“You Tie Your Arm and Ask Me If I Want to Drive.”

I draw lines in the sand all the time when I’m on this path and every time I try to stick to that line, I’m forced to revise whatever line I’m drawing. This is vastly irritating to me because I like my lines in the sand and I like sticking to them. However, there are extreme moments where those lines get blurred, erased, or I’m forced to step over them. And I will absolutely fucking admit that I hate having to do that. It’s not just that I like sticking to whatever the line I’m drawing is supposed to be about, but that I like being able to say, I will believe X, Y, and Z but I won’t go any further with this. I’m already pretty insane with all of this shit and something new may put me over the edge. So, no further. However, as time has gone by, I’ve realized that whatever line in the sand that I’m drawing is beginning to become a sort of personal affront to my OTHERS™ and they’ll fuck that shit up to prove a point.

Yesterday, they fucked my shit up again.

I know quite a few Tumblr users who work with the whole music oracle. I’ve always been interested in such a thing, but I’ve never figured any of my OTHERS™ would use this music oracle thing. I’ve had it happen where songs that I’m supposed to use during my Magical Cure Search entries have come on, songs that I had been trying to remember but failed because my memory is filled with nonsense things like ring-tailed lemurs from Madagascar. (A family trait is being able to distinguish places from photographs, or in my mother’s case, animals and where they are in the world from photographs or TV programs.) But, on three separate occasions now, OTHERS™ have pulled out a song that was particularly appropriate for them in varying ways.

In the first instance, we had Hekate using the hit song, Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye, to hit me up. She was trying to hint at me that she and I had been working together before. It took me a while – with some help from a friend – to figure out what the message meant. But as time went by, it really helped to solidify our working relationship together. If I hadn’t heard that song, I often wonder if I would have been so dedicated to Magical Cure Search and the shadow work with the ex-husband. I don’t think I would have been, honestly. But she showed up and she pulled a song into my consciousness to (A) identify past lives together and (B) to help me move forward with the work I needed doing for my ex-husband.

The second instance, I haven’t discussed openly. I haven’t wanted to admit it, but it appears that Gran Bwa has been using Radioactive by Imagine Dragons to get my attention. This song first came on the radio the night after I began dreaming about him. I like the song – it’s a good one. It has a very nice rhythm and I enjoy the message. And I didn’t necessarily realize, at fist, who the hell was talking through this song. However, the alternative message, the one from Gran Bwa, was a warning. I haven’t heard it since I realized that I was being warned about what Papa Legba wanted of me. He was telling me to “wake up.” And of course, I didn’t so I was kind of blind-sided with Papa Legba explained what the hell he wanted from me.

Just because you hear the message doesn’t necessarily mean that you understand the message.

Yesterday, I was driving home from work and studiously not seeing the spirit world or the astral world. I’ve been very conscientiously ignoring anything “out of the ordinary” on my way home since I watched a bush stand up, stretch, spin around a bit, and then lay back down. It was all very normal, almost like I was watching a dog find a more comfortable place to lay down. However, I was seeing a bush and told myself, “NOPE.” Since then, I’ve been less than interested in anything astral related. I have not wanted to do a fucking thing I’ve been asked to do. And by golly, I’ve been studiously ignoring everything spirit related around me: the land spirit; the girl in white who took up residence on the staircase in my apartment complex, the deer spirit eyeballing me from work who wants more apples to feed it; everything. I don’t really give a shit what the hell happens or what’s going on around me. I am a big bucket of nope.

So, to get my attention, my OTHERS™ played around with my CD player. I had been listening to Ten Years Gone, the Best of Everclear 1994-2004 since Saturday. I turned the CD player on, ready to hear their rendition of I Will Buy You a New Life when Strawberry came on instead. I was a little taken aback because, you know, I was two songs away from that one. But, maybe I screwed up and forgot where I had actually left off. No. No. Of course not. Sekhmet was fucking around with shit and wanted me to listen to the song. It’s a very nice message, oh yes.

“Don’t fall down now. You will never get up.”

This message, luckily, is far more easy to decipher than Gran Bwa’s message.

I’m at the point where I just want to say, “fuck it all,” and leave this life. I don’t want to be Papa Legba’s mouth piece. I don’t want to watch as he maneuvers the pieces again and again and again to get what he wants out of my life. I don’t want to be Sekhmet’s mouth piece. I don’t want to watch as she molds me into something that is more amenable and easier for her to use. I know the reasons for the two of them fucking my day up and prancing around like loons, laughing uproariously as I slap them with “human concerns” as to why I can’t do whatever they are asking. I get it. I understand. It doesn’t mean that I particularly like being manipulated by gods, lwa, or anything else on this fucking planet.

And it really doesn’t help when they say, “These are silly, human things.”

But that’s the point in why I bring them up in the first place. I’m human. Things are supposed to be fair. Things are supposed to be easy. Things are supposed to be smooth. I’m supposed to hate my job and hate my life, retire at 65 and fucking hate the rest of my life some more. I’m supposed to get bitter and angry and foul the older I get and you know what? I can’t fucking do any of that shit because I’m so busy with my religion that I know being bitter probably goes against the living in ma’at thing and FUCKING HELL, GODSDAMNIT IT ALL.

We all go through hours, days, weeks, and months where we just can’t handle all of the “woo” going on in our lives.

I can’t handle the “woo” going on in my life, but if I stop even for a second now, I’ll lose it.

So, what’s more important here?

The path?

Me?

Their wants and desires?

My wants and desires?

As I’ve been known to say, our wants and desires don’t figure into this.

And now is no exception.

Trickster Deities.

As I’ve said before, I’m a deity collector. I never wanted to be. I remember starting out and being new and excited, but never wanting more than a few relationships with pointed gods, namely the relationship I have with Sekhmet. I never wanted to incorporate anyone else into my practice, in all honesty; I wanted to be a “Sekhmet kid for life.” And while I am that, I have had my “phone number listed.” Due to this, I don’t usually have a lot of choice in whether or not gods come a-calling, although I have a lot of choice in whether or not I allow them to hang about or I actively begin cultivating relationships with them. Here are the stories of two “trickster deities” and my choices therein.

A good year and a half prior to my relationship with Hekate, Hermes had been pulling his King Troll Extraordinaire routine with me. The Sister began working with him in late 2010. Her relationship is exceedingly UPG and one of the items that he had requested of her was to pick up feathers in her path. Now, normally, feathers aren’t a huge omen thing as birds are, well, everywhere. However, this girl finds the most random feathers in her path at times of the year when such feathers should not be out and about. Around the time she began this little exercise, he began sending me feathers here and there. Now, I knew it was just a game to him – I would go over to her home and pay my respects to her Hermes altar, “hear” things from him on her behalf, and whatnot. But even with all that communication going on, I was always very sure to tell him, “Thank you but no. I am a solid Kemetic.” Er, well, if we ignore the whole lwa thing.

