dirt, bones, death, salvation

Smoke don’t rise
Fuel don’t burn
Sun don’t shine no more
Late one night, sorrow come round
Scratching at my door
But I cut my hands
And break my back
Draggin’ this bag of stones
Till they bury me down, beneath the ground
With the dust and rattlin’ bones

…

The great desert plain of Rosetjau, home of Sokar and the resting place of Wesir’s khat, lies in the deepest portions of the Duat, furthest from the daylit world, but also at the boundary of the sky. It is a dark and perilous place, filled with a variety of monsters partially in the form of snakes, and in portions even unable to be lit by the power of Ra himself on his regular circuits  There is no water here; [...]

The earliest portions of Rosetjau are known as the Land of Silence, and only the voice of the Creator can penetrate here, even as his light cannot. [...] Nightmares can live here, and all the menacing figures that haunt your souls; if you lose track of the barque you will be alone with your demons.

– Kiya Nicoll, Traveller’s Guide to the Duat

…

The word for ‘hacking up the earth’ is khebes-ta. This word-phrase appears a number of times in various places, and one of them refers to the way the combatants in the Contendings tore up the ground as they struggled against each other. (The legacy of these great stompings include at least one sacred lake.) I quote Assmann: “In classical antiquity, an agrarian meaning was imputed to it. The earth was hacked up for sowing, and the seed grain was mourned as it was placed in the ground like a corpse, for it was bewailed as a manifestation of the slain and buried Osiris.”

– Kiya Nicoll, Peaceful Awakenings: The Mysteries of Wesir

Well.

I suppose there’s something to be said surrounding my anxiety and total fear of going before the gods or even simply interacting with them: at least I have that deep down, visceral feeling that they’re real.

(Of course there are problems that stem from this fear.)

(I’m just saying how am I not supposed to look at images like that and immediately go, “Holy fuck He’s looking at me.”?)

To Be Silent

I’ve been wanting to blog lately, to talk or post pictures about what I’m doing, or feeling, or researching. But it’s been extraordinarily difficult? A lot of the stuff I want to talk about even vaguely comes out disjointed, with little context; other times it feels too intimate to be shared. I feel like I’m exposing a little seedling to the world before it’s time, and I risk it having torn to shreds by the wind or trampled under careless feet. Which kind of matches up lately with the bits and things people keep telling me, or advice that I’ve read before seems to match up what I’m going through.

But at the same time I feel alone, and maybe it’s meant to be that way, but it also drives me a little mad. I feel lost and don’t know what to do, and I’m not sure what to trust and who to place my faith in. Which makes this all sound rather melodramatic, and I think in the long run of things this may just be a small blip in a bigger picture … or it might be the tiny seedling beginning to grow it’s roots and grow into a strong tree which will be my foundation for the years to come. I just don’t know, and the thought of not knowing which it is terrifies me.

I feel trapped, too, by my lack of practice, my lack of private space, and my lack of the ability to just simply open up and connect, even if I hear nothing. This leads to doubts, like “Am I doing enough?”, “Is what I’m doing legitimate?”, “Could I be doing something better?”, and “What’s the point of it all if it doesn’t look like X and lead to Y?” A lot of it is stuff I need to work through, but I also know it’s tied into a system (for lack of a better word: me), and there are other parts of this system-me that need to be worked through as well, and not just on my own but with a therapist who can give me tools to deal with my anxiety and depression. Because I can feel my anxiety ramp up when I try to go before my shrine space, and the depression kick in harder when I feel I did not get the result I went looking for. These problems have deep roots, and have flowered and wormed their way into all aspects of my life, including the religious.

So. That’s my latest things. How are you?

The future

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out what the purpose of this blog is. A lot of stuff I have gone through spiritually-wise has been rather private, whether because I got a poke or two to “sit and wait” or because this just doesn’t seem like the platform to discuss things. It seems then like if this isn’t personal, I feel like I should be blogging about something … informative or educational? But I don’t feel like I’m qualified to talk about anything, really. Lately all of my research and thoughts have been on working in the library and/or indigenous librarianship field; and while I think I *could* blog about that, because it’s incredibly important to me as a person right now, I still feel like that’s just temporarily putting content here until I figure things out on the pagan side, if that makes any sense.

