skulls that bash themselves into me in attempts to gain entry. I crush under my weight the curse and the jinx. I eat what remains into my rusty body, and keep it, transmitting it into force and form, until my form is released.
And so I grind it down well, knowing it will be a common material for my practice, informed of the uses directly from the spirit itself rather than by appropriating meanings from others.