I think he started really trolling me because he found my stance in regards to Hellenic deities to be amusing. I am not a fan of theirs. When I began working with Hekate, it took me a lot less time than I had expected to get used to the difference in “godphone frequencies.” This, however, opened me up to more trolling from Hermes. The moment I put up an altar for the working I would do with Hekate, he began coming over on a fairly regular basis.

Now, while he has a lot of serious qualities, the Hermes I tended to see and hear was not very serious at all. It’s all a game to him, really, with me. “Let’s see what she does this time,” sort of a thing. I tend to view it as a child’s desire for attention, meaning that they will do both good things and bad things to gain that attention. In Hermes’s mind and my own, I began to see what he would do to me as a kind of “any attention is good attention.” So, when he began ice-skating around my house or tap-dancing in my kitchen screaming, “tea for two, two for tea,” I did my best to ignore it.

One would assume that with a god making themselves known like this then the next step would be to cultivate a relationship. And in some instances, I have to agree. However, not in my instances. When it was recommended that I begin working with Persephone for other shadow work items, I refused. When Hermes showed up with messages from Athena, I said no. It’s not that I am offering them disrespect – in a way, I am very much flattered by the willingness of these deities to work with me. However, Hellenic deities and I are not a matched pair. I have never had a thing for deities outside of the Kemetic pantheon, even as a child, aside from a very serious and odd obsession with deities of death, tricksters, and destructive deities. Even with my desires to know more about these types of deities, I still prohibit myself within my pantheon.

Er. Aside from the lwa thing.

After I refused Athena and Hekate packed up, I can honestly say that Hermes’s influence in my life has faded. Even when speaking about him with the Sister, he has not shown up. There have been no feathers in my path. I have not seen him ice-skating around my house, I have not lost my keys from the hook they hang on, and I can honestly say that I believe his trolling behavior is at an end.

Of course, this whole path stuff isn’t so easy as “farewell.” Oh, no, no, no. Just because one trickster leaves does not mean that another one won’t show up.

Towards the end of King Troll Extraordinaire’s reign in my life, I began getting extensive “feels” from Djehuti. One would assume that I would know a thing or three about him. As a deity whose epithets include who gave words and writing, lord of writing, mighty in his words, and lord of speech, one would almost assume that he would have been a patron of mine – regarding my lackluster writing “career” – already at this point. However, I was very serious when I mentioned above that I wanted only to be in a relationship with Sekhmet. I didn’t seek him out because, in all honesty, I held more to a “muses inspire” paradigm in my writing than anything else. Since his appearance in my life, I’ve obviously and rapidly begun to amend my thoughts on this matter.

At the end of February, I began getting nearly daily calls from a “pay us $500 to publish your stuff” place that I had never heard of. It’s possible I signed up for this stuff when I was still living at my in-laws’ home, however the fact that the calls began around the time I noticed I had begun surrounding my Tumblr persona with Djehuti kids began to make me go, “hm.” Around that time, my daily rune began to make me ask questions and when someone very helpfully did a supplementary reading, it was entirely around “writing.” Okay. Well, that’s just coincidence… until another friend of mine wrote about how I needed to start writing books beyond the 101 in the areas of voodoo and Kemeticism and everywhere in between. And that’s about the time that I had the light click on.

If anyone can assist me in naming the source, I would greatly appreciate it.

The solid moment when I knew I couldn’t quite ignore him anymore was when I saw the image to the left. I had tried something a little different in my daily routine since I had issues with spoon management and being allowed to blog. I had asked for his input on Tumblr, gone into the Sekhmet tag, and found the image as shown. (It wasn’t sourced on Tumblr and I don’t honestly know how to do the reverse source thingamajig.) Anyway, when I saw this, it really spoke to me. I can’t quite say if this image is trying to tell me anything more than Sekhmet wants him around for me or if there’s more to it than that. It doesn’t really matter, he’s here and I’ve accepted that… or as much as a person like me can accept such things.

I have to admit that when it has come to working with other gods, I often will refuse a time or twenty before I finally give in. The differences here aren’t just about the pantheons specific to each deity, but also about the roll they would have in my life. While I may not have spelled it out, my relationship with Hermes would be about cooling off, calming down, and more frenetic. It would also be inherently specific to his messenger service. As he did with Athena, I knew that embracing him in my life would leave me open for all manner of other Hellenic deities. And that is not something I can or will accept. I have a love-hate relationship with most Hellenic deities – for UPG reasons – and besides, Sekhmet has never lifted her “no Mediterranean pantheons” restriction from me.

As far as Djehuti is concerned, while I know he has trickster aspects not just from what he’s done with me but from other followers of his, I also know that he can and will get serious when the time comes. As I don’t know if this is a life-long or just-now type of relationship, I’m in the “wait and see” kind of mode. All I know is that watching an ibis-headed man walk around my apartment in a pinstripe suit, looking about as suave as can be possible, is quite a break from the norm.

Changes Don’t Necessarily Mean a Difference in Season.

Today, while I was cleaning around Aset’s kitchen altar area, I began wondering what I needed to do with the cauldron while I was cleaning. I actually try not to put my sacred items “just anywhere” even if I’m doing a cleaning spree. I tend to try to make sure that the space I put their items on is acceptable in some way or another. Usually, I just need to find a space that clean and ready for sacred items for way-station purposes. While musing whether or not leaving it on the counter was an acceptable spot or not, Aset said, Why not place it on Hekate’s altar? It would look lovely over.

I flipped.

At this point, I’m pretty much waiting for all of my OTHERS™ to leave me. Considering my work space being incredibly Christian in its background, I can’t really do the things that I would like to do in order to feel more connected with my deities. I have some ninja ideas to make my desk acceptable to my various OTHERS™ and some action items, such as stretches or barre maneuvers, but I also share my office with someone who I believe does not like me very much. So, I try to remain quiet and unobtrusive as much as I possibly can until the office I share becomes the office I use by myself. In the mean time, I keep feeling like a complete failure because all I can do is have my jewelry on me every day and by the time I get home from work, I’m too tired to do much more than spend time with my son and relax for the night. So, I’ve been pretty much just assuming that they are going to be leaving me one by one for a HUGE FUCKING ENORMOUS Fallow Time.

“What do you mean this cauldron would look lovely over there? Are you telling me that you’re leaving me? I know I haven’t been doing a lot of magic, but I just don’t have the spoons. And we’re supposed to be doing something together, aren’t we? Is the astral stuff really just all we’re about? And don’t you need to be here for me to get a good grasp on that, to walk me through it, and why are you fucking leaving me? You just got here.”

