sometimes i want to hate You

sometimes i want to hate You
desire caught up in the synapses of my brain
screaming writhing wailing
i’m like a wolf without a pack
a maenad without a horrific Lord
of perverse pleasures, sweet like
dark honey, the blood of Melissa(e)

i wonder what i did wrong
did i not try hard enough? (i didn’t)
did i not have enough faith in You? (i didn’t)
am i the wrong kind of person for Your Mysteries? (maybe)

i sit here on the side lines, wracked with guilt
watching waiting hoping
maenads dressed in silks and furs
with faces of foxes and wolves that taunt me
in my sleep
(poisoned words filled with dreams and small deaths)

why do i not get up and join the dance?
what do i have to lose?

everything.

(i want to lose everything in You.)

If you see a lot of poetry here in the next few days, there’s a reason for that.

I’m having a lot of issues trying to discuss my issues without re-hashing what I’ve posted here a thousand times before. So instead I’ve turned to the arts to try to work through my problems. Any focus will probably be obvious early on, but I tag all of my posts so if you need a hint, go there. ;)

They’ll also be raw, unpolished, and generally word vomit from my brain. I’m not intending for these to be used anywhere, at least at the current moment.

Here goes, I guess. I need to start talking more about stuff in my spiritual life, or I feel like it’s going to wither and die.

Planning for the Longest Night

This time of year is possible my most favourite (and no, not just because of the presents. Although I do love presents!). As the years have gone by I have come to love it more and more, revelling as the snow falls deeper and the lights go up to ward off the darkness. Lights and spices and dark green things, sharp scents and wine, chocolate and alcohol, and taste of salt-soaked flesh in love are highlights for me. Over time I’ve gathered a lot of information on what different pagans (or witches) do for the holidays, and I’ve been especially interested in the traditions of the Germanic and Slavic tribes, although I have a very minor blood relation at best to them (Anglo-Saxon British roots). Then again, that’s never stopped a pagan before (although those who take things willy-nilly are given the side-eye).

But when the time comes to celebrate, I find myself lost and unplanned (always my problem), and I don’t do much save for attending the Cauldron’s “Up All Night: A Technopagan Winter Solstice”. I chat and watch tv, and stay up the whole night until sunrise. I also generally do some sort of liquid libation, either something homemade (last year was eggnog), or mead.

This year I want to do something different and put more effort into my celebration. Something that spurred me on was Ms. Graveyard Dirt’s “Holy Effin’ Supper” challenge. Now, I’ve always admired her blog (and if you haven’t checked it out yet, I encourage you to do so!) and the way she’s done things. In fact reading her blog helped me spur myself into doing my own thing, as it were. It was my introduction to Cailleach and Brighid (which later led to the Lady of the Stars thing). It’s inspired me to look at my own sovereignty, to look at the ways to full incorporate myself into my spirituality, rather than being a bystander. But I won’t lie and say my first thought was “Ooo! Ms. GD stuff! Oo, challenge!” I am a fiercely competitive motherfucker, even if I lose most of the time. Which isn’t the point of the challenge anyways, but still!

I began doing most of my research last week, first starting with my Métis roots. It’s one of the things I slowly came to terms with after really and truly finding out that part of my family was Métis, much more so than I was led to believe initially. It took me years to come to terms with, and I’m still coming to terms with it. But more on that later. I started researching not expecting to find much, as a lot of written Métis culture is amalgamated onto the French or Native side, or is only briefly written about with little detail. What I found initially was.. pretty surprising, I think.

For one, my father’s side of the family (Métis, French, and Irish) celebrated their family get-together on Christmas Eve. I didn’t realize that this was very traditional for French Canadian families, as well as Métis families. In fact many would feast, go to bed for a little while, and then get up for Midnight Mass. When that was over, they returned home to open gifts and some would stay up all night. Traditional foods includes tourtiere (a meat pie, commonly filled with pork?) and a buche de noel, basically an edible Yule log. I found the buche de noel actually pretty surprising to me, as I was planning on making one after getting the recipe from Ms. GD for her’s! So that synched up nicely.

