That First Lesson is the Hardest

The first lesson is self love.

Religion is ableist as hell. I don’t mean faith, spiritual paths. I mean the “rules taught by men” as is often quoted in the Bible. There are few resources I have found for worship across three religions and paganism in general that is neurodivergent and disability friendly. Even the “simple” things are not often simple if you’re not able bodied and neurotypical.

If a resource starts with “take a shower/purify oneself” it’s not disability friendly. I can’t shower every day, I would have to sacrifice some other important activity. I have to rest after every shower, and then still do whatever ritual/prayer/worship I was trying to do. Those ten steps aren’t easy, to get and organize offerings and supplies. Plus I have a toddler. Everything I see says “mornings” or, gods forfend, dawn. If I’m up at dawn it means I haven’t slept, it means I’m dizzy and in pain, it means I’m already down spoons for handling my kiddo.

I’m bitching about this particularly because I’m in a flare so I have half my normal spoons anyway, and then to have every reliable resource give me a multistep, multi ingredient script and basically guilt trip me as a subpar devotee for not doing it.

I realize this is ridiculous of course. I know that I don’t have to do complex, long winded, etc worship. Reading scripture counts, prayer too, meditating, mantras, creative works. I know, intellectually, that all that really matters is one’s earnest, fervent devotion and love.

That doesn’t make it any easier emotionally to not feel like a fucking failure.

I want to do all the involved stuff. Like, desperately so. And, try as I might, I can’t quite get rid of the Christian notion that I’m not good enough and never will be. The church I grew up in didn’t always say that so explicitly, but the idea was still “you’re not good enough as you are even though we say come as you are.” Since every good thing you were, or did, or had, was only ever by the “grace of God”, but every bad thing you were, did or that happened to you was only ever your fault for not being good enough, or as a test or punishment, since abuse was often excused, even warranted, because “sinner”, I grew up never feeling enough. There’s other reasons too, but the emotional abuse at the church was a huge factor.

After all, I never got any response to prayers, not positive at least. That was always blamed on me, for not doing a whole hell of a lot of really trivial shit in the grand scheme of things. There were an awful lot of caveats to grace and mercy from an all loving god. Why didn’t my strong desire to be good enough matter? To be devoted? Wasn’t that supposed to be the gate to grace? Wasn’t it supposed to be freely given despite being human? Why do I need to repent for just being human? (Cuz hoo boy a lot of things I was commanded to repent from were just being a fucking teenager learning and exploring and puberty for fuck’s sake)

Here I am, before another god. I wish I’d known Her sooner, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache I think, had I known Kali sooner. Alas, I didn’t, and I probably wouldn’t have gone near Her anyway, “other gods are demons to lead you astray” and all that. But by Her blessed black feet I need Her. And it’s hard, because I want to do all sorts of stuff for Her and I can’t. I am disabled, I am poor, I cannot do what I want.

The first lesson is self love.

That I am good enough as is. That She truly cares more about my sincerity, my fervent and earnest devotion, the motivation behind my actions and prayers, my faith, more than anything else. I struggle intensely with this. I mean, really, really intensely. So much so that I haven’t prayed at shrine in at least two weeks. Because I feel shame, shame that I am not good enough, that I am not doing it “right”, that I am dirty and tired and can hardly sit on the floor. That I can’t bring Her flowers and food and do any lengthy puja. I can barely do a short one. I can’t get up early, I struggle at night.

I try every day to remind myself that many things count as worship and praise. Many things count as devotion. It was never enough in the past though, and so I struggle with accepting that it’s enough now, that what I can do is enough, even if it’s not much.

In some ways also I think I’m still afraid of Her. A god who cares? Like, really cares? Is so palpable just in mundane awareness? Won’t this just get more intense the more I worship and connect? What do I do with that? That’s scary! It’s not been a year since I really started connecting and I’ve felt Her presence more clearly than I ever did with Anpu in five years. There’s many reasons for that but still. Still. How do you even handle a god that’s right there.

Quite frankly it just makes it feel even scarier to fail, to be inferior. I’ve been treated like a disappointment so much that I hate the thought of disappointing Kali. I hate the thought of being less than, an inferior devotee, who has the audacity to come to the altar bare handed and not having showered in one or two days. I’m already the devotee who does nothing but ask and beg.

I already feel like such a subpar failure in many aspects of my life. It hurts to not be able to do so much. It hurts to be inadequate. It’s hard to hear “you’re enough” from a god though, because hey, it could just as easily be my brain making shit up! Enough people have certainly made me feel like I’m fucking crazy. Enough people accuse me of making excuses, of exaggerating, of being lazy and unwilling to try. “It’s so simple!” “It’s not that hard.” “Sometimes we just have to push through.”

