Morbid Outlook - The Westgate Mistress, an Interview with Leilah Wendell

O you singers solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,
O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what there in the night,
By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,
The messenger there aroused, the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.

O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere)
O if I am to have so much, let me have more!

A word then, (for I will conquer it)
The word final, superior to all,
Subtle, sent up–what is it?–I listen;
Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?
Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?

Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whispered me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,
Lisped to me the low and delicious word death,
And again death, death, death, death,
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my aroused child’s heart,
But edging near as privately for me, rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
Death, death, death, death, death.

–from Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking by Walt Whitman

Leilah Wendell is a foremost authority on the subject of death: a writer, painter, historian, and curator dedicated to Azrael. We are not speaking medically here, but rather of death as a historic, spectral entity: the divine scythe bearer, the seperator of soul from flesh, the angel of death. Ms. Wendell is the founder of The Westgate, a wholly unique and astonishing organization presently located in New Orleans, a must visit for anyone in that vicinity.

He has been with me since I have been here, and before. My first “conscious” memory of Him was when He appeared to me when I was four years old. At first, the appearance of Him frightened me. I was already being conditioned by the world around me to fear. But when He came over to me and simply sat beside me, I remember turning away and actually cowering and then He put His “hand” on my shoulder. The next thing I remember was never being afraid of Him ever again. Our “relationship” grew over the years. Mostly due to the fact that He showed me how to “remember”, and He shared His memories with me. It became a very symbiotic relationship over time. One where I could see and feel the things that He did, and vice versa.

Yes, Daniel’s spiritual counterpart is always with Him as well. He calls her simply, “The Lady”, and in effect, she is a personification of the night sky... the darkness itself... the eternal mother of all life. And, yes, we are quite certain that they not only KNOW one another, but that “they” brought us together.

In addition to the expected investigations into the phenomenon of death, you make a strong emphasis in your work on the image of death and its profound visual impact. Is there a reason for this other than your instincts as a visual artist being peaked by the aspect of Azrael?

People will see Death in a way that they are ready to understand and accept what it is they are facing. Death does not deal in attempting to deceive people. Remember, we are dealing with a purely spiritual entity that inherently has NO form, yet can assume any form at all. I have always seen Azrael in the more traditional vein, the shrouded skeletal Reaper with wings, etc. It always amazed me how this personification frightened people, for centuries, in fact! I’ve always viewed this particular visage as one of beauty. I guess, through my art, I am trying not only to get people to face the image they fear so much, but to come to see that same beauty that I have seen for over 40 years now. And, perhaps even fall in love, as I did.

It is more or less obvious that concrete physical reality as we know it extends well beyond our ability to perceive it within the parenthesis of our “narrow bandwidth” sensorium, with its five limited perceptive organs. It is possible, even likely, that whole worlds like ours exist at lightwave frequencies which we cannot perceive...or at a different “carrier frequency” as it were. Do you feel that Azrael, and other beings such as “The Lady”, have a physical concreteness to them, or are they wholly spectral in nature; ie: spiritual, non-physical apparitions?

As I mentioned above, they are purely spiritual beings. One could surmise, that at one time they MAY have had physical form as we do, and as they evolved, outgrew the need for flesh incarnation. Instead, they dwell on a pure energy level. The dead walk among us every day and everywhere we go dimensions overlap. One has to wonder, is it they who “haunt” our world...or the other way around?

The French have a term for sexual orgasm, the “little death”, which describes quite aptly the overpowering nature and ultimate surrender arrived at by it. Do you feel that the “big death” is a similar climax to a longer physical act; ie: the act of living? If so, then may we assume that Azrael is the ultimate lover?

Yes! Indeed! But succumbing to His embrace will render all of those orgasmic “little deaths” nothing as compared to the rapture you will experience in His arms. People are always trying to reenact the “ultimate”. Why? because deep down almost everyone remembers what it felt like to die as most of us have lived before. That memory is tucked deep down in our subconscious mind. When one achieves the “little death“, it is as close as he/she can come in this life without actually experienced the rapture they remember in Death’s arms.

Humans seem to seek the arms of death, without really dying, in a number of ways. Do you think the kinky thrill of acts such as having sex in graveyards, or even in graves, has to do with the proximity, real or imagined, of death? Can the proximity of death be an aphrodesiac?

Absolutely! I firmly believe in what I call, the death energy. Some are repelled by it, other drawn with fascination. It is an aphrodisiac. It both draws... and repels at the same time. Like with every other pheromonal attraction in the physical world. Not all people are attracted to the same person’s “aura” or mystique. Think of the death energy as the pheromone that Azrael exudes.

