Liminal Tales

It’s been a while, again. Things have been busy for me the last few months, though.

Years ago, back in 2017 or 2018 (I’d have to look), Anubis asked me into a position with Him. It was a liminal thing. He asked me to be His official consort in the Between…that’s the liminal no-man’s-land that exists between this world and others or Otherworlds and each other. Ish. And I agreed. By that point I’d worked as His magickal counterpart/partner in things that felt so very far above my pay grade, but each time it worked out and went well. So it didn’t seem so far out really.

I took that Work and commitment very seriously, but went into it thinking the titles were more de facto. Titles are cheap in the Between; anyone can claim any title, style themselves any way they please, and no official and centralized authority exists to deny it. Anubis has the strength and magick and respect to hold His titles, so if I was working with Him under his auspices then it made sense there be honorary things.

The night came and I’d made, under direction from Anubis, all these symbols and jewelry and tools (so maybe I should have seen it going somewhere, but it’s what I do as an artist and so I saw it in that context) and I wore them and was dressed up in this ceremonial garb. And thus I gave my word publicly in the astral and Anubis presented me Out There…as His wife, His Sacred Consort, and His Sacred Queen in the Between. I think that’s what it feels like to be hated, or to be despised at the very least. There were a few beings happy or maybe just polite, but mostly it felt like hurricane-force wind that sounded like “who the $#!% is this?” and/or “how dare He?” blowing over me. I still sort of feel chills remembering standing there holding His hand so tight, hoping they couldn’t tell I was shaking at that moment.

In the days that followed, I did the Work as I understood it and Anubis had additional things He wanted me to do and learn. And maybe a week after, some spirits Out There attacked me and a couple spirit friends intending to do awful things to us for my sake—and almost worse, it was in a public place in the Between and not one of the other forty beings present intended to raise a finger to intervene—but I fought them off and Anubis dealt with the ones I didn’t. So, I realized He was hoping for or even expecting me to take a larger view of my position and that everyone else was treating me as if it were already so. So…maybe it was and I didn’t quite known it yet. I wasn’t tricked or anything: He told me the titles, described the job, did everything but give me a checklist and daily schedule. The trouble is, I’d spent just enough time in the Between to know how fleeting and ephemeral and hard to pin down things like authority and sovereignty can be Out There and so I didn’t misunderstand the scope of my job in relation to Anubis’s so much as the scope of His that I was joining.

There was this strange deck of cards Anubis  had me get that was unlike any others I’ve seen, were read completely differently, had odd meanings and associations, and I received messages once He’d taught me how…but I had no way of understanding them, no context. I was still just learning how things worked in the Between, didn’t know most of the major players, had hardly been anywhere but the Free Court’s moving camp and his caravanserai fortresses Out There. He had asked for and received my oath and given me titles under His auspices to a job I simply qualified for, and I wasn’t prepared to half-it and didn’t deserve them until I saw and knew and understood to right by them.

Anubis agreed with me: if I didn’t enough to do it right, then I was correct I shouldn’t be doing it yet. And He sort of…suspended it for a while. He didn’t take anything back, but it was like it was made mostly dormant except for my offerings in support of Him, and then I spent the next year or two involved in other Otherworld things that had been in the works since 2015 and 2016 and had to happen the way they did. And yet, almost every step I took and choice I made and thing I learned felt like it was further into the liminal aspect of my myself and my path. Then 2019 was all about what was to come after and I learned a lot that year and all of it trending still toward the liminal.

In the waning part of the year, Anubis asked me if I still meant what I’d said before. Did I still want to see the Between, really see it, get to know it…all of it, good and bad. I said of course. He said I knew enough—now—to try to do that. Beginning January of 2020, he would put my name back Out There and make it known in the Between I was under His authority but could be called upon separately, myself. He made sure I understood that I could call upon Him anytime, anywhere Out There, for any reason, and He would intervene and answer, but otherwise I’d be working on my own. The only way to get to know the places and people of the Between was to get Out There and get to know them, the only way for them to get to know me was to do it out from under His shadow, and the only way to really learn the parts of the work I didn’t already know was do them.

