To write … or to be “a writer”?
The end of March, all of April and part of May were a write-off. My M.E. and reactive hypoglycemia flared up so I was bed-bound for around 15 -20 hours of every day. Hell. Things stabilised in May, although “stable” to me still means “affected every day by my illnesses”. Sadly I had to come off the raw vegan diet in order to reach some kind of balance again. I still hope to go back to it, or perhaps just to the transition diet, popularly known as Raw till 4, but at the moment I’m just trying to crack down on being vegan as it’s tough giving up dairy completely.
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
Easter weekend catch-up
It’s Easter weekend and the sky continues to try and snow, throwing down a sprinkling of flakes while frowning grey clouds upon an earth seemingly impervious to the rising sap that must be there, somewhere, hidden in the frozen ground.
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
A healing start to the year
It’s easy after months of not blogging to develop something like a phobia against tapping at the keyboard again. Much has been happening in my private/spiritual life that is not for public consumption; not everything has to be announced to the world. And as I practice my reserve, I find it becomes more and more natural just to remain quiet. So why break the silence? It’s not because I have something to declare or important things to share, it is merely an inner urge to write – and this is my forum.
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
Rant alert: Bandy Gnostics ;)
I’ve been feeling a little blah today. A flat-liner day, reflected in the grim winter weather that has robbed the world of colour, encasing the sky in grey, sapping vigour from anyone and anything.
I have several occult books on the go at the moment – a case of double-dipping multiplied by factor χ. The foreword in one book is a concatenation of obfuscating terminology … just like that sentence. It makes me want to shake her and demand why she has to veil the simplest of things in sentences that wrap themselves around and strangulate your left temporal lobe (governing language and comprehension). I attended a talk by this woman, and she’s no better in person. I listened for about fifteen minutes and then whispered to my friend, “Are you understanding any of this? I think my brain must have died after I left university…” But no, my friend looked up from a doodle on her pad and scribbled, “She’s talking rubbish!” Who knows if she was or wasn’t? She seems innately incapable of clear and simple communication, and yet she is published and called on for talks. Hey-ho. Horses for courses. Maybe my brain is just not hardwired to understand her. Like sexual chemistry, our lobe chemistry is so radically different we could never indulge in pleasurable intercourse.
Thankfully I’m not having the same issue with other books … in spite of some abysmal editing and poor translations. My proofreader and editor head just won’t switch off. When I think of the number of editing and proofreading runs a translation would go through in my job, I wonder if some of these occult books get barely a cursory read-through before being approved for print. Why oh why can’t there be quality writing with good information in all occult books, instead of in just a cherished few? Sometimes it feels like any old magickian/witch can publish any old shit. Oh AND, it’s doing my head in that so many seem to be jumping on the back of David Beth’s Voudon Gnosis and are flinging around the word gnosis like it gives them kudos just to bandy the word around. I have followed several writers for years, and it is only since the success of David’s books that certain people have started to define themselves as Gnostics and use the word gnosis. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Sad, sad to be the ducks following in the wake of a sailing ship.
Ooh, I’m being a bit of a bitch today, hey? Must be hormones removing the censors of bland pleasantries. That’s the benefit of being independent and “unaffiliated”, I can just say it how I see – personal opinion. Never take my word for it. Read and draw your own conclusions.
A slightly peeved
Seshat
©Starofseshat 2011
Self and Other …
Whoremoans [sic]… Yesterday was a day when things flipped on the edge of a coin. Great one minute, in tears the next; everything feeling poignant. Months ago in such a hormonally driven state I cried when I saw a dancing dog. Really? It’s just a dog. But it’s dancing! Sob!
The brilliant biting sun of yesterday replaced today by clouds and a deeper chill. The ground is still too warm, throwing up crocuses and spring flowers which will all be killed with the first frost. So much death on the horizon – winter creeping up and taking us by surprise. The reasoning mind noting the excess of berries on the tree; people drawing on old folklore about heavy berry harvests meaning a harsh winter. Geese flying in Vs, unsure which direction they should head in. Robins happy but not looking fat enough to survive, as the instinct to overeat and build a fat reserve is inhibited by the plethora of insects still buzzing on warm days … even the odd wasp and bee. Bees should be sleeping deeply and dreaming of flowers by now.
I sat in the garden yesterday writing A Plan, saw Other (the local stray cat – named Other by me and my neighbour as he is the “other cat” who doesn’t belong round here). I called to him. The look of recognition and joy touched me as he scampered down the wall and pegged it down the long garden to see me (good job he didn’t start dancing). Normally he is such a reticent cat. Our first moment of contact was during a session of yoga in the garden. I settled into lotus for meditation and when I opened my eyes there he was sitting in front of me just staring – from awareness of Self to Other. That was the first time he let me touch him. Since then he can be approached cautiously. The last time his lip caught on a fang and I saw the beautiful skull underneath his black and white fur: “When you die, will you rot in my garden? Will you? Hmm? Will you? Purrrr. Do that for me!”
I’m in skull withdrawal and the paltry offerings of commercial Halloween do nothing to satiate my need for bone or decorative skullwork. Samhain fast approaching. Some acquaintances off doing their own thing – apparently I’m too “dark” for them. I think they are right. I have something else planned with Others: part of three days of ritual – one day for me, one day for a man I care deeply about, one for me and my friends. And so my own awareness expands from Self to Other.
Last night I finally finished Leonora Carrington’s book, Down Below. This is the problem with reading 20+ books at the same time, I am a water-book-boatman, skimming over the waters, drawing lines between ideas and reading deeper meanings into connections between multiple sources. I believe each moment to be an opportunity to experience a greater lesson than just the words on one piece of paper or the words from one person’s mouth. Rarely do I dive into just a single book, but that too is a refreshing and different lesson, necessary at times.
Her final words describe how she slipped from madness to lucidity through the words of a “reasonable man”. The world in which she had guided the planets and seen the true nature (or warped nature) of those around her dissipated like mist on the river. “He ‘deoccultized’ the mystery with which I was surrounded…” She realised that medication was just medication not a form of hypnotism, and that her obsessions with one man (who patently took advantage of her vulnerable state) could be broken by having sex with another.
All in all a most unsatisfactory ending; but such are endings in life. Encounters, situations and people are rarely cut clean and tied up with a nice bow. It’s a blood and guts affair that hurts, but with awareness it is a pain of purging not festering.
An awareness of Self and an awareness of Other – at times an inseparable dance or a balderdashing bashing of heads. But My time is currently one not of moulding Myself to anOther’s needs and feelings but of re-creating My sense of Self and Being. If Other fits My “occult” world, it may stay; if not, it may be deoccultized, as I continue to defy that thing called a “reasoning and reasonable mind”.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Woman as Guerrilla Art
I’m tamping furious that the bastard council didn’t even let the Guerrilla art stand for a week before they removed it (see this link -> HERE). The area looked sanitised and wiped clean, the presence of the two stags still hanging somewhere in the air.
