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 becoming...

I am in the process of deconstructing the structures and patterns of behavior and function that I have built and used through most of my life.  I am returning to the core of my being, returning to the child and her gifts, talents, and joys, to the truth of who I was, and who I am. 

The process is painful and, without the tools that I have used for decades, panic and depression are more difficult to keep at bay.  The new skills that I am learning are less familiar.  They require practice to remember and to use and, I have not yet developed grace.

I have a vision of who I wish to become but, the path to becoming is a mystery to me still.

So I continue to consciously reject the old patterns of behavior, I continue to learn new skills and to practice them.  I continue to remember who I am in truth.  I continue to remember the vision of who I hope to become.  

May my Gods, my Ancestors and my Allies bless me in this work.   So Mote It Be.

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.

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. 

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.  

the Other

I am the Other, the Shadow.  I am anger and rage and pain.  I am aggression and hunger.  I am claws and fangs and the desire to make others hurt.  I am vicious and destructive and ruthless.  I am the one who rejects the rules, I am the outlaw.

I am the one who has been locked away and the dark one behind the lady of sorrows.  I am the predator and the one who knows no compassion.  I am the wild one who shape-shifts and works with deception and stealth.  I am the one who drinks too much and builds boxes and locks things away.

I am the one who would choose the freedom of the open road, and anonymity.  I am the one who wants and will do anything to have what I want.  I am the one who lashes out and leaves others to deal with the consequences.   

I am the one who sacrifices the others and watches from outside our body.  I am the one who burns and the one who cuts and the one who hates. I am the one who does not trust, anyone, ever.  I am the one who never shows fear, or pity, or weakness of any kind.  I am the one who will not scream.

I am the one who will no longer be caged.  I am the one who refuses to surrender, no matter what. I am the one who is learning to find other ways to live.  

the Switch...

I am a Switch.  I am one who enjoys both sides of the equation.  I enjoy the control of others and of myself.  I enjoy pain and the affects it has on my body and on my mind.  I enjoy the high I get from pain and I enjoy the high that others gain from the pain I am able to give to them.  I enjoy helping others to find the release they desire through the control that I can exercise over them.  I enjoy the control I can exercise over my own body in being able to transform pain into pleasure.  I enjoy the bruises and the pride I take in them and, the victory I feel after, strong and clean and unbroken. 

I enjoy being strong and capable.  I enjoy being good at what I can do.  I enjoy taking care of others and being strong enough to take what they might choose to give to me.  I enjoy the power that is in my control regardless of what “side” I am expressing.  I enjoy the challenge of facing someone stronger than me and showing them and myself that I am as strong as they are both in will and in control. 

I am fierce and strong and unbroken.  I am both Dominant and masochist.  I am a hedonist and I enjoy the experiences…all of them.

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. 

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.  

Judgments

The thought crossed my mind today that I wish I had not learned these things about myself. 

I am having difficulty accepting and reconciling the conflict between these desires and most especially with the judgments that I make about them. It feels as though these desires belong to separate people who do not understand or trust each other.  And who judge each other harshly.

I considered pretending that they are not real, not truly a part of me but, I have too many memories from too many decades that prove to me that they are true and that they are profoundly important. I have too many memories from too many decades that warn me that pretending that they are not real will fail and that would be dangerous to my well being.

I fear that the part of me that enjoys inflicting pain and controlling others is too chaotic, too destructive, too angry, too dangerous.  I fear that given the freedom to express itself, it will hurt someone because it does not give a damn.  That it is devoid of both compassion and conscience.  That it is incapable of self-control or compromise.

That part of me is so angry because I have denied its existence and its right to exist and to express itself since I was a little girl.  And it judges me, and the part of me that enjoys pain and submission as weak, and deluded, and a coward, and a liar and a whore. 

Some of these judgments may be based in truth.  I have been a liar in denying certain truths, or in pretending to be other than I am.  I have been deluded in thinking that pretending can make it so.  I have been a coward in not speaking because I was afraid.  I have been a whore in betraying my own integrity and honor.

But I am not weak, and I am striving to overcome years of habit in behaving otherwise.  And if I give that angry part of me the chance to express and to live, it may learn to do so in a way that will not be as destructive or out of control as it has been in the past.

So I will put aside the judgments and try for reconciliation and understanding.  I will give each of these conflicting parts of me a gift.  I will give them both the chance to dress up and dance to music that expresses those desires.  I will give them both a book of their own to write from their own point of view. 

That is what I do, I communicate.  Maybe through acknowledging and honoring both as equal parts of myself, as equally deserving of existence and life, and giving each the space to express those desires, to create art and poetry and stories about who I am, I will be able to integrate them into a happy and whole person that is me.

While I may find this knowledge confusing and disturbing, I am committed to understanding all of who I am, and to learning to live as a whole person.  I suspect that the process of integrating these aspects of my identity and of mastering the power that they hold for me will be uneasy, perhaps uncomfortable, and possibly painful.  I know that the prospect is terrifying. 