So that’s what I’ve spent the last four years and change doing, that’s the dreamwalking that’s happened at least two-thirds of every night since. I’ve seen so much and learned so much, and I’ve discovered a lot of things about myself, too. Back in February of this year, Anubis told me it was time to come back and do this together again, instead of just in the same direction. During the eclipse recently I rededicated myself and all my tools and on April 30^th, He sort of presented me Out There again after the years…only this time I was recognized.

Honestly, it was harder than I’d thought it would be to come back to the official Work and the titles and everything. I was a lot more comfortable thinking of myself as the nobody who could help out sometimes that I was pretending to be. (I ended operating up under three personas: one that was known, one that was who I was back in another life when I secretly did work in the Between, and one that was meant to be as hard to recognize as possible for the times the work demanded not drawing attention; eventually the fact the first two were one person was known, as well as the fact there was a shadowy third who moved under the radar.) And there were times I was told the only reason they felt they could call for help was because I was just a spirit not so different maybe from them. I don’t want that to change. But they had four years to know that’s what I believe, too, and so far things are mostly the same except sometimes Anubis and I travel and Work out there together.

The Work itself has been terrifying and exhausting and I could never tell anyone all the things I’ve experienced, but it’s not something I think I could ever give up. It’s a continuation of who I chose to be before, only this time it doesn’t have to be a secret. And I’ve heard what spirits said and seen how their energy and emotion change when they realize someone came; they called and wished for help, sometimes without any real hope it would work, only it did. I get it: I lived as a soul for a long time Before in despair and for years in this life the same. I remember what it’s like to wish or pray for help long after you have any belief left just because you don’t know what else to do and it’s like one last act of defiance to pretend the universe is the sort of place where if you cry for help you might get it. In some small way, I get to be a little for others what Anubis and the Free Court were for me and I get to do it alongside Anubis and with the blessing of the Free Court. And that’s everything.

I’m Still Alive

*Just in case you were wondering after my unexpected hiatus from writing here over the last few months.

It wasn’t something I planned, but what began as a long weekend to myself to spend with my Gods and spirits turned into four months of magick and shadow work and remembering past-life shenanigans. I had thought I knew everything from Before, or at least the important stuff; I don’t have a hundred past lives to sift through, just the single long one that this incarnate life is continuing. But it seems even Back Then, as in this lifetime, I learned to keep secrets and find a way to be myself—even if that meant doing it undercover, even from myself. And the truth has always been there, I just had to be ready to finally see it again.

It was in a name I’ve remembered since I was three or earlier and knew meant something, and when I finally looked it up, it was built in the same way and languages as I create my names for dealing with Fae and strangers now, only the roots are a few thousand years old. It was in the spirits who first trained me in magick beginning when I was five or six and I took an oath (under supervision from Anubis-in-disguise) in 1999/2000 at ten. That never made sense, looking back, when neither the spirits nor Anubis usually allow such commitments so early, nor why it didn’t feel like other spiritual/astral oaths I’ve taken since…unless it was an affirmation of an oath I’d already taken that still bound me. It was the signs of that oath I wore from then on, even when I had to hide them or got in trouble, and still wear now. It was in a Place I knew, their Place and I remembered being there; I was never talented at sketching, but I saw it so clearly as a kid that I drew unlike anything else I’ve ever drawn. It was in a magick weapon I remembered, dreamed about, that I found not one but two toy proxies when I was young and slept with them beside the bed. And it was in “disguises” I practiced to not forget them in case I needed them again.

It’s been so much a part of me, something I just knew so clearly since I was so young that I’d convinced myself it couldn’t be real, had to be “fairy tales” People told me or that told myself from the overactive imagination everyone insisted I had in childhood. When I experienced my remembering of life Before back in 2015, these bits didn’t fit and so I took that as proof. Even after Anubis told me twice with Big Damn Signs in 2016 it *was* real after all, I believed even if there was an original grain of truth…the idea that I belonged in that story was wishful thinking, a person mythology I’d made up as a kid to give myself hope. And so I didn’t want it to be true, because the first step to accepting it would be relinquishing that personal mythology.

