a gift received in the Temple of Love...

“We are Beauty and we are Darkness…

We are Light and we are Change”   T Thorne Coyle

I am Inspiration in the form of a Dragon!

I am a Dragon in the form of a Woman…

I am a Woman in the form of a Shaman…

I am a Shaman in the form of a Witch...

I am a Witch in the form of a Priestess…

I am a Priestess in the form of a Goddess…

I am a Goddess in the form of a Dragon…

I am Beautiful in All my Forms!

“In the Temple of Love,

I sing from the Water that Flows through my Heart,

…Longing and Belonging…”  Baltimore Reclaiming Ritual, Sacred Space, March 11^th, 2017

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.

The Change

Fruits of the Crone by Brian Froud

It happened so quietly, like some ninja in black, slipping out the window onto the rooftop of the house, down to the yard and past the wall into the night, in some old black and white movie on Saturday morning when I was a kid.  When I woke this morning I realized it had left me and I had never noticed.  I can’t seem to remember when, just that it is gone now. 

Change happens to us all the time.  But when the first one happened, I noticed and I expected to be more aware of this one.  I was expecting it, I knew it would come but, I thought that I would notice somehow.  That there would be some sort of symptom to tell me that it had happened.

Fourteen years ago I conceived a child for the last time.  I miscarried six weeks later and the following week I allowed a surgeon to sever the pathway.  Conception would never again be possible.  I have regretted that decision and grieved for the loss.  But my body was never really aware of what my mind knew.  It did not change who I was.   This is different.

Even if it were still mechanically possible, my body has reached that state where it is no longer capable of creating or gestating life.  That possibility is really over.  And I have a choice to make.

I can grieve.  But I have already done that.  For years I did that.  It doesn’t feel right to grieve for this change.  It feels as though grieving would be saying that my life is over, that there is no reason for me to keep on living, that love and pleasure and joy are no longer possible for me, that I have no purpose and nothing to give or look forward to.  And this doesn’t feel like that to me.  That actually comes as quite a surprise for indeed, I expected that it would.

What this does feel like is a new life.  Like I have been reincarnated again, but with all of the knowledge and wisdom and understanding gained in the previous life intact.  Like I get to start over without having to start at the bottom of the staircase.  It feels like I spent my life until now climbing a tower to reach a door and now I have opened the doorway to find a new world, that the adventure is just beginning and I have lost nothing, like I can start the journey with all the tools I could possibly need and the knowledge of how to use them.

It seems so very strange but, it feels like a cause for celebration.  I give thanks for the change.

Desires

There are many facets to desire. Humans are complex and complicated beings. I do not believe that anyone is truly one dimensional in what attracts, excites and arouses them.  I have spent a good deal of time recently learning about many different ways that other people find that allusive jewel.  I have been reading about others’ experiences, discussing with others how the mystery of sexual desire functions for them, even asking questions and discussing ideas about which I am curious.

I have realized that my desires are not simple.  Sometimes they are conflicting even to the point of paradox.  And I am beginning to understand that is a paradox to be celebrated, a mystery to be enjoyed and explored.  I do not have to forsake any of my desires for any other.  I can explore each and every one of them in excruciating detail. 

I still have a very painful stutter when discussing some of the more extreme desires that I have yet to actually experience.  They are not my only desires, but the fact that I have such difficulty articulating them bestows them with immense power to my thinking.  That the simple act of giving voice to them, putting them into language, is such a struggle  (for one who loves words as much as I do) suggests a great deal of meaning and power.

Perhaps it is the fear of judgment, or the fear of being misunderstood.  Truth be told, some of those desires could be misinterpreted, and indeed have been by some of the people I love and respect.  Specifically the desire to submit to someone else’s will, either by acceptance or by physical “force”, seems to invoke in many the idea of being victimized.  The desire to explore pain or fire or blood, seems to invoke concerns about my mental and emotional health and physical safety. 

Perhaps it is the fear of those desires themselves that instills them with such power. Fear is an amazing and profound emotion and the source of great strength.  I have spent much time reading and learning and exploring intellectually, soon it will be time to actually go out and discover what it all might mean.  When I do, it might be in fear but, it will not be in shame.

Words

I love words.  I love knowing their intricacies and their subtleties and their deep meanings.  I love knowing them and choosing them and stringing them together to make something true and beautiful and raw and real. I love the magick they hold and the power they wield.

Violence; physical force, extreme or uncontrollable force especially of nature, fervor, intensity of feeling or expression, aggression, ferocity, strength, force, passion, might, fierceness, power.

Predator; a carnivorous animal that hunts, kills, and eats other animals in order to survive, any organism that behaves in a similar manner, extremely aggressive, determined, persistent, wild, untamable.

Perversion; the changing of something good, true, or correct into something bad or wrong, or a situation in which the change has occurred, a sexual practice considered unusual or unacceptable, falsification, distortion.

The words that make us uncomfortable are powerful.  Many have meanings that evoke very negative feelings, and many of those words have other meanings. I object to the subjugation of words to only their basest meanings, and I choose to reclaim them and to use them because by definition they are the most accurate to express my thoughts.

Slut; an insult for a woman whose sexual behavior is considered immoral.

 

Because I do not consider sexuality to be immoral the word itself is meaningless to me, it holds no power.  It invokes no emotional response.  That is not to say that there are no words that are emotionally powerful to me.  The word beautiful is incredibly powerful and being called a “good girl” can reduce me to shreds.

Discovering which words have power for me, which words make me angry or uncomfortable, which words I find important to reclaim, and which words have no meaning, no power at all, is an exploration into my identity and my deeper self.