some thoughts on Love

Love is the highest form of human expression that I can imagine.  To love is to express the highest form of my own humanity.  So how I love is an expression of my identity. 

How I love expresses my gender, my sexuality, my spirituality.  I believe that loving others is an essential part of my purpose in this lifetime…perhaps in every lifetime.

The ones that I love, my beloveds, are not all human, though most of them are.  The forms of love are as diverse as my beloveds.

My love for my companion (the feline with whom I share our home) takes the form of caring for his needs, and considering how my magick, or adventures, will affect him. If I will be gone from my home for any length of time, I need to arrange to have another person (whom he trusts) to care for him.  When I do magick for our home, I need to consider the impact upon his ability to journey (on the astral) and his feelings about who may enter our home (both seen and unseen).  I need to make time to spend with him cuddling and playing and of course providing him with a clean, warm and comfortable nest, clean water, good food and mental stimulation.  I care for his needs, for his wellbeing.  That is how I express my love for him.

My love for my children, coven-mates, human family and tribe takes the form of words and actions.  I tell my children that I love them, that they are valued, cherished, beautiful, talented, intelligent people.  I encourage them to follow their own hearts and to believe in themselves.  I support them in their own sovereignty.  I remind them that they can make decisions about their own lives and that they will have my support regardless of my agreement with those decisions.   I also try to teach them not to hide from their own power, not to fear taking risks not to fear making mistakes.  My love for them is not predicated upon the ideal of perfection. 

My love for my lovers is according to their needs and mine.  I love their strengths and their shadows.  I love them in their weakness and in mine.  And if one of us should make a mistake, it is forgiven.  Love is not earned.  Love does not require perfection.  Love is given and accepted in unequal measure beyond all reason.  There is no ledger to balance.  No accounting to make. 

If all I can do is to hold my loved one’s hand or listen to him breathe or purr, then that is what love will do.  If my beloved needs something from me, it is but theirs to ask. 

Love gives according to the need.  It loves the truth of the beloved.  Even love for self.  I cannot hate the weakness in myself if I am to love the weakness in my beloveds.  Love must allow for imperfection and strive for acceptance. 

I have learned only in these past few months what it means to be loved without fear, that I am loved beyond reason.  That making a mistake will not result in rejection and abandonment.  That being weak does not make me unworthy of loving or being loved.  I have learned to stop hating that part of me that is weak.  I have learned to reject the idea that perfection is required.

I am learning to love in truth.  Blessed be.

Not good enough...

I have come to recognize a belief from very early in my life that is common to many amazingly gifted and magickal people as well as to a lot of just plain awesome, loving, normal people.  It is the belief that we are somehow not enough.

Not good enough to be loved, not strong enough or skilled enough or smart enough to do what needs to be done.  That somehow we are not deserving of the love, community and care we need.  That we are deficient somehow.  That we are indeed unworthy, unsuitable, lacking, and that we will be seen as such and be abandoned and rejected. 

This is not an unusual belief.  It is not something that makes me unique.  It is common among many of those whom I love dearly. 

I am sometimes afraid that because I am not enough, I will let down those I serve.  That I will fail them and that they will be hurt because of my lack. 

I voiced this to a beloved recently and he pointed out that there was no reason to be afraid, that it would indeed happen sometime. He also reminded me that community provides for this.  That when I do not have the knowledge, skill or energy to take care of someone who needs, someone in the community does, and that allowing another to use their skills, knowledge or talents, serves both them and the one they help. 

I have come to see that focusing on the fear and pain of “not good enough”, keeps my focus too much upon myself.  It becomes an obstacle to serving others, an obstacle to loving others.  Life is not about my own sense of worth; it is about valuing others and doing the work of service.  That is where I find joy, that it where I find purpose.  That is where I am “good enough”.

on safety, strength, loving and being loved.

I have never in my life felt completely safe with those I loved, with those who loved me.  I have felt that longing, that lacking, for as long as I can remember.  I had not been able to put a word to that feeling until I went to see Monika Lonely Coyote for shamanic healing this past summer.  When she was working on my heart, she gave the word “safe” to the thing I have needed and never had. 

