Dancing Down the Moon

That's Me in the Corner...That's Me in the Spotlight

Here I am, on the precipice of 2010, looking back at a year gone seriously awry.  Between the disheartening political climate and Death working overtime to make off with people and animals we know and love, and my own personal roller coaster of emotional dysfunction, it's tempting to write off 2009 in its entirety as a 365-day catastrofuck and pretend it never happened.

Strangely, though, I don't want to do that. 

Things have changed.  The last month or so has been an initiation the likes of which I haven't seen since at least 2004.  Now that I'm on the other side of it, I find myself grateful both that 2009 is over with, and that it happened in the first place.

This year marked one of the most significant accomplishments of my life:  I wrote, and sold, a novel.  I discovered lots of new music, read some amazing books, saw some awesome movies, spent time with my friends and family, had some startling realizations, bought a Macbook, and even joined Facebook, which I swore I'd never do. 

I also allowed my health to decline to the point that I'm in near-constant pain and discomfort.  I spent a good 3/4 of the year mired in depression. 

And, essentially, I lost my religion. 

My patron deities are no longer with me.  It might have seemed based on my blogging that this was the case months ago, but apparently I was very, very wrong; Lilith and I had unfinished business, and that unfinished business nearly cost me my sanity.  Drastic measures had to be taken.  There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And now She's gone.  I realize now that Her absence is complete that when I thought She had left before, I was mistaken.  The difference is obvious.  The candles are lit, but nobody's home. 

Jeff is also gone.  We hadn't spoken in a long time, and I finally realized that He isn't coming back. 

The sense of absence in my house, and in my mind, is almost palpable, and while part of me is grieving, part of me is also incredibly relieved. 

I have no idea what happens now.  To tell the truth finding new patron deities is not my #1 concern.  The process of parting the ways was so intense, and the personal upheaval so complete, that my brain is basically running 24/7 trying to defrag itself and, if you were to look into my mind's eye, you see a spinning rainbow ball.  (Or an hourglass, if you're a PC.)  I'm not sure where my spirituality is going to go next, or what changes this will bring in what you read here. 

But even with all the drama, and all the pain, I'm grateful.  For all the turmoil, and the sleepless nights, I'm grateful.  For rediscovering the strength I thought I had lost, I'm grateful.  For having my entire being set on fire, I'm grateful. 

There's beauty in falling, and even more in rising up.

So, 2009, thanks for coming.  You can go now.  No hard feelings, okay?

Welcome, 2010.

_{(The above image is from Brian Froud's Faery Oracle.)}

Ah, Yes, This Again

I am pleased, and challenged, by the fact that after 31 years wandering around this lovely planet I can still surprise myself both in positive and negative ways.  At least that means I'm not bored, right?

I'd still kind of like to kick sand at Saturn, though. 

Never let yourself get too comfortable with life.  That's important.  The minute you start to become complacent, life will throw you something--maybe something new, maybe something you thought you'd handled years ago.  It may be that the gods were waiting to hand you something until you were strong enough to face it.  Perhaps some part of your past is still lurking under your skin waiting until you've been through X, Y, and Z to pave the way back to A.

The important thing is to take life as it comes--cliche, yes, but still true.  I've been working on cultivating emotional detachment; this isn't the same as not feeling anything.  I call it invoking your soul's Witness. 

The Witness is able to look at your emotions and say, "Well, okay, here's A again.  I guess it isn't gone.  But that's all right."  The Witness's slogan is "keep calm and carry on."  When an emotion--especially a negative one whose source you're not sure of--arises, if you can stop and breathe and call upon the Witness, she can help you decide how to act, instead of simply reacting.  The Witness knows and understands all your issues, even the ones your conscious mind has no idea how to name.  The Witness has been watching your entire life; she's the part of you that is connected to your larger purpose even when you can't see it because of the fog bank of all those poisonous thoughts and litanies of self-condemnation.  She is the part of you that is mindful.

Of course, as important as mindfulness is, it doesn't do you much good unless you can partner it with compassion and patience.  As it turns out there's no statute of limitations on recovery.  Old sorrows can arise when you least expect them, and it doesn't mean you're weak or that you need to "get over it."  In my experience there really is no "getting over it," there's learning to live with it, and growing beyond it.  But pain and trauma don't ever leave you.  And you know what?  That's okay.