Other things I have lined up: for Cailleach, a buttermilk gingerbread loaf recipe especially for Her (and me, but shhh) and homemade eggnog for family, the ancestors, and the Wild Hunt when it passes through.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to the grocery store to pick up the supplies and then to Value Village to pick up dishes, then when J gets off work we’ll be going to the mall to look for cooking dishes for me to bake in, because my household lacks them. :(

It’s certainly going to be an interesting couple of days!

First Snow

But would you have it any other way?
Would you have it any other way?

The Old Woman walks again tonight. She’s shaking out her sheets for the long winter stay, and the snow flies. Her hammer has already been out for a while now, as more and more mornings as I leave the house for college there is a sheen of frost covering everything from my car to the leaves on the trees. In fact almost two weeks ago I awoke to the thickest fog I’d seen in years, saw an injured crow hobble across the road remind me of the inconvenient truth of death and the impending Festival of the Dead on my drive home, piles of feathers gathered on the ground from some un-named bird who had probably been attacked either during the night before or during the day outside of my nation’s building, and felt the stirrings in my heart of a mad God with horns and a cup full of of blood wine.

Snow falls in thick clumps, wet and melting as it hits the roads but clings to the trees like a delicate cloth, something weaved by winter fairies beckoning their Queen home. And as one wicked witch put it, breaking the chains of the Summer months’ servitude.

Truthfully, I felt like a shit Summer Queen anyways. I didn’t do all that I set out to do, and still have shit to do that I keep putting off. And if I don’t get it done in the next couple of days, there will be no plants to summon back to life next Spring. Not the end of the world (I am a small but unique part), but still a bit depressing. Plus I laxed on things that I should’ve kept doing, and I feel that there are a couple of things I am going to have to back out of if I’m going to try and accomplish what I want to do and keep the proper focus. Not a bad thing I guess to do in the Winter months.

‘Cause she’s a cruel mistress
And a bargain must be made
But oh, my love, don’t forget me
When I let the water take me

It’s interesting how quickly my mood changed. One moment I was a soul-bull-roaring maenad, the next a witch who dances in the snow with wolves and longs to drown in the deep, dark sea. I don’t expect it to stay in one place for long, either. I seem to ping-pong back and forth between wanting to burn on the funeral pyre and lining my pockets full of stones to drown in the river. Both are ecstatic, heart-rendering screams for love (to love and to be loved), a connection with the Divine that is going to consume me heart, mind, and soul. What could be more perfect than that?

Must. Kick. Ass. Into. Gear.

I was just alerted that I know have 17 subscribers. I uh.. thanks? I wasn’t aware I was that interesting to keep track of. :)

I’m not entirely sure what to say about my life right now. I started college three weeks ago, and I’m enrolled in a librarian technician course. So, that’s pretty cool. Things are mostly going well, although I find assignments stressful (like this most recent batch) because I’m unsure of what to do and I want to get it completely perfectly right and that is very stressful okay.

Spiritually.. I don’t even know. I’ve spent the last month or so doing a lot of heavy family tree research, which more or less led me to embrace my Métis heritage more strongly, and also becoming more involved in Indigenous activism. As well as feminism and queer activism, to boot. I’ve started to more strongly realize that doing ritual in front of an altar isn’t my thing. Any pull I feel to do it is just to simply fit in with the rest of the pagan people I know. Perhaps it is laziness, and I consider that a possibility, but I think deep down my worship was always meant to be more practical (this isn’t meant to be an insult to those who do altar/shrine worship, so please don’t take it as such?) and alter (heh) my actions accordingly. Maybe this will change in the coming months with the Cailleach returning, because I do want to set up something to Her, but that’s about it.

The only thing standing in my way to accomplishing all of this is to actually get out there and do shit. :P

That’s.. hm.. about it, I suppose? I feel like I’m a lot more emotionally stable than I was several months ago. Although my emotions are still whacked out from time to time. :) But nothing major.

I hope everyone else is doing well! :D

They’ll take you places you didn’t want to go

While I was cleaning up my room, I found this quote written hastily on the back of an envelope for a book I had ordered two years ago:

They’ll take you places you didn’t want to go,
and see things you never wanted to see,
but be not afraid,
for they are there with you,
for everything.

