Wild Blood, Rule Me Now

Rest my fear, lay my head
Drown my soul, paint it red
Wild blood, rule me now
Hold my hand, show me how
To recognize you
-Lovedrug, Wild Blood

I used to be wild. It was not so long in the past. Four years ago, around this time, my now-partner, Z, swept in to save me from my futile attempts to completely self-destruct. I essentially told him to fuck off. He didn’t.

The next year or so was all about the push-pull dance between us, where he would try to reign me in from the abyss, and I would break free and run towards it with arms wide open, preparing to jump, only to find the rope around my waist all over again.

Wild was fighting the current in every way possible. It was being a branch instead of a reed, just praying for the snap. Flitting between lucidity and madness, igniting an internal fire that I fanned with the aim of completely torching myself with it.

Then, somewhere along the way, I began to care. I realized one day, just a mundane moment of walking down the street, that I was not only happy…but I wanted to be. I wanted to live.

And that changed everything.

Over the past two years, I’ve grown tame. I live in a perpetual state of fear, and worry; feeling like I have no control over everything. Basically going back to the way I lived the first 25 years of my life. But when pushed to desperation, the wild would temporarily resurface.

So when Dionysus called me tame last February, I told him I wasn’t, and pleaded with him not to leave. He didn’t listen. He didn’t even look back as he left me, broken and bleeding.

The missing set in quickly. Every time I tried to reach out to him, he wasn’t there. That open connection I had with him was gone. In June or July, I realized he was right. I told him, but there was no response. When he did show up to tell me something important, it was brief, and always delivered like a smack to the face.

Recently, Z decided to intervene on my behalf and see if he couldn’t figure out what was going on. His explanation made sense. That Dionysus, who all but embodies the concept of Wild, had been either hurt or offended by my constant shunning of it except during desperation.

So some time, and tears, later, I started trying to correct that. Some things seem big, such as my outing myself as Bri on my Tumblr.* And some things seem really small, like reinforcing a tiny boundary with someone who likes to trample blindly all over them.

Wild is…I do not know what Wild is. I know that it’s not fighting the current just to fight. That it’s not being rigid and praying to be broken, and that it’s not harboring a fire just to ignite yourself.

But I can feel Dionysus approve, and I can feel the little trill in my heart every time the world doesn’t explode from my acting anything but meek and mild. Today, wild is ending a conversation I don’t want to have with my roommate by putting on headphones. Tomorrow, maybe it will be having enough faith in myself, and fire in my chest, that I no longer have to cower.

* I still haven’t linked my Tumblr with this blog, so you haven’t somehow missed something.

On Gaining Respect in the Otherkin Community

I know this is probably a off-question to this blog post but I was wondering how you gained respect in the otherkin community regarding your kin-type? As a god-kin I tend to lurk in a variety of otherkin groups and I tend to see them bashing the term constantly. I want to be more open and involved in the community but I am afraid that I will be constantly put down because of my kin-type… How do I approach the subject first jumping into the community and what should I add in my intro post besides the fact that I am god-kin? I really hope you can help me with this! The last thing I want is a explosion of drama.

A reader recently sent me this question, and I figured it might be an answer other people who stumble on my blog are interested in! So, hello, dear reader! If you want to talk more one on one about this (or anything, really), you can leave a comment here with contact information (e-mail, gchat, Skype, Tumblr, etc.). I won’t publish the comment, kind of like I’m keeping your name off here, for your privacy.

Honestly, I’m not sure how much respect I have in the Otherkin community. As I’ve mentioned on this blog, I used to be in the clique of Otherkin Alliance before it collapsed. I got close to people there because our UPGs overlapped so much, and we got along well. But bad things happened and I left the forums, and mostly stayed out of the community for a couple of years.

Creating this blog was my first venture back out. I’ve gotten good feedback from people privately, both from pagans, and from otherkin. I’ve also seen my blog mocked on Tumblr at least once. I actually recently started blogging on Tumblr (as in, this month), and my reception there has also been overall good.

There will always be haters. Always. In the past, I was banned from communities solely for my kintype, before they even knew me. Me just being me can spark drama. Because let’s face it: our community as a whole is pretty messed up when it comes to both external and internal drama. And this can be said of a lot of communities.

The only way to win, is not to play the game.