I received a lot of giggles in response as I dutifully brought the cauldron across the way to Hekate’s altar. As I placed it down, I knew she wasn’t leaving. I’m a Kemetic gal, after all, other trappings and OTHERS™ be damned. Even if she was going to leave-leave my life, I still had the rest of the netjer about until they all decide to leave me for my [future] HUGE FUCKING ENORMOUS Fallow Time. And I could talk to her, anyway, whether she was there or not. But as I was walking back towards her altar, I knew that she wasn’t leaving-leaving.

Okay.

“Well, are you going to do the household deity thing like Hetheru, then? I mean, I can make some room for you up on the half wall. There’s not a lot of space because of that candle and because of the things I’ve accumulated for Hetheru, but you guys can share some things, I guess. And would that be okay, anyway? Would you guys be able to share things because you did the usurping thing? Would that work out well? And can you get along? And why am I asking you, shouldn’t I be asking Hetheru all of these things?”

Instead of just getting a case of the giggles, I had the distinctive image of a very undignified Aset, kicking her feet, howling with laughter, tears streaming down her face.

I backtracked to the very beginning of the conversation, how she had made it apparent that the cast-iron monstrosity that is my cauldron would look very nice on Hekate’s altar. The answer was there, maybe, and I was just freaking the hell out because I’ve been two steps away from panic attacks pretty much since two weeks into going back to work. So, I sorted it all out and back and back and back again. And that’s when I realized that Hekate’s presence had been minimal, at best, for the last few weeks. I had chalked it up to the THEY ARE ALL LEAVING thing but she doesn’t have much point in hanging around…

I’ve taken care of all of the astral shenans necessary to move forward on my “magical cure search.” I’ve been entirely finished with all the aspects Hekate was going to be working with me for some time now. I just have a few last minute things to wrap up – namely blog entry related – and then a huge fucking cord-cutting rite that I’ve been planning since I realized I was that fucking done with the ex-husband things. And after that, most of the shadow work I’m planning on working through are inherently personal and while a woman wronged has happened in those instances, not in the very instances that really scream Hekate. It makes sense that she would help me destroy a tie that we had together especially considering the help she gave to me in one of my past lives. But the rest of this stuff that I need to work with are specifically death-related or specifically Eye of Re-related.

So, she’s stepping out. Moving on. Working with others.

I honestly don’t know how to handle this, either. Do I keep her altar as is until the cord-cutting rite is completed? Do I just start appropriating it for something else? Do I move Aset over there now? I honestly have a hard time letting go and saying good-bye. I don’t really know how to do that well, which isn’t all that surprising. Considering all of the shadow work I’m having to do pretty much comes down to “not saying a proper good riddance” or “failure to say good-bye properly,” this makes sense.

So, how do you say farewell to a deity whom you no longer need?

Religiously Nourished, But Not Spiritually Nourished.

I’ve had a lot of weird thoughts lately, none of which even compare to the conversation I had with Hekate last night. After my last post, I decided I should sit down with her. It was a feeling, coupled with just this impressive need to commune with a deity. I think this is a normal feeling for most practicing polytheists; this indescribable need to just feel connected to something bigger, badder, and more impressive than you. I think humans need this – which could explain why religions are so very important to us in some aspects – and that’s where this stems from. But, also, I’ve had a couple of hits the last few days on the religious front that made me sit back and go, Hm. I need to talk to Hekate about some things. While some of the bigger things we could have discussed didn’t come up, something bigger and more important came up.

Religiously nourished, she says, but not spiritually.

I found this really fucking hilarious since, earlier, a meme had gone around Tumblr that I had commented on as well as watched the comments from my dash pile up on. For those not willing to click the link, there’s a picture there that says, “Religion is for people afraid of going to hell; Spirituality is for people who have already been there.” I mean, I get the point behind this particular meme. There’s been a lot of talk (and no, I’m not linking because I’m lazy and this is about me, after all) about how there are some polytheists and pagans who are either “religious,” “religious and spiritual,” or “spiritual, not religious.” I firmly fall into the first category. I am definitely religious and have defined myself as such to outsiders so that, when they try to having a pissing contest over who is the most religious, I can clearly say, “Hey, I have religion too even if you don’t understand what I’m referring to.” But I’ve nearly really referred to myself as “spiritual” in a serious sense and I’ve never really thought about my spiritual nourishment, or lack thereof, prior to this moment.

…Blog title not withstanding.

I can say that before this very moment, even before this card reading, but definitely before this very second, I never took into consideration that I would need to feed a part of my soul that could, possibly, be starving. I think of myself as a religious person, but not as a spiritual person. I take things and I have melded them all into a practice, but when it comes to the spiritual side of things, I’m a little lax. I figured that if push came to shove, the whole living in ma’at thing would fix that. Or, you know, I could address it a little later down this winding, random, constantly aimlessly searching path.

Nope.

Apparently not.

In effect, when I spoke with Hekate, I was informed that this whole “living in ma’at” search is not really as important as I’ve made it out to be. Oh, she’s proud of the essay I wrote and is gung-ho for part two to come out. (And yes. There will be a part two.) However, that’s a part of my religious upbringing. While it may, at one point in future, correlate with spiritual work and feeding my soul in a way at some later date, right now, my soul is starving. This is, in effect, a very real reason as to why I’m having feelings that don’t quite correlate with reality: dark, deep, depressing, and just nasty feelings when I do feel and then, mindless automaton the rest of the time. And who knows how long this diet of non-spiritual living has been going on? If the feelings I have right now are an indicator, I’d have to assume that this has been an ongoing thing… maybe since “October” since that’s the calendar entry I keep having flash in my mind when I think about this. (Vision? Maybe. Interesting that an exact month keeps popping up when I think about this, though.)

I went back through my calendar just now, to see why “October” would appear. I don’t know what I was expecting. I’m not big on those big neon signs that blink at you. I’m surprised I was able to even derive a general time frame for this spiritual anorexia to begin with. But, I’m beginning to think more clearly about this and I have to wonder if it was possibly around that time that shit began to get real, as they say, with the ex-husband stuff I began working on with Hekate. I was working on other, minor, past life stuff prior to the ex-husband things and I… I wonder if it was possibly around then that I began to work so heavily to please Hekate, to attain what we were discussing, but also to be able to move on, for fuck’s sake. And perhaps it was all of that… maybe, just maybe all of that pushing and shoving to achieve the fucking goal was what tossed me into this lack of spiritual nourishment phase… thing. Whatchamacallit.

So, if it’s not the whole worry about “living in ma’at” that is going to fix this problem, what is?

