Tattoos to Honor the Self

The people in my mundane community are mostly conservative, lower middle-class, blue-collar, rural, with High School educations.  They struggle.  They look like me and, when they see me, they assume that I share their world view.  The Witches in this area mostly exercise discretion, as does the LGTBQ community, the Leather and Kink and Poly communities, and even the Socially and Politically Liberal community. 

Some days it is a challenge to be at work where my customers and co-workers feel free to speak about their politics.  I am honest with my employers and co-workers about my religion and my identity as a Queer, Poly person (although my kink tendencies are something I keep private in this situation) I also do not believe that a bank is an appropriate place to give voice to religious, social, or political ideas. At times, I become very annoyed, and irritated by the ignorance and delusions I hear, it wears on a person. 

But I cannot see them as my enemies.  They are human beings struggling to get by.  They are sleep-walkers suffering from soul-sickness, as so many in our society are.  They deserve my pity, not my hatred.  I need to remind myself of this truth often these days. 

And every now and then, I need to do something to remind myself of who I truly am.  The past few days I received 3 new tattoos.  One to honor my Brothers, both my younger brother, whom we lost this past summer, and my older brother whom I love and cherish.  The other two honor Spirit Allies, Bear and Wolf.   There will be more in the future.  It helps me, to look less like my neighbors, and to see the ink upon my skin, to remember who I am, and what I truly believe. 

Those who are asleep, ignorant, delusional, and blind, those who are arrogant, power hungry and manipulative, those who speak untruths with impunity, those who would do harm, may not be my Enemies but, they are not my Community, my Family, or my Tribe. 

I can do many things to positively affect the future.  There are many ways that I can be open and use my voice to speak Truth and to support others as they too speak and resist and fight the good fight.  I believe in peaceful resistance, in Magick and in Prayer.  I believe in the Truth against the World, Heart to Heart, Shout above the Shouting, until there is Peace.

I have spent a great deal of time considering how I might contribute to the work of making things better.  I believe that being more open in my mundane community and actively serving the Earth, and the humans I share this Earth with, is a good place to start.  Praying and doing Magick to heal, awaken, and re-enchant the world are actions that I can commit to.

Encouraging others to resist, letting them know that they are not alone, and supporting them in that work are also actions that I can sustain.  Letting my elected representatives know how I expect them to represent me and my issues is also my duty as a citizen. 

I will remember who I am, and I will remember my purpose, and I will do those things that I can do to make things better.  So Mote It Be!

the woman...

I am a cis-gendered human woman.  I am daughter, sister, aunt, birth-mother and devoted Nanna to my biological family. I am pagan and pansexual, polyamorous and autonomous.  I am a loyal and devoted friend and lover, if sometimes emotionally unavailable.  I am a talented massage therapist and I am no longer capable of conceiving or bearing a child.

I am a middle aged, middle-class, educated, privileged, suburban white girl who likes dresses and flowers.  I work as a banker to pay the rent and I live alone with my cat. I hate debt of any kind and never again want to own a house. I am helpful to have around in a crisis and, when someone is needed to get things done including the dishes, or if there is a need for a level of organization that borders on OCD.  Or if you need a tour guide to the local thrift stores.

I am a feminist and a registered Libertarian and sympathetic to warriors, revolutionaries, anarchists and mystics. I have a love of architecture and I believe that Libraries are the most sacred institution in any society.  I am a lover of books and fairy-tales, music and dance, football and baseball and boxing, muscle-cars and motorcycles, and poetry.  I am a writer and a poet. 

I love coffee and chocolate and all night diners.  I have a sweet tooth and a strong dislike for just about all vegetables but, just as strong a feeling that it is immoral to throw away food. I have diabetes and scars and tattoos and very little physical grace. I can spend days on end without human contact but, I never drink alone. 

I can daydream anywhere at any time. I sleep in every morning I can and sometimes I stay up all night reading just because I want to.  I love Christmas and, I can fall in love if I allow myself to, and I can survive anything.  

The Dress

This past weekend my friend took me on an adventure into the city and we visited some of his favorite shops. At one of the shops, among many wonderful things, I found a dress.

The dress is a magickal thing.  It is enchanting and enchanted.   When I put it on, I cried. 

The dress is beautiful and romantic and it makes me feel like I am twenty years old.  It makes me feel like the young woman that I was before I gave up the last vestige of hope of being a mother, of falling in love. Of finding someone who would love me, all of me, who would allow me to feel safe.

I bought the dress because I could not bear to leave it.  But when we left the shop and continued on our way, he asked me when I was going to wear it and by instinct I answered,”Never”.  And that was my intention…never to where it.  Because the part of me that loves it, that it belongs to, is a part of me I am afraid to show to anyone.