Your fears of being ridiculed and put down for being godkin are understandable. I will tell you now, I’ve definitely had my two cents regarding the term “godkin”. (I’m okay using ‘Otherkin’, but terms like “godkin”, “deitykin”, etc. annoy me since I think they’re generally superfluous and there are other terms in existence for the concept, since it’s thousands of years old).

I can really only guess at why I haven’t had people dogpile on me for being an incarnate deity:

1) I don’t think I have that much exposure on this blog, and people aren’t as quick to send hate mail here as they are on sites like Tumblr. (Which I haven’t gotten any otherkin-related hate on there yet, either).

2) I speak in coherent sentences with decent grammar. Seriously. This goes a very long way. I don’t even know you, and I already have respect for you just because of how you presented yourself.

3) Presentation matters. A lot. Talking openly and honestly about what you believe and why will get you more respect than just flat-out stating who you believe yourself to be. That’s why I have a lengthy about page on here. Talk about being human, too. Talk about your story, how you got from point A to point B. Talk about hobbies, and likes, and basically show the complex person you are. I feel like a lot of the knee-jerk hate based on kintype is less about the actual kintype, and more about how you come across. I have friends well-established in the community, who say they base their judgments on this.

4) I don’t put up with BS. I like being helpful, however I can. I see others who are incarnate deities, or angels, or various other types of otherkin kind of like an extended family. But I don’t tolerate assholes, and I don’t coddle people. I will call people out. And I won’t let them chase me off.

5) Who you claim to be can also influence things. As Bri, barely anyone has ever heard of me, so I’m not stepping on many toes. But someone claiming a bigger name is more likely to get attention. My identity is more complex than what this particular blog is about, and one of my other names is more well-known. I’ve definitely gotten more attention for that one.

I think the main advice I can give you, is to work on letting go of your fear of rejection or drama. Because those things are, unfortunately, inevitable. You can be hurt by it, and you can be afraid. But you can’t let those things hold you back from expressing yourself.

Besides, it’s through little flares of drama and whatnot, that I’ve learned where I actually stand with my friends, and it’s how I’ve developed my inner circle who have been invaluable to me.

So. I haven’t slept much at all lately because I’m working on a tight deadline for something. Which means I’m not entirely sure I’m being coherent at all. I hope I am, and I hope this helps you! And anyone else who stumbles upon it. ❤

The Google-Fu is Strong With This One

A large part of my journey towards knowing who I am and accepting that along with all the seeming craziness it contains, was Google. Google was not only my friend, but it became apparent that it’s my magic friend. 

I tossed around the idea jokingly with a friend, once, that maybe there is a god of Google who is controlling my search results. Or that maybe there’s a divination-by-Google. Or that Google was trolling me again.

The process goes like this: I have a dream, or a vision, or a hunch about something. For example, I once had a series of dreams of a tiny island with this stone gateway that beautifully framed a fiery sunset… and not much else. That little island wound up being the place I got myself astrally stranded on for a couple of weeks. It wound up being the island I met Ariadne on.

So, I began to wonder: could such a place actually exist? Go to Google, and get this result:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lmphotography1/

 To show what I mean about there not being a whole lot else on the island, here’s a zoomed out shot:

 

“Why, yes,” Mr. Google replies. “There is indeed a tiny little island with not much else on it but a remaining stone gate. Oh, and guess what? That island? It may be called Naxos now, but it was once called Dia, and just so happens to be where Ariadne was abandoned on by Theseus and found by Dionysus”. 

This back and forth, push and pull, has become a beautiful – and often frustrating, overwhelming, and emotional – dance. UPG? Do research, get it confirmed. Not to say that UPG is somehow lesser if it cannot be transformed by research, but that’s how my story has unfolded so far. 

Until about a year ago, when suddenly I hit a wall. Google was not yielding any new results. I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do with the information I had gathered. I had fallow periods before, but they were always just long enough to catch my breath: a day here or there, a week if I was extremely fortunate. I had lost the Google-Fu. 

But things work in mysterious ways. The other night, I was trying to find a quote for a project that I had read once by Nietzsche: “A labyrinthine man never seeks the truth, but always, only, his Ariadne.” 