I have been slowly digesting yesterday which was a pretty dire day. Woman wasn’t at art group. She has injured herself. I was surprised/not-surprised at the lack of emotion in me at that news. I found it interesting that Alpha Psych who so patently has a thing for her, gravitated to her seat and spoke about her art with the postscript, “Although we shouldn’t talk about her when she’s not here.” Preferably not at all, I thought. I find her simpering, weak-woman ways irritating. She is one of those women who plays the helpless female, batting her eyelashes like she’s in a sand storm. I look to the men and see with horror that they fall for this manipulation. It may look endearing in a woman under thirty, but post-50 you really need to chuck the hormone replacement and grow a pair.
As I walked past the copse cleared of stag-art, I thought about how nearly every female friend has confessed to me that they have hairs on their toes … as if it is an admission of something grotesque, anti-social and, even, inhuman. We are primates. We have hair, we have odours, we need food and sex. We are not hairless, odourless, silicone sculpted, poison-injected doll substitutes but creatures with lumps and bumps, blemishes and squidgy bits. We are not sanitised areas cultivated with weed killer, we are living Guerrilla art… and we too are subject to removal.
Sometimes we remove ourselves, sometimes others remove us. In my own case, one indicator of my Presence is an acknowledgement of my needs and the subsequent follow-through. Plastic dolls have no needs. Guerilla art demands your attention and emotional response.
Recently, people keep asking me, “What can I do for you? Is there something I can do for you?” and the question surprises me each time, baffles me, leaving my mind to scrabble for something, the multiple censors hacking at thoughts like a series of slicing blades, trying to find something to say, something doable, something that isn’t “too much”. Asking for anything is a HUGE force of will for me. The double edge of this being that if I do ask for something (and usually I will start with something very, very little like “message me”) and for some reason it is not possible, or life gets in the way for no other reason than life throws a curve ball, then I take that as proof that I am plastic to that person; I withdraw and shut down.
In my five-year relationship with my abusive ex I asked for something once. We lived in a small flat. I was in the living room, he was in the kitchen, and I asked him to please bring me a glass. He was so enraged that he grabbed the dirtiest glass and tossed it at me on the sofa. Serves me right for relaxing enough to think I could ask for something… except of course, now I think, what a tosser (literally and metaphorically)!
But things are very different these days. I am a different person, changing rapidly, although I still really struggle with asking for things. Fantasy is one thing, reality is another.
After my massage which has left me feeling marvelous and fully anchored in my squidgy femaleness, I went for a coffee at my favourite cafe. I saw an interestingly lopsided coffee and walnut cake and asked for a slice (that was always my favourite as a child … the thrill of surreptitiously sneaking in a hit of caffeine as I wasn’t allowed coffee or tea until older, the same justification saw me develop a love of rum and raisin ice cream … !). As the manager cut me a slice, she nodded to the new cook, a young girl, and said, “Cake looks lovely, K.” And it was, so I took the time to scare the bejeezes out of K. by sneaking up on her and growling “Gorgeous cake” in her ear … She blushed and looked chuffed to bits, nervous because cake-making is her new endeavour in the kitchen.
I hate it when women diss other women, when they sit in a public place, point and list the faults. “Look at her extensions! Look at her belly! Look at the way she’s dressed.” It used to be easier to mumble agreement, but actually, no: the girl with the bad extensions has a pretty face, the woman with the big belly looks like she would be a real laugh and great to cuddle, and the woman with the odd clothes looks like she doesn’t give a shit, so yay for her!
I always make the effort to acknowledge the good things about women (I don’t say anything to men because the usual assumption then is that you are cracking onto them … booooring!). When I worked in the bookshop, a woman came in with her 80+ year old mother in a wheelchair. The old woman had fancy nails, and I said how lovely her nails looked. Her face lit up like a beacon, “Really?! I’ve never had a manicure before, my daughter just took me this morning!” and she beamed with pride. I was so pleased I said something, kicking aside that cruddy English reserve that means you “shouldn’t” engage on a personal level with strangers (I only engage personally, incapable of doing otherwise).
The thing is, women need that positive feedback. And I hate women who enforce the negative cycle of synthetic moulding, the belief that anyone else should conform to anyone else’s ideas. Yes, men play a huge role in this; whatever the pundits say, this is still a patriarchal society. And as a friend and I joked recently when discussing weight, the last thing you want from a man is a bloody solution (have you tried such-and-such, why don’t you go on a diet)! No, what you need then is for him to say you are gorgeous and perfect, because to be honest, you probably are: note how I slip easily into pointing the finger away from myself to you – I can dish the compliments, although I struggle to take them. But I do love those friends who have actually said they are willing to invest “years” into complimenting me until it finally sinks in … drip, drip, drip – it feeds my parched soul and yes, I do feel the desert in me starting to bloom, for which I thank you.
So, embrace the gorilla [sic] in yourself! Be hairy and smelly. Eat and have sex. Be beautiful, because you just are.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Scarlet Imprint on The Tower & Armageddon – Seshat on a microcosmic response
Thrilled today to find that Scarlet Imprint had posted a new blog entry with a field recording of Peter (one of my favourite magickians in “the public eye”) giving a talk on Armageddon, Babalon and the challenge facing us as individuals and as humanity.
Here is the blog post:
… do take the time to listen to the entire talk, unlike many speakers, Peter is very easy to listen to and the time flies by. I know that we are all attuned to 5 minute focus these days, but push yourself a bit!
The talk was interesting for me on a personal level for several reasons. Babalon entered my life in 2008; during that time she stripped me bare, turned my life upside down and threw me into a period of extreme turmoil and terror. After my last (and hopefully last) suicide attempt, I awoke initially peeved at the world, that it was still there and I still had to engage with it. A month later, Pomba Gira came down on me and I became her devotee. In turn, she has also stormed through my life, but in a gentle-raucous way, the way that extreme laughter can make you hurt but feel so good. So much has changed both in my head and heart since she came to me (and by coincidence Scarlet Imprint have recently released a book on Pomba Gira: Pomba Gira and the Quimbanda of Mbumba Nzila by Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold – I will be reading that after my current study book, Holy Harlots, Femininity, Sexuality, & Black Magic in Brazil by Kelly E. Hayes).
In the talk, Peter spoke about Armageddon and the need for magickians to respond (I won’t detail his talk here, because I really think you should listen to it yourself). All of what he said reflected my own thoughts over the last couple of years, and my own personal revelations – yes, on a macrocosmic level, but more specifically on a microcosmic level. And just as I have struggled with the concept of my own life being something I wished to preserve, so part of me listened and thought, “Is humanity worth saving?” Through my own studies in paleontology I have seen a distinct pattern in the life of the earth and its animals, and our own destruction, in which ever form, seems inevitable and justified. In my own mind, I do not see that Armageddon is coming, but that it has come, it is too late for mankind [sic], but not for individuals – as contradictory as that may sound.