I have been revisiting that need recently.  I have begun working with the Lady Freyja-Vanadis, the Vanir Goddess of Love, Sexuality, War and Death.  It seems that the Lady wishes me to revisit ALL of the memories that I have willfully forgotten in order to resolve them.  The moments when someone whom I loved, someone who loved me, valued someone or something more than they valued me.  The betrayals that I have chosen to forget in order to avoid the conflict of feeling betrayed.  My version of loyalty and unconditional love. 

I have always known that each person I loved, who loved me, valued something or someone more, would always choose that thing or that person before me, that I would always be second to whatever, or whoever that was.  And I have not been wrong. 

The thing about never feeling safe in that way is that, while you can choose to love someone knowing that to be true, trusting them becomes a choice to accept that you will never feel safe.  You will always have to love them from strength that you can never put down.  And that strength becomes very thin, and very heavy, all at the same time. 

The insecurity of that place eventually wears down the strength that you have until you either stop loving and close off or, you become dependent and incapable of loving, only of needing.

The Lady does not seem to find either of those options acceptable, and so I must learn to Love from a place of Trust and Strength, and that requires that I must learn to feel safe.  And so we are revisiting all of the moments that have taught me that I am not safe, in order to resolve them, and to try to learn how to let go of them somehow. 

I have recently come to know …and love…someone who is a catalyst for me in this work.  This person has challenged my belief that I cannot ever feel safe in another’s love.  Like me, this person has other lovers, and like me, they do not struggle with jealousy, but they have shown me love in a way that I have never experienced before.  They protect and care for me in moments of weakness and vulnerability, they accept me and love me unconditionally, they have shown me their loyalty and that they value me.  And they have accepted my care and protection, my loyalty and love, my support and respect.  They have shown me what it is to feel safe.

In that place of Safety, Trust is real, and Strength is real.  Because I can feel safe I can truly feel strong and I can truly love others, for Loving others comes from Strength, from the place of knowing that I can serve them, that because of my ability to trust, and to feel safe, I can return to a place of strength and do what needs to be done, to provide what strength, safety, support and loyalty is needed.   I can put the needs of those I love before my own because, my own needs are met, and I am safe.

Emotional Independence...

I have always believed myself to be an emotionally independent person, even to the point of being emotionally unavailable at times…but that may not be as accurate as it once was.

I have,at times in the past, been unavailable, even closed off to emotional intimacy and connection to others.  But I have been learning to change that in these past years. 

I have been learning to trust myself and others; I have been healing and learning to connect, and to feel again.  And I have come to the understanding that I am a very strong person, with a very strong heart.  I do not need to be closed off; I do not need to protect myself or to avoid engaging in emotional connections.

The human heart is an amazing and resilient vessel.  It has an immense capacity for love.  And it is designed to survive repeated heartache (it does not actually break no matter how profound the pain it experiences).  I believe that it expands and its capacity increases each time it survives pain and does not close off or turn to stone.

I have recently come to see that I have formed connections with others in my life and that those connections have an effect upon me.   When my beloveds are under stress, I am effected.  I am relieved to have discovered this, truth be told.   

I have also discovered that I am able to discern the differences between my own feelings and those of my beloveds and I am capable of supporting them in their struggles without interfering with the expansion of their hearts.

I sometimes worry that I may have become emotionally dependent upon my beloveds or that I might foster emotional dependence in those whom I love because, my instincts are to protect my beloved ones from pain, and to wish that I could heal their wounds. I believe that would be a disservice to them, if it were even possible.

I want my beloveds to be whole, and well and strong.  I want them to be self-reliant and not to be dependent upon me or upon anyone else  And I want them to know the blessing of an ever-expanding capacity for love and joy, and the knowledge that they are strong enough to survive heartache and to thrive, and to heal themselves.

This is something that I need to pay attention to, to remain conscious of, because my instinct to protect those I love must sometimes be overridden by my belief, and I want my beloveds to know that, beyond a doubt, I have faith in them and I trust them to survive the pain they feel.  I know they are strong enough to rise up in brilliance above all that they may face. 

It is not difficult to trust in the strength of my beloveds, but sometimes it is difficult to remember that my love is meant to show them how to trust themselves.

