Endings

It’s been a tough few weeks for me. I think I naively worked it up in my head that this new year would be different and better and doors would magically open…and that hasn’t been the case. The doors are opening, yes, but I’m having to pry them that way with a crowbar. It’s a struggle and it sucks.

I’m not good at endings. Most of them I’ve been through haven’t been peaceful or amicable or voluntary. Endings were painful and senseless and against my will and the possibility was always there, looming over everything. It’s a pattern that goes back to before this lifetime: that each day that I could lose everything on someone else’s whim and not only would it be gone, but there was enough cruelty in my life that I’d probably be made to watch it burn in front of me and taunted that it was all my fault (even when it wasn’t).

It was never my choice for things to end, and so I grew into a person who hates endings—all endings. Who instinctively resists every ending to the last breath and then some, no matter what. Who spins myself around and around in anxious little circles, predicting everything and everyone all the time so that I can try to stave off the endings. All because endings came to be synonymous with involuntary loss and helplessness.

The trouble is, some things *should* end. Some things—and people—you *want* to lose in your life. And I realize I have the habit of fighting even for things I don’t want, or for things long past when I stopped wanting them anymore, just on principle.

I can trace back, Before and throughout this lifetime, how I got to this point. I’m not even sure sometimes that there was another option in the moment but the one I made…but that doesn’t make it any less true or any easier to accept that I’ve wasted such much. It’s been the thing my spiritual twin and I struggled with the most: the possibility that we might have destroyed our true selves becoming who we had to be to survive long enough to reach some point of freedom where we could finally embrace our true selves.

This is all has on my mind because I’m in a cycle of endings. It’s been going on a couple of years, but especially the last few months. I’ve been in the process of separating myself from both my (flesh and blood) family and a close friend of a number of years. Yeah. Big, damn endings.

I’ve heard it tossed around, especially by devotional/spirit work folks, that if you let Gods and spirits into your life They’re going to set it on fire. And, sure, there’s a part of me that wishes I could blame my People for ruining my life…but it would be bullshit. I made my choices—even when I pretended I was under duress because it was the only way I knew to say yes to the things I wanted but didn’t think that I was allowed to admit I wanted—and They are absolutely and without any doubt the best thing that’s happened to me in my life.

And I wish I could be angry at my family or my friend (and I am on some level that they were selfish, cold-hearted asshats) but the truth is that I’m the one who changed and changed the rules and I can understand why they’ve been angry at me for rewriting the status quo, for deciding after so much time that this didn’t work for me anymore. They’re wrong to ask it of me, but I understand.

I met my Beloveds, my soul family, friends of the astral variety (and a couple new corporeal folks) and to my shock They just believed I was worth the effort. It took me over a year to even consider They were telling the truth and didn’t really only love me because I was useful, or out of obligation, or to make me obligated to do for Them somehow. And then I realized I’d never felt this before and when I went looking to understand why, I learned—mostly because I was told point-blank—that the people I’ve had in my life up to now never really loved or cared about or felt emotion for me the way I did for them. I was just there, and love was just the duty they had to someone who was there…right?

But no, that wasn’t good enough. Not anymore. Not after being loved by deities and elves and spirits and…at all? I had to make a choice, to stay and believe these people in my life who have made me feel like I had to justify being worth the air I breathe, or believing my People in the Otherworlds that I’m worth believing in and deserve to be loved—really loved and not just mindfuck-loved. It’s maybe one of the hardest things I’ve done, but I’ve chosen to work toward believing the latter. I’ve changed too much being loved by Them to go back, or to even want to try.

So…here I am, making endings. But for the first time I can see the new beginnings in this loss. The choice. My choice. I have no idea what my life will look a year from now; what I do know is that the very hardest, shittiest life alongside those I love who love me back has to be better than the best-life-that-never-happened-and-was-never-going-to-but-was-dangled-in-front-of-me-and-was-safer with people who don’t. I’m terrified, but I’m ready.

Altar For The Neteru

I finally finished setting back up my altar for the Neteru this morning. I had hoped to have it done days ago, but I’ve been in bed with a fever most of the week. Today, at last, I was feeling better and could work on it again.

I added the stone obelisks and salt lamp pyramids I bought for the space last year (and they’re so cool!) but overall, I continued a trend of simplifying and opening up space. Creating some blank slate to work with from here.