But fear and pain are not reason enough to turn back, even if I could.  I have paid too high a price to fail.  People I love have sacrificed so that I might finally live.  I will not betray them, I will not betray myself.  I will do whatever is necessary to fulfill the vows that I have made.

So Mote It Be.

The Paradox

The paradox of human identity is wonderful and horrible all at once.  It is necessary and beautiful and terrifying.  And sexual identity is all of those things and incredibly messy on top of it all.

The thing about exploring who you are is that sometimes it means you have to face up to things with which you may not be comfortable.  And just when you think you have come to terms with one truth about your Self, it gets all turned around, and upside down, and inside out, and backwards and you discover another truth that your mind and your heart might have difficulty reconciling.

My Gods have been pushing and demanding and relentless in their insistence that I work with my source of power and to do that I need to fully know it.  I have recently spent time with my friend experimenting and exploring and having fun and being terrified. 

This work did not involve much pain for me but, it did involve a great deal of fear and working with a part of me that I had insisted was false…as it turns out I was wrong.  It is not false, but it is angry, very angry.  And it frightens me more that any pain I have ever experienced.

As much as I have the capacity to accept and enjoy pain, I have an equal capacity to enjoy inflicting it upon others and perhaps an even stronger drive to do so.  My pleasure in submitting to the control of another is equaled by my pleasure in controlling someone else. 

My friend (who does not enjoy pain in the way that I do) allowed me to express this, even pushed me until I did so.  This was difficult and terrifying for me (and painful for them and I am immensely grateful for my friend's strength and commitment to help me learn about myself).  I do not know anything about expressing that desire with control, although I have controlled it for most of my life, I have done so by not allowing it any expression and that is not something that I can continue if I am to live with the integrity that my Gods demand. 

I need to work with these conflicting desires until I can find a balance, until I can express both within my ethical structure and with the care and control that is necessary for my safety as well as the safety and well being of anyone with whom I might engage.

I will work with all that I am to integrate these disparate truths.  To be a whole person is to be a well and happy person.  Without knowledge, no work is possible and I would simply be continuing to hide from myself.  I began this exploration with the vow that I would not look away, and I will not.

Pain High

There are many different types of pain that human beings experience.  Let me be clear, I am not discussing the pain that results from unhealed emotional, psychological or psychic wounds.  Those wounds that I have experienced, that may be described in that way, if indeed they ever were, are no longer.  Any wounds of that nature that may linger will complete their healing in their own due time, the stronger I am, the faster they will be made whole.

I enjoy pain.  I enjoy the physical high that results from the kiss of a single-tail whip (although I have not yet felt it as directly as if my skin were the target, I am looking forward to that experience with anticipation).  I enjoy the buzz that I get from the flogger striking my skin, from a sharp edge being traced across my body, the burn of ropes, the heat of flame.  All of these things will get me high.  They will increase my heart rate and bring a flush to my skin.  They will raise my body temperature and my energy level.  And they heighten my awareness and perceptions, even my psychic abilities are improved in that state.  The release of neuro-transmitters in my brain is a very pleasurable thing.

I enjoy the pain that arouses me sexually as well.  I like the feeling of my friend’s hand slapping my leg, or pulling my hair, or gripping my arms hard enough to leave bruises.  I enjoy the feeling of his nails on my back clawing hard enough to leave marks, and the sharp pain that results when he pinches me.  I like the way my body responds to his fist against my thigh, and to his teeth biting into my flesh.  I become aroused when he puts his hand around my throat (and I have asked him to apply pressure at some point, because I want to experience that too).  These things also get me high.  They open up my energy centers and wake up my sexual center.  They arouse me in ways I have only glimpsed before.

All of these things are extremely pleasurable to me.  But they are external, and they do not push me.  I can experience a great deal of external pain and it will not push me emotionally.  It will not touch me inside.  It does not reach the deeper places.

I enjoy sex.  I have had some wonderful experiences with a few cherished beloveds who did touch me deeply, men who can and do move me emotionally and energetically by mere proximity to them and their strength and power, men whom I love deeply and who have helped me to discover that sex is a wonderful gift.  That my body is capable of so much more than I had ever realized, that I can receive and give great pleasure.  That allowing my energetic body to open to theirs is not only possible but, amazing in its beauty and power.  I give thanks for those gifts.  And I have shed tears in some of those moments because I was so touched, so moved by the beauty of them that I could not help but cry. They taught me to trust, myself as well as them.

But the sex that pushes me, that touches me so profoundly that I curl up shaking with sobs, is brutal.  When my friend fucks me in that way, he pushes me over that thresh-hold.  He gives me the type of pain that I need in order to reach that place.  Pain alone cannot accomplish that; sex alone cannot get me there.  Only a lover who is willing and capable of fucking me with brutality can push me over that thresh-hold. 

And it is a place I need to go.  It makes me aware of my own strength, it teaches me about my instincts for survival and my need for vulnerability.  It teaches me about balance and makes me feel in ways that I cannot avoid, that I cannot hide from.  It reminds me that I am not timid or weak or small.  It reminds me that I am not meant to be silent, and that I will never be powerless.  Even when I choose submit to another, it is always my choice, my power is still there inside me, always. 

