Falling out over Heathenry

I'm not going to say that heathen communities are not without faults. All communities are going to have people in them that fall on the outskirts of whatever values the community upholds.  Currently in heathen and asatru groups there is a tremendous amount of racism, sexism, queerphobia, etc.  It's not a new thing just like it's not a new thing in our overall society. People kid themselves if they think they can isolate themselves into a small group of people and get away from all prejudices or insulate themselves from the biases that govern our systems.

But that doesn't mean we should abandon these communities.  It is not hopeless to stay and fight. It is hopeless if you leave and give up.

And this is where I find myself.  I have had a few conversations with people online and in real life about leaving the community because of the obvious prejudices. My philosophy is to stay and call out abuses and biases as they come up in conversation and activities.  I don't mean to be confrontational but educational.  I try to keep a calm tone. There are times when I get upset, but that is often in reaction to outright name calling and ridicule.

There was a period of time recently when I was rageful.  I still get that way but my  ability to reset my emotions has gotten a lot better. I don't carry stuff with me like I used to.  I try not to. It's bad for my anxiety and rage was the fire that fed that anxiety.  Anger is a useful emotion since it gets us up and moving, but there is also a danger that when that anger is paired with hopelessness it can turn into paralysis.  I'd rather be focused on what can I do to help or make things better, than to spend my time screaming at people whose opinions I won't ever be able to change.  Especially if those people don't even see my humanity because of my demographic.b

But here's where shit gets personal. In recent discussions over the passed months I have seriously wondered who actually knows me.  I have felt like, in many situations in my life, that people aren't talking to me but to a thing that symbolizes something. I'm not a person but a role, or a demographic, or an idea that they are reacting to.  What I say and what I do gets interpreted through this haze or lense.  Ruby Payne "It's not what you do but who you are while you're doing it."

And there's no real way to eliminate this tendency to categorize people. But it effects our relationships.  There are a group of people that I became connected to through my hubby ten years ago.  One died about three years after I met her and the other four members of this community are still around however disbursed.  I have had experiences that make me think They think I have somehow filled the role or position of the woman who passed. She was our priestess and the center of our community at the time. I do not and did not have the charisma or background to step into her position and hold things together so nothing would change. No one has that ability in any situation like this. You can't replace people.

But these individuals seemed to think that I was this maternal, soft place, this earth mother type, that they could use in the same way they had used her.  I am not earth. I cannot be a counselor for them, or listen quietly, or yoke someone up by the neck and shake some sense into them.  I don't have the time and experience invested in Them that she did.

The group obviously scattered after she died since her gravity was no longer holding them together.  Her husband remarried and moved away.  Her live-in lover/friend/soulmate moved to the opposite side of the country.  I kept in touch through facebook and once in a while would receive a "you would like" post.  I didn't always agree with their assessment of what I would like.

The outburst that occurred recently seemed to involve this perception of me as this other type person. The distant acquaintance responded to a post I had put up about heathenry and religious elements.  I had what seemed to be a civil conversation  with this acquaintance  aboutthat seemed to be trolling to recruit potential racists to their political cause.  When a member of our kindred responded from a Reconstructionist point of view, this acquaintance attacked her.  She seemed to take it for granted that the poster was straight, cis, right-wing, etc.  And she just launched herself at her in response to a post that was very civil and intellectual.  And the back and forth just got worse. In a more abrupt way of saying, She flipped her shit.

I responded she had crossed a line attacking someone she didn't even know. And she accused me of sticking up for racists and then unfriended me.

It reminded me of the last time we got into it over a political issue.  That time it had to do with cisgender issues at the women's march on Washington.  But she said something along the lines of -my post has surprised her and hurt because she thought I wasn't a certain type of person.  Which made me wonder then and again now, who did she think I was?  (Unless she was doing that as a way to set herself up as the victim in order to gain sympathy from others.)

I feel like I was being used as a blank slate for people to download whatever they needed onto.  Like I was a blank mannequin and they changed the features to suit their needs whenever.  My personality, my needs, my identity wasn't even a thing they considered.  I acted as a mirror to their needs, and I was empty as far as they cared.