My parents had a hackberry tree that overhung the telephone lines for years.  They had the limbs cut back repeatedly, but the tree was tenacious, and eventually when it had to be cut down they saw that one of the limbs had actually grown around the telephone wire, enveloping it completely and then growing on its way as if the wire was just a part of it.  I think that's how painful experiences are--we grow around them, and beyond them, but they never really leave us.  We take what came from that grief and learn from it, make it a part of us.  The choice we are left with is, will that experience make us stronger, or hinder us?  A tree isn't about to let something as silly as human artifice get in its way.  A tree will grow through concrete, around fence lines, up through the floor.  It takes time and patience, but given light, food, and air, a tree can grow through just about anything.

Healing is a process and I don't think it's ever over.  The effects of illness and disease can be felt years and years after remission--if for no other reason, than you had to adjust your way of thinking to say "I survived this," and it becomes a part of your identity.  But the amazing thing is that you can choose to rename and reframe it, to go from "victim" to "survivor" in your own way and your own time.  Don't ever let anyone tell you it's been long enough.  No one gets to decide that but you.

Perhaps the best way to think of the Witness aspect of your mind is as your inner tree.  It listens, it watches, it bends with the wind instead of resisting.  It can grow through and around and takes all the time it needs to do what it's here to do.

May we sway like the trees, bearing witness to our own continual unfolding.

State of the Union

I was out shopping with S1ren today, attending the holy grail of book sales, Half Price's 20% Off Everything weekend.  We wandered into the Pagan/Goddess/Magick section (called by an old friend of mine the "Woo Woo Section"), and I saw a copy of my first book on the shelves, cozy between Starhawk and Trish Telesco.

My mind catapulted back six years to the first time I ever saw The Circle Within at a book store.  I was, as today, shopping with S1ren, as well as her then-husband, and we walked into Borders at WestGate...and there, on the New Nonfiction display table just inside the door, was my little black book.

I had to sit down.  I'm not exaggerating.  All I could do was point and make incoherent noises of shock.

I was 25 years old. 

A lot has happened in those intervening six years.  A few months after that encounter in Borders, tragedy struck my family and my entire life seemed to fall apart at the seams, but at the same time wonderful things were happening--I got to travel alone for the first time in my life to the International New Age Trade Show in Denver, and I met wonderful inspiring people and Pagan authors, as well as at least one young man who would go on to become a Pagan author.  I did my first book signings and life was unbearably exciting.  Even with the looming horror of my brother's suicide, I felt like there was promise in the world, and all I really had to do was keep breathing.

I'm still a little amazed that I managed that.

Six years, fifty pounds, several more deaths, half a dozen antidepressants, another book, and a coven later, life is very different on the inside no matter how it might look.  When I page through The Circle Within I don't recognize the woman who wrote it.  She sounds like me, she's sarcastic and uses way too many commas like me, but it feels like another lifetime, another me.  She wrote a pretty great book, especially for someone so young and unsteady on her feet.

I've learned a lot.  My spirituality, which is still hobbling about on crutches, has become much more ecumenical, and I believe a lot of things that probably would have earned my scorn in my early twenties.  My path has become less polytheistic, less ritualized, and more intuitive; I've finally started to embody some of the principles I wrote about, while dropping others completely.  I've become less religious and more mystical.  I can't remember the last Pagan-specific book I read.  Lately I've been studying yogic philosophy and Buddhism, not with an eye toward becoming a Buddhist or a yogini, but to enrich the practice I'm building. 

I dance more now than I ever did with Jeff.  He hasn't appeared to me in over a year, and for a long time that upset me, but recently I realized that I didn't do anything wrong and I haven't lost His presence; I've started to learn what He was trying to hammer into my head all along.  The dancing path is something you are, not something you do.  God exists in all moments and all places, not just in my living room.  A purely situational connection with Deity is kind of like only practicing piano once a month and expecting to become a virtuoso.