Only…that’s not what happened. It was true, is true, and my life Before was just a little more complicated than I thought. I had a secret identify, secret life, and only Anubis ever figured it out.

—-

In some ways, it changes nothing. My path is still tough, I have my doubts and hesitations, I’m still intimidated by the faith my Gods and spirits have in me—even if I’ve been everything they believe me to be Before, that doesn’t mean necessarily I can do it and be it again now. In other ways, it changes everything. It means I was something on my own; I have chosen who I want to be, more than once now, and even without remembering have chosen the same each time. It means the struggled on my path are my own, and my Gods and spirits were always telling the truth when They insisted that They’ve honed and tempered but never made me anything that I wasn’t already: I am what I am, and not what They’ve made me. It undermines my oldest and deepest fears about the Otherworlds and my deity and spirit relationships that I’ve never quite been able to shake off.

It’s not easy to accept the reason for most all the deepest, most painful experiences and losses is my own choices—and specifically, choices I would not take back. I’m not sure whether to be glad I’ve not simply been a relentlessly constant fuck-up always or sad that outside of changing who I am, there is not and never has been any way to fix everything, after all. Maybe it doesn’t matter, if what I’ve learned from these revelations and working through them is that this is who I am and while I wish things were different…I don’t wish I was different.

—-

Anyway, I guess I’m back now and that’s what I did on my summer vacation.

Holiday Weekend, Part I: Seven Years Oathbound

Hope everyone had a lovely ritual holiday over the weekend if you celebrate!

I started off as usual, the last day of April because that night’s the anniversary of making my first oath to Anubis and receiving my first ritual collar from Him. This year felt a little special because that was in 2015 so it was seven years—which, for some reason, feels so much longer to me than six did. A “long time” now, somehow. And there was Dark Moon, which I dedicate to Anubis also; even if He and I don’t do rituals or anything, they stay set aside for Him.

It’s strange now, remembering back, how terrified I felt of that first step at the time. There was so much legalese in that first oath and I was trembling and could barely get words out during the ritual. I’d been pagan less than three months at the time and (as far as I knew, at the time) had known Him only about five weeks. And He had originally asked for the permanent version, already made clear His intentions to romance me, and said that he hoped if I felt the same and agreed one day that would lead to godspousery.

(My altar back then. This tiny version is the only one I could find now. ❤ )

To this day, I can’t really articulate why I agreed to it, except somewhere deep down I knew. Something in me must have remembered, because He felt like home and I loved Him already enough everything I’d ever called love in this life seemed like a shadow of it in comparison. It feels like probably the most important decision of my life—for itself, yes, but also as a threshold moment because nothing good since, everything else with Anubis, my spirit-Beloveds, my soul-family, my spirits in the Free Court, Isis, Vanaheim, all my spiritual Work…none of it could have happened quite the same without that oath. And that why, at the time, He said He was asking it: for trust and to protect me (especially until I knew enough to better protect myself) because it’d be a long, weird, twisty, dangerous path ahead. And I don’t think even He knew it all.

I wanted to do lots of things on Saturday, particularly finish this necklace that was the first one I ever made for Anubis but then realized I didn’t have the tools or skill to finish the pendant and now do, but instead He asked me to let go of the projects and making and doing things and try more to relax and open up emotionally and energetically and just be.

So I ended up just polishing and one minor fix on something that had become loose in the last couple days on my collar since polishing and repairs are often times of putting more energy into it together and what a great time for it, I cooked some Egyptian-inspired food for the first time, and I re-watched The Mummy (1999).

I guess I still did things, but it all felt like non-stressful things together, rather than something I was doing for Him or rituals and needed to worry or feel worry about. And a couple good luck things happened—probably *the* thing I was stressing most over about in mundane aspects of my future and realizing there’s a light and it’s going to be okay was like the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders a bit—so it felt like Anubis was trying to make sure I had a happy day at least as much as I was trying to do the same. Aw, yay. ❤

There was still a vaguely ritual bit. I lit up a homemade Dark Moon candle and once the wax was melty, I added a few drops of other oils I associate with Anubis and the relationship—not just any Dark Moon, but o/Our Dark Moon. And then time together, and there was magick and energy work/exchange also, and just…connection in a way that English has no word for, and it was good and meant a lot because it’s not easy to let my guard far enough for such things.