I am part of the Supreme Being. She is in all things, She has made all things, She is all things. I am Hers by right, and as a mother takes her child’s love in all forms, so does She take mine. Goddess help me learn this, help me not to fear.

I’ve probably talked about this before, but I actually with faith. As a Christian I tried very hard to be good, you know, worthy. I prayed, read my bible, not every day, but I tried. Made typical adolescent mistakes, porn and such, not helped by a lack of real sex ed at home and mediocre sex ed at school, although it was better than a lot of people I know. I struggled a lot, with school and depression, feeling inadequate and lost, because I was no longer the smartest and could no longer pass with A’s with minimal work. And not because the work was challenging, most of it really wasn’t and boredom with a task is a big block for me, but because there was entirely too much. Too much work and no motivation, no time management skills, and can’t skirt by because everyone else was 10 pages behind.

Nobody really dug into that and helped me. I asked, I tried, got a lot of half assed and mediocre suggestions and solutions. Didn’t address boredom or the fact I had 3+ hours of homework for six classes. What I did get was a lot of shaming, punishment, ignorance and condescension, especially over my depression. The bullying and dismissal and shame heaped on me over the depression is why I struggle to talk about it with people who I know care, while the people who shamed me believe I’m fine and doing well. I don’t tell them about it, it’s just an invitation to meddle and patronize.

Anyway, I mention this because I begged for help from people at church for years, begged for it from the Christian god. Pleaded and prayed and hoped and looked and listened for any signs of answered prayer, tried to listen/feel the holy ghost. Nada, zilch, and my family is pretty paranormal. People at church, made it worse. There were a couple of people who managed to encourage me without heaping helpings of shame, most of them didn’t.

The one thing I came away with when I finally left the church was that I could no longer worship a god who deliberately allows or causes actual children to suffer and let’s his followers torment and shame them into submission. I never felt anything but inadequate and patronized and dismissed, and they gaslit the fuck out of me. Nothing I did was good enough except absolute obedience to arbitrary rules and authority, and that refusal disqualified me as being good enough for grace, despite the supposed ability to “come as you are”. However, you can’t repent of sins you didn’t commit, and they insisted I did.

So then came kemeticism. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my time in the community and reigion but it lacks structure and the community is fractured. And while I love all the NTRW I worshipped still, they really didn’t help me either. They drop the ball a lot, and them going ghost is a widespread problem. I can’t deal with unreliable gods anymore, and also Kali put her foot down about becoming Hers.

Still, this struggle with gods failing to do anything, to be available, to care, to help, no matter how hard I tried to be a good devotee, a good person, no matter how hard I beg, has been a huge roadblock with Kali. It doesn’t help that every resource I search often has poverty and disability unfriendly rituals and requirements for “good worship”. And see, I want to be the person that can do all that. I have lofty ideals stoked by once beloved memories of singing and prayer at church. I love my gods and want to give them the best.

There’s also no shortage of shame at not being able to do so. I’ve been shamed so intensely for being disabled, not a good enough follower, not doing things “right” that I should technically be capable of doing, not sacrificing myself and wearing myself ragged to please a gatekeeper. I could not afford to do it “right”, do not have the physical or mental stability to even clean my house every day, much less prepare food and elaborate ritual daily. I hate it. I hate that I can’t do it, and because of this I feel unworthy, not good enough, for Her love, Her attention, Her blessings. That’s what every other god so far has shown me.

All she wants is for me to establish a sustainable prayer practice. It feels shallow and inadequate. This great goddess chased me down for 7 years and all I can offer her is that? Sorrow and whining ( because I was always berated as whining, lazy, “it’s not that bad if you won’t *insert useless or unsustainable directive of whoever I askedft for help from”), suffering and rage and not a small amount of hopelessness and feeling helpless?

I feel so useless and inadequate and afraid of more abandonment that I’ve yet to figure out how I’d do this rather simple task. Kali is strikingly patient. Real patience, gentle, firm, loving. Not the exasperated, angry, pushy kind, waiting and demanding you hurry up and do what they expect with the threat of emotional and physical harm.

I am….sad, that I can’t trust her to be there for me, that I feel I don’t even have the right to approach, much less ask for anything. Yet, she is there. More than any god has ever been, more than many of my family and friends. She is there, she is there.

