My writing has picked up. I am working through a poetry course at the moment, learning about form and structure as well as content. I am half-way through the course and already see an improvement in my poetry (none of it is published yet on my poetry blog). Today I wrote a sonnet pastiche on Tennyson’s “If I were loved as I desire to be”. I’m pleased with the result. I get such a buzz from writing the main draft of a poem or from getting a lot of editing work done. I’m currently working on one of the main submissions for the course, a poem about the deep sea. So far I have 14 pages of draft work for a 35 line poem.

Feedback from friends on my recent writing has been good, although they are always supportive and vocal in encouraging my work. Feedback from the other course participants is … interesting; peer criticism forms about 50% of the course and I’m finding it difficult to offer constructive criticism. In private I gasp, “Oh my god, that’s awful!” or “Wow! I love it!” and that’s about as constructive as it gets. I’m not yet in the right frame of mind to take their poetry apart and offer helpful, critical suggestions. This latter ability will soon get some practice as I’ve joined a local writers’ group and we will be holding co-writing sessions but also critiquing sessions. The challenge is to learn to offer criticism but also to take it. At least all this literary criticism is toughening me up. What does surprise me is when I encounter someone who is “published” but whose writing is pretty dire … then I think, “Hey, I’m not quite as crap as they are, maybe I could do that too!” The main difference between us is less the quality of work and more the extent of self-belief. THEY believe they are writers and self-identify as such. I keep viewing myself as a dabbler, and even though (in my opinion) some of my writing is better than theirs, I pull back from calling myself “a writer” because it smacks of delusions of grandeur. But maybe I need to be a little more grand and a little more deluded if I’m ever going to make anything of my writing!

©StarofSeshat 2013

I chanced a religious joke with my mother that involved Jesus hopping … it didn’t go down too well as “Our Lord” doesn’t do such things. Transubstantiation and walking on water is within his remit but hopping is for heathens, apparently.

Ghost now has a shoebox in her cage. She is blind, neurotic and scared of the world, but the shoebox makes her brave. If I touch her outside the box she squeals in pain and anguish, shudders and shrugs me off as if it is the worst thing in the world to be touched. But if I can trick her to jump into the shoebox, suddenly she collapses under my touch into a tooth-grinding flat rat with eyeballs rolling in her head with pleasure. The shoebox is obviously her G-spot.

I have set up a new blog today, one that will contain mainly my own poetry but also other poetry that appeals to me. In less than a month I shall begin a poetry writing course. I’m excited and keen to get my bardic finger out. I find that poetry is often the best way to exorcise a powerful emotion, quick and painful though it can be; prose is a long drawn out affair that tends to pull me into navel-gazing martyrdom. The link to my new blog is here: Seshat’s House of Poetry.

My back is gradually seizing up and I am desperate for a massage. Sadly my previous masseuse left the beauty salon. The salon has a high turnover of staff, which is never a good sign. The owner is a bitch with a penchant for blonde staff members; one of the masseuses wondered if her boss might be trying to establish her own Aryan Nation. After having seen her out in casual military wear, looking like a Dominatrix about to walk over someone’s face, I wouldn’t be surprised. The issue was complicated further by the salon refusing to massage me until FOUR months after my hysterectomy because they were concerned that I would pop open and spill my guts like someone standing on an ice cream. A ridiculous idea, and contraindications for massage after hysterectomies are 6 weeks, not four months. So now I’m on the lookout for a masseuse who won’t treat me like an overstuffed sausage ready to burst its skin.

Below a photo I took of purple crocuses down by the river, before the most recent cold spell:

©StarofSeshat 2013

The year has begun with a huge focus on the physical body and health. As many of you know, my health is not the best and hasn’t been for the last 9 years. I had been looking forward to my 30s, but instead I fell ill when I was 29 and have spent nearly a decade reeling from one health crisis to another.

In January I had a hysterectomy to get rid of fibroid tumours in my womb. I am still in recovery having to take things a little easier than normal … initially a lot easier as I wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than a large glass of water.

New Year’s passed me by because in my head this operation was my “New Year”. It is major surgery and entailed risky complications at the very least. If I survived … if I didn’t succumb to infection or complications … then it would be a new beginning, a new relationship with my body – this is what I thought to myself.

I spent 2 months prior to the operation researching the effect of hysterectomies on gender identity and the essence of what it is to be a woman. I read medical texts and feminist literature. I read about bodies, hearts, minds and social roles. The only conclusion I came to from all the personal interviews was that I could not in any way predict how I would feel after the hysterectomy: some women who never wanted children, suddenly found that they grieved their childlessness, other women who were secure in their womanliness felt threatened and “less” of a woman.