I could go the rest of my life without casting another Circle and be perfectly content, but that doesn't mean the magic has left my life.  In truth, I'm finally finding the magic I thought I had lost years ago.  It was never lost, just obscured by my depression, fear, and expectations.  I no longer care what label to use for what I am.  Pagan is good enough for me as a category, and beyond that, there's really no box for me to check.  I'm creating something new from the dust-covered, careworn old, and it's alive, growing, and, well, awesome.

Oh, things aren't perfect by any stretch.  I'm still a bit of a basket case, and I've got a long way to go before I can call myself healthy with a straight face.  But in the last few months something has shifted (if nothing else, my Saturn return will be over this fall, thank you Mama), and I feel stronger, more awake. 

I'm writing, I'm creating, I'm baking, I'm dancing, and I'm going to be just fine.

Witches Don't Let Witches Sleep Cast

For the past year...I think...I've been on a particular prescription medication to combat insomnia. It in combination with my antidepressants have been a lifesaver, literally. I don't know if you've ever had chronic insomnia, but the kind of madness that comes from sleep deprivation over long periods leads to some very dark places.

The only real problem is that this medication--we'll call it Ambien, because that's what it is--has a rather entertaining and potentially hazardous side effect: amnesia.  After you take the pill, if you don't fall over within twenty minutes, you may find yourself the next morning trying to figure out what the hell you did last night.  I've known people who ordered things online and completely forgot, only to have a carton of books on fly fishing or astrophysics show up the next week. The most common issue is sleep eating: the subject takes her Ambien and manages to eat the entire fridge without remembering.

A complication of this complication that I'm pretty sure only happens to practitioners of the Craft is sleep casting.

Yes, you heard me right. Sleep casting = working magic and doing ritual that you don't remember the next day. This puts a whole new spin on the "keep silent" leg of the Witches' Pyramid.

More than once I've risen in the morning to find the butt ends of spent candles and the dregs of herbal blends on my altar. If you've ever stared hard at your altar and then asked the cat, "What the hell was I doing with magnesite and fenugreek?" you might be a sleep caster.

I suppose I could be worried by this. I'm no rank amateur--fifteen years in the Craft and I can raise the roof energy-wise even when my brain is having a dirty sexy rendezvous with the Sandman. I can also recognize 95% of the spell components I keep on hand, so when this has happened I have spent a few minutes doing my CSI: Witchcraft routine and figured out that nothing too major went on.   Still, it can be a rather unnerving experience.  Just after this past Full Moon I went out on my balcony to shake out a rug and found a bottle of water I'd put out to charge, which I didn't remember doing; nor did I remember putting my favorite kyanite in the water and sitting the bottle on the railing where it could easily have fallen to the parking lot below. 

I could be worried.  Mostly I find it hilarious.  It does beg the question, however: how effective would such magic be? Magic runs on intent, after all, and if your intent doesn't last past the next morning, how can you reinforce that intent, much less act in accord? On the other hand, once the energy is unleashed, it's unleashed, and something is sure to happen. People cause change without really meaning to all the time--just look at anyone who's ever driven drunk. Even without sustained intent the consequences are all too real.

I would have to conclude based on observation that sleep casting is, in fact, effective, though it does suffer from a lack of coherence. Luckily all my work in 2009 thus far has been aimed at personal health and recovery, and it would seem that my somnulent dabblings have reinforced that. In a way, it works out, because in my waking life I find I'm still utterly uninspired when it comes to religion and magic. I keep trying to get it up, magically speaking, and find my inspiration petering out before I can even draft a ritual. I suspect this is driving my Circle-buddies crazy, as I have developed commitment phobia when it comes to actually doing anything in a group.  Sleep casting seems to be the only kind I do anymore.

My advice to those experiencing a similar phenomenon is: take your sleeping pill and go to bed.  Go directly to bed.  Do not pass your altar, do not collect the fenugreek.

And for the love of all that's holy, don't get on the internet.  Blogging, emailing, and Twittering under the influence is great fun for everyone who reads it, but can lead to some embarrassing situations the next day.

Winged Migration

I should have written this post months ago, but I wasn't sure what to say.  Bear with me a moment, for my thoughts are a bit disorganized of late, and I don't mean any offense in the following--as with everything I've ever written here, it's about my own experiences, and your mileage may vary.