It both pisses me off and makes me really sad. How many of my relationships were like this? How many times did a relationship end because I stopped doing what they had programmed themselves to expect from me? It wasn't me that changed. They had simply had a moment where I didn't live up to whatever image they had built up of me in their head.  I didn't actually fall from grace. Their illusion was actually shattered.  There came a point where they couldn't ignore me anymore in favor of their fantasy of me and what I represented to them.

It's screwed up but there is Feminist Theory that explores how this kind of dynamic works between men and women. Women serve as mirrors for men's greatness. As long as she smiles and beams her affection and worship of him through her eyes, he is satisfied. The moment she gives him less than the worship he thinks he deserves, then he loses interest in her and looks for another mirror to admire himself in.  It's literal Narcissus and Echo Narcissism, but the mirror is actually another person instead of the pond surface. It's dehumanizing for the person who serves as the mirror, as is evident in our society and the way women are treated.

I'm not enraged over this.  But it upsets me in the sense that I don't know how I can count on the continuity of relationships when they devolve into roles and mirrors, rather than authentic whole people sharing their lives together.  I need truth for this and truth cannot exist with illusions and mirages.

I've been doing a lot of reading on love these past couple of days. It's part of my Definition of Love entry and my work with Freya.  In this book I'm reading now Love requires some things in order to be free or capable of existing. Honesty is one of those things.

And to be honest, as much as I want to put all of the blame for their misunderstanding me on them, and in some cases it really is all on them, I played into it somewhat.  I can be a very generous person. There are times when I gave too much and too often which seemed to encourage a person to use me for resources without giving back.  Or I was too silent and didn't assert myself in a conversation which gave the impression I was agreeing, didn't have an opinion, or was a counselor type for them.  Part of this is my social anxiety, which sucks, and part of this is the introvert.  I'm actually pretty good at supporting people.

But too many people expect to receive love and not have to do anything to earn or keep it. As if it is my job or the woman's job to give with no back and forth.  Which brings me to my current rune, Gebo or equal exchange. A community cannot exist without Gebo, nor can love continue without it.

So I have to get back some of that fearlessness, some of that in-your-face-ness I once had in my 20s. I'm probably going to need to call on some anger for that.  Which is good in a way. I think I'm at that point where I can be mad at something without feeling like my insides are on fire and I can't sleep for raging.

Mathematics and Desire

How do I find You
In syllables and sounds
What utterances can coax You
From the ethereal to the concrete
What language do I string together
to create the formula of You
From sacred flame to wildfire blaze

How do I find You
In symbols and in shapes
What are Your angles and curves
Degrees of rotation
"Come look for me," You tease
"I'll let you feel your way"

But that's not what I'm asking
as tempting as You are

How do I find You
What portal do I use
How can I create a door
So Communion is possible

About the Loki thing

I've never really sat down and written about my experiences or how things have evolved regarding Loki.  Recently in one of my Facebook groups the question was asked, or it was posed to create a separate thread about, What Loki means to us and How we worship Him. It came up in a discussion about the Troth's ban on hailing Loki at official Troth events.

The Troth is not anti-Loki in the sense that they don't ban members from worshipping Him privately. Lokeans can be members of the Troth.  But because His worship and His alliance with the Aesir is so controversial, they just don't want to deal with the arguments so they don't let people be out of the closet about it. Imagine telling people that an aspect of their character like sexuality isn't allowed to be openly acknowledged; Don't ask Don't tell.

And I do feel that our connections to our Gods is that intimate. It's a part of who we are. If we weren't ourselves then we would have attracted a different set of Gods.  There is something in the vibration of our spirit, our activities, our interests, and our personalities that attracts the kind of deity that it does. To deny a deity we love is to deny a part of ourselves.  Telling Lokeans to stay in the closet is suppression and harmful emotionally and psychologically. Not just to the Lokean but to those around them.  Like Bi-erasure. We have to be less than whole people, suppress parts of ourselves, hold back in ritual.  We can't fully express our abilities and character. The community as a whole is lessened.  And all the examples of Lokeans that are good and generous people are missed.  The Troth itself has few Lokeans in it to defy or challenge these ideas because they are perceived by many Lokeans to not be a safe place so memberships of Lokeans is small.