My own response has been balanced and undramatic. I think I did all my grieving, questioning, worrying and oscillating in the months before so that after the operation I could just focus on my body. And that is what I have done.

Recently I have changed my diet to a low fat rawfood vegan diet (no more cooking!). According to the Mayo Clinic (the leading body for scientific research into Fibromyalgia), this is the best diet in terms of reducing symptoms of Fibromyalgia. Would I recommend this diet to other people? Am I going to become a vehement advocate preaching the benefits to non-Vegan cooks? Nope. In fact I would go so far as to advise people not to do this diet unless they absolutely, definitely wanted to. It’s a tough diet and not for anyone who is half-hearted about their health or looking for a quick fix. I hope I can stick at it. I already see the benefits for me personally, and that’s the most important thing. If you’re interested in learning more about the raw vegan diet, see my Minimalist blog: HERE

Since losing my womb I have made a conscious effort to connect with the cycles of the moon. I am once again doing regular ritual work at the new and full moon. It’s been a busy time since my operation what with Imbolc, the moon cycles and the upcoming Spring Equinox. It’s good to exercise my ritual finger after it being so long dormant. Ritual connects me with the seasonal cycles, the astrological movements, my own body’s rhythms and the spirit world. It is healing and empowering on so many levels.

In addition to ritual I am meditating more often, having found meditative approaches that work for me – sometimes mantra based, sometimes visualisation based, object focused or “blank mind”.

Every day I am making an effort to connect positively with my physical self. I am working hard at my own healing process, focused on the future and the will I wish to make manifest. Consequently I am feeling for the most part strong, content, positive, hopeful and physically connected. Yes, I still have wobbly moments and down days, but I am moving forwards and beyond that.

The key for me is a multi-directional approach: I do not work just with my body, but with my mind, heart and soul as well. No part of the self should remain untouched when striving for healing. We cannot compartmentalise our existence and focus on one part to the exclusion of the whole. Healing is a holistic experience, if not, then most likely we are just putting plasters over broken bones.

©StarofSeshat 2013

©StarofSeshat 2013

LASHTAL THREAD

So whereas the blogosphere is probably full of annual retrospectives, I can truly say, looking back at my year, that I started it at rock bottom.

Up to that point, my life had been very much focused on the past and the present. The latter merely being a hamster’s wheel sprint from the former. This year I have discovered the joys of looking towards a future.

Things that have helped me this year: new friends, the continued support of Sancho Panza, my rats, my devotion to Pomba Gira and my relationship with the Hoodoo spirits. All variations of inter-personal relationships of one kind or another. The key has been to establish and maintain connection – something that is diametrically opposed to my intrinsic nature, which is solitary and self-sufficient.

Part of LHP philosophy is to separate yourself from the crowd (or “herd” if you are being particularly Thelemic). LHP practices are greatly focused on challenging your preconceptions and assumptions, shocking you out of ambivalence and throwing you out of your comfort zone. The reason for some people (e.g. Luciferians) reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards is not for some Hollywood-esque drama, but in order to shock and challenge what may be a deeply held belief for you; the only way to truly be free of a former belief is to act counter to it, if you find you can’t or you experience internal resistance, then the belief still holds sway over you. Freedom is the aim! Hence the reputation of LHP practitioners for being hedonistic, sex-mad, drug fiends – they deliberately move against the set morals of society to free themselves of the moralistic hold of the masses. Germaine Greer suggested that women would never be entirely free from the constraints of a patriarchal society until they tasted their own menstrual blood – same principle: to be free, you need to overcome the “ugh” impulse that we have for so many things, those invisible bars of our invisible prisons.

This is all well and good. But if you spend your time solely with the sex-mad, drug fiends then sex and drugs become the norm; they morph into the standard of that particular social group and, in my opinion, you are bound and beholden to break those standards as well. Consequently being a celibate in a sex-focused world can be just as much of a revolutionary act as being a nymphomaniac. Ultimately it’s about being honest with yourself and finding out where your own boundaries are and where you stand in relation to society. For example, I have done Ford’s Lord’s Prayer backwards ritual and felt no shock or fear of retribution from a god who didn’t like to be referred to as dog.

