I’ve been listening to this song a lot the past week and a half, and something occurred to me yesterday when my mom was visiting. (When I say yesterday, I mean Wednesday, because sleep is for the weak.) She and I were chatting, and inspiration hit me as it often does when we talk.
Eve is a figure in Judeo-Christian mythology: Adam’s second wife, she brings the downfall of humanity because she gives him an apple. Or something; it never seemed very logical to me and definitely smacks of misogyny.
I started giving water to my ancestors/Mighty Dead this week. I don’t know; it just seemed time.
I’ve been dealing with a lot of ancestor stuff in the past months, and there’s this sense of release. I had so much trouble connecting with dad’s side of the family, but since he cut me out of his will, our relationship is better. Money doesn’t sour it anymore.
Part of it, of course, is to just have a place to think about it out loud. I suppose I could use a journal, but a journal doesn’t have commenters who throw lightbulbs at me, helping me refine my idea. And there are dangers associated with keeping your shit public, but I find the benefits outweigh those cons. (And I completely agree with Ms. Dirty that the only real cheaters are those who rip you off.)
That said, there is also an importance to sharing the work. Obviously everyone on an intense spiritual path is going to need to do some work; this path I’m building isn’t for public consumption. Well, it is, insofar as I sort of have a need to share knowledge with others, especially regarding Godslavery as there is so little of it out there, and I know there are seekers like me who search for those sorts of answers. But what I mean is my path is not going to be a path where people who are “sabbat Pagans” can sort of dip in and participate; it’s a personal path, and while I encourage people to be inspired by what I write and put out there, there are no laypeople here. Just me.
Paths with laypeople are great. I think Paganism needs more of them. This one just isn’t.
And while I have the eventual goal of publishing a book, or two or three, on some sort of path of my own creation, on my own take of my own corner of Pagandom, that’s far in the future and I haven’t the foggiest what sort of shape that book or the path it’ll be about will take.
Oft-times I come to the conclusion that I’m just blogging to hear myself whistle in the dark.
But no, there are reasons for blogging, even if I cannot articulate or even think of them. I know that some good is coming of this all, somewhere, somewhen.
I heard about PantheaCon 2012 (no, I did not attend though I wanted to), picked up my ten-foot pole, put down my ten-foot pole, and walked away calmly. (Wording stolen from a friend.)
Because apparently, I cannot leave this subject alone. Fair enough; I fight for Social Justice, even so far as to worship two deities for Whom SJ is Their purview (UPG, for the record). And I’m being prodded by someOne to write this post this week.
(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, The Wild Hunt has a few goodlink roundups. One of the best links is this one by Jonathan Korman of Solar Cross.)
Basically what I want to talk about in relation to this specific event and the year’s worth of conversation that preceded it following last year’s debacle is discrimination.
It’s been floating around, not only in the blogosphere but in conversations I’ve been having, that it’s religious discrimination to ban Dianics from having cisgendered rituals. Or, if not that specifically, if we ask Dianics to have cis-only rituals outside the main program, then it’s a slippery slope to all sorts of religious discrimination.
I’m putting down my what the fuck hammer for a moment and approaching this calmly. Calmly for me, anyway.
Since choosing a name, one that literally means I’m becoming the spider, I discovered some new music (really the wrong word, there — the music existed before, so it’s not new; just new to me).
Specifically an UK band, and I can send my thanks out to Ms. Dirty for posting a song of theirs on Tumblr so I could have a listen. Bought their album and discovered a song called Arachne’s Song.
It really spoke to me — aside from the music being hauntingly beautiful, the lyrics tug at strands deep within myself. Specifically,
I may be fragile, fighting through
But they say silk is bulletproof
I may be frightened facing you
Still I spin out sideways from the truth
and
And sudden do my colours re-appear
And you cry out as I’m crawling ever near
Time’s too late to allow old regrets
I devoured those that I loved the best
Some of you may have noticed that I’ve chosen my name for this blog and all of Pagandom (which, I think, is the word I shall be using for the erstwhile pagan community; it’s shorter than “Wizarding World” and doesn’t hold as many possible copyright issues).
I went with Spinner. There were two yes comments to it on the post about names, which may not seem like a lot but I was already leading heavily towards Spinner anyways. That, plus what my mom said, cinched it.
You won’t have to spell it out so often as the others.
You are a spinner of tales, anyway.
In Dutch, you become the spider, which is a great metaphor for you.
Some spiders are poisonous; some are not. Only those who come to know you well will be able to figure out where you are on the poison spectrum.
Spider silk is the strongest material on the planet (allegedly). I just saw a film about spidergoats, who have been injected with the gene that makes the spider silk that’s stronger than Kevlar and then produce the necessary protein in their milk. The film, *Playing God*, did not say what happens to mammals that drink the milk, but it’s interesting to speculate.
Her words definitely gave me some food for thought, especially playing into the whole idea I was toying with a few months ago about snake venom being in my veins.
What effect do these sorts of things have on our genetics? What will we pass on to our children? Will we ever know?
Only one post so far, but there should be another one on next Sunday. The link to this blog and the others (as I make them) will be appearing on the right-hand sidebar, somewhere.