The phenomenon of lovers committing mutual suicide is as old as time, or at least as old as literature. This is not always an act of desperation brought about by prohibitive parents or societies; sometimes it seems to be done for the sheer drama of the act, such as after the publication of Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”, when hundreds of European youths killed themselves after reading it. Do you think lovers who do this are seeking to combine their own love and its enactment with the ultimate fulfillment of death? Do you feel that the poetic “death wish”, often expressed in the bleakest of terms in literature, is more or less a longing for a kind of romantic closure?

Several places in the Bible make mention of a “pact with Death”, and horror and occult literature make much use of the idea. There are other Biblical stories such as God extending the lifespan of Hezekiah by 15 years in response to his deathbed prayers, in spite of the fact that it delayed God’s own plans. Now I know that Azrael is a “no solicitors” kind of guy who is not swayed by the protestations of the living, but do you think it possible that such a deal can be made...if not with Azrael himself, then perhaps by necromantic practice or by a bargain struck with some other spiritual authority, such as the devil?

It can be done, but not without a price. I’m not saying that the price is “bad” or anything like that. I guess it would all depend on your relationship WITH Azrael and why such a pact would need to be made. The term “pact” bothers me, as this is not the essence of what is meant in truth. Can you plead to Azrael? Yes. Will He hear your plea? Yes. Will He abide it? That all depends... on what’s at stake.

There have been investigations which report the actual finding of real-life zombies, mostly concluding that the person was never dead, but rather in a sort of stasis induced by powerful drugs. Many practitioners of “the arts” claim that the person has actually died and has been reanimated by a voodoo spirit. What is your opinion of these claims?

There are many types of concoctions and drugs out there, both legal and illegal that can put one in a catatonic-like sleep trance. They can even slow your heartbeat and pulse down to a point where it cannot be detected without proper medical devices, but there have been no actual corpses brought back to life in this manner that are documented by medical evidence.

In the Bible and other holy books, we hear of a “resurrection of the dead”. There are also reported examples of prophets and apostles (Elijah, Jesus, Saint Peter) raising people from the dead...calling their spirit to return from whence it has gone. If such things are truth, am I correct to assume Azrael has a hand in it? I know he is one of the dreaded “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, but he will be involved with killing then. Do you think it possible that he will be a physical presence visible to all on our earthy plane in those times?

You must understand, I take what I read in the bible with a grain of salt. It is a wonderful story, but not one of us can verify it’s truthfulness. It is, as they say, “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, so asking me questions with a biblical framework would take me a book of equal size to properly respond to. You must realize that many things written in the bible are ciphers, symbolic representations that say one things, but mean another. When you talk about “raising the dead”, are we to surmise that an actual corpse was resurrected? Remember, back that far they didn’t have the medical equipment we have nowadays to determine if someone was really DEAD, in a catatonic state, etc. That’s how the whole vampire mythos got started. People got buried alive, hence when they emerged from their graves, they must be vampires. We’re talking about very superstitious time-frames in very unenlightened times. I don’t ascribe to the concept of biblical “apocalypse”. The four horseman and symbolic of the things that mankind bring about on earth. When the end time comes, and it will, Azrael will not be cheering them on in the killing fields, He will be fighting back the ethereal tears as He ushers many through the Westgate.

There are ostensible omens of deadly portent: a black cat crossing the trail, the ace of spades, the Death major arcana card turning up in tarot a reading, “blood on the moon”, a lone raven on a gravestone, dreaming of the deceased or of a hearse... less popular ones like drawing “aces & eights” in poker (the hand Wild Bill Hickock was holding when gunned down from behind). Does Azrael leave his calling card in such a manner, to let certain people know he is coming for them?

I know that death has been a popular theme in other cultural eras, but never in my brief life have I seen such a swelling of interest in gothic death themes as that which seems to have come about over the last 15 years or so. Am I mistaken? Has this been going on all along and I just didn’t see it? Have you had a noticable influx of visitors to your galleries and to the website?

Actually, it began around 1978, and has been growing steadily since. As we are all a connected people, many are simply picking up on the fact that the TRUE West Gate began cracking open since then and the opening is getting wider every year. Also, there are many old souls being put back on earth. Many simply feel the current of energy that the gate emits and are drawn to it. They often don’t know what it is, or why they are drawn. We have noticed that more and more people every year are having some type of encounter with Azrael. Whether this is simply due to the fact that we are a more worldly people, due to things like the internet and other communication means, OR whether more people are coming attune to the death energy? It’s hard to say, but something is definitely brewing! What’s that ancient proverb? “May we live in interesting times.” ;-)