Today we’d like to introduce you to Sera Beth Timms.
Hi Sera, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I started my first music project in 2003 when I needed a soundtrack to an experimental video I made in college. My 2 roommates at the time were musicians, and I could strum a few chords on the guitar, so we collaborated to record a live soundtrack scoring the video. One of those guys was Ian Barry, who became my writing partner in my first real band, Black Math Horseman. We wanted to re-write reality and create moments of transcendence with our music. I was very angry at the Patriarchy and the established Western World in general back then.
I had began to get deeply into studying dreams, symbols, alchemy, and ritual around this time. So, when Maja D’Aoust (The White Witch of LA) invited me to join her in producing a public Winter Solstice Ritual, I started my solo project, Black Mare and Ides of Gemini, with J. Bennett to score the performance.
I then began to venture into directing Music Videos when my friends in Isis (the band) asked me to direct a video for them, which I did. I directed a few more videos for other bands but decided to focus mostly on my own projects, as videos are quite a time-consuming labor of love, and I was already juggling a lot.
The next big component of my path was Esoteric and Healing Arts which had begun to take shape in the world through working as a Tarot Reader at House of Intuition in 2012. This was a very drastic crossroads for me, leaving the status quo career world behind and leaping into a world of wandering, free-spirited healers, mediums, clairvoyants, and more.
Music, Magick, and my community were my way of life for many years.
There was, however, a level of comfort and security in this world I’d cultivated that made me want to break free of it… to dive completely into the mysteries of the etheric planes and the infinite. An experience I had in December of 2017 caused me to have a psychotic break with reality, which began a dissolution process of all that I knew to be “me.” I was caught in a void and realized that I’d stared for so long into darkness that the darkness did indeed consume me.
My creative path became very sort of dismembered after this as my psyche had broken open to both creative and destructive sources of spiritual guidance, which seemed to keep me on puppet strings for the most part. I took up regular meditation, learned reiki, and many other magical and energetic practices to center, ground, and heal. I walked away from my bands to the best of my ability because I could no longer handle darkness and began a more pop project called Lvxuri to try and cultivate light, fun, and playfulness. I figured that if I acted like a living, loving being, then I would begin to eventually feel real and connected again.
My very deep love of Los Angeles had become tainted by various painful experiences by the time of Covid, so I packed my car and headed East. I ended up in Upstate NY for a couple of years, where I solely worked on healing, yoga, cultivating light, and harnessing my demons. In March of 2023, I finally missed and felt called to return to LA and got back here in May 2023.
It felt like returning home to my nest. With the inner stability and wholeness that I gained in NY, I have been able to return to my darker music and art projects…and continue to work in the Esoteric and Healing Arts. Truly, I’m pretty much right back where I started,
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a creative mystic, and all of my work is informed by my desire to build a bridge between the finite material world and the infinite world of imagination and energy. I have several music projects: Black Mare, Black Math Horseman, Ides of Gemini, and Lvxuri. I also create the visual art and videos for these projects for the most part. I specialize in creating worlds. Each musical project is a different world and another side of myself that I get to express. I’m most proud of the very deep and enduring friendships that I’ve created through art and music. I don’t think I’m actually set apart from the others, despite appearances. I think all creatives are part of an interconnected web with the same source of inspiration at the center. More than a few times, I’ve thought of an idea, not acted on it, and a few months later see that someone else has done it…and I think how foolish I was not to act, but how brilliant that another artist carried it out so well…like we’ve all been collaborating all along.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Persistence, imagination and luck.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://blackmare.bandcamp.com/album/death-magick-mother
- Instagram: theblackmare
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theblackmare
- Other: www.lvxten.com
Image Credits
Nedda Afsari
Kristin Cofer