I agree that there is huge benefit in learning a martial art, connecting with like-minded communities (specifically within the magickal subculture), learning how to glean our needs directly from nature rather than relying on oil-driven industries: yes, all of that is right and rather along the lines of “good advice will never harm you, even if it won’t directly cure the situation” (not that Peter was suggesting a “cure”).
But I am drawn once again to reiterating things I have been saying for years and experiencing for years. There is a need for us to drastically dispense with the trappings of our “social selves”, to realise that the persona we project is usually not who we truly are. Mental health is a case in point: where else do you see such a dramatic and often violent stripping of the social niceties to reveal the true bones of a psyche, often damaged by the demands and experiences of a sick world. We become the earth, walking examples of excessive stress, tired hypocampi, exhausted adrenal systems. We are ravaged and pile-driven, raped in the head, raped in the body – literally and figuratively. And like some inverse homeopathy we continue to feed the disease with more disease: as pagans filling our heads with fluff and saleable shit, buying our spirituality with the “must-have wand”, the matching cloak … all the while we are layering more and more plastic turf over polluted ground, allowing the pollution to sink deeper and deeper into our souls.
There is something in experiencing the head-smack of mental health WHILE practising consciousness and awareness, because you can bypass years of deconstruction and experience the polluted soul much more quickly than, say, someone who is stuck at the material level of life consumption and believes themselves to be “well”.
My last suicide attempt shook something within me and my health in very many ways has started to climb since then. It felt like a final purge of soul pollution, and even though I experience the dregs occasionally, I am in a place of construction and re-formation, aided by by the spirits of Lucky Hoodoo and my devotion to Pomba Gira.
I doubt I am expressing myself half as eloquently as Peter, but the point I want to make is that we, as magickians and witches, should not get stuck at stock-piling cans of peaches because I personally believe that nothing will save our world, and this is a natural cycle on this particular planet. But there is a microcosmic Armageddon playing itself out within each of us, and it is up to us individually as to whether we respond to it or die face down in the poisoned earth. There is more than this planet, and the transmutation of our Selves has to go hand-in-hand, or even take priority, over what we can change in the visible, mundane world. What we see is merely an echo of a greater reality; our microcosmic experience broadcasts a macrocosmic echo.
One night I was walking and saw a tree. Then I saw through the tree and experienced the essence that was expressing itself as a tree in this world. There is a dire need for us to find our own essence, the point of being that is represented as us on this plane of existence: because who we think we are, is not who we truly are. And if we continue not-knowing, that will be our own personal, inevitable Armageddon.
©StarofSeshat 2011
My face in a tea-cup
Today I went to my private spot at the cathedral, had a cup of tea and a smoke. Like a true English person I braved the rain, thinking “It will just refill my tea-cup,” and then I experienced that sense of justification when the sun finally broke through, “I knew you would! You bastard!” as I sat there steaming slightly in the sun, buffeted by the wind.
I looked into my tea-cup and fished out the leaves that had blown in. My hair was all over the place, my fringe now long enough to cover my eyes, so I felt like I was a teenager hiding from the world. Face in a tea-cup. Amber Leaf drifting around me in swirls on the wind. An old man across the courtyard stared at me. I glanced occasionally at him and each time I saw him staring I felt like I wanted to cry. It was the human contact. I think I must have looked a sorry sight, because he didn’t look unkindly at me, rather curious and sympathetic.
So, as is my wont when I feel emotional, it’s time to start distracting you from my vulnerable state – look at the shiny-shiny, don’t look at me!!
On my way back I discovered some Guerrilla art, a declaration about recycling, hidden in a copse of bushes. Everyone who saw it was grinning, including me… I LOVE Guerrilla art. Photos are a bit blurred because they were all taken with my mobile phone:
… and a bush I happened to like:
©StarofSeshat 2011
Love more than coital
I have been thinking a lot recently about what is real and what is fantasy in relationships specifically, about love and lust. Some of the people I have spoken to have grabbed hungrily onto my words, wishing to deny any sense of fantasy when all we have is fantasy, never anything real. They are the grabbers, the hungry-needy. They are not the lovers. But then when you find something real and all others tell you it’s fantasy… well, they just don’t understand.
I once had a love affair with a man whose name I never knew. You might be thinking it was a one-night stand. In fact, I never touched him or spoke to him. You might be thinking it was a crush on someone in the public eye. Neither/nor.
I was standing on the train from Athens City heading for Piraeus Port where I was catching a ship to Rhodes. I was 25 and had a rucksack more than half my size and nearly my own weight. I was with my abusive ex. This was the second stage of our journey after he had left the monastery.
I noticed a man looking at me. He was maybe twice my age, shorter than me. He was a business man, wearing a smart suit and carrying a brief case. He had the most beautiful, liquid chocolate eyes I had ever seen.
We stared at each other. Occasionally I would look aware, scared that L. would see me looking at another man. But always I would look back to this man.
We spoke to each other with our eyes. It was love. He was so gentle and kind. There was nothing in him that grabbed at me or smirked over me. He looked at me. I looked at him. Our souls loved while around us people read newspapers, chatted, spoke to each other with their frontal brains, everything within normal social bounds.
And then this man’s stop came. He gave me an almost imperceptible nod of the head, like a courtly knight bidding farewell. And I felt a pang of grief at him going.
Was that nothing? Was that fantasy? For us it was a real moment of joining and love; with no words, no touching, nothing that the conventional world would class as real.
There is more to making love than coital positions.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Cut the cow shit!
I’m as tall as a cow. I found this out as I walked through the cow fields and one came up and eye-balled me. Cows today must be GM-cows because I’m sure they never used to be that tall, and at 1.75m I’m not short either.
Short. I wish that was the excuse for why I struggle so much with the stiles. Predominantly a British phenomenon:
Doesn’t look too tricky to clamber over, does it? But is it left foot first or right? Which leg do I swing over and when? Usually I get stuck half-way across and sit with a blasé expression, pretending to admire the view while I consider whether to just throw myself off the thing or tackle it limb by limb.
I encountered similar difficulties when getting into the jeeps and pick-up trucks of my family in New Mexico. They live in the mountain desert so it’s high off-roaders only for them. I tried reversing in, but my legs are two short. I tried launching myself in front first and army-crawling my way on elbows over the back seat. Nothing but nothing was elegant. My family found it hilarious. I pursued different options like an alchemist seeking a way to transmute base metal into gold; but my elegance remained tin.
This evening I sat down by the river, watching fish jumping for the evening flies. Four swans floated past, each raising up out of the water to stretch and flap their wings, not together or randomly but one after the other. I saw flowers floating past and thought about garlands of flowers offered on the Ganges. A flock of ravens hiding in a tree was disturbed and raised a great racket as they flew off – I have never seen so many in one group. The pinky-orange sun slipped behind a cloud and I headed home.