Instead of finding that quote, I found a slew of webpages talking about a dithyramb I had never stumbled upon before, and a couple of books on the matter. The poem is called Ariadne’s Lament, and while the entire thing has caught my eye and I’m still working on processing it, the last stanza is what stood out the most:

Dionysus:

Be clever, Ariadne!…
You have little ears; you have my ears:
Put a clever word in them! —
Must one not first hate oneself, in order to love oneself?…
I am your labyrinth…

My partner and I have often talked about how our experience-research dance feels guided by something, or someone. I usually think of it as the Universe, pushing me along – sometimes gently, sometimes hard enough I break bones. Suddenly, new information appears that wasn’t there before. Websites that are now coming up on the front page even though they are  years old, and never appeared before despite using the same search terms. 

If I’m not ready for the information, it’s as if it doesn’t exist. On a logical level, it feels impossible. But on a more emotional level, it fits, and somehow makes me feel a little less alone. 

Nietzsche’s dithyramb? If I had happened upon that even just a couple of weeks ago, I would have taken it a completely different way than I took it the other night. I would have taken it as validation that I should continue down a path of self-loathing. (I know, that’s not what it’s saying at all, but I’m good at seeing what I want to see).

But it came at a very good time for me, and I took it as validation that I’m on the right path. It stirred something inside me, and that feels like a lead, something to follow – a sense of direction that’s been sorely missing in the spiritual aspect of my life for the bulk of this year.

Google has become this metaphor, now. That there is some guiding hand, just beyond vision. That something can seem so incredibly finite, when it’s actually nearer infinite. That there are some walls you can’t throw yourself over, without a hand up. 

 

A (mostly) Sane Otherkin Chat Room

I’ve mentioned on here and to a few people in comments and through e-mail that I am a moderator of an otherkin chat room. That chat is Chatango based, and a free account is recommended, but not necessary the first time if you’re just checking it out.

It can be found here: http://kin-talk.webs.com/chat

The chat group was founded almost four years ago by a good friend of mine. It’s since passed down to various other owners, the current of which is also a good friend. I can in total good conscience, 100% recommend this chat.

It can get quiet in there. Most of our member base got scattered into FB, Tumblr, and most of all, just life. But if you stick around, people show up. If you want to be sure, you can always reach me here via comment and if need be I can try and be on at a certain time. We are hoping on building a more active member base.

So I invite anyone who is curious to wander in there! If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to leave me a comment here.

And So the Book Begins!

I have been toying with the idea of writing a book for a couple of years now. It didn’t make sense at the time to start, because I was currently entrenched in researching the Minoans on a more personal level. Any time I tried to start writing, some new information would come along and throw everything back up into the air (and usually me onto my ass).

That hasn’t been the case for around a year, now. And things have quieted down enough with spirit work, that it’s possible to take a breath and start putting pieces together at a more leisurely pace.

So I pushed through all my anxiety regarding writing, and started the outline for Reconstructing the Labyrinth, the book! It still needs a lot more work before I delve into writing, and I’m honestly not sure I’m going to see the project through. (I have every intention of doing so, but I’ve never successfully completed a full book). My hope, though, is to have it completed a year from now.

The current outline is broken down into three parts: Historical, Mythical, and Modern. Basically, the goal is to delve into what we do know, and how, about the Minoans and their culture from a historical standpoint. Because I get really irritated when pagan books don’t include sourcing, this section will be a bit more academic.

The second section will go into core deities and other entities, myths, and symbols/themes. It’ll still have sourcing for some stuff, but will also include a fair bit of UPG.

The last section is a little more personal. It will cover the importance of the Minoan religion and how it can be applied to modern life for pagans.

The reason I’m writing this here is twofold: One, accountability. Two, I wanted to open up a place for feedback here for anyone who reads this blog. Got a question you’d like to see covered in the book? Ask here! Got a particular topic you’d like more information on? Let me know!

Now, back to rounding up all my research links.

A Merry (?) Lammas and General Updates

I’ll admit it upfront: I’m a bad pagan, if you were to go by holidays. I don’t know the major pagan holidays. I didn’t even know it was Lammas, until my partner said we should eat the Swiss chocolate bars a friend gifted us because the brand is Frey and it was fitting. (They were good, btw!). 

I mostly spent the weekend tending to an injury I sustained while trying to be domestic. So our festivities were me holding my second-degree burned hand (well, 75% of my hand) in a bowl of ice water, and my partner taking care of me during it. I’m healing quickly, as evidenced by my actually being able to type this. 

I’ve written on here before (I think?) that I struggle with an anxiety disorder, among other issues. I bring it up because that’s what my life has been this Summer: a constant struggle with the lizard brain. I noticed yesterday that I spend about 90% of my conscious time being absolutely terrified of everything. 