The overall answers I was given were a little murky. It seems like I should be able to fulfill this nourishment requirement on my own. I have the foundations, but I’m not quite smart enough to see that the foundation is there. When I requested more information, I was given the “motherhood” card as an indicator. Hm. It couldn’t possibly be a signpost that, maybe, being a mom is one of those things spiritually nourish me? I don’t know. I honestly and truly have issues with being a mother some days. I am very insecure, I have very low self-esteem, and I have numerous internal monologues that harp at the things that I think I “do wrong.” Whether or not I am doing it wrong, I don’t know. I don’t exactly have a manual to work off of here. But, this whole mommy thing is supposed to be nourishing. And in a way, I can see that, insecurities notwithstanding. There’s just something about that little boy’s smile or the sleepy way he snuggles up to me in the morning before I leave for work or the studious intent he gets on his face when I’m trying to teach him something… Yeah. I can see that.

But what about the other parts? Mothering isn’t, thankfully, a 24/7 job when you’re a working parent as well. And when he goes to school. So, what do I do in the mean time, in the off moments, at work and everywhere else to keep my soul satisfied?

And there is the rub.

Universe is Trollin’ (PBP).

I keep getting trolled by the universe and it’s all the same trolling.

This is the universe.

And this is my face.

What do I mean when I keep telling everyone that the universe is trolling me? Well, you know how you get all of those Internet trolls who are just trying to push your buttons and start things just for the sake of having something to do? You know exactly what I mean if you have been on the Internet for longer than five minutes. Internet Trolls are the bane of the Internet, but sometimes, you get the same kind of thing when it comes to the universe. Sometimes, the universe sits up, notices what you’re doing, and decides to just piss you the fuck off with what you think are extraneous and unrelated topics. In fact, this is far from the truth because the universe is bigger, badder, and older than you are. The topics in question may be pushing your buttons, but they are ultimately related. It’s just a matter of deciding how you handle it.

You can just ignore it.

You can just go with the flow.

Or, you could just do this.

I’m currently at the last option.

After last week’s PBP post, I was kind of not really sure what to do with the information that reading had provided me. I was under a certain impression that X was the cause of the “nefarious deeds” mentioned therein. The problem, however, is that I’ve had a shit-ton of past lives with this guy and in any one of those lives, I could have done something that would come back and bite me in the ass. I decided not to think about it, but you know, this is a post about the universe trolling me. So, you know, as much as I decided that I could get a working done for the here and now, the universe had other plans. First, a quick conversation with a friend of mine who said that “nefarious deeds,” to her, sounded more like stealing a child, murder, and all that fun stuff. A’right. That’s probably more of a past life thing so again, I decided to mull it over in my own time.

UNIVERSE TROLL IS NOT HAPPY. MUST MAKE HER THINK ABOUT THIS NOW.

I sat down with Hekate and was randomly shuffling the cards to figure out what the hell was going on.

The cards are Earth, The Sun, and Astral Body. Oh-ho-ho. Isn’t it just so interesting that I get a card about the astral when I’m busy studiously not thinking about how I should try to travel into the astral and figure out what the hell I did back then to fuck shit up so hardcore now? Yeah, it was really interesting. The reading was, in effect, this is what you do to achieve some goals, doing all of this well help with getting to the next step in your life, and you have to go to the astral to do it. I decided that this wasn’t really what I had to do. This had to do with the here and now, for fuck’s sake. This didn’t have to do with the astral or severing ties: this had to do with what I did to the ex-husband five fucking years ago and not what could have happened between us in any number of past lives we lived together (and possibly died because of each other in).

So, then I did another random shuffle and this is what happened next. I received As Above, So Below, Tree of Fall, and the Three Great Realms cards. In effect, this reading was telling me that what has come before is coming back now. It’s all mirrors, everything is mirrors. I interpreted that to mean that I’ve managed to get away before, but it’s always come back to bite me in the ass although in different ways. I have to shed this stuff because it no longer works. It’s just dead weight and like a tree in the fall, it’s time to get rid of those leaves. And the final card is, in effect, telling me that all dimensions are concerned here. It’s not just what I see and want to be reality here, but that all decisions from my past and in the astral are impacting me right now.

So much for completely ignoring something and coming to conclusions in my own right.

And then my lovely friend who talked to me about “nefarious deeds” decided to do a card reading for me because she is lovely and awesome and have I mentioned lovely? And guess what?

The universe smacked me around with some more stuff. BECAUSE IT IS A TROLL.

I present to you, the universe… again.

This has left me in a very interesting place. The last few nights, I’ve been going to the astral. I don’t know how or anything except that I am going. I have the clear-cut signs of someone completely hungover from a night spent in the astral realm. I don’t remember anything. Last night, however, I went to the room that I associate with my way-station before I head into the astral. Whenever I purposely go there, Mut (who I am thinking is a guide of sorts here) would never show up. I would end up spending hours exploring the room and trying to get a clear picture of the gods on the table in the center of the room or wandering the balcony and wondering when I would get to leave that room.

I was able to leave that room last night.

I was sucked into a mirror. And the last thing I remember is…

Sans unicorn, perfectly accurate representation.

So, as much as there are times when we don’t want to look at the signs and figure out what the hell is going on, no matter how much you shove your head in the sand, it doesn’t matter. The universe is going to troll the fuck out of you until you pull on your big girl (or boy) panties, pack a lunch, and get the fuck out there to figure it out. It’s so much fun when you try to take your normal route – such as hiding your head in the sand as I am wont to do – and the universe drops a whole bunch of truth down your throat and in your face.

Truth bomb, in yo’ face.

Now And Then, I Think of When We Were Together.

So, the song is back. I’ve mentioned this song before and I’ve linked below to the entry pertinent. The thing is that the song came back a few days ago. I mentioned in a kind of off-hand way that it was back in my head to my online friends and to the Sister. I woke up with it some time this past week. It doesn’t matter the when. I knew what the point was. It was time to talk to Hekate. I put it off. I let the weekend go and then, this morning, I had enough. The song was influencing my everything. I couldn’t listen to random songs while cleaning – I had to hear this one because nothing else was helping my flow and nothing else would shut out the ear worm. I couldn’t do anything online without having this song on. So, today, I finally decided it was time to admit that this particular ear worm wasn’t just a simple, “hey, that song is totally bitchin’ so let’s hear it on endless repeat,” but an honest message from Hekate. I sat down and asked her what it was she wanted.