May my Gods, my Ancestors and my Allies guide me in this and in remembering my own strength.  May They continue to help me to increase my own capacity to love…and to be loved.  So mote it be.

Who is left standing?...

I was asked today “Who is left standing when everyone else has been taken away?”  I have been sitting with this question, through the snowfall, with my Pwca curled up beside me.  (When considering total isolation it is good to have your cat by your side.)

Like many human beings, I have some fear of abandonment.  I am blessed with the knowledge that some of my beloveds would stay beside me no matter what.  But the terror that children have in the years after they become aware of mortality, maintains a hold upon many of us well into adulthood. 

The question of abandonment remains in the shadows, an obstacle to intimacy, and to emotional availability with others and with ourselves.  So the question was posed to me, “Who is left standing when everyone else is taken away?” 

The question seems to have three distinct contexts.  First, who am I if I am completely isolated?  What happens then?  My answer to that question is that I am still here, invisible or not.  But I would lose my purpose in this life. 

My purpose in this lifetime is to leave a mark, to communicate and engage with others.  Without others, I would lose that purpose and I do not enjoy that idea.  That idea would lead me to consider the point of continuing, and for the record, I not only expect to live well into my 90’s, I intend to as well. 

Another context goes to the question of what happens if I cease to exist?  What happens if I actually become invisible because I no longer exist with this mind, heart, body and soul?  The only place I can find to answer this question is in my faith. 

I believe that the soul (along with the heart and mind or consciousness of the person that is me), once the body ends returns to its source in the underworld (and my Patron) and joins with the ancestors to be recycled within the bloodline with others in the same soul-group to assist each other in the process of working out our wyrd. 

The Spirit freed of the individual self, goes on to the Summerland to process the lessons learned in this life and eventually to the Lady of Fate (my Patroness) to choose its next incarnation.  I do not fear this process, I have been through it before and I will embrace it, when the time has come to do so again.

The third context concerns the members of the committee and their purpose.  If each of them were to be taken away, who would be left standing?  Who am I? 

I have been journeying a great deal lately and I have discovered that, at least for the time being, when I arrive on the other side of the threshold, I am myself but, I am the child that I was  with the knowledge that I now possess., and without the “armor” that I have created over the past 4 decades.  And that seems to be the answer.  I am the child that I was.  She is the woman, witch, mother, priestess, switch, adventurer, romantic and poet that I have always been.    

The child is the one “who is left standing” when everyone else is taken away.  She is the truth and the best of me.

on silence and healing

I don’t do silence very well anymore.  It feels too much like compliance, like hiding.  It feels too much like the smiles my mother always wanted, like lies of omission so as not to make everyone else uneasy, like secrets that poison the soul.  Silence feels like pretending to be small, timid and weak.  

Anger is a natural emotion and when given appropriate expression it can be resolved.  Being silent about that emotion can twist it into something else, rage. And silent rage can twist into depression or, worse into violence, uncontrolled, directed inward or outward.

Grief and sorrow are human experiences and they heal with time and expression, but in silence they can linger and become chronic and persistent. 

Pain is a normal part of life, but it is only a part, it is not all of what we are here to experience.  Pain is temporary, but unless it is given a voice it can become a festering wound that infects the entire being.

Fear is also a common experience.  And it is my experience that if I am silent in my fear it holds much greater power over my soul.  If I can voice those fears and look at them in the bright light of day, they become less large, less powerful and I can choose to act with conscious choice rather than being paralyzed by my fears.

Joy, Love, Faith, Hope and Truth are the most powerful gifts a human can experience, in my opinion.  And these too require expression.  If we are silent in these blessings, if we are silent about our gratitude, if we are silent about those things that inspire us, we fail to honor and nurture those gifts, we fail to make room for them to manifest in our lives. 

It is not my nature to be silent.  I have spent many years living against my own nature.  Silence becomes a habit and when that habit has taken root too deeply it can take a lot of work to remove it.  I am working to live a less silent life, and I believe that life will be a healthy and a happy one.

Fear no longer rules my mind

Grief no longer chokes me

Rage no longer rules my heart

and Pain no longer wounds me

Hope and Joy and Faith and Love

These things shall now replace them

By Sun and Moon and Stars above

My Spirit now reclaims them.

shadow work and the mystery that is Love...