On my walk I thought about art group today. There was only me, Woman and Beta Psych, so we just sat and talked. Woman narrowly avoided having her eyes jabbed out with paintbrushes when she TOLD me that I wouldn’t self-harm if I had a boyfriend. I coughed up a fur ball and said, “Cutting is not about being single.” She said other stupid, facile things and contradicted herself, or damned me to hell as irredeemable, by saying that men would be scared off by the intensity of my scars. I’m fucked either way, or not as the case may be. I said, that such people could “jog on” as far as I was concerned, that I didn’t need namby-pamby people who cringed at the sight of my scars around me. Life is too short and there are plenty of people who accept all aspects of me, or who have indeed been there themselves. As an LHP-er I don’t think that I have to surround myself with the twee people to feel good. No I don’t have to be nice about people’s beliefs in angels because that will make me a good person. Angelly-Wangelly stuff does my head in as much as therapy-werapy stuff dressed up under the abhorrent term “life coaching” – both run the triple knife edge of doing nothing, being childish make-believe or doing harm to fragile psyches. In any case you might as well imagine a smurf on your shoulder and listen to what the smurfing hell it has to say to you … you will make just as much progress by channeling your own subconscious that way. You do not invoke an archangel for a cuddle, FFS.
I said, I missed TMIWTM. Woman asked, “What does he give you that you can’t get from us?” I replied, “Everything! I have told him things I haven’t said here, and he knows things about me that no one else here knows or will ever know.” She looked shocked. Beta Psych appeased her with, “One-to-one is very different to a group working environment.” You bet your bejeezes it is. I said that I had never been so emotionally close to a man before. I heard her jaw hit the floor. She doesn’t like TMIWTM. She saw him for a couple of sessions 15 years ago and he told her she needed marriage counselling. 15 years later, she still needs marriage counselling… today she admitted to violence in the marriage on both parts.
Nobody’s perfect. But I do get tired of people trying to heal others when their own lives are fucked; or people in bad relationships telling you that a relationship will sort all your problems; or when people pretend to be open-minded but have surprisingly narrow and sudden limitations. I’m fucked in the head. I know that and admit it freely. You literally read my heart on my sleeve and the state of mind in the scars on my arms; but at least I am honest about it. I don’t bullshit and I don’t play around with other people, pretending to be something I’m not.
If I’m tin, then I’m tin but I keep trying to be gold. And somethings will never change: I will always be as tall as a cow.
©StarofSeshat 2011
A coughing salutation to Pomba Gira
I don’t know how people can look down on the devotional work involved in being a witch or on a spiritual path, that you have to at some point “move away from devotional work” … it can be exhilarating and who wouldn’t want to plug themselves into a kosmic circuit occasionally?
Wonderful afternoon. I decided to take advantage of the sun and head for the river to say my thanks to Pomba Gira.
I thought I would avoid “Suicide Bay” as I call it but instead be positive in moving forward and head for “Cow Cove” instead. But Cow Cove was full of people and dogs, so I headed off into the woods for Suicide Bay.
Rather more overgrown than my last visit in January, but I managed to find the path down to the river.
And it couldn’t have been more beautiful.
The sun reflecting iridescent green off the water reeds.
I sat down and placed my three red roses in front of me, my vanilla flavoured cigarillos, my new silver lighter (oh, it has two hearts engraved in the top!), and a bottle of water.
I am not a smoker. But I will do anything for the spirits and god-forms I work with. There are things in this sensual world that they cannot directly experience, and it is my job as priestess to facilitate the experiences for them in return for favours. It is not full possession that takes place, more a meeting of peripheries that allows them to taste and feel through me. I have always found it a very easy state to slip into.
So, to begin. Light cigarillo. Hmm. Now, the man in the shop showed me how the lighter worked… he did something with his thumb and there was a flame… is this fire magic beyond me?! Something is meant to slide open … I’m buggered from the start if I can’t even work the lighter … Ah. Ok. Got it.
And then the choking inhalation. I have smoked spliffs before but never a cigarillo which is a heavier hit of tobacco on the lungs.
I chanted, smoked and plucked petals from the roses tossing them before me as I sat in the sunlight by the river. At one point the river seemed to flow backwards …
Two topless men plus “hard-man dog” appeared from round the bend in the river; they had waded through the shallow waters. They grinned at me. “You look happy,” said the one. “I am!” I replied, and meant it. I felt totally content, and now bemused at what they really thought of this woman sitting plucking petals off roses while choking on her vanilla cigarillo and muttering under her breath.
On the way back I encountered another topless man (it is hot today!) with six-pack stomach (not that I was looking). The cougar in me purred. He jogged towards me to open the kissing gate at the edge of the field so I didn’t have to lift a finger. We had “a moment” and I walked on smiling … no, I think smirking and grinning like a Cheshire cat would be a more honest description.
I feel like I have managed to put something behind me. Ritual grounds me, makes me feel whole and connected. Devotional work – aligning myself with god-forms, patrons and spirits – it’s all a necessary part of connecting the dots.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Seshat audiocast: A Reading from The Satanic Bible, by Anton LaVey – Love and Hate
©StarofSeshat 2011
Indians [sic] and shamans [neo-sick]
My German family emigrated to America in the 1950s. My Oma (grandmother) became an educator (assessor of children’s learning levels and needs) on the Navajo Reservation, where my family also lived for a while.
In my late teens and early twenties I travelled from the UK to spend time living with my grandmother in an area called the Checkerboard because squares of land belong to the Navajo Nation (a dependent state existing within the independent state of America) and some squares belong to the Federal Government of the US.
While there I took up Navajo language classes and met a Navajo woman who worked for the Navajo Nation Government. Her work involved travelling hundreds of miles daily over the Reservation. She invited me to travel with her for four months and during that time she adopted me as her daughter, introducing me to Navajo or Hopi Native Americans as her daughter.
First point:
Native Americans are NOT Indians
Native Americans are NOT American Indians
Native Americans are NOT North American Indians
They are Native Americans because they are the original people native to that continent; any other name carries with it a shed load of political hegemony and implicit colonial abuse.
I learned a lot from my Navajo mother and her friends about what was considered acceptable to Native Americans, what were sore points, how their history affected them … how thousands were deliberately wiped out by white Europeans distributing plague-ridden blankets among them; how some native peoples have been completely exterminated. Their history is no less painful, political and rife for misunderstanding than the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian Holocaust, to name but two.
After my time on the Reservation, I went to Germany where I spent a year beginning my translation career. There I encountered a heavily sunbedded female with a suede, fringed jacket, plaits and feathers in her hair. She “identified” with “Indians” [sic]. I felt sick to my stomach at her ignorance. No. Don’t give me any bullshit about naive enthusiasm: if you are truly interested in a Native Path then do your research, learn the history, the current politics and the current discussions around the misappropriation of native culture and spirituality, which continues to this day, and is felt by so many NAs to be a continuation of the colonial hegemony they have had to suffer for centuries.
Following on from this: the word “shaman” has become a word bandied around as easily as “witch” (I will deal with that another day). Banging a drum, chanting and speaking to imaginary spirits does not make you a shaman. Pretending that you “journey” every time you touch a rock does not make you a shaman, nor does it make your experience “shamanic.” The concept of “journeying” has also been watered down to be meaningless half the time.