1. Reincarnation; 2. Pentagram; 3. Broom.

The literal meaning behind the Reincarnation card is as follows. “When this card appears it addresses renewal or return. This card speaks of restoring vitality, creating new forms, or beginning a new life. It also indicates enlightenment arising from the trials that one has faced and passed through.” Now, while I do know that I need to definitely look into restoring my vitality, especially as of late with my very lackluster performance in most arenas of my life, I tend to think of this card in relation to the shadow work Hekate has assigned me. It was via a past life that the current batch – in regards to my ex-husband – began. So, whilst it probably does have something to do with actually moving on to the next phase in my life and beginning over without the ex in it as well as the need to revitalize myself, I do believe that this is her telling me that I’m working backwards. I haven’t done any actual work in regards to my ex since early August (link below). So, I think this is her reminding me that I do have an open task to hand and I haven’t done much more with it.

The Pentagram card is a new one; I haven’t received it yet. The literal meaning… “When this card appears it addresses matters of creativity and manifestation. The card reflects the ability to create in accord with mind, body, and spirit. Therefore the pentagram calls upon us to direct the manifestation of the things in our lives. The caution is to balance the accumulation of material gain with one’s spiritual values. … The card calls to us to be aware of our resources and the tools we can use to achieve our goals…” Now, at first, I considered this may have something to do with my ability to write out what bothered me most about my past and then re-writing it into a satisfactory conclusion. (I’ve done this a few times and it’s helped me to work through a lot of my traumas, actually.) But, while I liked to focus entirely on the word creativity, I knew that she wasn’t interested in all of that. It seems to me that I’ve had the resources and have either overlooked them or I’ve been misusing them. It’s like all of that fun stuff when I talk about hoarding the spoons but recently, I just haven’t been doing that. It’s why I’m just so burned out and tired of fighting.

The last card was the Broom card and its literal meaning… “When this card appears in a reading it addresses rising above our limited vision and perception… The card calls to us to deal with what is happening instead of investing energy in understanding why… The broom calls us to clean and clear away the debris in and around us. The broom suggestions that we tidy up our world, remove what no longer services us, and banish the cobwebs that have collected due to our inaction…” The actual meaning behind it, in the book, is pretty long. But these were the core concepts that I took away from the reading itself. I’ve been so focused on figuring out the why of things that I ignore the actual work that needs to proceed to get into it. It’s not just the shadow work with the ex-husband, either. I’ve been doing this in my mundane life – more so than I care to admit, really – on a damn regular basis. Why am I unemployed? Why can’t I get my kid into preschool? Why aren’t the services put into place for poor people helping me? None of that matters.

The other thing is that while I am doing some of the work, or I did at least, I didn’t do the clearing out that I should have. I didn’t take my metaphysical broom and sweep out the cobwebs from the newly opened space. So, while I can do the work all I want, what’s the point if I fill up the creepy shadows with new shit to work on at some future point in time?

The thing is that just the thought of approaching the next section of work, which relates to the ex, tires me out that much more. I need to do the revitalizing part before I can move on. The thing here is that I just have to figure out what that exactly entails. Can I just assume that a nice, relaxing bath would suffice? Or is it more like I need a bath and a day all to myself and some pampering? Or, maybe, I just need to go for a super long walk and just say over and over and over again, “I release this shit. I revitalize as I go.” I’ll figure it out… and sooner as opposed to later, as evidenced by Hekate’s persistent ear worm.

A cardinal statue and a star-shaped wrought iron candle holder.

So, in thanks for her gentle tap-tap to let me know I was being silly, I bought her a few presents. I’ve been seeing cardinals all over the damn place lately. I honestly haven’t seen much in the way of cardinals since I moved back up here from Texas the first time. As a kid, I remember seeing them in the winter at the bird feeders in our backyard. But recently, they just seem to be everything. I think this may be a general push that I need to work with a cardinal for an animal totem right now. I’m not sure, but if I tend to see a type of animal with such rapidity, I know I need to pay attention. So, as a kind of reminder as well as since I know she likes the color red, I bought Hekate a cardinal.

And when I saw the star-shaped candle holder? How could I resist knowing she had a happy star bottle hanging out on her altar space? And it holds my taper candles without them falling over, so what a bonus!

Relevant Post

1. What’s the Difference..?
2. Shadow Work with the Ex.

You Must Be the Change You Want to See in the World.

The above is a quote credited to Mahatma Gandhi. (I say credited because I know there are some quotes attributed to him that were not actually said by him.)

So, I noticed fairly early on this morning that I was feeling pretty frustrated. I couldn’t quite understand what-all the frustration was about. Things weren’t exactly moving smoothly, but it wasn’t really enough for me to sit around and be a grouch about everything to the extent that I was doing so in my head. I kept trying to do things that normally relax me to get whatever was going on to come to the surface. I did a load of dishes, nothing. I did some mind-numbing cleaning, nothing. I sat down and stared angrily across the room at my altar set up, nothing. I went outside and smoked, nothing. I did the breathing exercises that I picked up from a new book purchase, nothing. I finally decided that I just hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before, and that stood to reason. I was up until after one and woke up quite a few times for no reason whatsoever in the middle of the night. I figured I’d get some shit done, try to take a nap before the exterminator does round two this afternoon, and see what happened. But, no matter what I was thinking about doing to get it done, I knew that there was no way my usual tricks was going to result in an epiphany.

So, I went to the altars and sat down.

I went to Hekate first. I haven’t really communed with her in a while and I feel neglectful. Technically, the time has elapsed, but I know she’s still around. I can still feel her there, subtly guiding things to where they should be. Why am I so frustrated? I asked. The cards I pulled for her were Harvest, Initiation, and Reincarnation. Harvest talks about the ending of the cycle, Initiation about new phases in my life, and Reincarnation about renewal and restoring vitality and beginning a new life. I stared at the cards in disgust. I couldn’t see the whole picture here. I was getting a niggling feeling at the back of my head, but I couldn’t quite understand what the fuck it was she was saying. As I said to some friends about it earlier, “I didn’t have the brain energy to fuck around with the gods’ ability to play word games.” I’m sure if I sat down and thought about it long enough, I would have gotten the whole picture. But then, I think I went to Hekate knowing that she wasn’t going to give me the answer…

I should have turned to Sekhmet first: this is after all her time…

As a quick back up in the timeline of my life, on Tuesday after my cleansing and phoenix rising bath time, I sat down in front of Sekhmet and just shuffled my cards randomly for a while. I didn’t have anything specific to ask or anything, really, in mind. So, in effect I just said, “What’s up?” And the cards I pulled during that particular reading were Nebet-Het, Higher Love and Wisdom, and Aset. The card meanings that I gleaned from this is that I need to pay close attention to what I think are coincidences as this will be a signal of some future sort. The next card was about doing more shadow work. I’ve been going through some basic shadow work in my time with Hekate, but it seems like I need to either step up my game or work on some of the harder things I’ve been putting off. And lastly, Sekhmet was telling me that she would be there to hold my hand through all of this and that she would tell me, straight, how shit was going. You see what I mean when I say, this is her time after all?