A WTF of Hawks

As of today, the Winter Solstice, I have officially been a Pagan for fifteen years. 

I still remember that cold afternoon that my friend and I slipped away from town and jumped the fence of a farmer's land to walk into the wooded area that bordered the fields.  We split up, each of us taking a copy of a ritual we'd handwritten from Scott Cunningham's book (the only book we had), and made our first clumsy vows before the gods with pounding hearts terrified we'd be caught trespassing and meet the business end of a .22.

Right around that time I started seeing red-tailed hawks everywhere.  I'd lived in the same town my whole life and never noticed them before (spirituality, as it's been said, being the fine art of paying attention to what matters), but from the day I first realized that this strange new religion was exactly what had eluded me in church my first sixteen years of life, hawks began to appear in disturbingly prominent places doing extremely prominent things like flying low alongside my car and turning to look me in the eye as I walked past the telephone pole where one was sitting.  It was the first inkling I ever had that Someone was watching me, and cared for me.  Looking back I'm not sure if it was Goddess or God that sent them (at the time I was basically Dianic so the idea that it might be Himself never occurred to me), but either way, I felt...loved.

After fifteen years of solitary rituals, group work, magical experiences, dark nights of the soul, spiritual crises, ecstatic moments, meditation, carved candles, charms, sticks of incense, and tattoos, they're back.

I spent the weekend in my hometown for an extended family Christmas and on the drive to and from Austin, I counted seven red-tailed hawks including one that flew directly at my windshield and missed hitting me by less than a foot. 

One was standing in the middle of the road as I came around a curve.  It had no prey, it wasn't hurt.  It was just standing there, and made eye contact with me before making a short flapping hop off to the shoulder of the road.  It didn't fly off, it just moved over. 

This is the sort of thing that makes you sit up and listen. 

I'm not really sure what my anniversary means this year.  Tonight I should be doing my personal Yule ritual which is supposed to be my intention-setting time, but truthfully I don't know what to hope for or what to try and accomplish.  I'm not even really sure who I'd be talking to.  Up until today I wouldn't have expected Anyone to hear me or care. 

I'm a skeptic in a lot of areas, but even I have to admit that something is afoot when the same kind of bird that haunted me fifteen years ago--exactly fifteen years ago--suddenly starts showing up again in the same ways and same places.  I've seen plenty of hawks in the intervening years but never so many in two days making such an effort to get my attention.  Last time they appeared like this, shortly thereafter I became Wiccan, and before long I moved to Austin and began this...adventure?...of a life.  What, I have to wonder, are they portending now?

Googling came up with this page, which gave me some interesting thoughts on the subject although it's damned hard to read.  I was particularly struck by the passage on maturity--the distinctive red tail feathers only come in after the hawk has attained a certain maturity.  Seeing them the first time heralded a period of intense growth and new experiences for me, definitely a time of maturation (to a point, at least.  I mean come on, I was 16 at the time, how mature could I get?).  I may be due for another growth spurt.

Dear Universe,

Bring it on, baby.

Kisses,
Sylvan

PS - Okay, last time involved a lot of involuntary maturation and a lot of suckage.  I'd appreciate it if this time my personal evolution could be the product of deliberate choice and work, and if the feathered critters could be letting me know that I'll be accessing the strength and will to make those changes soon instead of having to grow in response to catastrophe.  If Santa could bring me a year without catastrophe, that would rock.  Thank you,  Universe, for your kind attention to this matter. 

In the meantime:  a blessed Yule to everyone.  I'll be journeying back to the hinterlands again this week to spend more time with my family, but hopefully after that life will start to settle down and I'll have time to blog again now that I'm in better health and slightly less likely to fly apart at the seams and end up on the evening news.

Enjoy the longest night, stay warm, nog something.  I personally don't advocate the nogging of eggs, but surely there are other things that can be nogged.  Soy gets nogged this time of year too.  Sounds kind of painful, but if there's nutmeg involved, I'm there. 

Vampires Saved My Soul...

...after Marion Zimmer Bradley tried to kill it.

This statement is not as random as it may appear.