There is no documentation of shamanic culture per se in the British Isles. If you refer to Celtic shamanism, the same point applies as there is no documented proof of exactly what the Celts did except for tales told by Roman historians, and the Romans defeated the Celts … we all know what history is like when written by the victors (blood sacrifice, baby-eating, water poisoning, with the odd truth thrown in – who can say what is true and what isn’t?).
I met two shamans/medicine men on the Reservation and they gave me none of the “foot in both worlds” bullshit, none of the “hang on, I’m just speaking to my spirit guide, Jack”.
If you look at shamanism as practised amongst Native peoples in America (there are many different peoples – different languages, different religious practices, although most will have a name for themselves that translates as “The people” – consider the Navajo word for themselves “Diné”), and if you look in particular at the shamanic practices still found in Siberia you will see a very different picture from the neo-Shamanic practices of British/European wannabes.
As a knowledgeable friend concurred, calling yourself a “traditional shaman” is a tautology shouting “fluff” because true shamanism is by definition “traditional”. However, the word “traditional” sells more books, doesn’t it? Kerching! $££$$£
Shamans are known for communicating with spirits, but again, this is not a running conversation with an ancestor sitting on your knee, your hand up its spiritual backside as you channel its wisdom. No. Communication with spirits is usually within the context of an ecstatic ritual, or within a ritual context that will suspend the natural (or more apparent) senses.
Be warned that not all is what it seems. I have met two shamans. One I had more contact with than the other. But they were not bullshitters.
If you are interested in Native American spirituality – remember that there are many, many different Native American peoples and that not all are the same. Have the courtesy to research their history and their current politics. Read authors such as Ward Churchill – academic historians; don’t just read people with fake names like Starhawk (who is a respectable neo-pagan but NOT a Native American).
And if you come across someone calling themselves a “shaman”, add “neo” in front plus a large pinch of salt. Don’t part with money. Trust your gut. And read around the subject.
©StarofSeshat 2011
THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR
If you wish to copy this text, please link back to this blog and accredit me, the author. Thank you.
The Pagan Calendar is divided into eight ritual and celebratory events: four major and four minor celebrations that mark the passing of the year and celebrate a phase in the relationship between God and Goddess. This is sometimes referred to as the Wiccan Ritual Year or the Wheel of the Year. Since many pagans who celebrate these festivals are not Wiccan, we shall refer to it as the Wheel of the Year. Why a wheel? This is because the symbol that illustrates the sequence of the year is usually drawn in a circle, representing the continuous coming and going of the seasons and the years. A line has a beginning and an end, but a circle has always represented The Infinite.
[Image courtesy of Golden Valley Art]
[Copyright ©Golden Valley Art]
The four major festivals are called the “Greater Sabbats”, whereas the remaining four are “Minor Sabbats” and fall on the solstices and equinoxes.
These eight festivals of the Pagan Year are distinct from the “esbats” or monthly marking of the new moon and full moon.
Some pagans celebrate the festivals on the dates as dictated by the Gregorian Calendar, other pagans will celebrate the festival at the closest full moon, and others will look to the specific astrological conjunctions that mark the beginning of a festival.
According to Ronald Hutton (seminal historian on paganism), there is no evidence that pre-Christian people celebrated the eight festivals of the year. Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh were originally Gaelic quarter days. The concept of adding the equinoxes and solstices was adopted by modern Gardnerian Wicca in the 20th Century which also brought it more into line with Neo-Druidry. Many native peoples will have marked the equinoxes and solstices, which are observable in nature, but the actual eight-part Wheel of the Year is a more modern creation.
Some names for the God: Sun King, Green Man, Horned God, Father Nature
Some names for the Goddess: Mother, Maiden, Crone, Wise Woman, Mother Nature, Lady of the Wild Things
Samhain (31 October – 2 Nov)
Samhain (pronounced Sow-en) is considered the Pagan New Year. This is a time of celebrating the lives of those who have passed on and is a festival of the Dead. There is a general belief that the veils between this world and the afterlife are thinnest at this time of year, and as such it is a perfect time to welcome back the Dead, to remember them and hold feasts and celebrations in their honour. In paganism, death is very much a part of life, and is not seen as something morbid; it is a time to contemplate life and death as a sacred whole.
The old year dies and dissolves for the new year to begin. Death is merely a reminder of rebirth and how the Wheel of the Year keeps turning, even beyond the grave.
Other names: Halloween, All Hallows Eve, Feast of the Dead, Ancestor Night, Festival of the Returning Dead
Yule (19 – 23 December)
Yule, which is also known as the Winter Solstice, marks the longest night of the year when the sun is at its lowest point. Between Samhain and Yule, the Lord of the Night (symbol of death) has ruled and the Goddess in her Crone aspect has given us wisdom. Now it is the time when Light returns and the Great God/Sun or divine male is reborn. It is one of the four solar festivals.
Other names: Winter Night, Winter Solstice
Imbolc (1 – 2 February)
Imbolc (pronounced Im-olc with a silent “b”) celebrates the land awakening and the growing strength of the Sun/God deity following his rebirth at Yule. The Goddess is venerated in her maiden aspect (her three aspects being: mother, maiden and crone/old woman). It is a time of cleansing, purification and dedication. The young god approaches the maiden goddess with desire; their love igniting the creative energy we see in spring.
Other names; Candlemas, Brigid’s Day, Bride’s Day
Ostara (19 – 23 March)
An equinox is when the sun crosses the celestial equator – day and night are of equal length: for pagans this is a solar festival when the powers of winter and darkness are equal to the powers rising to bring summer and light. The Horned God rides forth on the hunt and heralds in a time of celebration. Winter is behind us and the potential for life and growth abounds.
Other names: Lady Day, Festival of Trees, Spring Equinox
Beltane (1 May)
Beltane is a time when the Great God and Goddess are united in sexual union: the mystery of the Sacred Marriage of God and Goddess, the Hieros Gamos/”greenwood marriage” that is often replicated within ritual through the year. Hence this is seen as a fertility festival, represented by such rituals as dancing around a phallic maypole. The God impregnates the Goddess creating the potential for life, the harvest of the land later in the year.
Other names: May Day
Midsummer (19 – 23 June)
The summer solstice marks the midsummer point of the year when the sun is at its highest point: the longest day in the year. One of the solar festivals; this is when the God is crowned Lord of Light and is at the height of his power. Having known complete love with the Goddess, he now turns and sets sail for the Land of Rebirth. From this point his powers start to wane and the days become shorter. The Goddess prepares to give birth to the fruits of the land, the annual harvest.
Other names: Litha, Summer Solstice
Lughnasadh (1 – 2 August)
Lughnasadh (pronounced loo-na-sah) is a grain/corn festival or festival of the first fruits when pagans give thanks not only for food, but for all gifts and blessings, granted by the bounty of the fertile Goddess of the Land.