Khonsu is about moving forward. Wadjet is about transformations, ego and consciousness. Nekhbet-Mother-Mut is about being transformed to REMEMBER, to embark on the journey to reclaim my true self.

I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that this all has to do with the Tuesday conversation the two of us had about what to expect for the future. But, there’s more to it than just all of that.

Now, Khonsu is about moving forward. This isn’t just the act of putting one foot in front of the other, but also about the mental and emotional that accompanies the act of moving forward. The thing is that while I can say, out loud, that the cycle is over… that doesn’t necessarily mean that I believe it. I’m frustrated by the ending, and that’s part of why I was feeling this way today. I’m frustrated because I don’t know where to move on from here. I’m frustrated because it seems like I have to have my dice lined up in just a certain way to get the moving forward part going. It’s not just about the spiritual, this moving forward stuff, but a lot of it is. As I said previously, when I discovered that the cycle was over or ending, I was fairly upset. I was near-tears upset about it. I was distressed that my sure fire knowledge of what to expect was over. So, Khonsu card is trying to tell me that not only is it time to move forward, that it’s time to accept that, and that it is definitely time to figure out what the next step is. And I can’t get to the next point (transforming) until I accept this.

Time Is Like a Book. You Have a Beginning, Middle, and an End. It’s Just a Cycle.

So, what do you do when you find out the cycle is over? You take the next step, possibly in an unknown direction, but you move forward.

Today, I went to file for unemployment like I normally do, except a good deal later in the day than I usually do it. I went to file and received a very strange message. The website was telling me that my case was under review and they would contact me if and when they needed further information. I didn’t understand what this meant, but as I looked over the screen that this information was on, I noticed a “zero balance” in my unemployment account. I knew that I was rapidly approaching the moment when I would have to re-up my unemployment with the state, but I hadn’t realized how close I was. Of course, what makes this really silly is that I had pretty much pegged it as ending some time this week or next when I first filed my extension. Next time, if there is one, I’ll be sure to pay closer attention to such things. So, anyway, I started freaking out about this. My head was going to money and what we were going to do and why was this happening and all of that stuff. I was just completely beyond my ability to handle when I realized what was going on.

So, I called someone and she calmed me down. She’s pretty no-nonsense and she is older than me, so it makes things easier for me when I need someone to tell me to shut the fuck up or calm the fuck down. Anyway. After that, I kind of just was wandering around in a daze. With this background, I had other things go wrong this evening – namely the complete and utter destruction of the blueberry pie that I have been promising my FIL for months now and finally came around to making and my oven burned it mercilessly at less than a half hour in there – that just really got me going down a spiral. I can really hop on board these spirals and jump right into a depression so deep, you’ll never get me back out. I was pretty bitchy since it is that time of the month on top of everything. So, besides bitchy, I should also admit that I’m pretty over-emotional at the moment. Couple this with the need to run to my altars and figure out what the hell is going on… you’ve got an epic recipe for some serious disaster over here.

I sat with Hekate and talked to her about something she has no interest in giving me any clues about. And then, I moved over to Sekhmet. I wanted to talk to Hekate, initially, about the unemployment thing but for whatever reason, I decided Sekhmet was where I was going to rant and rave in my head about all of this. And she was more than willing to tell me what was going on.

The cards are Aset, Nut and Geb, and Wedjat.

As near as I can figure the cards are telling me a lot of things, but specifically… I’ve been embodying the mother (Aset) and if I continue, I can get through this. I just have to remember that not only am I mother, but she is a mother. If she can survive what she went through, then so can I. However the meat of the matter is that the cycle of learning, transformation, and spiritual work is over (Nut and Geb). It’s time to make the steps into the mundane, the reality of the world from my comfortable transformational, spiritual work. And this is all leading to a major shift in my consciousness, from greed to enlightened awareness (Wedjat).

And I’ll be honest here, I’m actually pretty upset here. I have the over-emotional aspect from it being that time of the month and the freaking out from earlier and the pie debacle and whatnot. However, really, I don’t think I ever expected a clear moment of clear ending for this. I mean, I knew that it was there. I knew that at some point, I would be above all of this basic, 101 shit that I’ve been going through and trying to figure out since I was fired last August. However, I don’t think I ever realized that there would be a clear moment where I could say, “Yes, I am passed all of this. The cycle is over.” Maybe I didn’t expect the learning shit to be as intense or maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t expect this because I just assumed that this cycle would be eternal. I don’t know what I was thinking or why I wasn’t prepared for it. However, Sekhmet is being pretty obvious here: an ending is coming and isn’t it just so interesting that all of this is neatly coinciding with the Kemetic New Year? Yep. I think that’s pretty damn interesting, too.

I’m sad.

I’m excited.

I’m nervous.

I’m angry.

I just hope things work out smoothly. But who am I kidding? I won’t expect that, not in the slightest.

A Myriad of Things… With Pictures!

So, in the last few days, I’ve had quite a few random tidbits that actually all equate to my spirituality in some way, but just haven’t gotten around to blogging about them. So, instead of making a bunch of small posts and spreading them out, I decided to do a big huge to-do (with pictures). That way, staring tomorrow, I can start working on two offerings related posts that I’ve been thinking hard about, my calendar post that I promised ages ago, and start prepping for this year’s (and my first, really) celebration of Wep Ronpet. Also, there’s some pie baking in that somewhere, but that’s not anything to do with my spirituality and more to do with the fact that my son has an awesome grandfather who loves blueberry pie and I’m the only person in the world who is willing to make it.

The first to do with anything is about the dead bird I found in my yard.

The bird I found, being put to rest.

After discussing it with K and L, we decided that I should do some unofficial rites for the passage of this bird. I remarked on how the birds were quiet that morning and decided, well, why not? I didn’t have anything to lose and my first instinct had been to bury him. While I’m not fond of doing the gut instinct thing all the time, it was remarked that I probably should. So, I went for it. I ended up going outside with my Deadz spade, a cone of incense, and a cup of water. After making the hole and burying the bird within, I lit the cone of incense in honor the bird’s spirit. I also ended up pouring the water offering in a giant circle around the bird. I felt like I was doing something worthwhile and very important. I also had to figure out what this all meant: was this a signal to begin some work more in tune with Miss Dirty or was this something else?

