Thoughts, Practice and Resistance

I’ve been thinking lately, sparked by a comment made by Sannion in one of my posts, about why I am so resistant to regular practice. I mean, I get envious in the way of “I want to do that too!” when other polytheists speak about their altars and doing daily practice. I start thinking up ideas in my head of what I can do. And yet when I look at my own little measly altar that hasn’t been touched in over two months.. I feel dread. When I kneel before it, I feel nothing. It’s actually really depressing.

I haven’t talked about it openly because well.. I feel like a hypocrite. I talk on public forums about myself, my practice, and what I think.. yet I’m not really doing anything. Why is it I feel this way? Why do I feel such resistance to actually getting down and doing the work? Whats wrong with me?

Because of my resistance I haven’t moved in my spiritual practice (or gone anywhere at all ready) in years. Even sitting down to try meditation makes me want to break out into a sweat. Am I one of those people who needs the entheogens to crack open? Yet I don’t want to do that either. But at least I know the cause of that resistance: other people’s opinions.

There is a strong vein of resistance to entheogens to induce mind-altering states in paganism (or at least polytheism, from what I’ve encountered). Only the brave I think stand up and say “it’s just as valid”. And I agree with them. When people talking of doing shamanism, and then decry the use of entheogens.. what do they think their forefathers of shamanism did? Entheogens are but one tool in their skill set.

The other part of it is offline, from my friends. To make a long story short, a friend of mine became heavily addicted to drugs when he was very young, at 14-15. One by one, the rest of us have delved into that world, but thankfully pulled out. I am the “last one” to do it. And really I think its created an image around myself (because I used to be very anti-drug), and that I feel I will be “less” if I choose to partake. So if I do, I feel I will have to be very secretive of what I do.

And maybe that ties in with the first part. I mean I think there are a lot of people out there in paganism who do use entheogens properly.. yet don’t tell anyone because there is such a negative stereotype surrounding it.

At the very least maybe I can over-come this boundary. We’ll see.

(This post is open to discussion. Seriously, if you have any words of wisdom you can part here, please do.)

Dionysos and Gender fluidity

The following was originally a post to the Hellenistai forum, entitled “The Gods and Gender?”. However by the time I finished the post, I realized that it really didn’t answer the question at all. For all that I talk about Dionysos, I really haven’t had a more.. personal relationship with him, I think, to answer that question. But since I spent a lot of time on it, I decided to re-post it here!

A weird connection. Or someone saying hello?

So, on the first game night me and my friends had (sadly the ONLY one, so far) I was researching Spider for an odd reason.

Now this may not be so odd to you guys who know Her (or Him, as the case may be). Wednesday was the game night. And Spider has some connections with Hermes. And Wednesday is a day some followers to him dedicate to this god, due to his connections with Woden, I believe.

I wasn’t really giving it much thought, tbh. I’m a knowledge-whore (rather than a library-whore or a book-whore, methinks). When I want to know something, I research it to death. And when I was looking up stuff on Spider, I delved deeper. I was curious. “Who are you, little black thing with eight legs? Where are you scuttling off to?”

And so I followed. I’m not going to lie and tell you guys I had some big spiritual revelations (from what I’ve heard about Spider, she isn’t necessarily all that big on the flash-boom-revelations when not in trance, it seems) or anything like that. But I think its something akin to Dionysos’ little tune that has me coming back each time. And mayhaps he is pointing me in the direction of Spider?

Because just now, after looking at some of sannion ’s post on her, I feel like someone dropped a tiny lightbulb on my head. Eight is a sacred number to her and Hermes. And apparently fours. When I got off my computer to join my comrades in a game of cards, during the first came I believe I had two cards in my hands, the four of clubs and the four of spades. And instantly I thought “Spider”. I don’t know why I did. At the time I hadn’t seen anything particularily relevant to Spider and numbers (or anything that stuck in my head at least) nor any connection to card decks. But it just happened and I stored it away for later masticating (that thing that cows do when they chew their food for long periods of time).

Just now I thought: “What if that was a sign from Spider? Saying: “I’m here” ?”

Universe: *drops tiny lightbulb*

Me: …. Oh.

I should also note that earlier tonight I was contemplating boundaries while researching Spider, and once again affirmed the thought that Dionysos is a god of boundaries and breaking them… however it is more breaking the boundaries we HAVE rather than the ones we already BROKE. I’ve broken boundaries of gender, sexuality, academia, spirituality, relationships (seriously, you people have no idea what kind of fanfiction I read), gaming, etc. But I have a lot more boundaries to break. And maybe thats why Spider is crawling her way into my life. Spiders ick me. That is a boundary I’m not so willing to break.

“Say good bye to that boundary, Nykti.”

“…. D: ”