Hope everyone’s had a lovely Solstice, Christmas, Yule, etc. (Although, I usually keep celebrating Yule until New Year’s so it’s not over yet.) Mine’s been a bit of a mixed bag.
(This post got long, so I’m putting it under a cut. And it gets weird…*this is not the fluffy holiday post you’re looking for* lol.)
Hey…I’m still around! It’s been a long couple of months, but with the Solstice and the end of the year arriving and the promise of light returning, it finally feels like maybe things are looking up. I called it, that the collision of the season of shenanigans the darkening days always brings me and the general shitstorm that’s been 2020 would be tough, but—even more than I expected.
It’s felt like one thing after another after another. Both in my path and Work in the Otherworlds, not all Beings are honest or easy or uncomplicated even when we’re on the same side and working for the same things. The young spirits I wrote about earlier this year…well, they’re adults now with their own plots and plans that more than once, they’ve tried to manipulate and magick me into joining; I’m not okay with that and they weren’t okay with me not being okay with it, and so now I don’t know if I’ll see them again. Several Gods—not ones I’m very close to, but once I was and thought there was still trust between us—I’m now not so sure. And I had a final falling out with an old (corporeal) friend and even when it’s justified or even necessary, that’s always still a sad thing. One after another.
But just over this weekend it’s felt like I’ve finally broken out the other side, can breathe again, see color and light in the world again. I spent so much of this year feeling I was going it alone (though, looking back, maybe the times my People were busy or far away only *felt* that long). I wanted to challenge myself and prove, even if I was the only one who needed convincing, that my magick and skills were enough to walk the next chapters of my path and do astral/spiritual Work in my own right Out There and hold my own enough to be worthy of it. I wanted to stand up myself and see if I really was the person that the Otherworlds swear up and down I am.
It’s hard to say if it was all just part of the journey and lessons learned (because the whole year had that frantic crash-course feeling of being qualified enough but only just) or if it was real. Did I push this far and They allowed me into danger because I was so resolved? Or was this year as chaotic and off the rails as it felt and the stakes—and Their trust I’d succeed—really as high as it seemed when I stood alone and if I had called the cavalry, maybe They’d have been too far and otherwise engaged to answer? Maybe both: They knew it would go off the rails but didn’t share my doubts whether I had what it took, so They let me train under live-fire all year that was all as real as it looked and could have hurt me but They didn’t believe it would.
Whatever the case, I made it! I’m not sure if I was ready in January, but I became it every step of the way so I must have been near enough, anyway. I don’t know if I had the skills, but I have so many new ones now I learned since then and can hardly remember what I did before them. I don’t know if I have the magick or the power Anyone said, but it shocked me and while I wasn’t close to victorious in every working I made, I never lost badly enough to get in real trouble (and as a relatively small fish in the big damn ocean of the Otherworlds, that still feels like a victory). And I don’t know if I managed the resolutions I made rather cynically at the beginning of the year to “stop wanting what I couldn’t have” (turns out just deciding not to want something is really hard), but I’ve accepted those hard truths and made more peace with it than I thought I could.
In short—and I know I’ve said it before, because it was clear even in real-time—2020 has been exactly what I was promised it would be: one of those very intense years you never want to live again, but changed your life and afterward you feel grateful for and would never choose to give up, either.
And now? I sense my People more clearly now than in at least a couple of years. As the last of things were coming to crescendo last week and I was too tired, finally, to have anything left to fight with and my Beloveds and Court closed ranks around me so I wouldn’t have to…it felt like home the way They said it would, and for maybe the first time I felt I could be deserving of that and not (unfairly, perhaps) like it was being given to me on credit for who I might be someday, instead of who I am now.
I find myself abnormally thankful for my Beloveds and my Family and my Court and Everyone, for the belonging and the way They treat me after a year of Others, for all our strange holidays and rituals that feel like coming home. Bring on the Solstice, and Yule, and the New Year…and I’m actually excited also about this cool celestial convergence and hope it brings good energy to dedicate a few new tools and things.
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PS – Only rarely do I end up writing just ahead of a holiday instead of only after, and so Happy Solstice and Blessed Yule, everyone!
Spiraling Labyrinth: Adventures of an Otherworlds Expatriate 