Society at large is comprised of smaller social groups – a fractal of human enclaves. The first step in freeing yourself is to become aware of the groups you belong to, and there will be several: your own family will carry its own set of assumed standards; you will have ingested another set at school or in some other institution like the army; then there are the wider norms of society, those things that are generally accepted as right and wrong. By allying yourself with other groups in adult life you take on further sets of memes. And amongst all this there will be overlaps – consider those overlaps as stronger directives, ones that “everyone” agrees with, or do they? As individuals, I rarely meet anyone who seriously suggests contravening the general social ethic “Do not kill”, and yet societies condone mass killing for reasons of politics, oil, wealth and geographical boundaries … strange that we bother to teach our children that it is wrong to kill at all when each generation must see its country head to at least one war “for the sake of xyz”. Some people actively agree with a “just war” [sic] – are they then not agreeing for that moment to kill? And what about those who are anti-war armchair activists, people who shout in the pub about the injustices in the world, but who don’t even vote? Aren’t they at least complicit through non-action with killing? And does “Do not kill” even limit itself to humans? So, I would say that on some level we are all contravening the rule of not killing, even though for most it is an implicit contravention.

The same applies to other major or minor “rules”, there is connivance on some level with everything we, as a society, deplore … even something as extreme as child abuse is given the nod through the sexualisation of children – look at the consumer products aimed at our children who are so often dressed as little whores, forced to parade themselves in skimpy clothing, tiny hands reaching out for the outsized bosomed dolls with boyfriend-accessory. Yes, everything we condemn is at some level condoned in today’s Western society.

So our world has become a greyscale of morality, neither black nor white; everything is permitted, if you just market it the right way. And if you’re doing what everyone else is doing then what social or moral boundary will you challenge? How are you freeing yourself from the masses when you swallow the Consumerist Philosophy LHP™ ©Seriously Dark? Turning to the Left-Hand Path ends up being a mere fashion statement, a shopping list of so-called depravities, a pseudo-spiritual bush tucker trial of things that make you go hmmm. The more you try to be different, the more you become the same.

By trying to commit suicide I committed a socially accepted taboo. Just me speaking openly about it, probably makes some of you feel uncomfortable. Was I right or was I wrong to try to take my own life? As far as embracing taboos and pushing boundaries go, it’s not something I would recommend to everyone. In that moment, I embraced death completely. In fact I had spent my entire life flirting with death, allowing him to cop a feel every now and then until that moment when I gave myself up physically to him. But either he turned me away or life pulled me back and for the first time ever I have learned this year what it is to want to live and see a tomorrow, to long for a future.

I don’t have any answers from the grave concerning social morality, partly because I find the concept of morality to be such a subjective thing, shaped by time, geography, culture, religion, etc. Who can really say what is right or wrong, except the individual who must create her or his own morality to live by? In creating our own morality, we must also accept that it will clash with another person’s self-created meme. I levy equal criticism against the person who never questions their moral framework as I do against the person who rebels against social norms for the sake of rebelling as if purely the action will transform them spiritually, or worse make them “cool”. But in either case the needs and beliefs of the individual cannot and must not be viewed separate from the communal whole. Quoting Dion Fortune:

In the Aquarian Age, or so I believe, there will be a high degree of individualisation combined with a high degree of social integration. This can only be achieved if each individual has a strong sense of social duty; if each citizen says in the true sense, “L’etat c’est moi” [I am the state]. We can judge the rightness or wrongness of any action by extending it in a straight line and asking ourselves what would happen if everyone did that?”

This Kantian idea of universal morality makes good sense but is rarely, if ever employed, and certainly never employed on a wider social level (cf my point above about “do not kill”). And LHP philosophy, as much as I have gleaned, rarely speaks for society but instead for the individual. Some criticise LHP ideas as a source for breeding anarchy and the downfall of society … maybe, IF anyone ever thought that everyone would attempt to follow the Left-Hand Path, which nobody does. It is a path for a few brave/deluded/inspired/depraved [delete as applicable] individuals. So should society carry the burden of these rebelling few? Why not? Both society and the LHP individual move along a greyscale of morality, as shown above, but it is the LHP-er who walks (or should walk!) with awareness of what she or he is doing, and it is awareness that distinguishes the artist who applies paint with discrimination and focus from the ape who trips over a few tins of paint creating an abstract mess on the floor.

And this is the point: whatever you believe, however you create your morality, do it with awareness and with an artist’s eye to your creation. Be true and honest with yourself and your role in relation to those around you and society in general. Paint the full picture, not just part of it; become aware of all the colours in your moral palette, not just the polar shades of black and white. Don’t paint only blue because you see that your neighbour is painting with blue; and don’t stick solely with yellow for the same reason. Don’t be complacent with your artwork because a slight change in the ambient light (a change in circumstances, relationships, health …) could alter your masterpiece completely.