It was good and that was just the first half of the holiday weekend, but this is getting long so my Beltane/May Day/etc. will have to be tomorrow’s post.

The Arrow Thief III

I really didn’t expect there would ever end up being any more to this weird story, it would just be one of those strange things I could never fully explain, but there’s now a new chapter… (Part I and Part II.)

Recently, walking through the yard, I glanced down and this arrow that vanished two years ago mysteriously was just there lying on the ground, obvious as anything. It was exactly in the area I looked for it, walked a grid, raked over, after it vanished two years ago. It was right there by the footpaths walked all the time, and it hadn’t been there before.

I made a libation and offering of chocolate at the edge of the woods to the spirits who live in behind my house down by the creek. They didn’t take the arrow and I don’t think had anything to do with bringing it back, but I wasn’t sure and had promised if it returned and they helped me to it, I would. They had no answers, though, and didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.

The next day, I went for a drive around the reservoir nearby and put Out There if Anyone had any answers or explanations I was listening and would like to know. I was answered and also Anubis came by and helped to confirm so I knew I was understanding it all.

—-

Two years ago, all I was sure about was the arrow had been taken by an ancient and powerful Being who was native to this land, to North America, not local but passing through on a storm-wind, and I had somehow attracted its attention. I was told the same Being returned it the day before I found it, in the evening, and Anubis nudged me: that’s the weather was so weird. For a few hours, it had become unseasonably cold, whistling gusty winds, very dark clouds but silver-edged, and a strong power-of-nature sort of energy vibe—and none of it was in the forecast.

As for why…since I bought my camper, I had been thinking how I might incorporate respecting local spirits when on the road if I wasn’t in one place where I could get to know them over time. Especially around early 2020 it was on my mind because without my own land I could mark out, I’d decided the best idea was to build protections and magickal wards into the camper itself, in the walls and stuff, as I restored it. That was also around the time I started incorporating more astral weapons and ritual tools and defensive talismans in my practice and figure if I was going to be driving around in the spiritual equivalent of an armored vehicle full of weapons, I needed a strong practice to acknowledge and honor the spirits I crossed paths with peacefully so they’d know I wasn’t looking for any trouble.

That felt complicated by the fact that I’ve road-tripped twice through the west of this country and even then, before I was pagan, I was very aware of the energies and presences there as old as the rocks themselves, Their power and sway over that land. But those are closed traditions and not part of my path, and I don’t want to be more an unwelcome intruder than they already see me as—and they do—yet it felt even more problematic and wrong to simply ignore such spirits because I didn’t know quite how to approach them. I was asking and meditating around the same time all this started.

I don’t know if that Being came looking for me because questions got back or was just passing through and they were swirling around me enough to get attention, but taking the arrow was in response to that. It had my energy in it and I was watched after to see Who turned up when I called and then seems it was used over the last 2+ years by that Being and Others to conduct a “background check” on me. They spoke to Anubis, Wepwawet, the pixies in the woods behind my house, found out more about the Free Court, spoke to the Faery Court of Alabama I’d met while traveling a few years back (yes, lol, there is such a thing; they live in Talladega National Forest…long story), even checked with spirits I’ve worked with in liminal shenanigans.

Apparently, I passed.

So the arrow was returned to me now that that’s over. That fulfills the other end of the offering bargain struck the day it disappeared to get it back I kept seemingly to no avail and I was told my ideas for how I might respectfully honor them as an outsider are acceptable and They’ll look for that. I was also instructed this arrow was not to be returned to my quiver, but decorations added to commemorate what’s happened (I was shown a mental image and a description), and when my camper is done, I’m to hang it inside over my door. Not protection, exactly, because this isn’t one group and there isn’t anyone who can promise that absolutely, even if They were so inclined…more a sign, by which I can be recognized and various spirits will know I’ve crossed paths before and it went well.