It’s wild, even in this rocky, complex, emotional place I still feel more loved and attended to by Kali than I ever have with any other god. And people in my family aren’t happy about it. My mother is straight up snide about it, but not to my face! I’m too noisy for that. I decided today I’m not chasing her or any god down for love and respect. Kali freely gives it, I won’t beg and plead to be cared about, I won’t grovel and consume myself just to be cast aside as not good enough for an “all loving” deity who couldn’t even reach out and comfort an abused child and her sister or have anyone step in when they were left lonely and ostracized by the other teens and adults, or any kind of oversight and support when the adults charged with teaching them how to be Christian were gaslighting and unreasonable.

I’m really angry at how I continue to be treated by the woman that birthed me. Luckily Kali is also Mother. It doesn’t make it hurt less but I can survive.

What Makes a Mother? Pt 2

I think I figured it out, why today’s bullshit is causing me so much strife. It’s the utter disdain she displayed. Disdain for my boundaries, the audacity of demanding they be respected, of being fed up and speaking out. Disdain for what she perceives to be my transgressions against her and the inflated sense of my “rebellious, disrespectful behavior” (hence her telling me I need to just scroll, as if this wasn’t the first time I’ve publicly asked her to leave me out of her crap). Disdain for my independence, my autonomy, my audacity to believe myself to be her equal as we’re both adults and I am a person and I’m not obligated to kowtow to her or police my tone to assuage her ego-driven authority complex, when she can’t even respect me as a person.

But really, the absolute disdain she holds for my spiritual path. That she believes she has the right to trample my boundaries, and uses my personal, occasional posts as a weapon to justify her constant stream of shit. She thinks she’s trying to save me, that it’s her responsibility to protect me from myself, to shove her beliefs down my throat until I choke and suffocate and bend to her will. That she has the audacity to tell me I can’t talk about my path while she’s in the middle of talking about hers. Even though I tell her a lot, leave me alone, I’m not changing, I don’t want to hear it.

She thinks she knows better, she always has, always does. It takes an act of deity to make her shut the fuck up and listen when she’s wrong. Honestly my sis and I usually had to enlist other adults, our grandparents mostly. I really wish my grandfather were still alive. He wouldn’t like my path, but he’d at least tell her to shut up and leave me alone.

It’s crushing, that she has such disdain for my path, won’t even listen or hear me out, because only her comfort matters. My comfort doesn’t matter, it rarely ever has. That’s why I found myself miserable and lonely and angry and suicidal as a Christian in high school. Why I abandoned my search for more loving Christianity because you know what? Fuck a god who would ignore a child crying out in distress. I couldn’t reconcile with the abrahamic god and I damn sure don’t intend to have anything to do with him through my mother’s sneering “judaism”.

I have not been so comforted by religion in a long time. I have not felt so close to a deity in a long time, and I don’t even have a proper shrine to Her. So close and comforted, with the feeling of I can just reach out? Just like that? A little prayer, and there She is? I never got that as a Christian. Not that I strongly recall. I always tried though, so hard and for so long. I cried so much. I never felt comfort, never felt touched, never felt like I was really being heard.

Yet here is Kali, who waited patiently for seven years, who will not be blocked by other gods, who will not be swayed by my mother’s disdain. I have no shrine, no community, and yet, and yet, and yet, there She is.

And my mother doesn’t care, doesn’t want to care, doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t actually care about my happiness, my fulfillment. She truly and genuinely believes that it is wrong, that it’s fake. Partly because Kali is misunderstood in the West, but mostly because she still holds tight to her belief that she knows best, and that there’s only one true path, and that she has the right to try and force me on it. That any disagreement and refusal is disrespect, is snide, and has no value.

The quotes around the word goddess, saying I post lies. She has so much disdain for me and doesn’t think she does. She honestly believes I hate her and am always against her, that if her words came from someone else I’d listen. It’s not true, at all. I don’t have the energy to be that petty, nor the desire, and I’ve never hated her. I’m just done trying to please her, because pleasing her means consuming myself, shrinking myself, enslaving myself to her whims and values.

It was so disrespectful that it hurt more than I was expecting. “goddess” posts. Then the nerve to say “you’re just reading into it.” Like, what the fuck did you mean then? Why did you put quotes around goddess if you weren’t implying my goddess doesn’t exist?

Then to say “I’m letting you go” the implication being abandonment, like honestly that’d be mostly nice if I had more help available, but it’s just manipulative. Then to call me later like nothing happened, just have an innocuous chat. It’s crass.

