Who is on your altar this year? And what if you've never made one?

Julia Carmen sits down with her granddaughter, Juliana Guerrero, as Día de los Muertos approaches. Juliana remembers what the season looked like growing up, what she carries from the line of women behind her, and what it's like to teach in a school that builds a huge ofrenda together every year. She names what she calls a teeny tiny silver lining of the overculture's version of the holiday: it has people asking questions.

They talk about doing this with respect, about asking permission, and about the fact that some altars are private. Juliana walks through her living altars, including the love altar she first built during a hard season. Julia talks about where to begin if you're new: start with yourself, start with the people who really saw you, and don't compare. They also talk about grief, and about the songs and films that help carry it.

Julia closes by reading the Fire Dragonfly card, and Juliana leaves us with three words for anyone sitting with their people this week: be still, be kind, be love.

Free Día de los Muertos Resource Kit: theschoolwithoutwalls.net/kit

Learn more about The School Without Walls and the Dragonfly Guides:

• Get your free guide: 10 Questions to Ask Your Soul Self
• Enroll in The Magical Papers
• Explore The School Without Walls

Production assistance from Podlad.com and Daypack Digital. Artwork by Olivia Dancel. Dragonfly art by Soul Creative Design.

You may know their work long before you ever really meet them. The Artist is often seen, but not seen.

Julia Carmen returns to the Archetype series with the Artist, paired with Emerald Dragonfly. She describes them as the creators of their own universe, close kin to the Alchemist and the Wizard, and filled with more emotion in motion than most. They move like chameleons, changing their own colors and seeing the colors in other people, so they're very hard to fool. Julia's other image for them is an octopus: ranging in every direction, and ready to release its ink when it needs to.

An Artist doesn't have to paint. This archetype shows up through poetry, through parenting, through a person's work and word. Julia also names the caution for those who lead with the Artist: because emotion runs ahead, being near one can be intense.

The Artist is born with the knowing within, and their stories come from other worlds of being. This is an Archetype that can be cultivated, in the stillness of you.

Their companion is Emerald Dragonfly: "Know this. You can never be lost."

Learn more about your own archetype in The Magical Papers online course, at theschoolwithoutwalls.net.

Learn more about The School Without Walls and the Dragonfly Guides:

• Get your free guide: 10 Questions to Ask Your Soul Self
• Enroll in The Magical Papers
• Explore The School Without Walls

Production assistance from Podlad.com and Daypack Digital. Artwork by Olivia Dancel. Dragonfly art by Soul Creative Design.

Some archetypes can be cultivated. The Seer cannot — they arrive this way already, walking with their peeps, and stay that way their whole life.

Julia Carmen returns to the archetype series with the Seer and their Peeps: those born already balancing the physical and non-physical worlds, in a constant, ever-flowing motion that never looks for a point of reference — because in the physical there isn't one. "Peeps" is Julia's generic word for whatever your own tradition calls this crew: ancestors, guides, angels, four-legged and winged ones — the group each Seer comes in with and walks beside for life.

The Seer holds their past lives the way most of us can't: fully understood, never carried. They aren't leaders and they aren't followers, and their energy moves like a colorful, DNA-like spiral — unique to each person, the way no two snowflakes match. Unlike most archetypes in this series, the Seer can't be cultivated into. You either come in this way, or you don't.

Their companion is Mother Dragonfly: inside of me is your life... you see, you are the mother — which Julia clarifies isn't literal parenthood, but the mother within yourself, the one doing the creating.

If this isn't your archetype, look around — chances are good there's a Seer already in your life. Trust the quiet, still voice. That's how you'll know.

Learn more about The School Without Walls and the Dragonfly Guides:

• Get your free guide: 10 Questions to Ask Your Soul Self
• Enroll in The Magical Papers
• Listen to Mother Dragonfly's episode
• Explore The School Without Walls

Production assistance from Podlad.com and Daypack Digital. Artwork by Olivia Dancel. Dragonfly art by Soul Creative Design.