Shadow work is messy, and ugly and frightening and painful and, in my opinion necessary if one is to evolve. But my own shadow work was not the original intention of this blog, although my exploration of gender, sexuality and identity has most definitely resulted in that work. 

I have reached a point in this process where I need the assistance of someone who has a better understanding of shadow and who can help me to do the work to heal “Pluto’s child” as well as to find healthy ways to allow the “Other” to be expressed.  

Most of the impulses of the Other are not necessary (nor are those behaviors acceptable to me, not do I allow them to be indulged) but some parts of her must be allowed to exist because, Anger, Fear, Pain and Rebellion are normal and necessary experiences for a human being. 

I hope to learn healthy ways to experience those things and to finally put the thoughts that do not serve our higher good to rest.  I had successfully lived for two decades without having those thoughts and I will again, but this time it will be because I did the work to resolve them and not because I shut everything down.

I also find myself in a place on my journey where my exploration of my sexuality has become secondary to my exploration of Love.  Love is the greater question for me, the greater mystery.   And a mystery I find to be of great importance.

And so, this blog will be refocused on other questions of identity, questions of gender expression and Love.  Thank you for walking with me.  I hope you will find the mystery as valuable as I do.  Blessed Be.

Needs

There are many needs that are common to human beings.  The needs for shelter, warmth, security, food and water and air.  The needs for sensory and intellectual stimulation and self expression.  The need for emotional and physical engagement with others.  These are necessary for healthy bodies, minds, hearts and souls.

I have become aware that I have certain needs and that I must find ways to meet those needs if I am to live a life that is productive and healthy. 

I need my car because I need my job because I need my home.  I need Air to breathe and Water to drink and to clean both my body and my home.  I need to eat to keep my body healthy.  I need my Pwca, my Family, my Friends and my Community.  I need my Gods and my Ancestors and my Allies.  I need to write.  I need to practice massage.  I need to sing and to journey.  I need to make love and I need sex.

I have lovers with whom I engage both emotionally and sexually and making love with them fulfills important needs.  But those lovers do not engage with me in the way that my friend did because it is not an inherent part of who they are. 

Engaging with my friend not only allowed me to discover specific needs but to meet them.  And now I need to find other avenues to fulfill those specific needs.

I have taken a new lover with whom I am engaging and we are exploring our mutual enjoyment of certain experiences together.  We are still working it out but, we both enjoy the energy that we raise when we engage with each other.  I need these things and I am enjoying this new exploration.

I am hopeful that I will eventually find an avenue for the one need that is unfulfilled since my friend and I ended the sexual aspect of our relationship, my need to submit. 

I need the catalyst of someone with whom I feel safe enough and, whom I trust enough and, who is strong enough, to push me to release my control, to allow my mind and heart and body to let go of their hold on my soul.  The freedom I find in those moments to go deeper into myself and, not to leave my body in an escape but, to dive deeper into my shadows and the depths of my own abyss.  I need that release. I need to go to that place to lay bare the dark faces and to bring their voices up from the silence. I need the safety of someone whom I trust to see those faces, to hear those voices.  Someone who enjoys holding me while I cry, who takes pleasure in my sobs and who enjoys helping me regain my strength and autonomy.

I need someone who enjoys pushing me to that place without words.  I can get there on my own, sometimes, through other means.  Through fasting and sleep deprivation and physical trial but, the results are not quite the same and the act of surrendering that control to another, and sharing those tears and secrets with another, is not present in those moments.  That need by definition requires the presence of another human being.

The need is not an everyday kind of thing but, it is a need that I must meet, or a part of me may slip away forever and I am not willing to allow that to happen.  It would mean giving up a part of my own magick and power and I have work to do.  I need all of my Self if I am to accomplish my purpose.  

the shadow child and her body

The shadow child will not write.  And I cannot write while she is speaking to me.  I tried to invoke her the other night, for the first time I invoked her by choice but, I had to stop because it hurt too much.  The pain in my chest made it too difficult to breathe and I knew that if I chose to go any further it would be a very long dark night.  I am not afraid of the work or the pain but, I have a job and self-induced fatigue is not a responsible decision.  