I've been writing stories since I was about five.  My mother still has some of those first efforts written out in wobbly pencil on Big Chief tablet paper; they were usually about animals, and often illustrated.  By the time I was a sophomore in high school I had compiled binders full of story bits, folders full of essays marked "Excellent!" and a hunger for writing that saw me through those awkward middle-school years when I hid behind my hair and worked in the library to avoid PE.

My sophomore year I got a fantasy story printed in a Mercedes Lackey fanzine, and I thought I was hot shit.  Actually, I was hot shit; I was talented and I knew it, and I had plans for novel after novel dancing in my head.  My English teacher loved me--in fact he read the entire 26 page story out loud to our class over the course of a week.

My junior year everything changed.

Our teacher gave us a fairly simple assignment:  write a short story and send it to a magazine, anthology, or other publishing outfit just for the experience of rejection.  (She didn't say that last bit, but even at 16 I knew how the publishing business works.)  Since I wrote almost exclusively pretentious high fantasy with female protagonists, there was really only one person to send it to:  Marion Zimmer Bradley, editor of the Sword and Sorceress series as well as her own fantasy magazine. 

Now, keep in mind that I had no illusions about this story getting published.  Grownup professionals jockey for slots in fantasy anthologies.  The genre is ridiculously slim, sexist, and cutthroat, and like any fiction no novel will ever see print without an agent lobbying hard for it.  I knew that.  In fact, I was embarrassed at having to do the assignment, and I made sure to tell MZB in my cover letter that I was doing this for a high school project and that I was only 16.  (My teacher didn't see the cover letter.)  To this day I don't even remember what the story was about; I'm sure it was awful by my current standards, but pretty good for a teenager.

The rejection arrived, but it wasn't the form letter I expected.  MZB, a respected crone of the fantasy world, had written me a personal reply.

The letter told me I was a terrible writer and that I should stop wasting her time. 

I'm not kidding. 

It went on at some length about how horrible the story was, how unbelievable; the characters were shallow, the plot nonexistent, and I should give up writing right now. 

If I hadn't burned the letter years ago I would scan it to show I'm telling the truth, but this was 15 years ago, and I was so upset that I had to get the letter out of my sight.  I cried for days.  I vacillated between rage and shame for months.

And I quit writing.

I did class assignments without bothering to polish them to my former shine.  I threw away my binders of notes and scenes.  Every time I tried to start a story I just kept seeing those words in my mind, and all the inspiration drained out of me.

I hated that woman for a very long time.  In fact, I'm ashamed to say that I laughed when I heard she died.

It wasn't until I was 20 that I tried again, and I did it in secret, like a sticky-fingered teenager at the mall.  I was living alone for the first time in my life and battling one of many depressive episodes when I discovered something on the internet:  fan fiction.

As a teenager I had devoured any and all young adult novels connecting romance and vampires.  There were certain books and series that I adored beyond all reason.  All of them had fandoms.  I started reading the fics, and had two realizations:

One:  80% of fan fiction sucks.

Two:  I could do much, much better.

Before long I was knee-deep in a world I'd abandoned, and I had my own following complete with awards and teenage girls emailing me daily wanting new installments.  I was hooked.  The gratification and the creative outlet were like a drug. 

(They still are, actually.)

Meanwhile I was a young Witch in the midst of her first formal training and her first experiences with OMG!RealLivePagans, and I was finally free to buy whatever books I wanted, so I was also reading every book on Wicca I could find--the good, the bad, and the spectacularly bad.  I found myself creating the first verison of Dancing Down the Moon, writing essays on what I thought were the dos and don'ts of Wicca.  I spent hours on websites (including one called Alaine's Circle of Wicca that would turn out to be authored by my eventual good friend and fellow writer Amber) and saw both the glut of 101 material and the need for a different focus in the literature. 

Good god, Pagan websites used to suck.  Remember MIDI files of Enya and spinning flaming pentacles?  Black star-flecked background with violent purple lettering in 20 point font?  Remember when cut-and-pasting Scott Cunningham was all you had to do to make your Geocities site popular? 