Other names: Lammas, Festival of the First Fruits
Mabon (20 – 24 September)
Mabon is an equinox, which is when the sun crosses the celestial equator – day and night are of equal length: for pagans this is a solar festival. As the days lengthen, pagans once again consider the darker faces of God and Goddess. It can also be a time to honour old age and the coming winter. This is a second harvest celebration, giving thanks for and sharing the fruits of the earth to ensure the blessings of God and Goddess through the winter.
Other names: Autumn Equinox, Second Harvest, Wine Harvest
Recommended Reading:
Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, by Scott Cunningham
Hedge Witch: Guide to Solitary Witchcraft, by Rae Beth
©StarofSeshat 2011
Snuggle
Here’s a pair snuggled up nicely – check out the intertwined tails! Awwww:
©StarofSeshat 2011
Dedicated To My Blog Readers
” Since I fortuituously [sic] met you, whom I consider the most clear-sighted of all, I began gathering … the threads which might have led me across the initial border of Knowledge. I must live through that experience all over again, because, by doing so, I believe that I may be of use to you, just as I believe that you will be of help in my journey beyond that frontier by keeping me lucid and by enabling me to put on and to take off at will the mask which will be my shield against the hostility of Conformism.”
Leonora Carrington, Down Below
What is a pagan?
If you wish to copy this text, please link back to this blog and accredit me, the author. Thank you.
Nb: If you find two pagans who agree, you haven’t found two pagans! 
What is a Pagan?
A pagan is person who practises a spiritual path; he or she follows either an established tradition under the “Pagan” umbrella or takes aspects of paganism, which are meaningful to him or her, and creates a way of living. A pagan is not somebody who only worships once a week or at special times in the year; a pagan path embraces all aspects of living and is a philosophy as well as a spirituality.
So what comes under the “Pagan” umbrella?
There are innumerable pagan paths: some draw on native religions such as the traditions and beliefs of Native Americans; some look to history and “re-kindle” Greek, Roman or Egyptian mythologies; then there are the neo-pagan religions of Wicca and the eclectic lifestyles and approaches of Green Witches, Hedgewitches and Kitchen Witches. There are Discordians and the followers of the Feri tradition, modern-day neo-shamans, magickians, wizards and witches. But not every pagan is a witch!
Pagans can be monotheists (believing in one god or goddess), polytheists (believing in two or more gods/goddesses), polyentheists (believing that god/goddess exists in all things) or even atheists (no belief in a god/goddess).
Paganism can (although does not have to) incorporate occult studies, and indeed some occultists would not describe themselves as pagan, although some definitely would. The occult world includes Thelemites (who follow the religion/philosophy of Aleister Crowley), Satanists (Satanism as created by Anton LeVey in the 1960s), Luciferians, Gnostics, Qabbalists … the list is virtually endless.
Isn’t it a bit vague having so many different paths under one word?
Yes and no. It can appear vague and confusing when you first approach paganism, but once you start learning, studying and exploring you will be overwhelmed with the richness both of paganism and the diversity of the people attracted to it. One thing is key amongst pagans: to accept the path that the other person walks. There is no preaching and there are no attempts to convert people. We are happy to be who we are, and we rejoice in seeing other people be who they truly are. Human diversity is celebrated within paganism!
Is paganism a cult?
No, paganism is not a cult. There is no one figure who commands all pagans. Even though there are occasionally oddballs proclaiming that they are, for example, King or Queen of the Witches, this is something rejected by pagans and usually cause for much hilarity.
We abhor bullying and coercion in any area of life and this is something that goes very much against the Pagan Path. To reiterate the previous answer: There is no preaching and there are no attempts to convert people. We are happy to be who we are, and we rejoice in seeing other people be who they truly are. Human diversity is celebrated within paganism!
The word “cult” is often used as a slur word to disparage someone else’s religious or spiritual beliefs. Often people using the word “cult” have their own agenda of conflict and negativity, rather than a true desire to promote spirituality and personal growth.
Are pagans devil worshippers?
The majority of pagans do not believe in the devil; Satan or the devil for them is a construct of Judeo-Christian religions and mythology. There is a lot of confusion in this area as the pagan image of, for example, Pan (who is the god of nature, hunting and revelry) has been subsumed into Christian culture as the epitome of “what the devil looks like”. Pan is by no means an evil god, and many pagans would even dispute the existence of evil itself, but would say that “evil” is energy just as “good” is energy: a gun is only a piece of metal until the gun-holder decides how to use it. This is a key point within paganism: there is no doctrine telling us what is wrong or right. We each carry a heavy responsibility as to how we use this “moral energy”. It would be easier if we were told what to do, but instead we have to cultivate self-awareness, respect of others, sensitivity to the environment, a knowledge of cause and effect and make our decisions bearing all this in mind within our spiritual framework.
Are pagans witches?
Some pagans are witches, but the majority are not. Many pagans do not practise witchcraft or spellwork. Witches can come in many guises: some are Wiccans, some Dianic witches, Green Witches, Hedgewitches, Kitchen witches, etc. Traditional witchcraft and Voodoo even draw on the spellcraft of Pennsylvanian Christian pow wow magic. Witchcraft is like a river with many tributaries feeding it – some of which lead to surprising sources.
What is a pagan ritual?
The answer to this will depend very much on which tradition you choose to work with. A pagan ritual in general will aim at focusing the energy of the person or participants (if it is group work); this energy can be drawn from themselves or from any of the Five Elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Ether/Spirit, for example. Sometimes the energy is focused on sending healing to people, or on blessing the group, reconnecting with deity or many other things.
Rituals can be either in a group or worked individually. Rituals can be as elaborate or as simple as you wish. The main point, however, is to learn the basics and for that there are many good books and (through the Herefordshire Moot) willing people to teach and advise you.
Do pagans believe in Jesus?
Some do and some do not. Many pagans believe in a wide variety of higher beings. Jesus is one of these beings for some pagans. Some believe he was a great spiritual teacher, but not a god. Some have no feelings about him at all.
Who is the pagan god?
There is no single pagan god. As mentioned before, some pagans believe in one god or goddess, some believe in two or more and some believe in none. It depends on the tradition you are called to work with.
What do pagans do?
Pagans are just like anybody else. You will find pagans working in industry, in the military, employed, unemployed, well, sick, happy, sad, divorced, married, hand-fasted (pagan marriage) and other. Most pagans will work around the pagan year honouring the equinoxes and solstices, marking the new moon and full moon. Some will do elaborate rituals in groups or on their own, some will do nothing more than light a candle and internally connect with what is important to them.
Do pagans pray?
Some pagans pray in what would be recognised as a “traditional way”, others use forms of meditation, drumming, chanting or dancing. There are many ways of connecting with deity and pagans are pragmatic in that, if it works, they’ll try it!
Where are the pagan churches?
Most pagans would say that their church is Nature and that She is where they worship. Others might say that when they cast a circle (create a sacred space), that is their church. Since pagans believe that deity is everywhere, however deity is conceived, the idea of a fixed building in which to worship is unnecessary.