Now to figure out a name for Manannan’s so I can create it and post by Wednesday….
Funny anecdote about creating this blog: I tried to make it landofmilkandhoney.blogspot.com, but it said that was unavailable. So I hyphenated land and of, and it worked. I decided to check out the blog that did have the URL I wanted, and got redirected to this:
I have Aspberger’s. Like Star, I haven’t had a diagnosis from a doctor (for various reasons)*, but I have taken the DSM-IV test for Aspberger’s and scored about as high as you could score, pretty much, for being on the Autism Spectrum.
The reasons I have for not getting a diagnosis are pretty much outlined in Star’s post, but I’ll sum up here regardless: because I’m an adult, non-male person, I present differently from what’s considered the “autism norm” (10-year-old, non-verbal, emotionally unavailable male child). On top of that, autistic people who are assumed to be women are less free to be themselves — people expect men to be non-verbal and emotionally unavailable, but for gods’ sake if you’re a woman (or assumed to be) and not willing to let everyone touch you you’re a frigid man-hating lesbian. Not that there’s anything wrong with that last part. Point being, women and women-presenting people are not free to be what’s called emotionally unavailable, nor are they free to not touch everyone. Quirky little assigned-male children are more acceptable than quirky little assigned female children (to paraphrase Star).
This is what shows up in Zemanta when I say “Katje” a bunch in my post. (Photo credit: Wijbe Visser)
This is not a post on the power of names. I wish it were; it’s a favourite subject of mine. But I fear I do not have the words in my head for such a post. Not yet, anyway.
No, this post is a bit more mundane — but I hope y’all will be able to help me anyway.
I’m a writer. You probably know this, if you read this blog — you most likely know my name, as a writer and in my daily life, is Katje van Loon. (Well I still post from the account that lists me as Katje, so it should be obvious.)
However, the name I go by here — technically, at least — is Morag. Morag no-last-name because I’m trying to find one.
Katje van Loon writes fiction and poetry and blogs about her life as a writer and various issues she’s political about. She’s out as a pagan author, but she doesn’t talk about her paganism that much; mostly she just lets it come through in her books and poems.
Morag no-last-name currently blogs about being a pagan, and occasionally devotional poetry, and is thinking that someday she may want to write a non-fiction book about her little corner of pagandom. Morag wants to become one of those pagans that a lot of people read and maybe find inspiration from.
Delusions of grandeur? Maybe.
Regardless. Katje and Morag are the same person, and they are both okay with people knowing they’re the same person — but they don’t want to use the same names. They want the fiction and the non-fiction to be somewhat separate. The connection between the two won’t be hidden, just not blatantly exposed.
Morag Grayheart was my full name, but now I feel grayheart doesn’t fit anymore. It fit before, but it doesn’t fit the person I’m becoming. As a witch, priestess, [eventually] druid.
Morag stays, because I was instructed to take the name by my first patron, and I cannot imagine being anything else.
But Morag needs a last name. As much because she’d like to grab a new email for it and open up another WordPress account to shift this blog to as anything else.
So, without further rambling and pretentious windbaggery, here are some ideas I’ve been tossing around.
You may notice a pattern. You’ll probably figure out what it is if you have some understanding of Dutch [or German].
If you don’t, here are the translations:
Spin = spider.
Vergift = poison.
Heks = witch.
“But Morag, you’re terrified of spiders!”
Well, yes, that’s true. And it’s a fear I must get over. I think that a good way to do that is to become what I fear. To fuck my monsters instead of fighting them. To become Batman.
Also, I am a witch and I am going down the poison path. So I thought those might be good options too.
I’m leaning towards Spinvergift and Spinner, but I wanted to hear what y’all think first.
A while back I purchased T. Thorn Coyle‘s Devotional Dance DVD so I could start working through Evolutionary Witchcraft and actually know what the heck I was doing. (I can’t learn dance moves from a book. I just can’t.)
It arrived right before I left for Orlando, so I promised myself I’d start with dancing in the morning as soon as I got back. I got back and my back went kaplooey, so now I’ve been bedridden for over a month, thinking I wish I could do those dances.
Well now I can!
That’s right. I’m finally feeling well enough to do some devotional dances in the morning.
I decided to start with the Triple Soul: Sticky One, Shining Body, and Sacred Dove. I did the Sticky One dance for the full time Thorn did on the DVD, but for Shining Body and Sacred Dove I had to stop a little earlier, as I was getting winded.
The result: I feel awesome.
See?
I’m freaking glowing. You can’t even see my acne. (Which apparently is supposed to stop with high school, but my body never got that memo.)
There’s a small pain in my back, but it’s nothing. I haven’t even taken a percoset or a muscle relaxant today, and already I feel like I could conquer the world.
I feel intimately connected to my body (Sticky One), very clear-headed (Shining Body), and thrumming with the life of the universe (Sacred Dove). This is the best I’ve felt in over a month.
Scratch that. Several months.
I have a rehearsal at 2pm today, and I actually feel confident about it. About my body doing what I need it to do, when I need it to do it.
I think this means the verdict on Devotional Dance — just as something to do that I enjoy, nevermind the awesome connectedness to all life that I feel — is GREAT SUCCESS.
