Welcome!
Did you ever wish for a magic portal, a gate between worlds, a way into and beyond your dreams, a secret door? That door is always present. Do you know how to see it? Do you know where to find it? Do you remember where you put the key?
Such doors — and such keys — are what this website is about. Everyone is welcome here, but this work is dedicated especially to seekers of hidden wisdom, students of nature’s school, those who dance amid the falling leaves, divers after light, lovers of life’s mysteries, and everyone who finds themselves sometimes wandering or wondering, bewildered or bewitched, and who looks for a friend on their way.
This site is under (slow and likely perpetual) construction and transformation, so if something seems unfinished, that’s because it’s a work in process. There’s also more beneath the surface than may at first appear, so please stay a while and explore.
What Is Secret Key?
Secret Key is the public offering of Dan’el Nighting, consulting wizard. On these pages and through my work, I seek to open doors to the Mysteries, and in the process foster a deeper connection to self, spirit, and the living world and do my part toward the cultivation of vibrant and healthy individuals, communities, and more-than-human culture.
In gratitude for the rich teachings, inspiration, and wonder I’ve received from others, this is how I hope to give back.
If you would like to support me in this work, please request my services or buy my art.
Offerings
Magical Consulting
Sit down with me and bring your questions! No one human may have all the answers, but I can help you find the ones you need and unlock the wisdom you already have. Whether it’s going down a research rabbit hole, looking for guidance on hard decisions, expanding into strange new realms of experience, integrating what you find there, or facing life’s deep lessons, I will help you explore the unknown and find tools and allies, guides and good maps.
For those with an established spiritual practice and a desire to go deeper, I offer one-on-one or small-group trainings, seminars, and mentorship to help you develop your gifts, discover new ones, and do in a good way the things you’re in this life to do.
Art and Craft
Art is magic. Craft is matter shaped by spirit.
These works are the results of practical experiments in the creative arts and sacred sciences. They are messages to, and from, spirit — love letters to the world in all its parts. Some are pretty pictures holding puzzles; others are potent signatures of powerful beings. Some are even for sale!
Personal Ritual
This is the heart of my practice and offering: direct and undeniable experience and engagement with the living world, human and more than human. This the work of making embodied meaning out of life’s messiness and taking an active hand in creating your best life.
Drawing on a wealth of tools and traditions, I offer clients good and efficacious ritual around all of life’s needs–whether it’s clearing a house of hauntings or resolving ancestral karma; spiritual healing or consulting the cards; blessing an undertaking, offering gratitude for good fortune, or crossing the veil between worlds to deal directly with spirit.
More importantly, I help my clients find or create the tools to carry out their own work. In conjunction with personal consulting (see below), I offer a range of services oriented at developing and empowering individual magical and spiritual practice.
Community Ritual
There are some things you just can’t do alone, and there are somethings that are just better surrounded by friends and family. Weddings, rites of passage, healing circles, public altars, shamanic groupwork, and seasonal celebrations all call for skilled facilitation. It’s my great privilege and honor to support communities in bringing through the big magic, from inspiration to manifestation.
Writings
In the spirit of thanks to the spirits and teachers who have opened the ways for me, Secret Key is a public repository for my own writing.
Here you’ll find poems and sacred texts, records of magical experiments, fragments of future myths, dreams that come true on waking, curious puzzles in search of their solvers, hints of nigh-forgotten lore, and the latest downloads from the stars.
Bibliography
What good is a door that doesn’t go anywhere? Here you’ll find a library of links, citations, recommendations, and breadcrumbs toward the very best books and publicly available wells of wisdom.