How do you become a pagan?
Try firstly to read as much as you can about paganism and its different offshoots. Meet up with pagans. Ask lots of questions! When you feel the time is right, you will know how best to dedicate yourself to your chosen path and deity or deities. Most people begin with a personal, individual dedication. Groups, such as covens (not all groups of pagans are covens), do not usually allow people to join them until they have shown a commitment to studying and learning about that particular path. A moot, however, is a social environment for meeting pagans: you don’t even have to be pagan to come along, just bring your interest and respect for others.
What do I need to be a pagan?
You only need yourself and a sincere interest to learn, a yearning in your belly that this is where you belong, combined with an open heart and mind for your fellow pagans. No one is going to judge you if you step on this Path and decide at a later date it is not for you. Our Paths can be winding ones, and each step teaches us something valuable.
Why do people say bad things about pagans?
People often ridicule what they do not understand. Hollywood has also created many damaging and untrue stereotypes. This is why it is important for people genuinely interested in paganism to inform themselves from reputable authors and to meet up with real pagans. You cannot teach your paganism by watching “Charmed” or “The Craft” or any other light entertainment. Paganism is a spiritual way of living that requires commitment, soul-searching, self-awareness and hard work. Nothing worth having comes easily, but the joy of finding yourself on the right Path with like-minded others can’t be overestimated.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Stop breathing immediately!
A little ritual work this evening, a medium dose of reading and a lot of ritual writing. Good to be back on track after a break of a couple of weeks – too long; I felt the spirits nudging me kindly, but enough’s enough and I don’t want to drag my heels and get a sledgehammer hint over my head that I have been neglecting Them.
A beautiful reunion this evening.
Ritual writing exhilarating as always. Because I find it easier to speak my rituals than to write them, especially if I am adapting from several books, I use a voice recognition software which can be a tad unreliable as I am very soft on my consonants (my German heritage is sadly lacking there).
This evening I was also adapting a meditation written by Ariock Van De Voorde in ATUA (probably the most vibrant and inspiring collection of occult essays in a very long time – more on the book at a later date – if you don’t have it and are interested in LHP or the Voudon Gnostic current, then you MUST buy this book – you snooze, you lose – and there is so much to explore!). The meditation is a method for approaching those hard-to-manage, obtuse passages we all hit against, here specifically in the Voudon Gnostic Workbook, although it could be applied to any occult reading. His advice however was interpreted thus by my voice recognition software as I read from the book:
Once you have either finished a chapter, or encountered a section that you find particularly obtuse, immediately stop breathing [sic].
… a little harsh even by my standards. However, Mr Van De Voorde had in fact merely suggested “stop reading”. Phew. Inhale. Exhale. Phew. I shudder to think how often I would have to cease breathing otherwise!
So a productive evening. I mastered bullion knots this afternoon and am a quarter of the way through finishing a necklace. Candles still lit that will accompany me into the Land of Dreams, incense still permeating the room … I felt the floor tremble when the spirits came. Beautiful Aakhu. Beautiful Spirits of Hoodoo.
©StarofSeshat 2011
Anger in the blood
I was reading today on a friend’s blog about Leonora Carrington. Finding this another, yet very different, inspiration similar to my reaction to Valentino, I sought out her book “Down Below”. This book is unfortunately out of print, in spite of a Virago reprint in the 1980s.
Having gasped at a few ridiculous prices ($75!!!) I found it on an anarchist collective online bookshop. Intriguingly it appears they had a shop in Edinburgh (I couldn’t find any reference to it still going) … but I am sure this is the bookshop that was my haunting ground while I studied there. I recognised the authors and tone of the titles – somehow I just knew it was the same place. I treasured my collection of Ward Churchill essays from there for years, and it still educates me in my opinions of wannabe white ‘native’ playgans.
I had been so sad to see it dwindle and go; students are just not made for activism these days in the UK – they scoff (rather than scoff AT) consumer products and aim for a career in some “blah-blah industry” so they can afford to scoff more Stuff. I don’t know any young person who has marched against unjust wars, for women’s rights, or gone on anti-fascist marches … And living in a rural area is no excuse. These issues affect us all; but instead there are too many kneejerk, tabloid-led mentalities amongst both the kids and their parents – MacDonald’s and Labels over Educations! Guns over Mentalising!
But it gave me a brief blast of nostalgia to find AK Press again and I shall probably buy more from them, once my money coffers are a little higher: the tax man has cleared me out (hopefully my final bit of blood money after having to close my business in March).
Coincidentally, last night I got back in touch with an old schoolfriend. He was a French exchange student now working for the European parliament as a political journalist. It was with him that I went to his hometown of Strasbourg and marched against Jean-Marie Le Pen and his associates: the largest demonstration again Neo-Nazis ever seen in Europe, and I don’t think it has been beaten yet. There were 70,000 of us on the streets and it took all day to march from the beginning to the end of the demonstration route,
Quote from an article you can find HERE:
The 70,000-strong demonstration against the fascists’ annual conference in Strasbourg in March 1997 marked a shift in the anti-nazi movement. The town was virtually shut down as activists marched through the streets chanting “Never Again” and “F for Fascist, N for Nazi, Stop the National Front!”
Recently there has been a lot of debate in the UK over the teachers’ strikes. I saw one poster designed to look like a road sign, with a worker digging but the title “Down tools!”; someone had scribbled underneath, “Lazy bastards!” And that really summarises debate and resistance within the UK today: an A4 poster and a scribble in Biro.
For my own part, these days my health prevents me from travelling to marches, but I still try to counter racist, ill-informed opinion when I find it (more specifically on the internet … lots of it out there) – although it is at a severe cost to my mental balance as I get so passionately and angrily involved. My days of rocking the boat are probably over – curtailed by illness, although I still have my voice, however small. This is why it pleased me no end that anarchist and socialist collectives like AK Press still exist (somewhere out there in the world).
But don’t think that I’m saying “It was different and better when I was young”; twas ever thus that mankind was on a downward spiral as soon as s/he stood on two feet. My studies in paleontology teach me how we are a mere speck in history and will not even come close to a fraction of the period in which dinosaurs lived. Hope for the future? We will die. Our children will die – and due to corrupt governments fighting wars for oil and resources – our children have already started to die before us and shall continue doing so.
An acquaintance raged to me about “the people” wanting windmill power and greener energy and that the government wasn’t doing enough … I countered that “the people” were not willing to be “one-car” or even “no-car” households, they were not willing to have just one TV (or no TV!!); People want everything and they are ignorant of where ‘everything’ comes from. If it changes a person’s lifestyle then suddenly it’s not so important … comfort over ecology; outrage over education (so much easier to be “shocked” and “horrified”, to bond with other “outraged” people, than to actually inform yourself and take an active stance) – “Lazy bastards” indeed, myself included at times as I am no paragon.