I will do that work when I can do so without time constraints and I will borrow a recorder and try to invoke her to use her voice or I will give voice to the things that she says in those moments.  It was not an unproductive evening however, I did gain some understanding and insights that I had not previously possessed.

 She has a great many fears, many things that anger her and, a lot of irrational beliefs and I will be working with her about those feelings and those beliefs but, the insight I gained the other night was about her feelings concerning our body. 

 She is conflicted in her feelings about our body.  She hates it because she sees it as the only thing that anyone wants from us and something that others can use to take from her, yet because she fears being invisible and abandoned she is afraid that no one will ever want it enough to see her and to stay with her..even love her and protect her.  She does not truly trust me to do that, because I was not able to do so at the time.

She has very little control over what we decide to do with our body, and that both angers her and frightens her but,  the one thing that she does have more control over than any other member of the committee is what we eat.

She does not control what we eat entirely.  If she did, we would starve and waste away to nothing, or at the least become very ill.  I have diabetes and I must eat to maintain my health.  Most days I will force myself to eat if I have to because, it is my responsibility to keep this body and this soul together for as long as it takes us to learn what we are here to learn and to accomplish our purpose in this life.  

I have noticed her anger and rebellion when someone comments on what we eat.  People will  joke about what we eat, will offer opinions or advise,  will criticize and ridicule, or take offence when we do not eat what they have spent the time and effort to cook.  I appreciate the love that others show by making food to feed others, including us.  But, no one gets to decide what she puts into her mouth, what she eats.  She will not eat just to please anyone.  She will not eat to be polite.  It is the only control that she has over her body and she will not relinquish it.  She is very stubborn, that is one of her strengths.

I am glad that she has strength of her own…it will help in the work we have ahead of us. 

the "bitch"...

 I am the one who loves the dress.  I am the one who does not show her face.  I am she who still hopes to be loved and valued, to be seen as beautiful, to be wanted, to be seen, to be safe.

I am the one who would love with everything I am.  I am she who would surrender completely to the will of one I trust.  I am she who knows how to trust and how to hope and how to let go.  I am she who cries and the one who wants to be held and be known and be safe.

I am she who wants to please, the one who wants to be told that I have done well, that I am worth wanting, that I am worth having.  I am she who desires to put those I love before myself because I love.   

I am the one who knows the way to the place the others cannot go.

respecting my limits...

I have been crying today.  The empty space is full of sadness and the tears keep overflowing.  I know that I will be better soon but, I am too raw tonight to write with the last two members of the committee.  All of the others are strong in their own ways.  All of them can have conversations and interact, negotiate, even find points of agreement.  But the bitch and Pluto’s child are different.  They are too vulnerable.  To work with them, I need to be in a place of strength.  And that is not where I am tonight.   Tomorrow I will spend the afternoon with my family to celebrate Christmas together.  I will be Nanna and the human mother, aunt, sister, daughter.  My family makes me strong.  My granddaughter is fearless and adventurous.  As a one year old she sets an example for me and reminds me of what matters, of why it is important to brave the difficult places.  I will sleep and then spend a joyous few hours with her and my children.  Then I will have regained my place of strength, and I can and will write with the bitch and the shadow child.   Sometimes we need to know our limits and respect them.  

Mama Bear

I am the Mother.  The strongest, the fiercest, the most powerful, of all of the people who share this body.  I am she whose heart is the heart of the Warrior.  I am the one who will fight, who will win, who will do Whatever it takes to protect those who are Mine. 

Mine will not be harmed.  Mine will not be caged or chained; Mine will not be shamed or oppressed.  They will hurt sometimes, they will feel fear, they will love and be disappointed.  These are the lessons of life.  These are the gifts of learning our own strength.  I would not cheat Mine of these gifts but, if you try to harm the ones I love, if you pose a continuing threat to those who are Mine, you will incur my focused and unflinching attention. 

I am single-minded and unyielding in purpose.  I have compassion for all mothers, for all people (of all species).  I am she who can kill to feed one who is hungry, or to protect one who is threatened.  I am she who worships the Dark Mother, and the Lady of Sovereignty.  I am the one who can wield the sword and never flinch.  I am Mama Bear and I am a force to be reckoned with.

on empty space and learning to love better...