And it's simply painful to hear people attack a God and His family that we love so deeply.  We get angry, we get defensive, we get aggressive, and eventually get fed up and leave.  It hurts. Plain and simple.

I am grateful for all of the writers and bloggers who are speaking out in defense of Loki and Lokeans.
We need allies.

This is a path that found me.  When I came to heathnry I was numb after suffering multiple traumas.
From birth trauma and Post Partum Anxiety, to a season of 12 deaths in five years, to losing both of my parents a year and a half apart, and then having to deal with my irrational, abusive brother, I was in a bad place that required medication. I am thankful for getting help when I did.

I had started an art business and was getting into selling at fairs. It was the first time I had been a vendor at Sirius Rising.  I met up with people I had known casually for many years through friends and friends of friends.  We got to know each other deeper and one of them started a heathen group in the area that eventually became a kindred.

I had been wanting to get more deeply involved in paganism and the pagan community since I dropped out of attending things when I moved to a different city. I was hoping this would be a road back into being publicly out and about.  It became so much more than I expected.

My first year I served as Hearth Mother, which was mostly just an event planner role. My house has a huge backyard and a family room with a fireplace.  It made sense and it was what I could contribute given my emotional state at the time. It gave me motivation to keep a schedule and keep things clean.  It also helped me develop some emotional attachments outside of my immediate family.  Things are still mostly good on that end.

But things took a turn when I created an altar and started small daily devotionals to the gods.  I used our gothi's technique of hailing the god of the day according to the weekday, like Thor on Thursday.
And I got very watery responses if any at all.

One of our kin had a strong connection to Loki and hailed Him in blot.  We had another kin member who has what I call Loki-fear.  She respects people who hail Him but she is afraid of the potential chaos and destruction He is known for.  I think I may have absorbed her fear. I knew I myself was pretty precarious when it came to my mental state and emotions. Things were finally stable in almost all ways, financially, emotionally, physically.  I was afraid of getting His attention and having Him start tearing things down.

So when I started hearing the tapping, and His voice saying "Hey, Pay attention". I ignored it. It took 6-9 months, I don't recall how long, of resisting.  I had started reading Lore and started getting into devotional books looking to somehow find a connection. It felt like the gods were very much apathetic to any approach I took. Thor was friendly, but didn't stick around long.  It was actually quite upsetting sometimes.

So one night I started looking into books on Loki. I knew what I was hearing, and my heart was hammering away in fear but I did it anyway.  In the middle of this Amazon search I heard it again, "Pay attention".  So I took a breath and finally said, "OK, I'm listening. What do you have to tell me?"  All He said was, "Have you met my wife?"   And it was months before I heard from Him again.

So I started researching Sigyn, bought a few devotionals, continued reading Lore and practicing with the Kindred.  This went on for a few months.  I started a daily prayer from a book I had read.  I also read books about Him and His family.  This is when things started getting intense.

I had a few experiences of sympathetic emotions with Sigyn, images of Her floating through my view, and a few words from Her.  She still doesn't show up often so when She does I'm usually moved to tears.  She has such an amazing compassion and love about Her, it's overwhelming.

Then He started showing up.  Popping into my head while reading, sitting on one of the chairs in the dining room painting his toenails while I read the paper.  Giving me sideways glances when I got cheeky or sarcastic in response to something I was reading or thinking.

It happened so gradually, I can't even really trace when the moment was that it went from bantering and friendship to love.  It happened in indirect proportion with the fear.  As fear subsided there was more room for love. I connected through the stories, through conversations in my head, through sympathy for suffering and loss. He and She became a source of comfort. And there are most definitely times when I feel especially needy.  I'm almost ashamed of it sometimes.

