Accepting My Smut

In Kim Harrison’s The Hollows series, the main witchy-witch, Rachel Morgan, starts off as a white witch, one who does only white magic so it won’t tarnish her soul. As the series progresses, Rachel has to do more and more spells that require a little darkening of her aura, which is essentially a snapshot of her soul. Some dark spells done for the right reasons, like rescuing people kidnapped by a demon and being held for ransom in hell, result in Rachel’s entire aura turning black with the occasional fleck of gold.

Dark or black magic is often linked with sin. Using blood magic to raise the dead or using sacrificial magic to gain power is often seen as a crime against God. The “smut” on Rachel’s soul is a parallel to sin.

At first, Rachel doesn’t want to take the searing pain of burden for her actions. She fights the smut, and it burns. As she becomes used to the black tint to her aura, she realizes the pain is almost non-existent. It only hurt when she resisted.

If we remove sin from the equation, it’s simply this: actions have consequences. All magic systems result in a give and take. To get something, you must give something. To do something, you must accept the consequences of your actions. Black is just a color. There’s nothing good or bad about it – it’s both the absence of all light and the combination of all colors.

I’m taking sin out of my own equation for once. I may not have always done the right thing, but I’ve always done what I thought best. I’m evolving. My soul may seem black to some. I’ve lived a little. In some ways, more than a little. I cherish my scars because I’m still here to talk about them. I’m grateful for every story I’ve lived to tell. I’m grateful for the ones I’m going to tell later, too, the spells I have yet to do, and the ones I haven’t paid for yet.

I accept my smut. Don’t mock me for my aura until you’ve taken an honest look at your own.