THE FOUR COLOR GRIMOIRE 02

No Gods But My Own was the name of my Substack newsletter. I’m in the process of shutting it down and wanted to have a more permanent home for these essays here at We the Hallowed. The Four Color Grimoire was the second volume in the series. Originally posted on on March 1st, 2022 and published in the book The Four Color Grimoire on March 31st, 2023.

02. THE PENITENT

Sometimes loss is the only thing a person has to define themselves.

Peter Parker lost his uncle and became Spiderman.

Frank Castle lost his family and became The Punisher.

Matt Murdock lost his father and his eyesight before becoming Daredevil.

Bruce Banner lost control and spends his life both paying for and running away from the monster inside him, The Incredible Hulk.

These characters are the representation of failure and loss, traveling the endless road of penance or vengeance, existing on a sliding scale of quests to undo wrongs that refuse to be undone. The Penitent exist to show us the price of guilt and the long lasting legacy of pain.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Anyone familiar with the story of Spiderman has heard this mantra, over and over again, for decades. It’s the core of his character, inspired by his failure to use his newfound abilities in selfless ways.

When the radioactive spider bit Peter Parker his first thought wasn’t to serve. It was to figure out how best to make money with his strength and speed.

You really can’t blame him, though. His aunt and uncle, Peter’s adoptive parents, were poor and barely able to cover their bills. He wasn’t greedy, not by a long shot. He just wanted to make a little money and let the system serve him for once.

That seed of resentment is what allowed Peter to indirectly cause his uncle to be killed and he paid for that mistake for the rest of his life. He devoted himself to being Spiderman and paying the price that lifestyle would bring.

Only he wasn’t the only one who would pay. Everyone he loved would pay for Peter’s sense of responsibility which then turned into a constant cycle of penance that he could never get out of.

In a lot of ways it’s a healthy way to cope with loss, to turn your pain into something that ultimately serves the community. The problem is that it isn’t a far stride to take that pain and allow it to fester and spread deeper roots while ignoring the steep cost to life and spirit.

If Peter Parker is the lesser version of penance then Frank Castle is on the other end of the spectrum completely. He is the embodiment of vengeance with a twisted idea of what penance should look like.

When Frank Castle’s family became collateral damage in a mob hit gone wrong it let loose something so dark and malevolent that he stopped being human. It turned him into a killing machine.

It turned him into The Punisher, a vigilante and mass murderer.

There’s a reason twelve step programs have embraced the serenity prayer as a cornerstone of recovery. In case you’re unfamiliar with how it goes:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

There is nothing we can do to cure ourselves of pain, loss, failure or disappointment. Some things just can’t be controlled and trying can lead to risky paths that are sometimes better left untraveled.

That is the real value of The Penitent. They are effective cautionary tales, especially for those of us traveling in occult circles. It’s easy to get lost sometimes, especially in your spiritual practice, when you try to get away from the darker things in your life. Obsession isn’t hard to fall into when you’re trying to obscure things you can’t or don’t want to deal with any longer.

We are human, after all. Pain avoidance and guilt are in our nature.

Magic isn’t a panacea for emotions or trauma. It won’t stop loss or make bad decisions go away. It can’t bury any of that deep enough to keep them from seeing the light of day eventually.

Look to Bruce Banner for a lesson in that. Science unleashed the thing he spent his entire life trying to suppress and gave it a physical presence. Those dark, angry urges that grew until they burst forth from his body and destroyed everything around him.

It was only when Banner stopped running and turned around, not to confront the Hulk but to accept it, that he was finally able to reconcile the beast within the man.

That’s what we should strive for. Finding ways to reconcile the dark without losing ourselves in the process.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

There’s a level of faith in letting go of things like that, of accepting the world as it comes at you. It can be freeing, empowering.

When Matt Murdock was a child he lost his vision. An old man crossing the street failed to notice the loaded down truck heading right his way. Murdock dove in to save him and in the process got a strange chemical in his eyes that stole his sight.

Even though his vision had been taken from him Matt had discovered his other sense heightened to the point that he longer felt the loss.

Raindrops became a deafening drumbeat.

Certain fabrics became sandpaper on his skin.

Strong perfume was like mustard gas.

And so he trained, not just how to use his newfound senses but also to fight just like his father, a boxer.

When his father was murdered for not throwing a match Matt became the devil, dressed in red, horns atop his head, a maniacal grin across his face.

He accepted his devil and let it change him. He went to law school and became a lawyer focusing on pro-bono cases for people in need. He fought street level crime to protect those around him, those who were forgotten by the system.

Matt Murdock did all of that and was able to keep his faith intact. The devil had been a road to healing and an expression of faith.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Let go of your resentments.

Forgive yourself for what can’t be changed.

Come to terms with the monster inside before it grows so big it punches a hole through your heart and your world.

Embrace your devil and let it help drive you forward, out of the dark and into the light.

The Penitent are an embodied Memento Mori, reminding us to acknowledge all that is lost, whether it be through death or failure, and the indelible mark it leaves on our souls.