Anyway, in a matter of months the first infant versions of The Circle Within had already begun to form, although it started out as a very different book, focused on creating one's own tradition, a much broader topic than a personal spiritual practice.  That's where the subtitle came from, actually, the original version of the book.  When I was finally ready to write the real thing, I sat down at the computer and barely moved for three months.  I sent it to Llewellyn, they went ape over it, and the rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

I can't imagine my life without writing.  It's so much a part of who I am, what I do, and how I relate to the world.  I even narrate things as they happen in my life (she said) and scrawl down interesting turns of phrase on napkins to stuff into my purse.  I haven't written a novel yet, but I write fiction constantly, and yes, it's still about vampires, but you have to start somewhere.

To think that I almost let some mean old woman stop me from doing the one thing I loved above all else--the thought makes me shudder. Maybe MZB was having a bad day and took it out on me; maybe she skimmed the part where I said I was sixteen and wasn't really trying to dash the aspirations of a young writer.  Or maybe she was just a bitch--I don't know.  I never met her personally and I certainly never tried to contact her again.

What brought this story out tonight, you ask?  Well, a few years ago I decided to bite the bullet and read The Mists of Avalon.  I figured it was considered gospel by so many feminist Pagans out there I ought to at least have read it.  Not to mention, I liked the miniseries in spite of its wobbly acting and atrocious dialogue (I told S1ren we should create a drinking game where every time Morgaine says "my little brother Arthur" you have to take a shot); seeing Goddess worship on screen, especially embodied by the regal and beautiful Anjelica Huston, was surprisingly affecting.  I've always had a deep longing for a college of priestesses or a Pagan monastery, and the story met that longing with homemade forehead tattoos and nifty dip-dyed costumes.

I never did finish the book--I got about halfway through it and lost interest.  Tonight, however, I was at Half Price and found a copy for two dollars, and something made me want to give it another try.  I think I'm tired of holding grudges--fifteen years is a long time to be angry about something, even if it was that traumatic.  Those formative adolescent experiences can really fuck you up, can't they?  But I decided that I wanted to make MZB a peace offering, even posthumously; I want to see if distance and time allow me to enjoy the book without my personal prejudices.  It's part of my letting go program, I guess you could say. I'll be sure and mention how it turns out when I've finished the book, assuming I do this time.

(Just keep in mind that if you wrong me I'll still be out to spite you fifteen years later.  It's a Scorpio thing, just like putting arsenic in your fruit punch and poking holes in your condoms.)

Back to the alphabet next post.

An Interlude - Gifts of the Dark Goddess

I just wanted to give a grateful shout-out to Thalia, who really made me think about some things in relation to my last post.  Some of what she sparked off in my mind has really left me reeling--in a good way. 

A long time ago I read this horrible novel about Witches that started off fairly accurately; a woman found herself drawn to the Craft, and initiated into a coven.  The depiction of ritual and Wiccan belief was fairly well represented, which is still a rarity in fiction.  (I may do a post here in the near future about accurate representations of Paganism in fiction--note to self.)  The problem came when the protagonist discovered two of the coven members, a brother and sister, were having sex, and she decided it was her responsibility to tell everyone in the damned world.  So, what started out as a decent book about Witches decided to link Wicca and incest.  Great, right?  It gets better.  At some point the protagnist is raped by another covener--does she call the police?  Does she leave the group?  No, she calls it a "gift of the Dark Goddess."  Eventually she is forced to leave the coven and never practices again, because she "broke the cardinal rule of the religion, 'harm none.'"

I could go on for a year about everything that's wrong with that, but the thing that stuck out worst to me was "gift of the Dark Goddess."  The thought of being raped as a gift made me so angry I actually threw the book across the room, and this was years before I knew just how disgusting a comparision it was. 

I was rereading my last post in response to a comment I received on it, and I found myself having a similar feeling.

I realize I haven't been totally forthcoming with exactly what went on last year between me and Lilith, so here's the gist.  I had done several Drawing Downs of Her, and they were extremely intense, but I never have much memory of aspecting so the main issue was the energy drain.  Most of the time Drawing Down isn't done for yourself so much as for the people in Circle with you, anyway.  (That's purely my experience.)  It sometimes took me several days to recover.  Gradually I started having moments when She would slip into my body uninvited during other rituals, but still in sacred space with an altar dedicated to Her, so I wasn't too offended. 