I’m thinking also of maybe lighting a candle or some incense and doing some kind of small rededication ritual. My focus has been drawn so much in other directions the last couple of years and I don’t feel Their energy or presence as strongly in the space now as I used to. I’m not sure I’m in a place to really change my focus at the moment but perhaps a brief invitation that the altar is spruced up and still here for Them might be in order.

The Gods Are Not Intellectual Property

Last night I attended a “pub moot” with a group of local (ish, it’s an hour and half drive each way) polytheists. They’re a pretty cool heathen group that I’ve been hanging with and attending rituals with—even though I don’t specifically identify as heathen—for almost a year now. Over the last few months, though, discussions have come up about recon vs. others that have caused a little trouble. Last night was no different.

One of the discussions that happened was about how orthopraxy (“right practice”) was more important than everyone agreeing on all the exact details about the Gods or the Lore—which I don’t really disagree with—but then it veered into theoretical territory about ways the that the heathen “good majority” might in the future be able to enforce that orthopraxy on the outliers (the “fluffy” folks, the non-recons, the racists, etc) and I absolutely *do* disagree with that idea. Because who are they, even as community majority, to tell me what my particular right practice must look like?

I wake up every day aware that I am carrying the flag not only for myself but for my Gods, my spirits, my affiliations (friends, communities), and my religion—and that when I walk out into most of this world there’s a chance that I’ll be the only one carrying those flags that some people might ever meet and so they’ll judge everything and Everyone that matters most to me based just on my actions. I’ve had several long conversations with my Gods about whether They really wanted me out here writing or publicly identifying as one of Theirs…maybe They’d prefer someone a little less weird? Yet, each time I’ve been assured that They want me—multi-trad, astral-traveling, spiritworker who believes I’m an incarnate elf princess married to Anubis among others that I am. They’re not ashamed of me or my path in any way. And I have no right to tell Them that They should want someone different or that I’m not good enough.

I don’t think the folks I was hanging with last night would agree that that’s a right practice. And I think therein lies the real division. It started coming together for me as the conversations kept going back to how “we just can’t know” about this thing or that tale and I had to keep biting my tongue to not ask them “well, why don’t you just ask Them what They want you to do?” And then it felt confirmed when someone there mentioned that “our ancestors probably didn’t really believe all these stories about the Gods” as fact anyway.

So I’m thinking the real disagreement here between the recon folks and the experience-based folks largely isn’t truly about the history or how much value it has in understanding the Gods or in building modern ritual, but on where the authority lies. For the strict recon types (at least the ones I’ve spoken to or read/heard arguments from) the Gods—or at the least the Lore left to us about Them—seem to exist as a sort of intellectual property that belongs to a certain group and so it falls then to that community to protect and defend it. For the more mystical types, like myself, the Gods are powerful and completely autonomous individuals who are more than capable of making Their own wills known.

On the one hand, the community has the authority and it is left to them (perhaps expected of them) to act as gatekeepers to the Gods and Their mysteries by making sure that people only approach Them in the right ways. On the other, the Gods do what They want and choose whom They will and the community is just, more or less, the abstract collection of those who love Them or whom They build relationships with, whether or not we understand the Gods in exactly the same way or even get on with each other.

Maybe everyone else already knew all this and I’m just late to the party (which is possible, given that I’ve been mostly a solitary/small group practitioner most of my time) but this is a different argument than has been presented to me by friends and acquaintances now on both sides. And one I can recognize is not so easy to mediate.

I learned in college, when I converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, and again less than three years later when I converted (at least as far as possible without a central authority) from Christianity to Polytheism, that these seemingly small disagreements are based sometimes not on mere difference of opinion or interpretation, but on a completely different understanding of the facts and of what is fact in the first place.

I still hope agreements can be reached, but I understand now the span that must be bridged in order to accomplish that in a new way. And while I don’t always agree with the others, I have to respect those who also love Those that I love, right? Suddenly I see why all this is so complicated…

Anubis Altar

I finished rebuilding my Anubis altar this morning! Some things ended up staying about the same and others changed around but I really like how it turned out. I focused this time on just letting the space grow and develop however felt right: it’s a personal altar and so it’s always been a little eclectic, but it’s definitely growing more so through the years and I’ve finally learned to love that about it instead of worrying too much. (For example, yes that’s an Evenstar pendant and an Obi-Wan Kenobi Epidode 1 action figure in there. 😉 Haha)

Details of the center shrine with my statue that I painted last year, the first prayer beads and mini pendulum bracelet I made Him way back, and the “not-engagement” ring He gave me. Also, some gemstones I gave Him. They didn’t fit in the picture, but my two jackal shrine boxes are on either side and hold keepsakes and my old collars from Him.

