The Grandmother Shawl

 

For a while now I have been a little anxious about the idea that I will become “a little old lady”, eventually.   I lacked a clear vision of my role in my own life going forward into the future.    

I bought a shawl, because I liked it and it called to me.  A friend (who is a generation older than I) said it looked like a hug from a grandmother.  I agreed, but my mind responded, “and that would be me.”

I began to think about the image that I hold of the “little old lady,” the grandmother.  Not my grandmothers, nor my own mother but, the archetype, the Goddess as Grandmother.

I was surprised to discover that the image I hold is one that I find beautiful.  Yes, she is soft and round, yes, she is gray and pale, yes, she is not as strong or limber as a young woman but, she is also resilient, and steadfast.  She is comforting and loving and fierce. 

She knows herself, and how to hold space for those she loves.  She has wisdom born from personal experience and can offer sound guidance and support.  She knows how to listen and how to teach others to stand in their own power.  And she knows how to stand in hers.

She is not overtly sexual in the way that our society thinks of the sexual woman but, she has sexual power that arises from her understanding of her own desires and her lack of shame in enjoying the sensual, physical pleasure that she can offer to her lovers.  I had worried a little that my lovers might no longer feel sexual desire for me when I indeed become this “grandmother” but, I find this image to be intriguing and mysterious, and yes, desirable.  If I find this image desirable, I trust that they will as well.  the need for love is not exclusive to the young.  The gifts of love, sex, pleasure and healing are not only to be found in the young either.

So this shawl holds the vision, of the woman I am becoming, the woman I look forward to becoming, the woman I already am.  And I wrap it around myself when I need a hug from the Grandmother, or to embrace this vision of my future.  And I find it very comforting. 

Blessed Be. 

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

Heart Wide Open…

Part of knowing yourself is understanding your anatomy and physiology.  That is to say, knowing our Parts and understanding how they function.  While it helps to have a basic understanding of our physical bodies, understanding our energetic anatomy and physiology is equally important.  We are not just physical bodies, we are also minds, hearts, souls, and shadows.

I have been learning about all my parts (including my body) for quite a while now, and I have become acutely aware of a particular truth about how my Magickal Self functions. Specifically, I have become aware that when my heart is not open, my magick is impotent.  I still have knowledge, and I even retain access to communication, my mind still works but, I have no access to my power.  I cannot FEEL.  I cannot feel inspiration, or imagination, or desire, or passion, or pleasure, or joy, or sorrow, or anger, or love, or power.  When the gate of my heart is closed, I am not fully awake, or alive. 

My Heart is the gateway to those other parts of me, the ones that are essential to life and to magick.  All my parts must be engaged for me to live and to fulfill my purpose.  I cannot bypass my heart.  In these past few years, I have come to know how wonderful life can be when my heart is open.  It is WHO I am.  I am supposed to be a woman who lives life with her heart wide open.  That is who I was always supposed to be.  I have rediscovered that woman and remembered her over these past years.  It is my intention to live that life, inspired, empowered, and following my open heart.  So Mote it Be.

Love, Loss, Disapproval, and Reclaiming Self

Seventeen days ago, my younger brother died suddenly and unexpectedly.  The thing is that while I loved him, he disapproved of almost everything about me. (and what he did not know about me, he would have disapproved of even more) I have spent a good part of my life trying to be someone he would like.  Most of my people-pleasing behaviors were an attempt to be who he wanted me to be, and a lot of my anxiety, and belief that I was not “good enough“, was based upon his disapproval.

Spending the better part of the week after his death with my family brought on a resurgence of those feelings, and those patterns of behavior reasserted themselves with a vengeance.  It has been a challenge to let go of those behaviors, to recognize those feelings and release those anxieties.   My grief has also been accompanied by the conflict that existed between us and my feelings about that conflict.

The loss of my younger brother has caused me to reexamine my relationships with the other members of my family who remain, and my presence in the world.  I have also been challenged to remember all of the work I have done in these past years to discover my true Self, but most of all, to remember that Self. 

All of that work means nothing if I cannot remember my true Self in this grief.  It is not perfection that must be achieved but, integrity.  I am a strong, loving, capable woman who serves my beloveds well.   I am a woman who has a noble purpose that I serve with honor, courage and integrity.  And while my brother was a good man, whom I loved, he was wrong about my value and my worth. 

 Loving my family, does not require that I agree with them.  I will grieve him and love them even as I remember my true Self.  So Mote It Be.