Winter is here.  My relationship with the man I fell in love with is returning to its previous form of expression.  My friend, as he said he would, saw me through the holiday. Because, let’s face it, being alone through the holidays just plain sucks. 

I am grateful for his company and for his acceptance of my love.  I am grateful for the freedom to love him in the way that I wished, uncensored and unrestrained.  I am grateful for the opportunity to learn about myself and my desires and my needs, to learn about my boundaries and how to respect them and how to express the various people who share this body.

I have learned a great deal through this experience.  I have loved him with everything I am and (for maybe the first time in my life) I did not lose sight of who I am but rather gained a better understanding of how I function

I shed a few tears when the holiday was over.  I was sad.  But I am not afraid, and I am not grieving in the way that I expected to. There is a space inside that feels like a flower opening and making an empty space for the sadness to exist but it is not painful, it just aches a little because I will miss the intimacy and warmth that we shared.

I will continue to love him and our friendship will continue as before, although our connection is stronger than it was, and I am grateful for that too.

I am surprised to find that I am hopeful.  That I am capable of loving someone and of letting go when the time comes.  I can love someone and not sacrifice everything that is truly important to me.  I can be stronger having loved someone. 

I will not be alone, I have other lovers and friends with whom to continue this adventure and I will.  But for my friend and the gift of these past seven months, I give thanks.  

Patterns

Understanding the way I function, the way I relate to others, the way I engage, or do not engage, is an important step to making a choice to change the patterns that do not work well, the ones that prevent me from engaging with other humans in a healthy and balanced way.

Compartmentalization is a useful strategy, until it isn’t.  The boxes are helpful in making sure that no one is ignored but, it is also necessary to build bigger boxes and allow for thresholds between them so that communication and cooperation are possible.  Not only so that we can establish agreements and healthy boundaries but, so that we can heal the child and so that we can live with integrity.

In the practice of magick it is necessary that all of my parts are engaged in the intent to use power.  In journeying and other magickal processes it is also necessary to be able to open to Spirit.  I have had difficulty in allowing my power to flow and in being fully open but, these past months I have made progress, both in learning to let go and in regaining control when I need to. 

Intellectualization is also a useful tool, until it isn’t.  Being able to think calmly and rationally in a crisis is helpful when things need to be handled but, thinking as a way of avoiding emotions altogether, or as a substitute for feeling is no way to live.  We have hearts not only minds. Both need to be engaged if we are to live full lives. 

In disassembling many of the structures I have built over decades, I have found that I have been revisited by many of the patterns and behaviors and thoughts that I had rejected.  I need to find new ways, better ways, of coping with the feelings and the voices.  And I need to establish different patterns of engaging with others.

Different persons of the committee have different styles of attachment and none of them really work well.  Certainly not the way I would desire.  Some would avoid intimacy or emotional engagement completely, valuing our autonomy and independence above all else.  Most of us have a fearful-avoidant pattern, desiring to connect with others but holding back.  And the child is simply terrified of being touched and of being abandoned.

Understanding and recognizing how the patterns work, being aware of them and making choices to relate differently, to take chances, to fall in love and to express that love, these are a good beginning I think.

Panic

The people who love me want me to be happy.  I want to be happy.  Even more, I want the people I love to be happy.  My loved ones, for the most part, are normal people.  To them, wanting me to be happy means wanting me to be safe and cared for, by someone normal and nice, wanting me to have a normal relationship, so that I am not alone.  To that end I have been going out and meeting people.

This has resulted in my being exhausted and vulnerable and in an extreme state of weakness that resulted in a panic attack last night.  I rarely experience panic anymore but, in the past two months I have had two such experiences.  

I have experienced social anxiety for most of my life.  Meeting strangers, no matter how nice they are, is exhausting and stressful.   But meeting strangers, who are looking for something that I am incapable of giving, is so in the extreme.  Nice people that want something pull at me.  And no matter how hard I work at breaking the habit of “people-pleasing” when I am tired and not on my guard, I slip into the habit.  So I have been trying to please my loved ones and I have been trying to be nice to strangers and I have been feeling pulled at. 