Including posting on here, after I noticed my blog had made its rounds on Tumblr almost a year ago without my notice, and the usual shittastic Tumblr commentary that happens in the otherkin scene. This was after the thing that went down on the Cauldron, which I just stopped getting on altogether.

But mostly, the fear just blocks everything. Time passes without me knowing it. My memory is completely shot. It’s very, very hard for me to feel anything except the fear. I lose my sense of self and identity to it, so I wander through my days like a ghost, with intermittent shaking fits and wanting to run away from everything. 

And even before the emotions go, spirit work goes. There is no flow of energy for me. Just complete blockage. I’ve tried to reach out to Dionysus three times this week, but cannot find him. Even though all I want to do is tell him that he was right back in February, when he said I was tamed. 

I miss everything. The emotions, the feeling of energy flowing, the interactions, the quiet stability. I miss being able to feel my partner on multiple levels, rather than just feeling his hand against mine. But I’m terrified to change it, and I’m not even sure I can. 

So, I’m still around. Just kind of out of it. 

30 Days of Paganism – Patron(s)

Patron is not a word I typically use to describe any of my relationships. So, to make sure I was really sure of what a patron is before I write on it, I went to Google. And wound up with quite an array of different definitions. At least I can take comfort from my lack of clarity in the fact that it doesn’t seem like there’s a very cohesive, concrete, community-accepted definition of “patron” in a pagan context.

I’m going to roll with Chris Thompson’s pithy definition: “A patron deity is a deity with whom one has a special or personal relationship, or a deity to whom one owes special devotion.”

While Zagreus is also my spouse and he owns me, I suppose by that definition, he is also a patron. He is always there with me, in one form or another – sometimes multiple at once. He guides me, and loves me; protects me, teaches me, supports me, and completes me. He is my world, and my heart. He is above all others. And the most he wants from me, is for me to simply be. 

By that definition, there are a few other entities I would feel safe applying the “patron” label to. Although my relationship with him seems to be pretty volatile, Dionysus is another one I have a personal relationship with that isn’t just casual. He mostly works with me on the liminal, boundaries (or lack thereof), and madness. He’s not one that I would go to for comfort in most cases, but he’s definitely been a prominent force in my life ever since he informed me that “plans change”. 

Ariadne is also another candidate, although I’m less certain of her since our interactions have been fewer. But things feel more permanent and somehow serious with her, than other deities that I have personal – but not really devotional – relationships with. She is the one who is working with me on learning certain divination techniques.

If you want to include angels in the mix, then there are also Sariel, Samael, Keziah, and maybe, maybe Lu.  (More on the “special” side, of “special relationships”. More like an undeniable connection that I work very hard to not feed). But my relationships with angels are different than with deities, and it feels like the same dynamics do not apply. 

30 Days of Otherkin – Being Otherkin: Challenges

This was actually a topic I started talking about with a reader via e-mail the other day, so it’s been on my mind.

I have a very, very hard time separating challenges in my life that are due to not being human-souled, and challenges that are due to my neuroatypicality and/or how I was raised. 

For example, I have got some kind of severe mental health issues. I can view this from several different lenses. First, I was very genetically predisposed since mental illness runs in both sides of my biological family. Second, because of this, I was raised by mentally ill people and was not taught proper coping mechanisms (on top of a history of abuse). Third, I am a non-human soul, living a very human life in a very human body, and that creates some dissonance.

When I was younger, I was quick to blame a lot of things on my being otherkin. Depressed and missing a sense of home? Otherkin. Anxious around people? Otherkin. Severe identity disturbances and dissociation? Otherkin. Not able to understand a lot of humanity? Otherkin. In chronic physical and emotional pain? Otherkin. 

Now that I am older and have started undertaking my version of Shadow Work, and gotten myself into a very stable, very loving relationship, I have found the inner courage for me to start looking at things more at their face value. I was mostly depressed and missing a sense of home not because I was homesick for my past life in my past culture (which does still happen), but primarily because I was stuck in a very unhealthy living situation for the bulk of my life, and rightfully felt unsafe – not conducive to feeling at home, anywhere. 

I am anxious around people because I have an anxiety disorder, and because I lived in a place where I was constantly having to walk on eggshells and avoid my father, to avoid being hurt by him more. I have the identity disturbances and dissociation because of my illness and spending most of my life trying to just be whatever or whoever would get me out of any given situation, relatively unscathed. The constant pain is a whole cluster of biological and emotional issues. And come on…most humans can’t understand other humans, either. 