AK Press – a reminder today of what I once was before the years battered me down and illness stole the rest of me; at least that is how it feels most days. But there is still a spark of resistance in me, the person I was in essence hasn’t changed: I still hate racists (especially ones who pretend they are making a political point when it is still just lazy racism … oh I know, don’t tell me, “Some of your best friends are …{fill blank}” Tsk. Predictable). My father said that once. I was about 12, listening to him mouth off about black people to his friends and out came the, “Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are black people!” And I looked up thinking, where are these black people? At 12 years old, living in rural Britain in the ’80s, I had not yet even seen one, and don’t friends, let alone “best friends” come to your house? I knew a hypocrite when I saw one. I knew racism when I heard it and it angered me as much then as it does today.
Next to racism I would place a hate of ignorance; and by that I don’t mean a lack of education, because that can happen for various reasons and a list of qualifications doesn’t make a person intelligent. I know plenty of people with educations who are thick as shit. It’s the tabloid opinion and the ignorance of “I heard this in the pub/read it on the internet”, the ignorance of thinking that you have uncovered a point of law previously unseen by anyone in Europe that proves that a certain people are racist … because there is no better disguise for a racist than to get your foot in the door and accuse the Others of the same: I’m not racist, they are. So maybe one (ignorance) will always feed the other (racism)… there are very few Svengalis or Hitlers with malicious motivations driven by a hunger for power; it’s mostly about lazy thinking, ignorance and FEAR of difference and change.
Yes, I am angry. I have the anger of 4 generations of a family killed and mentally maimed by racism flowing in my blood. When I was nine I was taken aside by an old woman and told the story of my family; she said, “Blut zeigt sich” – blood will show; she meant that I would never be able to hide from my heritage and that it was with me forever. So, I make no apologies for being angry and for hating racism – whether it’s expressed by a hardcore Neo-Nazi or ignorantly enforced by doe-eyed well-meaning Playgans. To the former I say, “Fuck off and die” to the latter I say, “Have the decent respect to research the history of the native people you pretend to emulate, speak to them and see how they feel about the cultural appropriation of their spirituality by white people – sticking feathers in your hair does not make you Native American, and banging a drum does not make you a Shaman.”
©StarofSeshat 2011
Ispirazione!
Inspiration comes in unlikely places and I’m finding it hard riding the natural peaks and troughs of creativity.
Today someone called me “an artist”; a name I don’t feel I deserve, but it challenged something inside me, because ultimately that is my vocation and has been since a young age – another neglected aspect of myself.
Then this evening I watched a BBC programme about the designer Valentino. I found him and the people who worked around him inspiring. I found his female clientele insipid, superficial and gushy. As I saw them fawn over him, so obviously out of a yearning to have greatness brush off on them and heighten even further the botoxed foreheads, implanted cheek bones and ballooned bosoms – as I watched them I yelled, “Get a fucking grip, they’re only clothes!” And it’s true; as clothes and symbols of material superiority, they are nothing – they add nothing to a person’s worth but actually highlights the gaping hole inside them. Materialism as the Moloch that devours and expands the dark, empty spaces inside the soul. But as Art, as pieces of fabric couture, Valentino is indeed a genius.
Anyway, following the programme I felt so inspired by the skills of the couture seamstresses and the way-out couture of the 1920s (which taught and inspired Valentino’s work of the 1960s through a career lasting 45 years) that a stream of ideas flooded through me for my own work.
In writing, the advice is “Write what you know about” … some artists have taken the same approach: I have always found Lowrie too literal and emotionless; Cezanne and Van Gogh also show us the world through their eyes but with a layer of emotion; and others have maybe allowed the emotion to flow more strongly, such as Chagall and Dali; or delved even further into the mind as did the Expressionists and Abstract Expressionists. These are just subjective examples (and personal preferences), I am neither an art historian nor an art critic. But it got me thinking.
I am now looking at ways of combining my photography, my embroidery and my writing in single pieces.
My photography is solely about composition. I don’t have a fancy camera. It is a more than five year old, point-and-click digital camera. I don’t understand photo manipulation or photographic software, nor do I want to as I find most photo manipulation to look trite, but never quite achieving the coolness of kitsch.
My embroidery includes original sketches, machine embroidery, hand embroidery (mostly), beading, sequining… I am strongly traditional in my techniques yet experimental in what I produce.
And my writing … well, you read enough of that here, although I have also written fiction and poetry. No embroidery will be big enough to include an entire novel or even short story … or most poems … but sometimes a line is all that is needed. So I will be working on embroidery techniques using different fonts and lettering.
Let’s just say, I’ve gone from staring soulfully at my textile icon of Jesus (his hair is now finished and I have worked further on his halo [or 'space helmet' as a friend calls it]) to having a pool of ideas to pick and work from.
We still have no proper electricity here (over 2 years now), so no overhead lights anywhere. I think I need to invest in a daylight standing lamp so that I can actually work in the evenings. Often I feel inspired but the dim and gloomy light from my two lamps isn’t sufficient to see the stitches.
So, thank you Valentino for inspiring me, for reminding me the beauty and thrill of creation. Grazie mille!
©StarofSeshat 2011
Glad
I had a lovely, if curtailed, visit from my best-mate and god-children, with a gift of beautiful pink gladioli.
I am listening to ska, dub and reggae while reading about the roots of reggae … alongside books on medieval “household” magic (Albertus Magnus in German) and pow-wow magic (using psalms and scripture).
Nothing more to share except a close-up picture I took of the glads…
©StarofSeshat 2011
Jungle gnosis
Somewhere I read about the transition in Man’s relationship to the divine from those beings more powerful than humans but limited by certain human-like failings and personality traits to an ultimate, infinite Being who is infallible and omnipotent.
(Traditional) Gnostic thought holds onto man’s direct way of relating to the gods saying that Man is too distant, too spiritually imperfect and far removed from that Ultimate Source to be able to communicate with It. As humans, when there is talk of becoming divine and being a god, it is this lower emanation of godly forms that is referred to not the original source.
These godly forms in the Egyptian religion are referred to as Neter; sometimes translated as god/goddess, it also refers to an aspect of the original Source, an emanation composed in a godly form conceivable by human minds.
The Gnostic hierarchy of being seems to me often to be quite artificial and a typical human construct that aims at forcing some semblance of order on the chaos of The Unknown.
Potentially I can see merit in using a commonly held construct from the perspective of being empowered by the collective unconscious: why cut your own path through the jungle when there is a well-worn path before you that others say heads in the right direction?
That is a crossroads in itself: trust the Path that others follow and rave about or rely solely on your instinct (and the Guardians from other realms) to guide you through the jungle and (perhaps) risk getting permanently lost… or found, maybe the others are all lost – megalomania rules!
If following the well-worn or even less-worn path were a successful road to divinity (absorption into or manifestation as divinity depending on your right- or left-sided bent respectively), then surely mankind would exhibit a greater degree of enlightenment for humankind is nothing if not sheeplike in its general tendencies and beliefs.
That’s an off-the-cuff statement because I can also see that even if some follow in word, the majority do not follow in deed and remain encamped outside the jungle …
©StarofSeshat 2011
