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These creatures portray the demons and spirits that I find myself interacting with most frequently. They signify parts of my life that help define who I am.  

I choose to store my spirits on the shelves of my desk. This is the place that I have been spending most of my time due to all my learning being online and such and it is also the place of where I gather my things. With these spirits, I also have pictures of meaningful times and people (although most of them are removed to show the spirits more clearly), as well as my collection of objects that I collect for the sake of collecting. They are here to be a constant reminder of the good in my life and to give me inspiration during rough times.  

I choose to store my demons in my storage room in the basement. I choose this location because it is the furthest place from my room. The thought behind this was so that if the demons do want to come and disrupt my life, they would have to travel the furthest distance, making the journey a great nuisance for them to be constantly taking.  

To begin with, I have the spirit of emotions. This spirit represents the emotions I go through. Every day, I go through many fleeting emotions, all revolving around the events that are happening. Try as I may, I am not always in the best of moods and have times of pain. During my times of joy, it will keep me on my path, but during times of despair, it will point me in the right direction.  

Next, I have the spirit of bonds. This spirit is the symbol for all the bonds that I have with others. My experiences with people have shaped who I am today. I could have been led down an infinitely many numbers of paths in life, but the encounters I’ve had with family, friends, teachers, etc., took me down this path to make me, me. 

Following is the spirit of youth. This spirit is represented (as best as I could) by a Pikachu. Pokémon was at the center of my childhood, so I thought the best way to bring youth into my life was my fond memories during my adolescence. This spirit serves as a constant reminder that I am still in my youthful stages of life. Whether I be six or nineteen, there is still a long life ahead of me and a much larger journey to lead. 

Next is a demon and spirit joined into one. This being is the spirit of freedom as well as the demon of burdens. This creature is shown in both storage pictures because it has a home in both worlds. It finds the balance between burdening and freeing my life and picks wherever in between it decides to reside. This spirit most directly connects to how my life is going post high school graduation. Being sent off to college, I gained the freedoms of an adult. I no longer am in the care of my parents and can do what I want, when I want to. Even though I broke free from my parents, I still have the shackle society places on me. To be a good acting citizen in the future, society expects people of our age to attend college to further our education. The financial burdens from the costs of college and the mental burdens from the classes all add up to be one crazy demon.  

The demon of procrastination. I chose a panda for this demon because pandas are inherently lazy. Procrastination is a disease I’ve always had trouble curing. I am never active in completing tasks, waiting for the last minute to complete my work. I create these problems for myself, realize these problems, but never offer a solution to them. In a way, this spirit shows how I procrastinate to get rid of my procrastination. 

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Flowering Spirit– This spirit guides my carefree and docile nature. This spirit keeps me calm, kind, accepting, and caring. Like a flower, this spirit helps me grow its the better version of myself each and every day.

Divine Energy- This spirit represents the nature of creation and the place that the divine holds in my life (i.e. religion). It gives life to everything its light touches, including me.  This spirit also warms me when the world feels bitter and cold.

Blue Fountain– This is my spirit of creativity. This spirit helps nurture my creativity in its purest form and environment, as water is to a garden. But it keeps my creativity constantly flowing as water might flow through a fountain. It helps me stay fluid and creative in an often uninspiring and rigid world.

All of these spirits reside on the mantel of my desk where they watch over me as I work day to day, next to the photos and other trinkets that have emotional significance to me.

Blue Brick Wall- This demon is the counterpart to the Blue fountain spirit, as it obstructs any creative flow in my life. It’s what prevents me from being productive or artistic, and leaves me feeling dreary and drained.

I placed this demon in my drawer where I have my go-to art supplies, it sits there blocking me from doing what I love, which as of recently has been painting. But this demon can be found anywhere among the things I like to do.

The Charlatan- This demon represents the doubt that hangs over me. It’s a dark lanky and depressing figure that poisons my mind with its doubtfulness. But often it disguises itself with a happy face trying to convey itself as helpful concern or logistical thinking.