I’ve considered going back to a private journal on dreamwidth (unlikely to be returning to LJ), but I’m aware that not a lot of people I talk with now are in that dreamwidth/lj/etc. system to be able to read posts if I “added” them. I know of a couple of people dual blog (I really wanted to type “dual wield” here) with both a private and public face, but I still feel like the latter is tied to the problem I mentioned above.

(I also think it doesn’t help that I’ve been in such a not-doing-anything downswing for so long that if I’m doing something now, it’s hard to talk about it because it feels incredibly intimate and inappropriate to post about until I figure things out?)

I’ve also thought about just completely wiping everything and starting over; new name, new blog, new design, new … everything. I kind of have this desire every couple of years to just completely rip things down and start anew. I’d like to think that this would be a drastic last measure if I couldn’t work out the issues I’m having with blogging, or just discussing things religiously/spiritually in public places, but who knows?

This is my life, these are my current problems.

(Well, I have other problems, but they’re not relevant to this. :) )

Dropping out of PBP 2013

I’m finding that I don’t believe this blog, or at least where I’m going with it, will fit what PBP is supposed to do. I don’t always have a lot to say, and when I do, I doubt it will make much sense to people, not to mention that it seems even when I willingly do a thing, I resent being restricted to structure.

So from here on out, I’m disengaging this blog from the project. Not that I think PBP is a bad thing, but that I just don’t think it’s the right fit for me. :)

Βρομιος

it burns
it burns
it burns
it burns

I want a trouble-maker for a lover,
Blood spiller, blood drinker, a heart of flame,
Who quarrels with the sky and fights with fate,
Who burns like fire on the rushing sea.

- Rumi

My Lord,
I am dirty and broken,
imperfect and yet full of an ardent longing for you.
Open me up, I pray.
Let your madness wash over me
like the heavenly fire that birthed you
so that I may rise up and bellow in the hunt as a furious bull!

- Sannion, “Γινεσθω!“

Babe, you’re getting closer
The lights are goin’ dim
The sound of your breathin’
Has made the mood I’m in
All of my resistance
Is lying on the floor
Taking me to places
I’ve never been before

Ooh, and I can feel it,
Feel it, feel it, feel it

Way down where the music plays
Way down like a tidal wave
Way down where the fires blaze
Way down, down, way, way on down

“”Way Down” is a song recorded by Elvis Presley. Recorded in October 1976, it was the last single released before his death on August 16, 1977.”

“The kingdom of god is within you because you ate it.”

He looks at the youth with wine-dark eyes, and smiles something other, something that makes him want to scream and run but stay and bare his neck, like prey before predator.

“Let me remind you only once, because as much as you claim to know her, you won’t ever, not really: no matter what mask she wears, whether it’s one of the friend, the lover, the weak or the strong, the one where she loves sweet drinks around a bonfire at night or works at a computer all day,” he pauses to grin, his eyeteeth winking like stars at night against blood-red lips.

“Behind it all, boy, there is a predator. There is nothing but the hunt for her. She hunts, she consumes. She is all-consuming, and nothing leaves her satiated for long. She will never be tamed. If she is on her knees, it is because she wills it, not you. How could anything but a creature like her be anything other than a maenad?” He leans forward, brushing a tear off the youth’s cheek, almost embracing him like a lover. “Do you want to know the secret, boy?” His lips press against the youth’s ear, tender as a butterfly on a flower.

“They are all like Ariadne. Conniving, brutal, and utterly mad.”

A story that’s been itching at the back of my brain for a little while now, and I decided to try and write it out, and went… interestingly. I guess it’s fitting to that tonight is the night the Basilinna visits the oxshed. (I think. I’m shit with dates, and everything feels so out of time anyways. Never ask for madness, children.)

Title is from Margaret Atwood’s Quattrocentro.