A year ago I tried to kill myself. Tonight I sit here, writing to you, I am connecting with you. The same night, a year apart, different colours, different light. Black is the hardest colour to paint over; if you’re not careful it shows through every other colour, adding a darker tinge to the brightest shade. It’s difficult not allowing the dark of last year to tint my experience of tonight. It takes merely an inward glance for me to return to that spot on the floor with packets of pills all around me. But these days I am painting with colours – my subjective moral universe has expanded from “I” to “thou”. I am connected to and aware of those I consider part of my community. I am in relation to various people who are important to me. Malkin speaking of Martin Buber’s concept of “I” and “thou”:

I-thou relationships … are our paramount source of spirituality. Each relationship is unique. Each partner to it discovers the “thou” in the other, his or her unique personhood. Moreover, as the relationship unfolds, each one discovers his or her own “I”, just as every child discovers his or her “I”, as a result of the developing bond to parents. This is the relationship that takes people out of the solitude into which every human being is born.

I am no longer entirely alone, although I continue to strive for self-sufficiency. I am growing in awareness of my fellow creatures – human and non-human. And as such, my moral horizons are broadening to encompass more than myself and more than a reaction to Other. Awareness and connection form the needle of my moral compass, and tonight they are both pointing towards an acceptance of life. I don’t reject death (we are too well acquainted for that), but I do hope he stays his hand for another year while I enjoy the full range of colours on my palette.

©StarofSeshat 2012

Tomorrow I am going to a fetish market and the fetish party thereafter. Yes, whips, chains, spankings, dungeon equipment and all. The last time I attended I had a wardrobe malfunction just before leaving, and so opted for the most comfortable and smartest outfit I had. Unfortunately the outfit was totally unsuitable for a fetish venue: unless you are wearing rubber corsets, PVC outfits, Steampunk or transgender clothing, the acceptable alternative is black. How ironic that I virtually always wear black but ended up choosing a psychedelic mixture of patterns and colours instead. As a result I felt out of place and people didn’t know how to pigeon-hole me. I felt like a Sunday school teacher taking a walk through an opium den. Clothes identified people’s proclivities; they identified whether a person was Dom/me or sub. Dom/mes will not talk to submissive people because they might belong to another Master or Mistress, and it is a transgression of unspoken rules to play with somebody else’s submissive.

Years ago I had a social networking account. I was connected with many occult people, mainly of the LHP persuasion. I was new to the path and felt a bit out of my depth although I was making strides in my learning. But I never felt fully a part of the community because I didn’t ever “play” the darker-than-the-darkiest-darkness dude, so black my own mother couldn’t find me in a coal shed shebang. One day I looked at all the status lines:

Hail the chthonic forces!
My soul is travelling the reverse of the tree of life
Hell’s gates open and I embrace the fury!
Today I honour Baron Samedi!
Only those initiated into true gnosis will pass the doors of Death

And my status line?

I’m just about to have a cup of tea and put a chicken in the oven

Sigh. No. Somehow I just wasn’t wearing the right online “uniform”. I remained on the fringes, my hyperbole too soft, too friendly, too this-is-how-I-am. I didn’t wear a mask, and masks were de rigeur!

Groups have rules and etiquette that distinguish them from other groups, otherwise what would make them different? Isn’t it enough to have a different way of thinking, without having to fall into the trap of becoming a fashion clique: got the book, got the T-shirt, got the hand gesture to use on every photo to show that I rock! But humans are base creatures and we find comfort in such binding actions – the “in” vocabulary that leaves all others bewildered, the “in” jokes that no one else understands. Being “in” is so much more preferable as a social primate than being “out”. The outsider has no place in this jungle, she is rogue and looked upon suspiciously. She is the hedge-rider, the traditional witch straddling boundaries between village and … the wild, forbidding “world out there”/the “world beyond life”; she straddles social customs and acts as an intermediary between our so-called civilised, social self and our animal, degenerate self – the latter dragging us down, the former supposedly raising us up.

So even in fringe groups, such as occultists and fetishists, who may define themselves as outsiders because they dwell outside of the mainstream, there is a focus on social integration and rules of belonging … if you transgress them, you are out of the outsiders – a twist on Micky Flanagan’s brilliant skit on going out-out. Suddenly you are the out-outsider.