After take my son and one of my dogs for a walk, I ended up figuring it out. (K and L also aided in this realization, as well.) Recently, I had been driving by a shit-ton of OLD CEMETERIES. Each time, I wasn’t able to stop for whatever reason: not enough time, no camera, no enough time, child in the car, not enough time, and NO CAMERA. And I found myself yearning with each swoop by. I haven’t actually been grave tending since May, I believe. And that is one of the duties that I was taking very seriously and enjoying very much. It may seem strange and odd that what I was doing – playing around in cemeteries – was making me feel good about myself and helpful, and that I was accomplishing something. But there it is. With each click of my camera, I was feeling more in tune with myself. (And seriously began considering a grave tending business up here, in MA.) All that being said, I haven’t done it a long while and I’ve wanted to desperately. Time, energy, a lack of spoons, and various other things have gotten in the way. And it was on that walk that I realized that I’ve been getting in my own way. I need to get out of my way and do what I want. With these thoughts, I felt really at peace.

 

Right in front of the steps, there she was.

That’s when I knew I had done the right thing for the bird and that I was on the right track when it came to my thought process. The bird was pleased with what I had achieved and the gods were pleased that I was finally getting it. Sometimes, I don’t need clue-by-fours.

After a while, I started thinking about how I haven’t really been able to focus on my work with Hekate. This isn’t for lack of want. I do want. Things have just been getting in the way. I’ve been on a mad cleaning spree since I discovered just how bad my bug problem was. (I have thrown out a metric shit ton of personal mementos, never mind all of the bedding and whatnot.) I feel like I’m failing and I know that she doesn’t feel this way – this is merely my perception of the entire situation. After a while, I decided I would sit down and I would apologize to her. I was feeling down in the dumps because of the bug problem and because I feel like an overwhelming failure in a lot of arenas. (No, I’m not going to discuss what’s up with that here.) I needed a laugh.

I need a laugh? The gods obey.

I looked over because I happened to hear clicking that was out of context for my dogs. Jasmine was chasing down Sweet Pea to dominate her with some loving. (Yes, my Jasmine humps the hell out of Sweet Pea, whether she’s in heat or not.) Sweet Pea was not amenable to this and looked for the only place she could hide that wasn’t under my shirt: Hekate’s altar. Where she is trying to hide if the lower shelf on the end table I appropriated for Hekate’s sacred area. This isn’t the first time she’s done this since I pulled the table out and into the kitchen, but it’s the first time she was on there long enough for me to snap a picture. Laughing maniacally, I couldn’t help but fantasize about getting a dog pillow for Sweet Pea to lay upon beneath the altar. If nothing else, this reinforces my belief that Hekate likes dogs – like I didn’t already get that feeling. She evidently really liked Sweet Pea, though, because Jasmine hasn’t tried this yet. (Although, it would be HILARIOUS to see a 20 pound weener-dog trying this on a tiny table shelf.)

Last night, I took apart my son’s room to clean up his toys. (I can’t remember the last time I did a bleach-water soak for his things. Ugh.) So, I filled the bathtub and threw his cars, his blocks, and various miscellaneous toys into the bathtub. After a horrifying moment when I realized that there were crayon bits in there now, as well, I sat down to relax. While I was busy relaxing and watching adult television – Lost Girl is fucking awesome – I couldn’t help but noticed that some of the cars the Sister had bought my son for Christmas were going off. The buttons are extremely easy to set off. You can walk by and they’ll go off. Anyway, they were going off all night long, but the connection wasn’t made until I saw a child’s head poking out of my son’s room. This was disconcerting because the door was shut and the beings that wander my house at least try to pretend that they can’t pass through corporeal shit. But, these were children playing around…

… The Marassa are back.

I was pretty pleased since I haven’t seen them in a few months. Not since the last time I posted about them. But it began to make a lot of sense that they were playing around. Things were getting cleaned up, the cars were out and about instead of locked in their usual bucket, and there was no way I could yell at my son for pressing the same damn button over and over and over and over and over and over again if he wasn’t at home, now could I? These two planned this one out! The one that was in my son’s room came rambling out and played hide-and-go-seek with me in the hallway while the other just pressed the button on the car over and over again. After three blasts, the button pressing would stop for a while and then start back up again. It was pretty cute. At about midnight, I asked them to (nicely) stop playing around but that we could all chase one another in my dreams if they so desired. And evidently they did because I do remember chasing after some giggling twins in my dreams last night.

My birthday is coming up and I realized that I would probably not get much in the way of a birthday this year, like last year. Last year, TH was at work out east somewhere and I was stuck out here. So, I received a flower delivery at work (yes, I worked my birthday) and got FB wishes for my birthday, but very little else. Everyone else forgot. I’m trying hard not to get depressed at the fact that I probably won’t see TH on my birthday, two years running. My birthday is… kind of crappy. My ex-husband decided to get married to me on my birthday. I could have said no but I was young and dumb then, so, my birthday is an eternal reminder that I can make big fucking mistakes. So, with my birthday coming up and depression kind of nearby, I decided to buy some shit for myself. (I bought books, if you must know, but they are not here yet.) I had a promise going with Legba that I would buy a cowrie shell bracelet as well as a lot of cowrie shells for him. We compromised on just the bracelet this time around since the lot of shells I wanted didn’t have free shipping and I was worried I was spending too much, as it was.

LOOK WHAT I GOT.

So, I wasn’t really prepared to find a box in my mailbox this afternoon when I went to walk Jasmine. But there was card board peaking out. I was pretty excited – what was here?!?!? I immediately knew what it was. I also find it pretty damn ironic that the skull beads I had intended on placing on my Deadz altar showed up the DAY after I decided to dismantle my Deadz altar.

Oh, wait what?

Here’s the thing. The bed bug problem I’m going through is pretty fucking horrible. We’ve seen them in every room of our house, and that includes the kitchen. And by the way, the bugs in this house don’t know that they’re not supposed to go in the kitchen but all the literature says that they’re not. So, anyway, this is why I’ve been doing a prevalent, massive, huge clean and purge. (GUYZ. GUYZ. DON’T GET BED BUGS. OKAY.) This means that once the exterminator tells me that everything is okay, I am going to be getting rid of all to most of my furniture. Wait. I go through all the work of getting them cleaned and toss them out? Yes. I cannot and will not have the mental reminder of a horrific time if I can help it… and I can. So, my mattress and box spring, the end table, the night tables, my son’s bedroom furniture, the couches, and the two shelving units, one of which holds my Deadz altar, are all going to be going on the side of the road in two bulk pick up loads.

I seriously debated about the shelving units, actually. One holds a shit-ton of movies that don’t fit in our [broken] DVD cabinet. The other is home to my Deadz altar, which I always forget. That’s because it’s in a small corner that I don’t really pay attention to. I know it’s there but it’s not as in-my-face as the rest of my altars. I can’t miss those since they’re the first thing I do when I walk in the common area of my dining room or when I first walk into my house. (PLANNING; I HAZ IT.) And I haven’t felt my Deadz over there since Sviata Vechera. I’ve also felt that both Papa Ghede, if he was ever in my life, and Anpu do not care for the placing of the altar, or the way it is laid out. So, it goes and I wait until the day when I can put my Deadz in a better location that is IN-MY-FACE.