There’s been one last thing, negotiated by Anubis for a pendulum. The snowflake obsidian point was originally on a pendulum I made for Him but it never felt right so it sat on His altar for years and was never used; the little disk was from a project I did for Him where it was left over and they’re combined with obsidian like I was asked for in offerings the day the arrow disappeared.

This is not usually a pendulum I could or would make: in my own experience, I’ve found it a type of divination especially susceptible to hijacking if left open-ended. (That’s why I have like thirty different ones, all dedicated to specific People or Groups; that doesn’t always stop it but does make the pendulum act bizarre if Someone Else is attempting it, enough to put it down and use some other way.) But that’s not possible here because, again, They aren’t one group, and They and I both are agreeing the kind of standing relationship that would necessary for that sort of dedication, we’re not pursuing. Anubis says He can facilitate this though, and keep a clear line of communication open for the confirmations of offerings or potential future signs.

—-

Talk about weird. Maybe this doesn’t sound like much to someone else, but after having felt the unwelcome before, more than once, this bemused acceptance I’m sensing now for my traveling respectfully and being allowed to do so freely, all in peace, feels a bit like winning the lottery or something. And I like how even after all this time, there is a reason and answers. I’ve often had to wait a long time, but it’s always encouraging to find that in the end, understanding.

Meteorite And Copper

Lately, I’ve been really experiencing the downsides of a liminal life and astral work more than before and it’s been part of what’s kept me feeling exhausted and down these last months. I think maybe I made the naïve mistake of thinking all the ritual tools and protective charms and new talismans I’d built last year and early this one would always be enough. That it would be a permanent difference.

Instead, I found that the more I’m capable of and can withstand, the more is asked of me—and that as I become my confident, I’m more willing to say yes to those things. That requires more and new tools and techniques, and so now I’m finding myself feeling guided/drawn back in that direction for the new year.

So, this is the first of my holiday gifts to myself. I’ve heard around (Out There) that “sky iron” or “star iron” (which means meteorite) has specific and interesting properties. Iron is a funny thing magickally; I’m familiar with other sorts and I always kind of wanted a bit of meteor just for fun anyway, so I’m excited to experiment with it.

Now, it’s complicated to do that when the Free Court is elf-spirits and I cross paths with a lot of Fae/Faery-umbrella sorts, many of whom are poisoned by iron or their magick disrupted. So, in a bit of magick/energy problem solving, I set out to find a way to contain a little bit of meteorite power, if necessary. Especially since this meteorite also has nickel in it, which seems to act as a magnifier of iron’s effects to some Fae-types, also.

For my second/other half, all I was looking for was a tiny copper jewelry box, either rounded or with some kind of design in preferably swirls or spirals. Copper is an intense tool in magick—an accelerant, a multiplier, and a natural anathema and equalizer/balancer used properly for both iron and silver, the two metals most poisonous to some Beings and capable of short-circuiting Their magicks.

(*As with all things Out There, there’s few true absolutes. Iron and silver are in those categories but the stereotypes exist for reasons and after fourteen or fifteen years now using copper thus, I’m a strong believer even beyond the assurances my spirits have offered.)

This is what I found instead, which has felt practically God/spirit-sent: a copper puzzle box with Celtic knotwork, which is often handy in binding works, (and some ogham at the top I didn’t see in the pictures but only after I received it, so maybe ogham studies just moved up my to do list), and the inside is blacked out except for two circular knot medallions inside that have the effect of spinning the energy contained within when it’s closed so it’s not stagnant but can’t leak out, either.

I’m really so excited. The box was the second half to arrive and I’ve been watching it stuck on a ship in New York from Scotland for a little while now; I didn’t feel it safe to start experimenting without both because you shouldn’t experiment with any potential weapons that could hurt your own unless you are sure you contain it again, but now I can finally begin. Yay!

Five Years

It’s been a busy week, so I’m still playing catch-up a little bit, but back on the 21^st was my fifth marriage anniversary with Anubis. It doesn’t really feel like that long, but at the same time life before Him seems like another age. It’s just been fixed in my head as “a few years” for a long time now, and this was the first time the year seemed to matter…like it was a more significant amount of time somehow. And since the day didn’t fall on the Solstice proper this year, I could just focus on it by itself.