But if you play by the rules, learn the group language and wear the group mask, then you too can belong! It’s a toss-up between being true to your authentic self and finally bridging that yawning gap of loneliness and isolation. For those who have truly experienced loneliness, what wouldn’t they do to connect and belong?

However, sacrificing your self to the group mores can mean that you lose the outsider edge; you lose the ability to straddle more than one world. You are subsumed within an all-encompassing whole, rather than striding forth on your personal path, however weird or humdrum that may be. Not everybody’s authentic self is eccentric and quirky. Mine is, but that doesn’t make it better or worse than somebody who raises their hands in horror at what I do or don’t do.

The real question is the motivation behind our actions. Are we ACTing or RE-acting? Are we following the herd from a need to belong, or are we driven forward by an internal motivation, a lust for self-manifestation?

So, tomorrow I shall wear the right uniform. I shall behave in a way that people know I am Domme. I shall speak the group language and enjoy a day of belonging. But when I return home, I shall undress, light candles on my altar, pet my rat and continue reading about Pomba Gira. My happy medium is to continue straddling several worlds; to dabble my toes in the “in” puddle, before drying my feet and walking off alone into the woods. I am a hedge-rider, a witch, and I always shall be. I am an outsider, an out-outsider even, and that’s fine by me. The questions I leave you with are: how much of your own behaviour is an action originating from an urge for true manifestation of self, the expression of your unique will? And how much is it a RE-action to a need for belonging, a desire to be “in”, a longing to bridge the loneliness within? Are you straddling the hedge demarcating village life and the wilds? Or are you holding hands with your fellow group members, backs turned to the darkness, eyes firmly shut for fear of looking over your own shoulders?

©StarofSeshat 2012

Sahasrara is located at the crown of the head or is sometimes considered to be above the physical body. Its lotus contains a thousand petals, of which five represent all the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet.  Through this chakra, universal existence, with no boundaries of “I” consciousness in the body, is realised.

Parambrahma rules this chakra, symbolised by the triangle of consciousness (called Veeja). This centre represents the overcoming of obstacles, and merging into the void, or the supreme light beyond form, an experience beyond description, according to most yogic scriptures and saints.

Meditating here enables one to cross the boundaries of creation, preservation and destruction so you can taste the sweet nectar (amrita) that flows in a constant stream from Sahasrara. One is no longer subjected to birth or death. At this state of awakening, individual identity disappears forever and one identifies with supreme consciousness. Remember that the deathless state does not mean one will never leave the body, but rather that the conscious mind merging with the infinite is achieved as a permanent state which will not be disrupted by the body dying.

Brahma

Chakra Structure

Chakras: Ajna

Chakras: Visuddha

Chakras: Anahata

Chakras: Manipura

Chakras: Svadhisthana

Chakras: Muladhara

Sat Nam

Seshat

Information source: Energies of Transformation, A Guide to the Kundalini Process, by Bonnie Greenwell PhD.

©StarofSeshat 2012

Ajna is located between the two eyebrows and is the source of two nervous flows, one through the eyes and the other through the mid-brain.

This chakra governs inner vision and the dynamic activities of will and knowledge. This “third eye” is associated in many cultures with light, inner knowledge, intuition and psychic abilities. Opening this chakra involves the integration of both the intellectual and emotional poles. When Kundalini reaches this chakra, consciousness transforms.

The goddess of Ajna is Hakini Shakti, with six faces and six arms. When she is red this indicates Kundalini knowledge is fully awakened; when white she represents a state of calm; when dark-blue she is about to proceed into a formless state. If seen as a mixture of white, red and black she is demonstrating a blending of the three gunas – sattva (harmonious consciousness), rajas (activity) and tamas (inertia).

Meditation on this chakra is said to bring visions of the highest truth and ultimately the wisdom of the Self, the highest knowledge. It is often referred to as the governing chakra for all of the others, and some yogis recommend concentration only on the ajna, or initially there, before awakening the energies of other chakras. It can affect the development of the qualities inherent in all of the preceding chakras, and enable an aspirant to reach a state of non-dual awareness. Complete mastery of the lower chakras is believed to be only possible once you have acquainted yourself with ajna.

Hakini Shakti – Ajna Chakra

Chakras: Visuddha

Chakras: Anahata

Chakras: Manipura

Chakras: Svadhisthana

Chakras: Muladhara

Sat Nam

Seshat

Information source: Energies of Transformation, A Guide to the Kundalini Process, by Bonnie Greenwell PhD.

©StarofSeshat 2012