Skin Scrying: TCM Face Mapping Meets Ancestral Spirit Work
Face mapping is a two way communication method for channeling and divination. Skin caring has never been so witchy.
Let’s first define scrying
Scrying is an ancient divination technique where one looks into a reflective or translucent surface, like a crystal ball, darkened glass, stone, water, fire, or smoke, to gain insights, receive messages from ancestral spirits or guides, or predict future events. This practice, rooted in various cultural traditions, is closely linked with mystical and witchcraft practices throughout history.
Now let’s extend this idea of scrying to TCM face mapping.
If we follow the principles of TCM face mapping (see diagram below), we can better understand the emotions our bodies are working hard to process. This isn’t just metaphorical ideology; it’s ancestral wisdom. The areas of my face that signal dryness, redness, acne, eczema, or other forms of irritation reveal internal events within my emotional-physiological state. They also reflect my relational connection with the world. We are fractals, after all. My face mirrors my life and our collective experiences. It carries emotions and energies that are both mine and shared.
For me, certain points on my face relate to specific aspects of my life, such as my liver and bladder points. They reflect my anger and disappointment from reading the news, my worry about sending my son to a school managed by complacent adults, and my struggles as a Taiwanese Canadian woman with letting go and rest. Even spiritual work can manifest on my face. When my body picks up energies or needs to discern subtleties, such as the telling the difference between a ghost and a spirit, clues may appear in my liver and bladder points on my face.
But why do these specific points on my skin react this way? More practically, why is it that when we have skin breakouts that they often occur in the same places where we’ve had them historically?
While I trust face mapping, it’s important to not oversimplify, that the emotions reflected by their corresponding organs are not oversimplified. Is it possible that my liver and bladder points, which show they are taxed, are also the most intuitive parts of my body, with my face acting as a medium for this expression?
In other words, could my skin’s breakouts highlight where I am holding energy and emotions, serving as a language through which I relate and respond? This perspective suggests that our skin should not be pathologized but seen as a scrying tool for understanding our individual ecosystems. Skin scrying refers to the practice of interpreting the condition, appearance, and changes in one’s skin as a means of gaining insight into one’s emotional, physical, or spiritual state and the greater community. By observing and being with our skin, releasing the need for it to be “blemish-free”, we fully allow ourselves to be human and oracles, and gives our skin the space to reflect energies or experiences.
Let’s explore this idea further: if our faces can record the events of our lives, might they also predict future occurrences? Can facial skin be psychic or developed to be more intuitive?
Again, it comes back to our relationship with our own skin and each other’s. Are we willing to understand beautiful skin as a wild, uncontainable, and unsanitized phenomenon? Can we allow skin to not always be smooth? Can we trust what our skin is telling us? Can we lean into what our scrying skin foretells?
I’ve noticed that using The Ritual Complete Facial Elixir with the intention of connecting with the Unseen enhances my psychic abilities, including clairolfaction (psychic smelling), and increases my symbolic awareness, helping me more confidently interpret and translate dreams. This is not new information; green witches have always collaborated with the animate wisdom of plants and their nutritional benefits. Have we as modern humans forgotten that applying certain botanicals to our skin feeds and awakens this sensitivity?
Our face is an altar to our ancestors
As an animist witch, when I scry, I not only receive information from the Unseen but can also communicate back through offerings, gratitude, and requests. In this way, my face becomes an altar, particularly to relate with those who passed down the very cells that made me me. When I anoint a specific point or area on my face’s skin that holds patterns, I likely am locating a set of emotions, mindsets, or stories that are shared within the family lines or culture. Caring for my skin is so much more than superficial beauty and basic hygiene. Broken capillaries near the nose or a persistent pimple on the right side of the chin are sites that can connect to a larger storyline, allowing me to engage with my relations more fully. What I would normally do in my home’s ancestral altar can also be done in front of my washroom’s mirror; washing my face is much like lighting incense.
I mist Facial Hydrosol starting from between my brows, moving upwards to my forehead, then around clockwise. Healing waters, central to myths and folklore worldwide, offer cleansing, blessing, and transformation through immersion in natural bodies of water and sacred vessels. Drops of Facial Serum applied to my liver, bladder, and lung points correspond with emotions, shared histories, and, importantly, shared visions. My features—my Nai Nai’s eyes, my Yeh Yeh’s ears, my Puo Puo’s cheekbones, my Gong Gong’s jawline—are held by skin-caring plants and minerals, witnesses to the illusion of separation. My face and body are in custodianship of a person that is more than just myself.