Honestly, it was a quiet day. Anubis was busy so I focused on finishing some projects, but all day He kept doing this thing where I feel His attention on me. Sort of an Otherworldly, extrasensory version of feeling someone watching and looking up to meet eyes across a crowded room? It’s a connection He and I have deliberately cultivated and strengthened over the years.

In the evening, He said He’d visit before I went to bed, but was still trying to finish some project that wasn’t cooperating and it got late so I offered to visit instead and if it was safe…I can astral travel and specifically not travel back or reground before falling asleep so as I do I can see and hear and feel Out There. I don’t do it often anymore but in the beginning of our relationship, I used to do it most nights.

Anubis had to help pull me across because He was at one of his residences (He has quite a few) and this was one I’d never been to before. It’s fascinating because all of His houses feel like Him and His energy, but…slightly different facets of Him and He’s different facets of Himself in each one of them. His core energy and aura are always the same (that’s how I recognize Him) but the nuance layers reshuffle slightly so different parts are more prominent or closer to the surface. And these environments are reflections (though a couple times I’ve seen Him switch “modes” and not match so it’s not that they respond to Him but that He compartmentalizes a little) and so every new space of His that He shows me is a window on a little bit different side of Him.

We talked for a while and then He went back to some kind of work involving an impressive desk and a lot of scrolls and there was an Egyptian-style sofa/chaise where I fell asleep and assumed that was it. A good—if not especially exciting—anniversary, but that’s very Us.

It wasn’t, though. After only a little while, Anubis pulled me back to awareness and took me somewhere else (via dreamwalking, by then) and at first, I was confused: it wasn’t His, I didn’t know the place…and it didn’t seem like a “date” spot, given all the spears. But it only took a few moments to recognize the signs: He took me *Working* with Him. I knew He did similar liminal Work in the Between as I do, only bigger scale (and apparently more explosions, which I try to avoid) and He’s helped me once or twice the last year and a half with mine, but I hadn’t seen His past partnering in magick for it sometimes.

It probably doesn’t sound as important as it felt (or else it sounds *way* cooler than it was), but doing liminal, last-line Work in the Between is chaotic, dangerous, complicated, traumatic, and often kind of thankless. I love my Work—love the purpose, the drive, the chance to make some difference however small, that way to turn around the shitty things that have happened to me and the skills I’ve learned by necessity to survive them and try to do something good with them instead of just being FUBAR—but it’s not fun, doesn’t mostly make me happy. I think “fulfilling” is the word.

You know—how do you judge a thing when sometimes everything works out, sometimes it’s a false alarm and a waste of time, sometimes it’s a parade of everything that can go wrong doing so, and the majority of the time it’s none of those but rather a twisted mess of destruction and hope mixed up so even after it’s hard to know for sure if it went well or not? It gets heavy and I worry it’s me…but being out with Anubis was exactly the same. I think that means it’s just the nature of the Work and that knowledge helps and feels like a gift.

—-

Lately, it’s been a lot of big conversations, big ideas and big choices ahead of me to be made or followed through. Still ongoing but it’s felt overwhelming, only He was there and could help try to make it all make sense.

Seems there’s more than one truth I thought I wanted five years ago but only because I thought I knew already what those answers would be. I was wrong and now I understand why He asked for my trust instead. The real answers scare me now so I can only imagine back then…but I’m glad He can finally tell me. I meant every oath, every vow, every promise and I would have kept them even if it tore me apart. I think it was mercy—and love—that made Him not ask that of me back then, knowing or believing or trusting I’d grow into them in a way where it would no longer bring me to my knees.

Our relationship has always kind of been based in potential. Anubis saw something in me that I couldn’t, even more than my soul-family, and that’s intimidating enough. There’s always been a matter of trust and…well, He and I have the time.

—-

PS-Anubis Quote Of The Week, because I haven’t stopped laughing yet. Not about any of this, but amidst one of those other discussions where He had to tell me a hard and hard-to-believe truth I didn’t want to hear and then deadpanned: “Welcome to the club. We don’t get scones.” Lol, I love Him. ❤

Under Shadows Of Goddesses

It was another interesting week of continuing but entirely unrelated spiritual weirdness and shenanigans.

