Back from everywhere — and the Amethyst Pentacle

I took a big break in writing this blog, but Arita calls me back and so I must listen and follow.

Recently, I have been working with a group called the Temple of Shadows to facilitate and lead rituals that allow participants to explore all the parts of themselves in a kinky/BDSM and sex positive atmosphere. Doing this Work has allowed me to bridge two of my favorite communities and also constantly brings me back to the Flower Prayer of Feri.

The Flower Prayer
Who is the Flower above me
And what is the work of this God
I would know myself in all my parts.

Knowing ourselves in all of our parts. Quite a working all onto itself. I have spent years peering into that statement into my own life. It is radical and courageous and I still work on it every day. The Temple of Shadows has been one vehicle for me to explore on my own vulnerabilities, and that is stepping into leadership. I have found a lot of comfort in supporting from behind the scenes, but stepping into the center of a room always makes me nervous and shy. Nudge after nudge from all the supportive people in my life, and patient calls from by Patron Deities have me inching closer to the center and in the past 2 years, I have begun leading and co-creating rituals in both Reclaiming and Feri. Its a growing edge, and one that I dance around with spaciousness, self-compassion and playfulness.

 

In the next few weeks, I will be leading a ritual with an amazing group of people working with the Amethyst Pentacle. The Amethyst Pentacle was created by Storm Faerywolf and Chas Bogan as a working specifically for Queer Mens Mysteries. I am honored to bring this beautiful working to the BDSM community. This particular pentacle has a lot of personal significance for me. I was introduced to it a few years ago by a Feri Initiate who is pretty involved in the BDSM scene before I myself had found the inner power to step into that community, despite my great longing to do so. Through working the point of the Pentacle, I untangled a part of myself that craved deeper intimacy through BDSM, great relationship with myself, community and friendship. It was an energetic gateway. Working the Pentacle, I stepped through the gates into more honest and joyous relationship with my Self.

When Priestessing a Ritual, I always feel the intention and magic of the ritual begin to weave threads into my life weeks before the ritual happens. It can send ripples into my life for months after. With such a special place in my life as an initiatiory doorway into Kink I wonder what deepening the ritual will offer me, what new layer I will find in my Self as I spiral ever closer to simple authentic Me.

 

 

 

 

On losing direction…..and finding it, and losing it again

In 2012, something amazing happened in my life. I met someone, I fell in love, we moved in together. I met this lovely man at a time when my spiritual practice was rich and potent. At the time, I was working closely with the Feri Guardians and specifically with the Guardian of Air to help me to speak my power. And then, oh my my my. My heart a-flutter, touch and sacred sexuality and exploration. It’s been a fun year 🙂 But, the juicy, daily practice went sideways.

Now, my relationship is quite stable and happy and has moved in the direction of solid, beautiful partnership. All of that fluid, dynamic, sensual, sexual connection still flows but I also had to take a close, hard look at where that other part of my practice went. The chop wood, carry water part.

Looking back on this past year, I firmly believe that my commitment to my daily Feri spiritual practice helped me to build and harness my power, to create inner strength and alignment. From that, a blossoming occurred that took me away from my altar for a bit. Now, I am called back. Why? Because it is the part where I express curiosity and engagement with my own divinity, myself, and the beating heart of the multiverse humming humming at me. Stepping away has helped me to realize that this is a life-long journey, with no particular timeline. You pick it up and do the work. You put it down and engage with the mysteries in subtle and overt ways. It is never not working me, it just shifts form.

At points in our life, we have to allow the flexibility to change course. However, as a humble and practiced Divine Goddess of My Own Life 2012 has taught me one thing — sometimes you work the magic, and sometimes the magic works you. I breathe through the spaces and openings as I step greater into the beautiful blessing of my own unfolding.

Guardian of the Earth — Hail Black Mother!

I am spiraling into the Black Mother.
She is cave,
She is womb,
She is receptive,
She encompasses.

She is spiraling into me.

I react to challenges where I give my power away. Love, at the very beginning, feels as ecstatic as the source of all creation. Soon, I experience the myriad tug to lines of past wounds. The thread of doubt, of fear, of feeling there is never enough love on the universe. Tugging back back, threads to childhood, to abandonment. Primordial curses we are all gifted with.

Imagine the churning of the soil. The regenerative nature of things — from seed, to plant to decomposition to soil again. The exhale of animals, C02 then inhaled by the green ones. Infinite feedback loops.

Why does the emotional landscape feel so unstable, and from where is it feed?

The trick with earth work — It shows us the ways we are nourishment and the ways we need nourishment. To be womb, to be cave. To be the all nourishing abyss for self. The abyss from which are threads are woven, and that all return to.

Earth is source. Trace the lines back to our source, one by one. We discover the unimaginable creativity of creation in love, regeneration and in fragility.

Good night Invocation

Giver-Birther-Self Creatrix
Oh Blessed Star Goddess
Imbue my dreams with your esctatic exhale
Just an inch of it is all I need, a dose of your star stuff

Help me to see the beauty in the mundane
The mystery in my own inner world,
the way it spirals out aligning with other worlds
The Black Space between, your sweet embrace.