That part of me has lived in a locked box for decades until only a few weeks ago.  The box was finally broken into and the person inside has been the most difficult part of me to reconcile.  

Because she is not angry nor strong nor aggressive nor courageous.

She is weak and soft and, against all of the evidence, she still hopes for the chance to be loved, that she can be, that someone will see past the weakness and decide that she is not more trouble than she is worth. 

She still hopes to be seen as beautiful and valuable and to be wanted, for all of her softness and her weakness and her capacity to give absolutely everything that she is to someone simply because they want her and she loves them.

My friend, as he would, argued the point. And the next day, when I showed the dress to my son, who was the last great thing that the twenty-year-old me ever did, he too made the argument that I should wear the dress and that I should not be afraid to show my “weakness” or my softness, that there is no part of me that he will not love.

I wore the dress today for someone I love, who loves me.  I will wear the dress again for others whom I love and trust.  I will choose hope and love.  May my Gods be pleased with my weakness. 

So mote it be.

Instinct of Home

Instinct of Home...the things we say while fucking…

When you were fucking me,

and I was begging you to cum,

you asked me “why?” 

I remember you asking,

I remember having no language to answer.

All I could do was beg.

In that moment,

I needed you buried deep,

I needed the gift of your potential,

Even though it could never take root as a child,

I needed you to plant your seed inside me.

I needed the energy of your release,

Like a crust of bread to a starving beggar,

Like air to a drowning man,

In that moment,

I needed to please you.

I needed to be owned by you,

I needed to be your bitch.

You said later that I referred to my body as Home,

and again you asked me “why?” 

I have been trying to find a way to reconcile 

the desperate need I felt and

the language I found to answer.

As the Earth is our Home and the body of our Mother

Home is an instinct beyond the language I have.

Home is where life is,

where needs are met, 

where sustenance is provided,

Shelter and comfort 

warmth and light,

strength and stability 

from which to go forth,

A haven when rest and sleep and healing are needed,

a place of safety and belonging and pleasure,

Home is a place you own and possess by inhabiting it.

A place that is not home,

is empty space 

without life,

or warmth 

or light

abandoned 

un-owned,

without purpose.

Even a grave has purpose,

to the dead who own it.

That instinct is older than my language.

It is primitive knowing from lifetimes ago,

encoded into my body’s  DNA,

that my body exists to please another,

that it has no purpose

that survival is not assured

that it is not completely justified

without a child in my womb

or a cock in my cunt.

but, I am a woman of my time, 

and  you should never take too seriously

the things we say while fucking ...

the problem with conformity...

At first, the title of this post was going to be “the problem with feminism”.  But I am a feminist and that is not truly the problem.  The problem is that other feminists believe that they get to define “feminist” for me, and that somehow I should be ashamed because I do not conform to the definitions others hold. 

I could not care less about the opinions of anti-feminists.  Of people who hold beliefs that are directly opposed to my own.  I came to terms with that when I left the spiritual community in which I had lived in the years I refer to as “wandering the wasteland”.

But the expectations of others whom I would consider to be allies, culturally and spiritually, the opinions or expectations of my “sisters” I struggle with, and against, because who I am does not conform to what is expected of me.

I am a girl.  Yes, even as a forty-eight year old woman.  I like dresses and flowers and perfume and lipstick.  I like beautiful things.  I like feeling beautiful. I enjoy being desired.  I am a romantic and a mother and I enjoy being so.  I have never objected to dolls or the princesses from my childhood storybooks. 

I do not want to be limited by someone else’s idea of who I should be.  I am strong; I don’t need to prove it.  It has never been in question in my mind.  I am brave; I don’t have to shout it.  I am strongest and bravest when I am so for the sake of those I love.  I have never seen serving others as oppression.  It is one of the most fulfilling purposes of my life.

I enjoy caring for others.  I take great pleasure in meeting someone else's needs.  I take great satisfaction in loving others.  It gives me great joy to make others happy.  Loving someone, without censorship, without restraint, without reservation, is a gift I hope to someday be granted. 

I like being in the woods and not needing to be coddled but, I am a hedonist in many ways and I do not wish to apologize for the desires of my heart.  They do not make me weak or less of a woman.  I will not conform to the opinions or expectations of those whose agenda is opposed to my own but; neither will I be shamed by the expectations of my allies.

I am woman enough just as I am.  Take it or leave it but, you will not change it.  I will not conform to please another but, I may choose to please another and that is my choice.  No one gets to take that choice from me.