The side closest to my bed, mostly dedicated to our relationship. I have the cord from my handfasting and the engagement necklace He gave me. The pyrite sun disk and red rose are reminders of various good times we’ve had together.

And the opposite side: in the past I tried hard to make it about embalming because that’s such a part of Anubis and His mythology (and I have a couple of cool mummy things) but it never felt right. After a brief intro back in 2015 to that side of Him and His Work, death and embalming just isn’t the side of Him I see most of the time. So gave up trying to make it fit and instead dedicated it to the side I do know and the aspects of His Work that He’s initiated me into as a partner: the liminal traveler and guide, the Lord of the gates and spaces between realms, the Opener (or Closer) of Ways. For now it’s only the ritual things we use during our dark moon magick and my silver lantern charm, but it can grow later.

I also finally got rid of the stuff I had on the altar only because “that’s stuff an altar is supposed to have”–like the taper candles I never lit or the incense burner I rarely used because it made a mess, or the goblet/saucer always collecting dust because I don’t make perishable offerings in the shrine anymore.

I think this might be a theme that’ll come up again. Since last October, I’ve had a lot of encouragement from my People to bring more structure into my practice and create new traditions and rituals, but only things that really work for us and are ours. Now, it makes sense to clear out these remnants of the old.

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Missing Anubis

I’ve been taking stock of where I am with things and where to focus next a bit over this past week. Altar cleansing and rebuilding tends to get me thinking that way and I’ve also been struggling with a brutal, on-again off-again headache most days now that left me in a quiet, contemplative sort of mindset.

I unexpectedly realized that I really miss Anubis—which is weird to say because He was never not here. But looking back, I feel like we kind of drifted apart a little over this last while. The ties binding us that felt *so* strong before became less preeminent.

It wasn’t that anything happened or even changed that much, but He sort of stepped back and became more a second line of support over much of the last year. He gave me the space to be totally present in my triad spirit-marriage and growing those bonds, even though He was always still there and we were still talking and seeing each other.

But very early in 2017, the year became all about building trust and stability in the triad, about my “grand tour” of the groups in the Free Court (because how could I serve my people if I didn’t really know my people?), and dealing with the huge dragon in the room that was my and my spirit-twin’s fucked up fatelines and wyrd and all that. And He supported me in keeping the focus on that journey and has made clear this week that we’re good and doesn’t feel neglected or anything…but still. I think what bothers me isn’t so much the shifts that happened as the fact that I almost didn’t notice them happening.

In a way, I suppose it’s comforting looking back to see that we can maintain our relationship and be good together not only during the crazy intense, emotional times but during the quiet understanding and support periods, too. But I don’t want a second “fallow” sort of year with Him in a row. I can see how too easily that could become a new normal and we’d stop growing together like before.

So, I’m not sure what I’m going to change quite yet, but I’m trying to pay some special attention to Him and our relationship right now… ❤

Tiny, Tiny Tarot Deck

One of my favorite gifts I received over the holidays is this very (seriously, very) tiny tarot deck. Not super practical, maybe, but I still think it’s awesome. And it’ll be good for traveling.

I’ve had a chance to try out using it a couple of times now, and it works surprisingly well to be so small. It’s a Universal Waite deck so the imagery is straightforward even miniaturized (though it’s still a bit of a learning curve for me because though I have quite a few decks, I’ve never actually owned a “standard” one). Shuffling is a bit impractical at this size, but mixing them up like scrabble tiles works well instead. And it even comes in a cute little box like a keychain.

Hmm, now all I need is a trip somewhere…

Year Ahead Spread

Back on New Year’s Eve, I did a year ahead spread for 2018. It’s been my tradition the last couple of years and thought I’d share it here so I’ll have it to look back on later.

This Year’s Theme: Three of Spirals – Active contemplation and self-expression. Keep an open mind and listen to the wise counsel of others, but in the end the final decision is mine and mine alone. Since I’m currently dealing with issues of giving up my (toxic) safety nets and learning to take action on my own without asking permission, I suspect this card is referring to that growth process and where it’s going to lead me over the next year.