All of that being said, there are times I can be hit by a big bout of emo, mourning the loss of having your culture and civilization die away. And sometimes it can be a challenge to keep my mouth shut around my friends who don’t know who/what I am. And god, the tin cans. Tin cans are a real challenge, people. I just can’t wrap my head around how there can be so much metal that you can buy in nice shapes, for so damn cheap, that people then throw away perfectly good containers. (Yes, our apartment is hoarded up with at least a few dozen tin cans, although we do use them for art stuff). 

 

Rambling about Raum (and other Hell-aligned entities)

Raum just gets singled out because, yay, alliteration!

As I mentioned earlier, it seems to be “Angel Season” at Reconstructing the Labyrinth. The past month has been a busy one. Some events were a long time coming (such as my finally making things official with Samael after a couple of years). Some of them have been WTF, such as suddenly Lu becoming an ally. (Yeah, I didn’t see that one coming. Well…I did, but I thought we had another decade or so to wait). 

Samael and Lu have almost been it, when it comes to interactions. With Samael, little breakthroughs happen. With Lu, larger breakdowns happen. Unless you want to include the furniture flying through windows in a fit of rage as a break-through.* Ba dum ching. Moving on. 

And then there is Raum. Whom I usually try to avoid because despite what Z has been telling me, when I meet him face-to-face in the elsewhere, I’m still deadset on him being a cold, cruel, heartless bastard. And he scares me. But I’m completely stuck with him, for better and for worse. 

A couple of months ago, I had bought a pendant with Raum’s sigil on it. You know, the one that looks like the layout for some strange spaceship:

 

I’ve been wearing the pendant a lot the past couple of weeks, as a kind of peace offering. I’m tired of trying to block out connections, especially ones that I have no chance of actually eradicating in the long term. And my connection with Raum is one of the longest-terms there is. 

Wearing the pendant was helping soothe the wounds that I keep causing by trying to avoid him. And then the other night when I was trying to go to sleep, I wound up in his office. (Office/Library/Fancy-Shmancy-Parlor…thing). 

I’m not sure if it was him actually trying to come across in a different way to me, or me actually being emotionally open so that I didn’t automatically assign judgments on him, but my experience of him was different. He was cool and levelheaded, but underneath that was fire. A blue flame. The kind you could forgive someone whom had never seen it before mistaking it as ice. 

And he was not heartless. He just tried to hide the swirling storms of emotion and passion underneath layers of stoicism. An effort I could relate to, although he pulled it off far better than I did.

He held me for a bit, then I felt this pressure on my neck, and like his seal was somehow lighting up. That’s when I remembered I was wearing the necklace with that seal, and he was activating it.

I haven’t taken it off, since. I’m going to have to find a way to balance my jewelry, so that I can continue to wear the pieces Z has given me, with this one.

* The rage was on my part.

A Story About Community and Why I am Giving It Up

I used to be a member of a now-defunct forum, called Otherkin Alliance. There were a group of us that had grown pretty close as friends, and for the most part stayed around while the stream of newbies flowed in and out. Sometimes, we were nice to them. Sometimes, we were not: after all, they wouldn’t stick around, and they weren’t on the same level as we were. 

While I have severely been missing that sense of community in my life lately, I don’t miss that attitude. I still believe in tough love, and being blunt, and honest, when more gentle ways prove ineffective. But the whole clique thing and treating newer people as disposable punching bags? Getting one’s panties all up in a bunch over some kind of “social justice” that doesn’t even affect you personally? Arguing strictly over semantics instead of trying to meet people halfway to make some kind of actual connection, automatically assuming others you don’t know are less than you?

Unfortunately, that’s the attitude I tend to find prevalent in both the pagan, and otherkin, communities I have tried to join the past two years or so. Albeit I’ve mostly tried Tumblr (which I was braced for failure with), and old school, static forums. 

I’ve developed more of a sense of community from the random passersby on this blog that message me once or twice, then I don’t hear from them ever again, than after hundreds of posts on the more popular pagan and otherkin boards out there. 

And I’m done trying. 

So hello, WordPress. You are now the only tie I’m going to actively try to maintain to those two communities at this point in time. Maybe someday I can gather up enough spoons to start a new group for people who get what I’m talking about.