The last week or two something had felt…off, wrong, not right, take your pick. I try to exhaust every mundane possibility first, then everything known…maybe things were screwy because of pollen or it was a result and not cause of my sleeplessness, or from reminders expected or not of A Certain Asshat Spirit this time of year and his minions continuing whatever. But I know an attack, a negative targeting, when it happens, and none of those seemed to explain it when I looked deeper.

It had been growing but then signs last weekend were hard to ignore. I spent a couple of days tracing and discerning and working things out to be sure, but the source became unmistakable: one of the other Goddesses given access to me through Isis and our agreement was trying to do me harm.

Mid-week I went to Isis; it’s in my natural inclination to handle these things myself but not this time. This is part of our deal. I said check for yourself, but I think this is happening and it was no kidding, maybe twenty minutes and all the feelings and signs started to lift. She came back and said yes, it was true, and as a result that Goddess had lost the privilege of accessing me…what did I want to do about it? (I’ll never be able to take for granted the feeling of being protected, especially not so quickly and without complications…it was nice. I also wonder if the Neteru ever get tired of having to prove I’m not for making a point on, because I do. Anubis amusedly says it’s sort of my fault; if a strong wind blew me over, there’d be no point to make but I bow up instead become only more stubborn and defiant. Then I’ve made it interesting.)

I told Isis I wanted to understand, wanted to know why. Why, after years of pursuing me and agreeing to waits and the conditions under Her with our agreements and right of first refusal, would this Goddess suddenly do this now? There had to be a reason. I wanted to know it. Was it all a ploy, all along, and the kindness and teachings had been a ruse? Or was there was more in play here?

It took maybe ten minutes, because actually that Goddess seemed very eager to be allowed to show up and explain: yes, She’d done it. She felt She had little choice, because She was trying to fix old mistakes that were Her responsibility…enough to hit me even though She wants to Work with me, necessary collateral. Well, thanks. That was kind of the story I heard, asking questions: something else was more important and I was acceptable damage. No, for someone who prides myself on listening to exact words and finding loopholes, I hadn’t listened to the specific words, had I? Desperate, not more important. Necessary, not acceptable as collateral. And speaking of damage—wtf happened to my reflective shields and the other defenses I learned last year that would have meant I likely didn’t even feel it??

Oh right. Actually, I deliberately took those down in December when I thought…certain folks might plan to hit me and I didn’t want to hit them back, even just by accident or secondhand. Foolish and ill-advised and against my better judgement but…yeah. And I’ll allow I’ve used them a lot and that it’s hard to see them unless they’re actively working, so maybe there was no way She would have realized those defenses were deactivated the last four months.

 Well, She didn’t know that. I wasn’t actually supposed to be hurt. She had been careful, careful as well about the wording of the stories that would come back to me, careful even more about the holes left open in what She said. This wasn’t how it had been intended to go.

Okay.

Suppose I believed Her, maybe. It did make sense, logically in a basic way. But. Assuming that’s true: the troubles She’s trying to fix have people involved also. She was standing beside them, using tricksy words, and plotting this? If I was thought to be a reflective target, who was meant to get hit, them or Her, and would I have been left taking the blame for it? If She’d lie to them, She’d lie to me; if She’d manipulate and trick them, She’d do the same to me; if She’d set them up to fail or end up in the line of fire, then She’d endanger me as well. How was that supposed to make me trust Her or want to keep working with Her, huh?

She honestly seemed surprised I’d ask that, but then told me to name my terms, what signs I wanted, and She’d prove Her truthfulness. Prove She would be that honest and I would mean that much, that this was important enough.

It’s not the first time I’ve been offered such a deal over the years, but they never get any easier to know how to handle. What to ask for that reasonable but not ordinary, able to be clearly and definitely interpreted. And I have a strict personal policy that I ask for nothing that would force Anyone’s hand in a way I wouldn’t agree to be forced or demand stupid and destructive making of points like what I hate. I asked for until the end of this weekend to decide (that was four days at the time) and She agreed.