I honestly have no idea why I wrote it down, or who originally said it, but it comes to me at a pretty poignant time right now.

I feel like I’m seeing, feeling, going, and knowing things right now I never wanted to even be near (and in some cases, again); heartbreak will do that to you. I don’t feel that a particular “they” led me here (and who knows? I could be wrong.), but at the same time it gives me comfort to know I’m not alone, that beings are standing witness to my pain, and are still encouraging me to live and experience and grow. All I want to do right now is curl up into a ball and cry, because everything reminds me of a person I can’t even contact right now, and that breaks me in ways I can’t even express. But at the same time I feel this compulsion to move forward, to try and build myself so I can withstand it and to not give up, and to use this almost as a lesson so that I’m better prepared for next time.

(Which doesn’t make it any easier really. It’s just comforting.)

Quotes and images that are meaningful or inspire me lately

“Maybe life has just cleared out all the things that weren’t working for you. Now you’ve got room to rebuild. Decide exactly what you want your life to look like and make that happen.” – Maryann Forrester to Tara Thornton on True Blood (Season 1, Episode 12: You’ll Be The Death Of Me)

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

- Bene Gessert Litany Against Fear from the Dune series

“The only people for me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to love, mad to talk, mad to be saved. The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” – Jack Kerouac

“One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.” – Vincent van Gogh

Three Solar Days (Cill Shifts and Solstice)

The next three days are going to be pretty packed for me. Monday evening is the start of the Cauldron Cill’s* group keeping shift that they do annually for the Solstice (along with other days during the year) which goes until Tuesday evening. All day Tuesday is the Summer Solstice, and I strive to at the very least celebrate the brightest and the darkest days/nights of the year. Then starting Tuesday evening is my personal Cauldron Cill shift, which I share with another person, that then goes to Wednesday evening. So, busy bee I am!

I’m going to start writing out a list of things I need to do and supplies to pick up, because I tend to put things off waaaay to close to the last minute, or well after, and I’m kind of tired of always having forgotten SOMETHING. This ties in with my last shift (which fell on the Dark Moon and Noumenia, as well as the beginning of the month!) wherein I got the Eight of Pentacles as one of the things I had to pay attention to in the coming month: basically, Do the Work and Pay Attention to Detail. (Also, ironically, I got The Hermit, which I still have to make a blog post about how that damn thing keeps showing up!)

So, what do you all plan on doing? Are you going to blog about it? :) Feel free to post links here if you wish so I can read them!

 

*The Cauldron has a Brighid Cill group that I am a part of. :)

Aphrodite’s Rhodophoria [2011]

There’s probably nothing like spending almost an hour bawling your eyes out in front of your shrine.

I didn’t celebrate the Rhodophoria the way many did. I wasn’t, and still am not, much in the way of celebrating festivals. I haven’t had enough spoons for weeks, even more so on Sunday. I don’t think She minded though. Or at least, I didn’t receive any sort of negative feedback afterwards.

I got the idea shortly before the festival to buy flowers and use each flower or bunch to represent one of my prayers for a person. The first two were centred around my love for other people, and asking Aphrodite for her help in those matters. The last bunch was for myself, which I think I really needed most of all, because I have so many issues with trying to love myself and living for myself.

I had a couple “breakthroughs” before and during the festival. One was finally getting over my fear of buying offerings and fearing they would “go to waste”. I actually went to two grocery stores before finally getting the damned flowers, because I couldn’t make up my mind and JUST DO IT. It came to me while I was walking in the mall, after having purchased LA Noire, and lamenting the high cost of flowers (although it ended up being not that high at all) and realizing, “Hey, I’m willing to throw away $40 on a game, but I can’t even buy $10 worth of flowers just to show how much I care?”. At that point I realizing how silly I was being, and went back to the first grocery store I had gone to and picked up the flowers.