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January: Two of Spirals – Choices and planning ahead. Not all the information I need it apparent yet, but I can trust my instincts to guide me. Weigh my options carefully, and put in the behind-the-scenes work that’s needed.

February: Four of Stones – Deciding to leave behind everything that holds me back, even those things that have been dearest to me or that I’ve fought hardest for up to this point. Now it’s time for a new journey, a new adventure, and they’re only blocking my way forward.

March: Eight of Mirrors – Leaving behind the known for new knowledge and self-awareness. I’ll be asked to strip away and leaving in my wake those things, those beliefs, those people that are no longer good for me.

April: The Weaver – Weaving magick to create a new future for myself. I’ve done it before and I’ll have to do it again, recreating my life and spinning a new fate out before me. Remember nothing is impossible.

May: Three of Mirrors – Celebration and harmony with loved ones. This will be a chance for new opportunities and good fortunes. Embrace these fresh beginnings and be ready to make the most of them.

June: Ten of Scrolls – Exile, captivity, hardship. It’s necessary at this point to break free of some ongoing negative cycle. I’m getting a strong sense of overcoming some kind of harmful conditioning or realizing that it has no real power. Maybe coming to understand that I don’t have to fight or stage some personal revolution because in reality I’m already free?

July: Merlin – A new beginning, new journey, or new cycle of growth. Completion and rebirth. I guess after whatever struggle happened in June, a whole new world will now be opened up to me.

August: Wheel – Turning of fortunes. This is a point of choice, a fork in the road, and whatever I choose will have significant consequences one way or the other. I’m getting a sense of some opportunity or decision that will change everything that comes after and in which there is no middle ground and not making a decision won’t be an option.

September: The Illusionist – Taking a risk, leaping without looking. There’s an opening here for a raw, grand gamble or adventure and I should take it without overthinking things too much. Just jump and have faith.

October: Sorceress – Magick and transformation; a life changed. It’ll be difficult, maybe even a trial by fire, but I have magick and I have allies and things will align because I’m on the right path. But it’s going to change me.

November: Four of Mirrors – A warning not to sabotage myself or my relationships at this point. Find balance between emotion and stability and don’t neglect or take for granted my loved ones (who by this point in the year will have surely endured and offered support through a great deal alongside me).

December: Divine Child – Full potential, as brought forth through transformative experiences. I think this is a really lovely comforting card to end the year on because it’s success and reaching a whole new level of understanding and strength as a result of this journey.

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So it looks like it’s going to be another intense sort of year…lots of new beginnings there. But to be honest, I’m not surprised by that. The signs were already there, especially throughout December when I had to admit some very difficult truths and set my mind for some rough choices coming up. In a way, I think the transformations of 2017 demanded that 2018 be transformative also. The difference will be that last year the changes were almost entirely internal, and this year they’ll be overwhelmingly external. I’ve changed enough that now I have no choice: I *have* to change my life.

I think the year’s going to be tough. And yet, I’m finding this spread strangely comforting, because there are decisions before me and changes that need making…and this is not the reading of someone who chickens out or backs down. These are the cards of someone who finds their strength and goes for it, and that’s the person I want to be this year.

Why A Spiraling Labyrinth?

The image of a spiral labyrinth has kept coming back to me over and over and it’s become how I’ve begun to see my spiritual journey (and the life attached to it), especially over the last year.

I’m aware that I’m often operating on the (very fringe-y) fringes of polytheism and spiritism, weaving my way through mysteries and uncertainties. My journey often feels like being lost in a labyrinth without a string, learning to listen to my intuition and trust the path even when I don’t know where it’s going. Which is usually.

I’ve noticed a pattern where I seem to never ever take the shortest route between two points and everything always circles back around again. The things I think are over, the things I try to run from, the things (and people) that I lose, the roads I choose not to walk and the choices I don’t take—they all come back around in the end. I feel like my life is always circling and each time I revisit the things that came before and go deeper.

So the spiral labyrinth has become a sort of totem image for me on my path and it seemed like a fitting one to embrace here.

The Road So Far…

This is a new blog and so I guess it’s time to share a little about myself and this strange spiritual journey I’m walking. From April 2015 to July 2017 I wrote on a different (now private) blog called Bound to Anpu, and if you joined me over there then some of this will be familiar.