Then, the night of my 30th birthday party, while I was drunk out of my mind, She commandeered my body, sent me writhing and babbling to the sofa, and scared the bejesus out of all my friends.  This was not in Circle, not with an invitation, and not okay.  My defenses were down and I was supposed to be celebrating my life with my friends, not sobbing into a pillow.  At the time I remember one of the attendees being angry at Lilith for what She was doing, and I thought, "why?"  I figured, I had put myself on this path, and opened the door--

Yeah.  I was asking for it, right?  Look at my tattoo.  Look at the altar.  Look how I was dressed.  If you walk around town in a short skirt, what do you expect?  You're totally asking for it.  That woman they stoned to death in Afghanistan for showing her ankles was totally asking for it--what does she expect, enflaming men's passions like that?  Girls who don't want it don't walk around looking like that.  She deserved it, Your Honor.  Who can blame a guy for thinking that was an invitation?  She's my wife!  I have a right to do what I want as her husband! 

We live in a culture where it's assumed that women give consent until we actively withdraw it.  The fact that you have to say NO means that the default answer is YES.  Not only is this bullshit acceptable between men and women, it's encouraged between  humans and God.  I was raised to "fear God."  God was a terrible force that would destroy entire cities based on their sexual preferences and cast the children He was supposed to love into hell for not believing in Him. 

I became a Pagan because of the Goddess.  I longed for a god who looked like me, to whose image I could relate, who didn't demand my subservience because of my vagina.  I wanted to choose to serve Deity not out of fear of some dreadful consequence, but out of love.

I recently started up a small, informal group of Wiccans whose intention is to meet up once or twice a month to do rituals, study, talk, and basically be Pagan together, with no coven commitment and no set structure.  Last night we had our first group ritual, a combination pre-Samhain/pre-Full Moon (scheduling is a motherbear this time of year) where we released into the fire the things from this past year that we feel ready to be rid of.  One of the things I burned was fear.

It wasn't until today that I realized the full import of both my actions in the ritual and my words in my last post.  I wrote that I am afraid of Lilith.  I banished fear.  I wrote that this year has been a dark and harrowing initiation preparing me for something I still can't name.  The sudden understanding that I had today is that this is completely true--but that where I go from here will not be forced on me by an aspect of Deity that frightens me.  I am through serving a god I fear.  I did that my whole childhood.

Perhaps that's what Lilith intended, for me to outgrow Her.  That's actually perfectly in keeping with Her way of doing things.

Regardless, I have decided that Hers is not the path I want to continue on.  I no longer believe that the path of Ahimsa that I want to walk and the path of Lilith are compatible for me.  I will be powerful in a way that doesn't involve violation and dread.  I have said before that I must find compassion for myself--I think the first step is charting a new course, and serving the Goddess the way that feels both right and beautiful, not the way that I blunder into when I get in over my head.

I am not ignorant of darkness and I am not naive.  I am not a fluffy glitter-sparkle Witch who thinks the Goddess is all sunshine and bunny farts.  I have seen the shadow and I have walked the Underworld.

And you know what?  I'm done. 

The serpent will always be a part of me.

But so is the phoenix.

It's time to stop crawling and fly.

(Although I still want to be Ani DiFranco when I grow up.)

   

Oh, I Forgot...

There's been a new addition to the family here at the Sylvanstead.

This is Owen:

He's about three months old and full of energy, affection, and noise.  He and Stella are getting along, in that they beat each other up and then fall asleep in a kitty yin/yang configuration. 

I'm going to end up a crazy cat lady, I swear.  Thankfully my apartment (and my budget) can only handle two cats max.  I'd forgotten how much growing boys eat (and poop, good lord). 

He's going to be enormous--you should see the size of his feet and the length of his tail!  This pleases me, as I love great big kitties. 

In this picture he's asking, "Mom?  When did you say payday was?  I'd really like some gooshyfood.  And treats.  And fresh catnip.  Oh, and you should PET ME!!!  Pet me or I'll chew through your iPod cable, I swear!  I am LoCuteness of Borg!*  You will submit to my soft and fuzzy paws!  Resistance is futile!"

* - Thank you, Lorrie of the Lake, for that one.

I Tried to be Patient, but it Took too Long!