Oh, irony. You are my life.

Relevant Post

1. Interesting Things!
2. Sviata Vechera

Let’s Talk About The Lives of the Gods.

I watched Immortals for the first time this weekend. I wanted to see it when I first saw commercials, but it wasn’t one of the movies that I had to see (like Prometheus) in theaters. So, I bided my time until it was more affordable. When I saw it was available onDemand, I figured why the hell not? I know little to nothing about Greek stuff unless it’s to do with the Spartans and the Persians battling it out at Thermopylae. Let’s face it, that really doesn’t cover much of anything except an awesome footnote in Greek history. And while I know that watching a movie from Hollywood to learn about history or myths of an ancient race is about as smart a move as stabbing yourself in the eye with a cedar chip, I still figured I could pick up something from it. And aside from dreaming about the movie and Theseus’s muscles (I am such a Henry Cavill fan – ugh), I actually did pick up something.

The Titans.

Now, my Greek mythology is pretty fucking rusty. The last time I did any reading on it, I was a child. My local library had a very limited selection when it came to mythologies, but I borrowed those books about once a month. I remember taking all of the Greek books, of which there was something like four or five, out and reading them. I think my favorite myth was the one where the Titan (Cronus?) would eat his children until Zeus came along and then, Zeus ended up following in his father’s footsteps when Athena came along. I liked the cyclical history lesson there that a lot of people don’t pay any fucking attention to. Aside from some vague memories about the very generalized areas that each Greek god tended over and the fact that the Olympians were born of the Titans and there was a war about that, I don’t really remember much of anything. So, in watching the movie, I started wondering about the Titans in a modern day Greek practice. Like, how do you reconcile all of that?

I honestly couldn’t think of a good response as to why you wouldn’t want to give a nod to the Titans. They were the first, right? If nothing else, they should be acknowledged for getting the whole creation process going, right? So I put the question to my Twitter followers. How did modern-day Greek recons or eclectics or Hellenismos or whatever they call themselves but have a Greek flavoring do about the Titans. The responses went either way. University Witch said that paying homage to the Titans probably wasn’t a good idea. Spinster Witch said that there were a few people who gave them a little respect now and again. And this got me wondering about all manner of things, but really, I didn’t know how to process the information. On the one hand, you have people who think that paying attention to the Titans isn’t a good idea and then on the other, you have people who do at least give them a little bit now and again. That’s interesting, but I wasn’t really sure where this information was taking me.

So, I of course, posted about this in The Island of Misfit Pagans. I really didn’t know where else to go for more information. I’m on a hunt here and I can’t stop with just bits and pieces. I want to have all the information I can to form an opinion. What I didn’t expect was for my thoughts to lead me back to ancient Egypt. That was kind of unexpected.

While a couple of people have commented on my post in the Island, I was starting to get that stupid, funny look on my face – the epiphany look for anyone not quite sure what the hell I’m talking about – in regards to the Titans. They were the first rulers of ancient Greece. They were the first gods over there, right? Right. And this made me think about Re. (Seriously, there’s a connection here.) I was thinking about him in relation to the Destruction of Mankind myth. I got the picture in my head where his bones are as silver, his hair is as lapis lazuli, and his skin is like gold. This is Re when he is old and infirm and humanity starts to talk about him behind his back because humans are devious little creatures. And this seems to be the beginning of the end of Zep Tepi, or what the ancient Egyptians referred to as “The First Time.” It was when the gods ruled the world and humans just did their bidding.

Huh.

I wonder if the Titans and the ancient Egyptian gods were ruling at the same time?

And this got me thinking about gods, in general. What were the Celtic pantheons doing while Re was getting old and infirm? What were the Norse doing while the Titans were doing their thing over in Greece? How does any of this work from a Hindu point-of-view, if at all? What about all the other gods in the world? Did they all work together? Did they have yearly conferences to talk about what to do about the creation of humanity? Did they ignore one another and go things their own way? What the hell did the gods do “in the beginning” while humanity was still just trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other? So many thoughts. So many ideas. And in a Greek and Egyptian point-of-view, I’ve made some kind of leap of faith, a leap of ideas. I want to add the Celts and the Norse in there, too, so if anyone can talk to me about myths from their early days, lay ’em on me. In the mean time…

I don’t think any pantheon co-mingled with any of the other pantheons, especially in the beginning. I know from a Kemetic standpoint, the way of ma’at morphed with time and it is in this way that we can see the severe xenophobia of an entire nation of people. And I think that this particular fear of outsiders and foreigners wasn’t something that they picked up on their own. Later, they were downright happy with their tolerance of others and others’ belief systems. (And I’m not even talking about when the Greeks came on down or when the Romans did, either.) But, I think it stems from the gods’ unwillingness or inability to work with other pantheons that the humans under their care felt similarly. After the first time, the humans were at a loss with what to do – they were cast adrift and alone on a sea of uncertainty, fear, and worry. Though it took them thousands of years, they did, inevitably, become quite friendly with their neighboring nations and the people therein. And I think this is one of the reasons why the gods pulled away, moved on.

Sure, Re was too old to rule and was growing tired of how things were going, but I think that the gods were flawed. They knew they were flawed. And they pulled back, away, and let us grow on our own. Maybe that was one of the lessons they had to learn or maybe they were all just a good deal better at foresight than we are. In either case, they pulled back and away and they let us learn and they let us grow. How does this all connect with the Titans, though, right?

Well, I was thinking about that from the leaps that I’ve made regarding my own pantheon. And I thought about how there was a war between the Titans and the Olympians. From my hazy childhood recollection, the war seemed based entirely on Zeus being upset with the treatment of himself so he took it out on his father and the rest of the Titans who didn’t do a damn thing to stop it. I don’t get the feeling from that, though. I think that yes, Cronus, or whomever the Titan king-god was, was frightened by the sweeping changes Zeus would put into play but I think it wasn’t fear of his son that made him so intent on eating his children. I think it was fear of what his son would do that made him eat his children. It was a fear of change. It was a fear of a different way of life. It was a fear of growth. It was a fear of everything. And it reminds me, very much, of the rampant xenophobia from the early times of the ancient Egyptian way of life, sans gods. And while Zeus waged his battle, he probably wasn’t all that quite about the why. And maybe, just maybe, the story got over to Re and that’s when he realized that the gods couldn’t rule the humans so closely forever.

I don’t know.

I’m pretty curious about what the lives of the gods are without human interaction. So, I could just be talking out of my butt, but this feels like something. I just wish I could correlate it with other pantheons as well…