And something dramatically shifted this passed spring.  The flirtations started in winter and by Spring I was addicted, obsessed, head over heals. I don't know. Still very insecure. I've worked with gods/goddesses before, and felt embraced and loved.  But nothing prepared me for the depth of this.  This was the moment when the idea of the gods as metaphors, or all facets of one being, didn't make sense anymore.  20+ years of Wicca and eclectic paganism ran face first into polytheism. I was having conversations with and emotional relationships with gods who were not merely metaphors and most definitely not all the same thing.

I was in love. I love Them, and since this spring it has only gotten deeper.  My heart aches with it sometimes.

This spring was also a time of massive change. The gothi of our kindred stepped down and I was voted to take his place.  I have some suspicion there was some wrangling on the deity side to bring this about. Certain events coincided in a way that couldn't be mere coincidence. I had a couple visions of Him that seemed to point to effort on His part.  But I was also the most obvious choice given my level of experience in the pagan community, my business that helps me network, and the fact that events take place at my house.

We also lost half of the members. One due to controversy over a Facebook post that led to the group voting her out. The gothi left to move to another city and two more left over a disagreement about the member who was voted out.  Sad, but transitions are always hard and we knew there would be upheaval.

Since then, my relationship with Loki and Sigyn has taken a new turn. For the passed three seasons, since summer, I have been working with a concept of The Cave that has led me to develop symbols and an understanding that may help me be a more effective, magickal priestess.  I am currently trying to get over self-doubt and anxiety enough to galdr.  My hubby has helped me develop a series of runes I hope to turn into a galdr formula as part of this new development.

The way I see The Cave is in allegorical terms.  Loki is the sacred fire bound to the hearth.  The three stones are a tripod like ancient women would use to put their cooking pot on over or near the fire.  The bowl that Sigyn holds may be more like the cauldon where potions are brewed or even deeper, the cauldron of death/rebirth where souls are transformed.  The snake then becomes a sacred symbol of potency, life giving potential, a phallic symbol with "semen or seed" as its contribution.  Sigyn is then the priestess, sometimes drawn almost as a crone figure when the artist makes her pale and slim from hunger and darkness.

What I do in ritual is draw on this image and power of Sigyn as this powerful priestess conjuring life from death over the sacred fire.  Her name Galdr Fetter has led me to further explore how sound vibrations can contribute to this. I used to perform Israel Regardie's LBP and QC almost daily in my youth. I started doing it again before ritual to cleanse and charge the space.

Now with the runes hubby has developed, I will apply them to consecrating the fire. Most of the women I have spoken to about this see fire as already sacred, but I want to create an actual portal for the gods to receive their offerings.  The burnt offerings that we have been doing have been going well. But I want a strong link, more connected to ritual and magick, and perhaps something our ancestors may have done.

Lately I have been using the singing bowl to get started before my meditation, choosing a random rune from my bag and then galdring that rune.  Last night I could feel Sigyn as if she were standing behind me guiding my breath. The room became heated and I felt light headed.  There was a charge in the air.  I'm hoping to build on this.

Diana Paxson cautioned in her books about developing relationships with divinity to have a greater purpose.  It's not enough to love your gods.  You need to set a goal, have a reason for working together.  Relationships that are not grounded on shared ideals and goals do not last long.

I don't see myself falling out with Loki and Sigyn. But I know the world is a weird, fast moving, and unpredictable place.  I don't want to take this for granted and have it slip away.  The love I feel is constant and everywhere.  I can't imagine life without it now. I have a richness I didn't have before.

I remember my life before as swinging between rage and numbness. I was haunted by the past. I still have moments of flashbacks but now there is a source of safety I haven't known before.

I have an amazing husband who supports me with joy.  Not begrudgingly because he is supposed to, but because he loves seeing me happy, is confident in me, and wants to see me succeed.  He's proud of the art I create and the work I do.  I always hoped despite the darkness of my past that I would find a life like this and I have.

I am surrounded by love in the physical and spiritual plain.  It is an amazing feeling.
I am stepping outside of my comfort zone in multiple ways, often challenges issued by deity.  Even as older adults we can learn and grow, acquire new skills.  And I feel I might have found my niche, despite the somewhat violent start to this steep path over the passed twelve months.

