This blog includes but won’t be limited to themes of generational abuse, family history, language, visions, wishes, and Medicine of course. The wyrd. Sometimes there might be academic things.
This is an ongoing story about a mermaid.
She’s not a little mermaid, except inside where it counts. She’s actually quite large despite various diets, workout routines, and starvation plans. But like the Little Mermaid she left the water to walk on land. Her mortal life is spent walking on broken glass, leaving blood from the cuts as she travels. When the waves crashed in on her, and she realized her only hope was to return to the sea.
I didn’t want to turn to sea foam without rescuing our family lore from fading away. I also had been very wounded spiritually, emotionally, psychologically throughout my life. That was how this blog and podcast began. I needed to talk it out to heal, and there was no one to listen but empty air.
I have been diving into family and ethnic lore, supernatural hijackings, and remembering more and more as I do this. I’ve come to realize that all was not as it was made to seem growing up. There were lies. I prefer the truth.
I’m just a mermaid from a barrier island with Medicine and Wyrd people in the family tree branches, royalty on a few of the others (not lying), and a famous preacher somewhere in the middle (that is also truthful).
I walk a shamanistic path. This means that I work with spirits.
To me, the spirits are just like you, me, and your dog. They’re people and animals. They come from their own eco-system. I don’t *see* them as separate from you and me just because they’re made differently. I have my prejudices. That isn’t one of them.
I encourage hobgoblins under my stove and honor the ancestors. I have a famous (or infamous, depending on who you are) spirit-spouse. I have worked with mountain rock spirits, Odin, Thor, Freya, Frigg, House Mengloth, Archangel Michael, Tlazolteotl, Apollo, celestial dragons, a certain salmon, a gigantic frog spirit, and others. I have no kindred to do ritual work with, and my direct way of meeting the spirits unsettles people anyway. When I choose to take on something, I approach as I hope best suits to the matter. I’m interested in getting the work done, not staying inside a metaphysical gated community.
Through my journey I came to understand that the gods are not “gods” in the way we’ve been taught. There are no aspects of gods. There are only people and parasites who pretend. We’ll encounter a small spirit or a parasite before we’ll encounter the ones called gods. Woe be unto you if you can’t tell them apart. I have become the most ironic of atheists.
I live in the Sun, and I stand on the Moon.
I have followed the soul of my mate through all of history’s suns. I’m not saying I’m a goddess, nor am I saying I’m special. I’m saying this is my spiritual truth. It has been an incredible joy when, stepping back into academia as a way to learn more about my path and family history, I found steps like mine across history. However…
I firmly believe that academic study and personal spirituality are separate journeys. One can be a tour guide, but the other walks the territory.
It’s possible to have a spiritual or religious path while writing material that can further mankind’s place and understanding – but only if you set aside your rose-colored glasses. It’s a must to separate your belief from the facts. Too often scholars did not do that in the past, and the damage has been nearly irreparable.
I also find it extremely hypocritical that a devout Christian (example only) can approach a scholarly topic that may or may not be related to their spiritual practice, but someone like myself who touches the unseen world is labelled unreliable. That to be taken seriously, we must hide our personal approach to the cosmos. That others like me have lost their academic standing when their proven finds were, in fact, inspired by their gifts. (Case in point: the woman who found a hidden Bible in monastery ruins but was ruined herself when it came out that a ghost told her where to look. Who cares, if the item was legit?!?)
Spearcarrier’s Ghostfox is K. J. Joyner
River Denizen of this Word LakeShe graduated from UNF with a BA in anthropology and a minor in history. Her first publication was in 1988, when “Unicorn” appeared in Trouvère’s Laureate. She writes comics, sometimes short stories, and even sings when the mood strikes. As for the skaldic path of scopping… let’s just say Odin may not have chosen wisely when he tapped her for it — he was probably more than a little drunk — but she accepted the calling anyway. These days she juggles it all while fending her spirits away from the freshly baked muffins
- ORCA 0009-0006-8484-7349
- BA Anthropology, History minor, University of North Florida, 2004
- Proud member of the Viking Society for Northern Research
- Metaphysical Life Experience: Life has been wyrd for over 40 years.
- Determined to focus on the Ulcha way.
My Pagan, Shaman and Medicine Lineage (the Wyrd Relatives for short)
- Third paternal great-grandfather Murray V. “Doc” Charles practiced Medicine in his way to pioneers. (He also played violin.) He walked on in 1898, but his art stayed in the family.
- On down to paternal Great-grandma Lucile Charles, who had been put into Indian school but made her way back home in adulthood. Somehow the ways found her, as they do, and she was known to do midwifery. She walked on in 1976.
- In another separate Germanic branch (that actually raised my father), paternal great-grandma Fannie Woolard’s moods affected the weather. She raised Dad on a small island until she was told she couldn’t. There was farming, and fishing, and respect for spirits and trees. She walked on in 1967.
- On another limb in the pagan path, Aunt Nancy assisted local law enforcement with finding people through the 80’s.
- My father was not a practicing shaman/Medicine man, but he passed things to my brother and me. Dad walked on in 2024.
- Which just leaves me. Taught by experience, kidnapped by spirits, trying to adapt to new ways of thinking and restore old ways of being.
My spirit partner has never “taught” me academic information. He knows that I have to find the answers, that I have a drive to back up my data with references and evidence. I’m not playing fantasy role-play here. What research work I do is serious, for all I’m crafty with the way I tell it.
I can’t say I’m going to make a difference, but in all things that I have hands to lend to I aim to try. I will pitch pull your ills if I can. I will write about that issue if it’s productive. I will write that poem, I will sing that song, and I will continue to put out pages for my comic books.1
- Oh, by the way. I use the word “Indian” frequently. My father used the word. The rest of my family used it. There are quite a few nations out there with the word “Indian” in their name. Do not think for a minute your lecturing me about what words I’m allowed to use is going to change my mind. It’s only going to make you look stupid. I do not recommend. ↩︎