After I have re-established my autonomy, the bruises feel good.  I feel satisfaction and pride in them.  They make me smile for days, remembering and feeling clean and strong and capable.  Yet another lovely pain-high.

The Third Gate

A cherished and trusted friend created and facilitated a ritual for me recently.  The intent was for me to experience fear and struggle and pain and to discover my responses, my limits, and to push me as far as I chose to be pushed.  It was a physical ordeal designed to accomplish a spiritual goal.

My friend believed that such an experiment would help me to achieve a state where I might find a part of me that I needed to connect with.  I trusted this friend to know how to push me, and to be willing and capable of doing so, and of safeguarding me should I become unwilling to back down.

It takes a lot of courage to push someone in that way, even more when you care for them.  It is difficult to put someone we care for in pain.  It takes a lot of trust that they are strong enough to cope with the results. 

I am grateful for my friend’s trust and for their courage, and for the ritual and for the profound discovery that resulted. 

A a result of the ordeal, I passed through three Gates, thresh-holds to depths of self.  I became connected to deeper and deeper levels within myself.  

The first Gate was a state of mind, of thoughts and words and a physical “high”.  It was also a psychic high, my “head-blindness” faded until I could “see” in ways that I have not before, I could feel, hear and smell in ways I have not before.

The second Gate was a state of emotion, of fear and submission and sexual arousal, of energy and need and instinct to survive.

The third Gate was a state of Power.  This was the state that I had hoped to reach. This was the place that I needed to be pushed to.  It is a place of strength and will, of aggression and fire and the warrior spirit within me. 

When I had reached that place, words were inaccessible; emotion was irrelevant, only power existed.

Returning to the place where words are possible required me to pass through the place of emotion again.  First was what my friend interpreted as “wrath”, then hysterical laughter, then wracking sobs, then a feeling of exhausted euphoria. 

After thanking my Patrons, my Ancestors and my Spirit Allies that I had invoked to protect and guard the space and whom I had entreated to push me and my friend until I had reached the place I needed to, I put the structures of myself back into a functional order. 

I did that by putting the space in order, then deconstructing the wards and the energetic fortress that I had built to create sacred and protected space and to keep out anything that might interfere with our work, as well as to keep in all the energy raised so that it would go unnoticed by anyone outside. 

I am still processing the magick but, I know that I will not be the same.  I also know that now that I have found that place, I need to master that power.  Power without purpose means nothing.  To use it, I must master it, to master it, I must access it, and to access it, I needed to find it.  Now begins the work of practice and finding the principles of honor that apply to its use. 

Truth be told, I have been afraid of my power.  I have been afraid that I will not know how to use it wisely and honorably.  That because it resides in a place where my compassion does not, to use it would result in everyone around me ending up “dead and bloody”. 

I understand now that I have what I need to make sure that does not happen.  There is a reason that my place of power must be accessed through the place where my compassion lives.  There is also a reason that I needed to struggle through the pain in order to find it. 

I will be continuing to explore my responses to pain and my limits, the things that it teaches me and the role that it plays in my sexual identity.  But this experience alone was worth more to me than I might have imagined.

I give thanks for the courage, trust, will, and inspired magick of my friend.  And to my Gods, Ancestors and Spirit Allies for knowing my strength and their relentless demands that I finally start living up to it.  I give thanks.

Stolen children

I remember a recurring night-terror that I had as a child of about seven.  I would dream that a mad-scientist melted my parents and my brothers into buckets (a sideways version of the witch in the Wizard of Oz) and took them from me.  Children of that age typically experience night-terrors regarding loss of family and abandonment.  

  

I woke at two this morning from a dream and was able to recall at least the last moment of it.  In that moment, I accused my family of origin of stealing my children.  I have this dream occasionally.

This may sound like an exaggeration but, in reality it is not.  My children were taken from me by my parents and given to others to raise.  I was not allowed to know anything about them or their families.  They were lost to me completely, possibly forever.

My parents are good and loving people.  They truly love me and were doing what they honestly believed with their whole hearts was best for me and my future, and for my children and their futures.  They were absolutely sure, and they were wrong.

I have never given birth to another child.  I did get to meet each of my children when they reached eighteen years, and I am building relationships with them but, I will never have the kind of relationship with them that I wish for, that the mothers who raised them have (and for the record, both of my children were raised by wonderful and loving families.)  I am grateful for the chance to know them.  I thank my Gods and my ancestors for returning them to my life.  But I am a footnote in their lives, a welcome visitor but, a visitor nonetheless.

I have come to terms with my anger over my parents’ choices.  I have forgiven them, and myself for my own compliance with their decisions.  For the most part, I have learned to let go of “what might/should/would/could have been” because, if I do not, I cannot live in the present or the future. But my grief over what I have lost still visits me, and the pain of that betrayal by those who loved me, whom I trusted most, is evidently still an obstacle for me in trusting and in being loved.

It is not possible for anyone to take from me more than that which has already been taken, and yet, trusting that is a greater obstacle than I might have imagined it would be by now.  I want to learn how to overcome that obstacle, if indeed I can.