There isn't an emoji for this

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2017/11/30/sexual-assault-sex-panic/

I cannot like this article enough and it's so complicated as to why. It might feel like a panic to men because they don't really understand the scale of what is being revealed here. It's like believing the chivalric romance of the AntiBellum period of the South then witnessing what happens in a sugar cain field. Men have no idea and it's because they are men or masculine. This article was Especially cutting about the message given to women and girls, that our bodies don't belong to us and we are worthless, without humanity. The words running through my head in Nov 2016, the day after the election after 48 sleepless hours carrying around a knife for fear of the tidal wave of male aggression that electing an abuser to the White House might bring (and in some places it has) was literally "I am not worthless. I am not garbage." Because it literally felt like half this country just said to the other half that women, and queerfolk, and non-white people, etc. are garbage that they want disposed of. I don't know if you have ever experienced what it's like to have people tell you they want you dead to your face while staring you in the eye, that you represent everything they despise, that the world would be a better place without you. I have and it sucks. Especially when it comes from family. That damage never left me. November 2016 cracked that wound wide open again. I have never had a relapse like that in my life. The last time I was as low as that was high school when I still was trapped in that house. I know from reading that a lot of other women experienced similar relapses after that election. Even psychiatrists and doctors noted an uptick in symptoms and increases in meds or new prescriptions. I wish I was a better writer. I don't know how to describe to people who have never experienced this. What it's like to believe with evidence that the world is out to kill you. That there are organizations, groups of people that meet up with the intent to organize plots to literally exterminate you. There are people in law enforcement and in government who are trying to make your existence illegal. That if they could, they would march from house to house and gather up all the people they hate and bury them in a big pit. I am one of those people that they want to kill. Myself and my daughter would make more than one of their lists. I knew that before November. I knew the GOP stood for those people who want me and my family dead. And yet, people who know me, who are in my life, people I don't even know how they voted, voted in favor of a group of people who could literally achieve that. It feels like pre-WWII Germany Trying to convince people that the gas chambers are coming. I have looked my husband in the eye and asked him what our red line is. When should we grab the bug out bags and run? He wants to stay and hunker down hoping for the best. I think he forgot that my ancestors are Jewish. I have no problem stating my identity here. I've stated it elsewhere enough, the state doesn't need a facebook post to confirm that I am an undesirable. I am bisexual, pagan, Ashkenazi, Feminist, left-wing, socialist, pro-abortion, bleeding heart liberal. Emphasis on the bleeding heart. I and people like me will be on that Kill List. I will not be in their breeding program. And that is definitely what they have in store for desirable women in this country. Christian Nationalists believe in early marriage and Quiverfull breeding. And they are arm-in-arm with the White Nationalists with the same goals. I am not overreacting when I say the end is near. Only a wildfire of force and destruction could turn this tide back. The marches and the protests give me hope. Literally it is the hope that I might live. Huge tangent: Fighting for women's rights, fighting for women to have control of their bodies and the right to protect their bodies from abuse, is part of the bigger picture. Breaking women down into things that men can possess is part of how these fascist groups take charge. If you can get the women under your control, then you can control the messages taught to children and "breed" your own society. That's why these groups have fought so hard to control schools and textbook companies. The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. . . But women's humanity enshrined into legislation, enforced by our court system, and a society that teaches women are people, is a massive threat to the fascist agenda. They will stand against it at every turn. And no one is not contributing in some way. Even I, in writing this contribute in some way to division between people. But how do you converse with people who you know, and keep hearing in the back of your mind, They Want Me Dead? How do you share a community with people when that's hanging over your head? I'm a runner, a wanderer. I've always traveled and moved around. I told myself it was always for a job or college. And it was. You need income to live. But there was always that thought that things will be better somewhere else. I'll find community, people who think like me, kinship. For the past 7 years for the first time I've settled in one place and tried to build community. This is a big change for me. I've been an "escape artist" my entire life. I don't know how to do this. And being alone hurts. Depending on other people is really scary. Even if they are good and reliable people, bad things could happen and you lose them. I keep feeling a need to test myself to make sure I still have my survival skills.

Childhood abuse really fucks up your world view.