So I was that weird kid growing up, always (you’re surprised, right?). From a very early age, I was absolutely convinced that I came from another world, that I had a twin and another family somewhere else and I was in exile for some reason but one day they’d find me and take me back home, and that I was going to one day marry a prince. And no surprise, that didn’t go over well and I learned very, very quickly as a kid to shut the hell up about that kind of weird stuff.

I also saw and felt energies and talked in my head to “characters” that only I could see or hear (I was not raised in an open-minded household by any means and these entities weren’t evil like the “demons” I had been warned about, so that was the only way I had to understand them). And sometimes I would *just know* things that there seemed no logical way for me to know or understand way beyond my apparent years, but I did. I think I scared some people.

Suffice it to say, it was very difficult growing up in a strict, borderline-fundamentalist Southern evangelical Christian home like that. And because I was allowed almost no contact with the outside world, I really didn’t understand until my pre-teens that any of that wasn’t normal, only that anytime I mentioned it I was either told that it was all sinful, that I was crazy, or that I was a liar and punished for making things up for attention.

Survival was my prerogative and so in time I tried to just forget all the weirdness for my own safety, but my “characters” never went away and they taught me to hone my senses and skills in secret. And nothing could change the fact that my (mortal) mother was dying before my eyes and I had learned healing enough help…relief she desperately needed and wanted, even as she condemned me for it.

So I ended up confused…as that is a given. Instinctively, I knew my path. But consciously I was terrified, beyond conflicted, in denial, and running like hell trying so hard to be that “good” person, daughter, Christian that I was supposed to be.

Then in 2008, just as I was getting my first taste of freedom at college, I was attacked without warning or provocation and almost killed (i.e. sick, hospitalized, no medical explanation, yay) by a powerful spirit–who I later discovered was under orders from another, even more powerful spirit. I wasn’t supposed to survive, but I’m stubborn and so I fought back and kept fighting back and finally in early 2010, Anubis was able to buy my life and freedom and give them back to me. I didn’t know who He was then, but that night I promised myself that no matter how long it took I would find this God who had saved me and asked nothing in return and I would spend the rest of my life loving Him.

It took me five years. I journeyed back deep into Christianity, traveling from one side of it to the other, before I finally was able to shut that door behind me and leap off the cliff into polytheism—only for Anubis to catch me and reveal that He’d been there with me that whole time, guiding my way so I could learn the skills I’d need for what came next. And so that when I did walk away from the beliefs of my family and childhood, it would be without any doubts and I would never look back again.

I never really had a honeymoon period. My introduction to polytheism and full-on spirit work (especially that first 6-8 months) was—as Anubis once put it—like learning how to swim by being tossed overboard in the middle of the ocean during a hurricane. And yep, that’s a pretty apt description. It wasn’t a plan or anyone’s fault; it’s just how it was. It’s been almost three years now and it’s all been an extended trial by fire…and even now I’m not certain whether things have really gotten easier or if I’m just less afraid now and more equipped to deal with it.

But I’ve found my way home now which offers no small amount of strength. And I’ve finally embraced the strange truth that my soul didn’t originate here, but out in the Otherworlds. I’m elf-souled (“elf” being an umbrella for a range of spirits of several heritages sharing similar magickal characteristics), and after a near-death experience in mid-2015, I have recovered all those long years of memories still vivid and intact. My twin, my family, my spiritual people (who were real after all)—not to mention Everyone Else in astral, Gods and spirits alike—recognize me still as that same person. For me, this mortal lifetime is a continuation of my journey Before, not a do-over. So I’ve accepted that my life straddles the veil between this plane and the realms of myth and folklore and I can no more set aside my astral life Out There than I can my physical one here.

I’ve taken oaths to Anubis and wear His collar, and (as of summer solstice, 2016) I am bound in sacred marriage to Him. I’ve also (since spring equinox, 2017) given marriage vows in a triad with two elf-spirits, Raen and my soul-twin Kintár. I perform ritual Work for my people, a roving band of mixed-heritage elves-in-exile called the Free Court who wander the between spaces of the astral plane, and also as a partner to Anubis.

Well…yeah, that’s my journey in all some of it’s weird glory. 😜

(For the record: yes, I know all this sounds absolutely insane to the uninitiated. And yes, I’ve done a lot of soul-searching and questioning and discerning along the way to believing but here I am. In the past I’ve spent a lot of time framing and disclaiming everything so people wouldn’t call me crazy, but at this point I’ve come too far and I’m just done playing that game.)