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. 

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.

Changes...

I am 50 years old.  From my perspective, this is only the beginning of a stage in my life that I would like to look forward to with excitement and a sense of adventure.  But while I choose to be optimistic about the future, there are things about which I feel some trepidation.

 My body has changed a lot in the past year.  It no longer feels like the same body I have been living with my entire life.  It no longer feels like the body I had a year ago.  My bones have changed, my muscles have changed.  I see slight differences when I look in the mirror. I no longer have a sense of strength and confidence in my body’s ability to handle accidents, injury, illness, or digging out from snow storms.  And sometimes I wonder how and when my body will lose its desire for sexual expression, and when my lovers will lose their desire for me.  There are moments when I am afraid of getting older, and times when I am afraid that I will not have the time or the energy I need to do the things I desire to do in this lifetime.

I want to go forward into the next 43 years strong and fearless, but I will admit to moments of fear and I will admit to moments of feeling week and vulnerable.  Perhaps these moments exist to give me the opportunity to understand a point of view I have never had before…

Sex and the Body Sacred

I am a sex-positive person.  I am a Witch, my religion is a fertility religion, the “Great Rite” is literally the act of sex.  So it should not come as a surprise that I consider sex to be a sacred act.

Not just the act of intercourse between a man and a woman, but every consensual sexual expression is a sacred act, and a magickal one, if the persons involved choose to make it so.

Our sexuality is an essential part of who we are as human beings, no matter what that means for any one of us.  Having the freedom and safety to express that part of who we are, as we choose, is essential to living a full and happy life.  (And for the record, this applies to those who are asexual as well.) 

Our bodies are the physical part of the living being that is us.  They are no less a part of our power, or our magick, than our minds, hearts, souls, and spirits. What we eat, how we sleep, move, work, play, and how we express ourselves, our gender and our sexuality are all important to honoring our bodies.  Our bodies are sacred.  Without them we would not have the means to live and learn and interact with any of the worlds.  To be “incarnated” is to be “in-bodied”.

It stands to reason then, that our bodies are to be honored as sacred, just as the Earth is Sacred.   And the expression of those bodies, our sexuality, whatever that is most truly for each person, is also to be honored as sacred. 

Knowing ourselves, and our bodies, and our boundaries, and our truth, is essential to living our lives on this Earth with integrity.

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 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.

Instinct of Home

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

When you were fucking me,

and I was begging you to cum,

you asked me “why?” 

I remember you asking,

I remember having no language to answer.

All I could do was beg.

In that moment,

I needed you buried deep,

I needed the gift of your potential,

Even though it could never take root as a child,

I needed you to plant your seed inside me.

I needed the energy of your release,

Like a crust of bread to a starving beggar,

Like air to a drowning man,

In that moment,

I needed to please you.

I needed to be owned by you,

I needed to be your bitch.

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

and again you asked me “why?” 

I have been trying to find a way to reconcile 

the desperate need I felt and

the language I found to answer.

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

Home is an instinct beyond the language I have.

Home is where life is,

where needs are met, 

where sustenance is provided,

Shelter and comfort 

warmth and light,

strength and stability 

from which to go forth,

A haven when rest and sleep and healing are needed,

a place of safety and belonging and pleasure,

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

A place that is not home,

is empty space 

without life,

or warmth 

or light

abandoned 

un-owned,

without purpose.

Even a grave has purpose,

to the dead who own it.

That instinct is older than my language.

It is primitive knowing from lifetimes ago,

encoded into my body’s  DNA,

that my body exists to please another,

that it has no purpose

that survival is not assured

that it is not completely justified

without a child in my womb

or a cock in my cunt.

but, I am a woman of my time, 

and  you should never take too seriously

the things we say while fucking ...

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.

Boundaries

I have been exploring and experimenting lately.  I have been meeting new people and discussing the nature of desire, and I realized that one of the skills that I need to develop further is the ability to hold strong boundaries.  To see clearly what I desire and to distinguish that from what others may desire.

It is not only a need to communicate those desires, or to negotiate what I am willing to try, but to hold clarity about myself, and to respect my boundaries. 

I have spent most of my life, until recently, complying with the wishes of others.  “People-pleasing” is a habit.  I caught myself asking whether or not I could meet another’s desire, and deciding that, I could indeed accommodate their wishes. 

I realized in that moment that, I was asking the wrong questions.  I need to be asking myself, “What do I want?” and   "Is this person’s desire compatible with my own?”

I can no longer afford to compromise what I want, or my need for autonomy and independence, to fit someone else’s dream.  This journey must be about my dreams. 

In a conversation with someone who was trying to pick me up, and who I had no desire to accommodate, I heard a gem of wisdom.  “It's not about surrendering to another person but, to your own body’s experience.  It’s about your own energy being released, and about your own power to choose.”

In an experiment with a cherished and trusted friend, I discovered that it is indeed about surrendering to my own body, allowing my own energy to flow freely, and it is about my power. 

Choosing to submit to another, in that moment, and only for that moment, is a choice to express my own power and, in doing so, to remember that power. 

The choice is mine and the power is mine. I must be diligent to choose consciously, not through habitual pattern.  And I must be diligent not to sacrifice my strength but, to choose my own desires.

time travel and the laws of physics...

Photo by Helen Jarvis-Reynolds

In the sunlight, 

the tail occasionally strikes, 

kissing my arm, my leg, my belly, 

the side of my neck once.  

We are just playing  but,

the bite of the tail, slight as it is, 

brings a flush to my skin, a rise in my heart-rate 

and a slight release of neuro-transmitters in my brain, 

I still understand the science, for now.

Later, we sit in the summer evening.  

I recall moments from long ago; 

the sound of rain on the roof of a car, 

the smell of South Carolina soil, 

the taste of strawberry wine,

another face, another name,

and the structure of time begins to shift.  

My memories from a lifetime ago are closer than they appear.  

the day to day, of life as it is now, fades to a distant past.

Later still, I sit on my bed in soft cotton, 

drinking wine and listening to music from that life long gone; 

you say my voice changed somewhere during the third song... 

The occasional touch of your claws playing lightly on my arm 

causes another release of the magick potion in my brain, 

I am less conscious of the science now.

I got up to get something, 

from the kitchen I think, more wine maybe? 

I am not sure now, 

you were standing behind me, 

your claws tracing symbols across my skin.

“You may turn around now…” 

your voice, a whisper from a half-remembered dream.

Moments skip forward; 

Minutes? Seconds? Days? Hours? Years?

The structure of time has lost cohesion.

bent over the bed, my hands behind my back,

"Do not move"...

the universe collapses into my skin... 

there is no spoon, no room, no clock on the wall, no walls…

only your claws on my back, your growl in my ears, 

your hand gripping my hair, 

pulling my head back, exposing my throat.

The magick in my brain has taken effect; your spell has cast me into power...

The laws of physics have been replaced by a warm russet fog 

that smells like sex and tastes of your skin; 

gravity no longer applies. 

Your forearm pressing against my neck makes it difficult to breathe, 

your grip on my hair tightens, 

both pull me back against you, 

“Don’t make a sound” 

and when you have finished fucking me again... 

“That, was for me."

Your voice penetrates the fog that fills my body and my brain, 

causing the temperature to increase by a magnitude...

Later, after you have restored the clock 

along with the walls and spoons and things, 

and I am once again a woman of my age 

and not a time-traveler, containing the entire universe within my skin, 

you ask me about the things I said when you asked me "why?"…

There are no bruises this time, but for a shadow on my belly from your teeth, 

and answers that I do not remember giving...

The Change

Fruits of the Crone by Brian Froud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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