Instead of listening to my own needs for solitude and withdrawal, I kept trying.  I was trying to do what my loved ones think I need to do.  To engage with others so that no one has to worry about me being alone and in pain.  But being in pain because I loved someone is something that I cannot and will not avoid by distracting myself with others.  I am not made that way.  I believe pain teaches and heartache is something humans recover from.

The experience has borne fruit, the panic attack notwithstanding.  A beloved was present as a voice in the night and I was reminded once again with empirical evidence that I am not alone.  And with that beloved's help, I re-discovered the shadow child and the behavior that triggered her into speaking so loudly.  Allowing myself to be pulled at by strangers.  Feeling guilt and self-judgment about being incapable of connecting with others.  Feeling guilt about not being able to make those I love happy because I feel differently about how to find happiness for my life.

I realize that my beloveds want me to be happy in whatever way I need.  They would not judge me.  I need to pay attention to what my internal committee tells me, what my heart tells me, even if that means being alone for a while to listen to the child, or to recover my balance, or to focus on my work.  Healing takes time and space.  Panic occurs when I feel trapped.  I will give myself space enough to hear. 

Pluto's child

The voice in the dark that has been talking the loudest lately is one I have been hearing for what seems like my entire life.  And truth be told, while it is not the first voice that I can remember hearing, I have been hearing it since I was a child.  A friend called tonight because they knew that I was having a very dark time and when I spoke the thoughts that I have been hearing for the past week or so, they asked me which one of my selves was saying those things. 

I did not know the answer, and so my friend had me ask each of the members of the committee if they were the one speaking…none of them were.  So my friend had me ask them who was speaking and they all looked behind them at a shadow standing behind them all. 

I could not make out the features of the shadow at first but then I could, and it was a child.  That child is the strongest of my shadows.  She is the one who believes the things that children do, the way that children do.  She is not rational; she is afraid, angry, ashamed, confused and persistent.   I thought that I had resolved those feelings and beliefs that “Pluto’s child” held but, she is still a part of me.  She will always be a part of me, she will never be a grown woman, she will never not be shadow and she will never die. 

I still have work to do with her, I understand that now.  If I am aware of her, and her beliefs, and her feelings, I can remember that she is just a child and that her irrational beliefs are not truth, just the feelings of a child.  I am not a child; I have more tools, more knowledge, more understanding, more voices.  I have an entire committee, as well as beloveds with whom I am safe. 

The shadow child needs to speak too.  She needs to be allowed into the light to voice things that we have been silent about for far too long.  Expressing her anger, and her fears, and her irrational beliefs is necessary.  Children do not heal in the dark and the silence.  

The Committee

Pathways by Susan Sedon Boulet

I do not suffer from dissosiative identity disorder however, compartmentalization is a natural part of how I function. It does pose a challenge in areas where it creates obstacles to emotional involvement or, to engaging all of myself in certain processes, especially magickal ones.  I am actively working to overcome those obstacles in those areas of my life.  This includes how they affect my identity and my ability to live with integrity.

I am becoming familiar with the many different people who live within this body…I would call it my body but, it is truly our body…it belongs to each of us.  Each of us has desires.  Each of us has only this body to fulfill those desires, to experience that which she craves, to express who she is and how she loves.  Complete integration does not seem to be truly possible, or ideal for that matter, because someone would have to be sacrificed, suppressed or silenced, and we have been doing that for far too many years already. 

We have been communicating with each other and we have been attempting to express our various desires, to find common ground and to establish boundaries that we can agree upon when those desires are in direct conflict with each other.  It has been important to recognize that each of us has a distinct voice and deserves to be heard and to be allowed to express herself and her desires without being sublimated to another.

Sometimes more than one of us desires to engage and, while some of us can engage simultaneously if our natures are similar enough, some of us are too different to do so and a choice must be made.  We are learning to negotiate those choices so that no one goes hungry to the point of rebellion. 

Rebellion is generally counter-productive and results in destructive behavior.  We have been working and conversing for many long nights over these past months to establish agreement so that we can live with integrity, for each of us and, for all of us.

I will be sharing the poetry and expressions of these various persons/parts of me, on this blog over the next few weeks or months.  For now I will simply “name” them, the mother, the witch, the priestess, the bitch, the woman, the switch and the other. 