The second was finally doing things from my heart, rather than by rote. My tears, my pain, and my words were genuine, and for all my forethought they still felt real. Reading off a list feels impersonal to me, and it makes the distance between what I’m doing that much farther. Doesn’t mean I won’t, however. Just that I’ll try and speak more from the heart when I say things, or try to memorize things enough that I can speak with full force behind my words, rather than having to concentrate on trying to say the right words. If that makes sense.

I ended up inviting Her into my dreams, if She chose to do so, to let me know anything. Interestingly enough, the only part of my dreams that I can remember involve me finding a dying tiny bird (a sparrow, maybe?) and running around trying to find a place that would take the bird and make him better. A couple times I remember thinking it was dead (or that I had accidentally crushed it in my hands), but then it would clutch my finger in it’s talons, or open it’s black little eyes to look at me. However I never did find a place, and that stream of the dream ended at a strip mall, having been taken there by my cousin and her boyfriend with my brother, and not finding a vet’s place (even though for some reason I had not brought the bird) and being incredibly distraught. (Also, for some reason I kept dreaming of a hot tub party full of teenagers, doing.. well.. what teenagers do. The last bit I had before waking up was not of me at all, but rather watching a boy and girl get in trouble because the dad came home or something, and they were heavily making out. Which was… weird.)

In the end, I was glad I did it. It broke barriers for me that I didn’t fully realize that needed to be broken, and what I did is slowly helping me heal, even if what I was originally wishing for doesn’t come true (which makes my heart hurt just thinking about it). I don’t think I’ll post publicly what I had originally written, only because it’s deeply personal even though I wrote it for a public audience.

Glittering-Minded deathless Aphrodite,
I beg you, Zeus’s daughter, weaver of snares,
Don’t shatter my heart with fierce
Pain, goddess,

But come now, if ever before
You heard my voice, far off, and listened,
And left your father’s golden house,
And came,

Yoking your chariot. Lovely the swift
Sparrows that brought you over black earth
A whirring of wings through mid-air
Down the sky.

They came. And you, sacred one,
Smiling with deathless face, asking
What now, while I suffer: why now
I cry out to you, again:

What now I desire above all in my
Mad heart. ‘Whom now, shall I persuade
To admit you again to her love,
Sappho, who wrongs you now?

If she runs now she’ll follow later,
If she refuses gifts she’ll give them.
If she loves not, now, she’ll soon
Love against her will.’

Come to me now, then, free me
From aching care, and win me
All my heart longs to win. You,
Be my friend.

~ Sappho

Immortals

Immortals is an upcoming 2011 fantasy-action drama film directed by Tarsem Singh and starring Henry Cavill, Freida Pinto, and Mickey Rourke. The film was previously named Dawn of War and War of the Gods before being officially named Immortals and is loosely based on the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and the Titanomachy.

Years after the Titanomachy, the Titan Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) declares war on humanity. He searches for the Epirus Bow, a legendary weapon created by the war god Ares, which will allow him to free the rest of the Titans from Tartarus and take revenge on the Olympians who brought about their downfall. In accordance with ancient laws, the gods are unable to take a side in the war between Hyperion and humanity. It is left to a peasant named Theseus (Henry Cavill), chosen by Zeus (Luke Evans) and accompanied by the priestess Phaedra (Freida Pinto) and a slave (Stephen Dorff), to protect his homeland and save the gods.

(info via Wikipedia.org)

Totally not sure how I feel about this movie. It looks like they’re trying to cash in on the comic book-esque style of Zack Snyder, and it really runs the risk of being over-used in such a short amount of time (especially with Sucker Punch just recently being in theatres). On the other hand, I really want to support the idea of getting more ancient Greek stories out there… although after reading the plot and watching the trailer, it looks like it’s a mash-up created by the writers, rather than a re-telling of any myth. Especially the Minotaur bit, which is supposed to be one of the big scenes in the movie. I looked through the cast list already, and neither Dionysos nor Ariadne are mentioned (instead it seems Phaedra replaces her sister in this movie)… which just kind of rankles me in all the wrong ways.

I think I might end up seeing this at the cheap seats, because while I’m still curious to see the movie play out, I have no desire to pay $10 on this style of movie that at best may not horribly mess up everything up.