God herself, the instigator
God herself, my own reflection
God herself, weaving magic into all of creation.

Magician

I had the magician come up for me recently in a tarot reading. The reading was about my career and the path I am currently on, and I was seeking guidance on how to direct my energies moving forward. In the reading, I AM the magician. The tarot reader explained that, in this situation there is no difference between my will and divine will. Another powerful element of this reading, which was a celtic cross, were the first two cards: Ace of Cups and Ace of Pentacles. The true nature of success lies in following passion, intuition. Finding a way to live with my heart open is intertwined with earthly successes like money and career.

I am the magician. I have to take a deep breath to fully let that settle. What would the magician do? When given the set of choices I have in front of me.

When is the right time to seek security and predictability in life, and when is the right time to take risks. This is what I am struggling with. When does the magician go home, put their tools neatly in place and gather strength and when does she do the alchemical work, the journey work, the transformative work. Obviously, both can occur simultaneously. Another thing that occurs to me strongly, is the need to acknowledge the way I am already striking this balance in my own life and sit with what resonates about that balance currently. Does it feel right? What is working? What about my current situation needs to change to allow the magician to fully shine?

As we approach the (secular) new year, these are the questions I am reflecting upon. What do I bring with me, what is already working? What do I leave behind.

Luckily, the magician in this circumstance can make no mistakes — the journey and the destination are one!

Solstice

‎”In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” Albert Camus

Not too many words to share during this sacred time, I find my practice is reaching out for more lived experience in every precious moment — in the form of powerful ritual, and time spent with loved ones.

Its funny how people get hung up on the details of these Holidays — do we celebrate at 7:31am or 9:50pm and do I pray on my knees or in the dark or with a candle or with a song?

Hail Hekate, Guardian of Witches! Help us to let go, let go, let go. I pray for cracks and fissures to let the light in. Broken open heart, eyes shining bright. I pray for all to worship from that place — and to forget the rules completely.

iron pentacle prayer

the Feri current bless the Feri current.

from Black Heart by Mike Rock

“all five stars are one

sex is where you are

self lights the way

passion the vehicle

pride the compass

power the destination

yet not a destination

but the possibility already are

cause and effect are one

embody know practice the truth

and the truth is freedom

you already are

some mote it be.

oh luminous darkness!

oh blessed Black Heart! “

Temple of Hathor

“To risk all is the end all and the beginning all.” -Bjork

I have worshipped in the Temple of Hathor. The Temple of Earthly Delights.

It takes the strenuous, heartfelt peeling back of layers to be able to truly know you’re hearts desire and to ask the gods for it. And then, it takes a courageous leap of faith to be able to recognize those gifts when offered to you. But when you do, and then step into the Temple, She is magnanimous, generous and patient. Start with, what my boss calls, the “low hanging fruit.” Start with those things that are on the tip of your tongue, the edges of your heart if you have to, and work inward. Dance, shake off those things that hold you back.

I am no High Priestess. But I have worshipped in the Temple of Hathor. Flesh, skin, sacred sensuality and connection. And by taking that risk, of asking with my whole heart, feeling the layers peel back and letting the Universe in. Makes me the Priestess of my Own Life.

living in resonance

I am slowly waking up to the areas of my own life where I have been silent, or not listening, to the messages that were coming. Some big esoteric messages and some very practical ones. Starfinder, playing with Him, and feeling the presence of this guardian in my life has brought to light for me many facets and realities invoked in resonance.

Resonance. When I first think of this word, I imagine a bell chiming on a clear silent day, it’s tone reverberating through trees and buildings and other sound barriers. The way that sound from a single note played from a violin vibrates from the warmth of the wood of the instrument, outward. I’ve also been reflecting on how true sound/thought/action vibrates within different dimensions and timescapes. Sometimes, a brief interaction or connection with another being, if it truly resonates, can cause dramatic changes in the course of a life. Maybe this doesn’t happen right away, but is triggered by something else that happens decades later. It is the impact that our most vivid memories of the past have on our present, and our future.

How I can come to be fully present in a state of resonance? So that the whispers, the tones, the hum of the gods, the angels, the fey, the ancestors can be heard clear as a bell. So that the way I love and relate to the people in my life is full of synchronicity, clarity, intuition and other resonant states? It requires so much faith, in myself, in the divinity of all and it requires a lot of courage to step forward and be fully present even when the reality that you are facing feels really hard. In my own life, I have really struggled with this.

My fall back has been withdrawing and numbing when faced with big challenges, especially those that are most personal to me. I do not turn my back on this fact, I embrace it. I move forward, though, knowing that stepping into resonance is required right now for stepping fully into power. I feel the wind at my back, a force of nature pushing me forward. Sometimes a tornado, sometimes a cool breeze. But always always present, embodied, expressive. I am living, breathing and flowing in resonance.

Hello Blue God

Today I learned that Dian y Glas is a bottom and Melek Taus is a top 🙂

Some songs for the fluid and sensuous Blue God of Feri, for all that they encompass.