We greet you, Merry Meet, Hail and Welcome.

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.

Winter is coming...

For the past six months or so I have been engaging with a friend whom I trust and respect.  He has been helping me to learn and to experiment and to explore my own inner desires, needs and identity.  And to find my power and to open the boxes.

The experience has been productive and enlightening as well as profoundly pleasurable and often intensely painful. 

I knew when we began this journey that he needed to maintain and respect his own boundaries.  In this case, that meant maintaining his emotional distance.   I knew that it would end, and while it has continued for longer than I originally expected, it will be ending soon.

I am grateful for the sacrifices my friend has made on my behalf.  I am grateful for the fact that our relationship will not end but rather, will continue as before.  But that fact poses another challenge for me. Because one of the many profound things that has happened during these past few months is that I have fallen in love with him.

I knew when I fell for him that I would hurt when it ended.  I knew that he could not fall in love with me.  And I made a choice.  I made the choice to allow my heart to fall, and to face the pain when it comes. 

I will admit to wishing and wanting a different ending than the one I knew would be.  I will admit to wishing that he could indeed feel the same.  But I will not regret the choice I made to love him. 

I fell in love with someone a year ago, and chose not to act upon it.  I held back for reasons that matter not even a little.  I vowed that I would not do so again.  So I cannot regret falling in love and loving this man for the time allowed to me.  Nor can I regret the pain that will result from the loss of him in my bed when the winter comes.

I do keep wanting and wishing.  I do feel the pain of the grief and the loss even now.  But I also feel the fullness in my heart of loving him.  And that is worth everything.

Learning to feel...

It has been a difficult week and I am trying to process all that has happened.  It started with an experience that opened up a lot of emotional boxes that I have kept carefully locked for a long time.  This resulted in an average of three hours sleep each night and dreams that I wish I did not remember, that made my waking hours uneasy. 

This weekend I spent with loved ones and attended the celebration of a cherished friend.  I have been looking forward to it for months.  Before the party, we engaged in a few hours of very energetic play that included pushing my limits in ways that I did not expect. 

My reaction to these experiences, before we ever even arrived at the party, was unexpected as well, although not unfamiliar to me.  My anger escaped and I felt overwhelmed by feelings.  Not specific feelings that I could identify and process but, rather simply too much feeling.  And as has been the case for the past week, my ability to shut down those feelings was missing.  It was just gone. 

The part that was familiar was an almost overwhelming desire to walk out onto the highway and catch a ride to anywhere else.  The thought that “I could be ten states away by morning” kept repeating in my brain.  The desire to hurt someone was also very strong and difficult to silence. 

I have not had those thoughts, those desires, so strongly in decades. And I returned to a behavior that I rejected years ago.  I resorted to sipping on a bottle of fire whiskey all night long to quiet those thoughts and to numb those feelings.

That form of self-medication has never proven to be very effective and, while I managed at first to regain some semblance of control and even danced and spent time laughing with loved ones, the moment eventually came when I just fell apart.

I know exactly where I was when it happened.  The truly mystifying thing about it was that, suddenly I was surrounded by six people whom I love, and I do mean surrounded.  They were standing around me in a circle.  One moment to the next, they were just simply there.  I have no idea how they knew what was about to happen.  None of them have ever seen me in that state before, certainly not at a party.  But I could not hold it together any longer and I could not keep the feelings contained, nor could I keep them out. 

It feels as though they stood there with me for a long time.  I believe I was crying.  I know that I was ashamed.  I know that I kept apologizing for my weakness.  I know that they kept reminding me, that if it were any one of them, I would not consider it to be weakness. 

I am incredibly grateful for their support.  And for a beloved who sat in a car with me and talked me down from a very bad anxiety attach after, and for beloveds who never complained when the dreams that kept waking me, woke them as well.  And who let me remain silent on the long drive home. 

I am home now, alone in the quiet with my beloved Pwca.  My chest still hurts and I keep crying, over what I don’t know, but I am safely away from the thoughts and the feelings that seemed so overwhelming.  I will try to sleep again and hopefully the dreams will let me.  I will try to make sense of this week when I wake.