
Realization
With all that I’ve been doing of late, I took the pop up 10×10 I used for faires and set it up in the backyard with the help of Rebecca. That’s my little temple. It’s still being charged up, and I’m still figuring things out, but I have used it for one ritual. I like to sit out there when it’s not too hot.
Last night I was sitting in this Templette to Nothing with Neestah the dog roaming nearby, when a vision hit me. It was like a waking nightmare: trapped in the tent, surrounded by vipers, unable to call for help because my phone was in the house charging. One crawled onto me, and I remembered how I used to hunt snakes, how to grab it. But something told me it would only bite me, that I would be too slow, even as I calculated the moment to reach out and strike.
As I was walking away to put Neestah up I realized this wasn’t just a daydream; it was too powerful, too real. I realized it was yet another attack. So, I backed up, grabbed my Algiz rune and water, and did a quick reinforcement of the protections. I’ll go out and do it properly again in a minute.
I have a new song, Loki Took A Bride (True Story), that I’m going to mangle live at ArchonStl. The guy I’m going to play with has good language and is very well educated. The song is written in my ethnic background idiolect, which I’ll do. I knew he was going to attack things like the word ain’t in the song. Write on cue.
I am not insulted. I’m amused, and I think allowing Loki’s perspective in the song be more formal suits (for all in the vision Loki gave me he’s less proper) because evidence suggests his mother might have been a woman skald. A powerful person; it would stand to reason he’d have a good education. Also, it sets the two voices in the song apart.
These experiences after being claimed by, oh, every pantheon there is, and the constant need to defend myself, got me thinking about “claiming” – especially how it’s manifested in my own family. My grandfather, when I was small, was an amazing storyteller. I’d giggle and laugh while he came at me with the tale of the giant’s big green toe. His tales could make us all laugh, filling the room with joy.
But then, as he’d tell it, Jesus “found” him. Claimed is more like it. Overnight, those wonderful stories died. From then on, the only story he had was his conversion: how he’d been zapped from one side of the church to the other like a bolt of lightning, an experience that, to be honest, sounded more like an alien abduction encounter. He dove into the Bible, sold off Grandma’s things when she’d leave to visit family, and preached endlessly. He was joyful, sure! Inside. Twisted around his new lord and religion.
My mother’s sister and her husband followed a similar path. They were shallow, but at least friendly when I was little. Then they, too, were “saved.” That superficial friendliness transformed into outright social climbing. If they were already inclined that way, it just became worse.
It was as if both my grandfather and my aunt and uncle were given “prism break”… Black Mass… Dionysius’s Black Drink… The Elixir of Nine Stars… I have found a lot of historical names to describe the drink Shemyaza would give… a substance or energy that twists and binds. In the name of God they knew joy but there was something wrong hidden behind a mask of praise and love for the Lord.
But here I am, also “claimed.” I do mean claimed, too. I walked right into the trap of which the story (when told properly) takes about three hours to tell. (No one has head the fortitude to hear it to the end yet, which is bad for me but what are ya gonna do.) It’s the difference of night and day.
I have joy… well. I always TRIED to be joyful, but I’ve never been carefree the way others have been. It’s not in my nature. So that seriousness deep down in side of me coupled with the silliness of my other half has risen up, and the things about me that lift others seems to be stronger. I take even *more* joy in rising people up. My stories, my songs – those vital parts of who I am – haven’t been taken away. Quite the opposite. As if a voice in my head confirmed it, they’ve been “returned.”
I’m suffused with rhyme. I am permeated with color. My wings flitter in joy at things. I hold girlie time breakfasts with honey laced smoothies just to hang out with Frigg. I really should figure out how to have a makeup session with Freya. And oh! If only you could have seen the fantastic thing with the runes that Odin showed me the other day. And these are just the big guys.
There are the little ones people have forgotten that have things to tell. Ones I haven’t met. Yesterday was Loki’s Day so I did a dance for the small ones (as I call them) and found myself in a little boat in the water by a beach. I was approached by two identical women coming from either side. As per usual, one brought her infant. “Pearl,” she said, and I realized I was being told the infant’s name. This happens to me a lot. I am often brought babies the small ones have. I have no fucking clue why, but I coo over them just the same. So far it’s been only girl babies that have been presented, although I did see a small boy once at his mother’s side.
These two women had been covered in fishing nets and grime. I cleared them both of the divine pitch at the same time because, I dunno, there was only two so why not. But I took in too much and literally doubled over physically as my astral body retched it out. I could taste the sea water.
The woman to my right was apologetic, and I told her no; it was my fault for taking in too much. I smiled as I finished clearing them, dancing brighter more and more as I uncovered their true beautiful selves. And I wonder if I didn’t just meet two incarnations of Pretty Polly or whatever they call her. And I think, well. I’d always wanted to go to the Caribbean, if that’s where I was.
And that’s the difference. I take such JOY in this. In watching them rise. The music and stories are a fantastic consolation prize, and I do want my music to rise up. It would be great to be somewhat popular. But when I help one of the small ones. Or a deity… or my friend’s chicken… it’s something that brings me pleasurable joy.
I never saw that in my family when they were claimed by God.
Maybe I’ll get to pull soul tar from living people someday. It’s important for the craft. I admit I’ve been impatient to get to that point.
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