When I'm expecting visitors to my home, I fidget.  The last hour before they're supposed to arrive I spend tidying up things that are already tidy, and doing piddly things like lighting incense and putting just the right music on the stereo.  I try to settle down and read a book or work a crossword puzzle, or occupy myself writing, but I tend to wander from room to room as the minutes tick by, not sure what to do with myself. 

God help me if they're late.  Then I sit and stare at the clock and keep shifting positions in the chair:  legs to the left, legs to the right, legs crossed, curled up in a ball, knees bent, feet on the coffee table...argh!  I finish one crossword and start another, or end up reading the same lines of a book over and over.

That anticipatory restlessness essentially describes how my entire life has felt lately.  I know something is about to arrive, and I am tired of waiting.  The question has evolved from "what the hell is going on with my life?" to "what can I do to get this thing moving?"  I don't believe in sitting back and letting life happen, even though that's basically what I've done since moving out of my parents' house at 18.  I keep thinking that the universe is waiting for me to do something, or that we're waiting for each other--that the catalyst is my doing and the rest will follow. 

Unfortunately I have no idea what that catalyst is, and hints are not something the gods seem all that interested in providing.

It's like when you feel a sneeze building, and building, and you're really looking forward to a good sneeze, but...no.  No sneeze.  Not yet.  Just an itchy nose. 

Actually a better description would be four hours of sex with no orgasm.  Almost, almost, almost...damn it.  Someone's fingers get tired or your batteries wear out or the bed collapses or the police arrive, and you end up screaming with frustration rather than abandon.  I'm at the place about five minutes before that happens.

Eight centimeters dilated.  Bottom of the ninth with bases loaded and the pitcher gets a cramp.  Midway through the seventh Harry Potter book--how much longer is this damn story going to go on?  Stuck right between the inhalation and the exhalation.

I don't know what I'm expecting, and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's maddening.  August, the signs seem to say.  August is when things start to change, for real this time.  Late summer.  Am I sure?  No.  I have lost the ability to be sure of anything.  But I have, as I've said, hope--hope in God, and hope in my own intuition. 

Nevertheless I am very bad at waiting. You should see me in line at the DMV sometime.

It occurs to me that I should perhaps be concerned whether the Oncoming Storm is a good thing, a bad thing, or a Time Lord (gods, the BBC has eaten my soul).  At this point, however, I have decided to simply have faith, or perhaps extremely vehement hope, that the universe has something in store for me that will floor me with its pure awesomeness, or at least be the kind of pain that I know will count for something in the end, like a tattoo.

In the meantime, here are ten things I love which are helping keep me sane in this liminal, fox-like, cosmically anorgasmic time:

1 ~ Alanis Morissette's new CD Flavors of Entanglement.

2 ~ The fact that I can now get a decaf soy milk mocha Frappuccino.

3 ~ Hannah Kaminsky's blog, Bittersweet, and her new cookbook My Sweet Vegan.

4 ~ Joshua Bell's Romance of the Violin.

5 ~ Fresh cherries and raspberries.

6 ~ My slick-as-hell new Apple keyboard here at work.

7 ~ As alluded to above, I've become quite the fangirl of the Doctor Who universe (Ninth and Tenth Doctor, and let's not forget Torchwood, YUM).  Thank the gods for Netflix, which really should qualify as #8, but I want to leave room for:

8 ~ Feeling inspired to write, even if it's not a book (or a spirituality blog, for that matter)--I haven't enjoyed writing fiction the way I am right now in years.  No pressure, no deadlines, just me having a good time with my weirdo plotlines and my pornographic interludes, and having people email desperately wanting more.  Good for both the muse and the ego. 

9 ~ My artwork adorns several people's bodies, most recently the aforementioned Oldest Friend who came to visit; she asked me to design her first tattoo, and it turned out lovely, both visually and symbolically.  It was a simple sort of thing but I was really pretty proud of it, another sign of progress on my part, as most of my life I've been unable to look at anything I create without ripping it apart with self-criticism.

10 ~ The fact that Stephanie Law's Shadowscapes Tarot is nearly complete.  Thus far my favorite cards are Death, the Page of Wands, the three Queens, and the 8 of Pentacles.