A Fire Breathing Dragon and a Sword of Truth

I have been doing a great deal of work recently in identifying who and what I am outside of a sexual, romantic, or familial context.  Specifically, I have been exploring how my identity relates to my religious calling of service and my work in the world.

I am a writer.  But what do I hope to accomplish by my writing?  What do I value above everything else?  What we value can help us define who we are and help us to focus on our purpose, and how we hope to leave our mark upon this world. 

The way that I identify what is important to me is by examining that which moves me, what my heart reacts to most strongly.  In many ways these are things that have an impact upon those whom I love.  What kind of world do I want for my children, for my grand-daughter, and those who will follow her?

My heart cries out for Peace, I want Peace for the world that she will inherit.  Peace is better for growing things and small children, and for the rest of us, truth be told.   But peace without Liberty to be true to one’s ’self is not truly Peace, but rather oppression.  So Liberty and Peace.  I want her to be free to be all of who she is.  I want Love for her too, and the freedom to express her love in whatever way is true for her. 

So what do we do to create the world we want for our children and grand-children? What do I do to create a world where all our children will be safe and free to love whom they will, to be whomever they will?  How do we create Peace?

I believe the world is able to heal, I believe that Love and Peace and Liberty are possible.  But I believe that this can only happen if we work for these things.  I do so by telling stories that share visions of other people’s experience, that make it possible for us to see through each others’ eyes and thereby find compassion and understanding.  We heal the world through stories, through Love and Peace and compassion.   

We also heal the world through magick, by Re-enchanting the World.   The World needs more Magick and Enchantment.  I contribute to this by leading and serving my Coven, by serving my Tradition and my community.  I help by supporting others in finding healing and transformation, to find their own power and wisdom.  I do this by invoking my Gods to keep them alive in this world.  I do this through poetry and ritual and serving my ancestors.

But most of all, I do this by speaking Truth, whenever I see it, heart to heart, shouting above the shouting, Truth against the World, until there is Peace and Liberty and Love.  I am a champion of Hope, a warrior of Peace and Liberty.  I am a dragon, breathing the fire of Truth, and a Sword upon whom the words are written, the Truth against the World.  Truth can heal us, Truth can bring Peace.  So Mote It Be.

Queer

I have learned a lot about myself in the time since I began this exploration.  I began not knowing anything about where this journey would lead me.  The journey has had more than one unexpected turn and many uncomfortable and uneasy moments.  But I have indeed found a place where I know who I am and I am comfortable with all of who I am.

I have also discovered one word that feels right to describe my gender, sexuality and relationships.  Queer is not a word that the world at large would associate with me but, from my perspective, it is the one word that feels correct.

I am a cis-gendered female however; I do not feel that accurately describes my experience of gender.  Through this journey I have come to recognize that I have moments in my life when I prefer to express  female gender and times when I prefer to express male gender but, I no longer feel that binary definitions accurately express the truth of who I am. 

I am not truly hetero-normative in my sexuality either.  I have found that I am sexually drawn to people regardless of gender. My attraction is dependent upon the person and has no recognizable connection to any gender, or to defined gender.

I am polyamorous but in a structure that is not easily recognized.  I do not have primary or secondary relationships.  I do have committed relationships.  I love who I love, and I am committed to those whom I love.   I am loyal to those whom I love.  Each of my relationships is unique, as are each of my beloveds.  Gender, age, sexual identity, and sexual expression do not determine whom I love.

In my sexual expression, I am a switch.  I enjoy different experiences, many of which are seemingly contradictory, sometimes with the same partner.  I do not desire to be constrained by one role, or someone else’s narrow definition of any one form of expression.

Queer is a word that defies definition.  It is the one word that simply says “cannot be defined or constrained by definition.”   I like the word.  I claim the word.  It feels true, and more comfortable that any other.   I am queer and I am happy.

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.

Intention and Exploration

I have been silent for some time now.  It was not intentional.  I have been doing a great deal of work, learning, experiencing, and changing over these past six months. 

I have found therapy to be incredibly helpful in learning to process all of the transitions and the shadow-work that is necessary if I am to truly know myself and to live with integrity.

My understanding of my identity, gender and sexuality has become clearer.  I have learned about what love means to me.  To be loved and to love others is essential to my purpose in this life. 

Loving others, engaging with who they are as human beings, and with the needs they have, the struggles they face, and the feelings they have about themselves and their lives, as well as with my own feelings, desires and needs, is a process well worth participating in.

The lessons of how we love are a part of the exploration of identity and that is what this blog was intended to be about.  So I will return to my purpose in this endeavor, because I believe these are questions worth exploring.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.  

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. 

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.