Magik Man– This voodoo doll demon is the obsessiveness that sometimes takes over me. It represents the time where I treat myself like a voodoo dol trying to exert complete control over myself or any situation like one might control another person with a voodoo doll. But instead of physical harm, this demon causes a lot of mental and emotional harm, causing me to become overly fixated on small details or things out of my control.

The Magik Man and The Charlaton often work in league with each other to disrupt my life, so together they lurk in the shadows of my room. More specifically in the nook where I keep my books for school. I chose this place because these demons trouble me the most in situations concerning my academic career. 

My spirit guardians and demons were made into a display that came to symbolize me. Each of these spirits arose from the different aspects of my self that seek help, security, or stability. The display symbolizes how my spirits interact with each other and where they stand as they interact with me and my life.

 The Tree

This spirit is a tree in a basket with the branches collected from the tree outside of my window and the basket made out of clay. Specific trees are especially valued in Thai and Buddhist cultures and were also a significant part of my childhood. This spirit encompasses the essence of my self and reflects my state of being.

The Twine and Magnet

This spirit is at the base of the tree and is in charge of my nourishment and growth as a person, like nutrients from dirt would nourish and help a tree grow. The spirit takes in experiences, interactions, and information through its mouth represented by the black magnet. The things that it decides to take in, whether good or bad, in turn, influences my growth as a person.

The Skull

This spirit reflects my connection to my Mexican identity. Being half Mexican and half Puerto Rican, I always felt more Mexican than Puerto Rican. Whether this is my Mexican ancestors and their spirits reaching out and creating a connection with me or just my mom’s Mexican cooking, the spirit makes sure that this connection doesn’t get lost.

The Wire with Horns

Unlike the spirit at the base of the tree, this spirit coils around it. The horns on the spirit express its aggressiveness. This spirit materializes my fears and anxieties that attempt to protect me, but also has the potential to be detrimental to my being.

The Cotton Sailboat

This is the spirit that looks over my sleep. When my bodily self goes to sleep, the me in my dreams wakes up and this spirit boat guides me through that world, in what feels like a free and cloud-like state. It determines my dreams or nightmares, and also whether I’m going to get adequate sleep.

The Wooden Figure

At the top of the tree is the spirit that I focus most on currently: my spirit of performance. This spirit determines how well I perform on different activities that I engage in whether that be socially, physically, or intellectually. At the moment, my school performance is at the top of this list which is reflected through the wooden pencil-like shape of the spirit.

The Creatures

Outside of the spirits symbolizing aspects of my self are the spirits that reign over the things out of my control. They govern over everything I will encounter throughout my life and can be thought of as karma in spirit form. The spirit facing left brings bad fortune like bad weather, interactions with bad people, and bad living conditions. The spirit facing right brings good fortune like good weather, interactions with good people, and good living conditions.

All of these demons/spirits represent various aspects of my life and agents of change in my life that influence me the most. For example, the branch represents the importance of family and how certain branches may yield fruit and other branches may die. The figure holding it up represent how much of what I do is for my family and how everyone wants to support their family and make it better. The footprint in flour represents escapism and how running away from one’s problems only makes the problems worse. I consider this a demon because it is a negative behavior that I have let and continue to let affect my life and as a result, the lives of those I care about. Contrarily, the seeds/fruit with a farming tool represents the drive to make a gradual and consistent effort to make life better by engaging with one’s problems. It also is a connection to my father teaching me how to garden to yield food; it taught me the value of traditional lifestyles as well as the value of hard work to achieve one’s goals. In this way, I preserve/ protect this spirit by internalizing these ideas.

These photos are my Demons & Guardian Spirits.  Everything pictured has an impact on me, whether it may be positive or negative.  These entities have impacted me throughout my life.  Most of what you see are different passions of mine that I received from my guardian spirits’ influence.  There are also demons pictured that represent aspects of my life that I loathe, but I recognize them because without both good and bad I would not be who I am.