This afternoon, after thinking hard and consulting with Isis and Anubis, I’ve made my requests and have a timeframe to know by and…there’s a plan. I guess now it’s just waiting to see what happens.

—-

*I’m really not trying to be deliberately vague, but the Goddess involved asked me—for now at least—not to name Her directly. I’m respecting that as an act of good faith.

Strange Travels

After the stresses of last week, it was nice to have a quiet weekend. I tried to just enjoy the lovely weather, work on projects, and recharge (ish…maybe). I also went on some interesting astral travels; I rarely mention those because they’re usually spiritual Work related and often I’m not allowed to, but this wasn’t so I can a little.

The coolest one was definitely being taken to this museum or exhibit by the Neteru of Their old crowns and headdresses. It’s been a regular periodic experience that when I see Them in rituals or in official Work they often wear such things and it really does look like in the tomb paintings where They have the symbols on top their heads that indicate who They are and in what role it shows Them…but never like these. It was like Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra meets Queen Amidala in Star Wars Ep 1, except more and all of it in real precious stones and metals. They said none had been worn in millennia because they were only for specific times/purpose that happened in that long, so now it’s more like an exhibit. I can’t even imagine how impressive that would have been to see; I mean…I’m still awed now, by Their much more toned-down presentations in modern times.

I just wish I could remember more details about more of them; as if was, they were so brilliant and shiny and just wow that it was kind of hard to even take it all in. Maybe I’ll see it again one day. Those sorts of experiences are always a little bit weird: it’s so strange to think Beings that’s normal for, Who don’t even blink at such extravagance and power and glory and time…are the same ones Who hang out in my kitchen or fiddle with the radio when I’m driving.

—-

Another interesting journey I had was that I—very cautiously—tried to look into that spirit from last week and what might be going on there…and instead I found out that while “gone” he’s somehow gotten himself a weird invisible-savior cult religion among these spirits Out There in the Between that it *so much stranger* than I would ever have imagined.

The details don’t really matter and the whole thing doesn’t necessarily make me feel any better about last week but it did remind me this being was more than just the guy that tormented me for years on end and threatened practically everything and everyone I loved—and most of what else he was bordered on absurd. And so, sure, as cruel and threatening and toxic as he and his posse were, I’m also reminded how they were often also one of those bizarre, cringy “celebrity” train wrecks you want to look away from but can’t out in the Otherworlds. Perspective.

—-

There were others, too. I remember walking up a cold beach and looking at all the cool-colored shells washed up. And I went collecting these stones that looked like pumice but blood red and can be ground up to make a lovely intense red pigment. Those sorts of ordinary astral life things are always some of my favorites.

It can be so easy to get caught up only traveling for rituals and holidays and Work and I’ve been trying to do better at the day-to-day things this year. I’ve been operating off a theory and some advice that those quiet moments are good for me and help balance my spiritual life; it’s easy to just focus on doing the hard stuff and then when I get run down rest by taking a break from all of it…but that’s cutting myself off from the very things I love most and feel best inspired by at the times they would help me most, isn’t it?

I don’t know, not yet. I’ve shied away from this plan in the past because astral traveling is kind of the same as any other traveling and there’s no guarantee how it goes. Just because I intend to just chill somewhere Out There, doesn’t mean I maybe don’t get roped into something more after I arrive. Actually, that happens quite a bit.

But it’s been suggested to me maybe the problem isn’t the unpredictability because that’s just how it is. And maybe it also isn’t lack of boundaries on my part because I’ve committed to do certain Jobs  Out There that, like being a nurse or something, don’t completely turn off because you’re not “on call” at the time. No, maybe the problem is that I’m overworking myself the rest of the time. If I only travel or dreamwalk or interact with the Otherworlds via *Jobs* until I’m too tired and then flip that coin, then sure, that’s not always going to work out for me; but if I keep a better balance all the time, then maybe I never or only very rarely get too exhausted or feeling down to risk it.

At least…that’s the theory for now. I guess I’ll find out.