I honestly don’t care if she believes, or agrees. But like, why do you get to share your joy and wonder at your path but I don’t? Why don’t you want to hear about my joy? I actually didn’t mind her sharing about her path until she started invading every conversation with it and trying to force me to learn about it and attend her worship. She actually went behind my back to my fiancé to convince him to convince me to give her religious service a chance. He refused, because he isn’t stupid and knows me, and he literally does not care what I’m into if it isn’t expensive or violent, and he cares even less about my mother’s opinion on anything.

I rarely share my joy where she can see. I know it makes her uncomfortable, there are other folks on my facebook who wouldn’t like it, but again, why does she get to share her joy, and I should just scroll, but I don’t get to share mine and she demands not having to scroll? To use my rare occasions as a weapon to run roughshod over my boundaries? Unlike her, I’m not trying to convert her and everyone else! Why is everyone else allowed to share their joy and also establish boundaries in a shared space?

I’m just talking about the sacred too. How it brings me joy and comforts me, and even, though gently, challenges me. “Devour your enemies” a charge to stand strong for myself, for what’s right, to let no one crush me. Who fears death with Kali? Not I. My mom is just gonna have to be angry. That doesn’t make it hurt less.

What Makes a Mother?

My mom bothers me a lot. She’s manipulative and emotionally abusive, has been for a long time. Sometimes she does stuff that just bothers me. More than usual, even if it’s not, on its face, any more egregious than any other time. Today was one of those days.

To preface, my mom is getting deep into Black Hebrew Israelite crap. She’s been trying to drag anybody she can into it, including me, my sis, our fiancés, my grandmother (who is Catholic and has never ever been willing to listen to a damn thing my mother has to say about religion), even my step siblings. She talks about it constantly, it’s really annoying and she isn’t doing it to share her joy or talk about her spiritual journey and happiness but to convert. To convert and to disparage white-passing Jewish people.

I have so many problems with all of this. I have “white” Jewish friends, whom she is calling fake, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implied. Disparaging other black folks, for being Christian and “misled”. Just generally being a really arrogant pain in the ass.

She tries to bait me a lot into discussing things with her. Like, she went on vacation to the Grand Canyon and was all, “there’s so much evidence here, I mean the rocks are so red!” and I ignored it, not only because I had no fucking clue what she was on about, but I didn’t want to know. My sis told me later it had something to do with her religious crap.

I have told my mother many times, leave me alone. I will not listen to any “evidence” of how we’re descended from African Hebrews (there is zero evidence of that, most slaves came from the west coast of Africa and there wasn’t and isn’t that many Jewish Africans on that part of the continent, and our family tree stops at a white plantation owner and her slave). Even if there were some reliable evidence, I don’t care! I don’t have any interest in being Jewish! I want nothing to do with that god! Yet, here she is.

I have her muted on Facebook. We’re still friends, but I can’t see anything she posts unless she tags me in it. I did that because, it’s her wall, she can post all the anti science, anti allopathy, anti vaxx and anti semitic Black Hebrew bullshit and the ironic memes about overcoming trauma and not passing it on and fighting toxic people she wants. I ain’t gotta see it.

But she makes messenger groups. And adds me to them. And then posts her bullshit Black Israelite memes and anti science trash and invitations to weird groups, such as today was a group about figuring out if you have parasites and how to get rid of them. We live in a first world country in a city with decent sewer and water maintenance, nobody has tapeworms ffs. She does this deliberately! I have told her repeatedly, stop talking to me about it, because you don’t know how to shut up and keep opinions to yourself, you don’t know how to respect that I have zero desire to engage in your beliefs.

She doesn’t, she keeps adding me to messenger groups and sharing her trash that nobody looks at and that make a lot of people uncomfortable including her children. Normally, I do scroll. But I woke up, literally I woke up to take my medicine and clear my email notifications off of my phone and she had shared that weird parasite group and two anti semitic memes. The FIRST thing I see this morning is an insult of several of my friends, and yet another violation of my boundaries. That she said she would respect, which she clearly isn’t.

So I called her on it. Following are direct quotes from our conversation.

Me: “I have asked You multiple times to stop sharing this stuff with me.”

Her: “Please check your tone. If I have to see your “goddess” posts and vaccine lies too. Scroll past. Not everything I post is attacking you.”

Me: “I don’t feel attacked, but you’re putting your posts in a group I’m in, deliberately, when I’ve asked you not to, and at this point i need witnesses to your continued violation of my boundaries and your hypocrisy. Mute me on Facebook so you don’t have to see my once a year public goddess posts because I don’t actually talk about it that much where you can see”

Her: “Violation of your boundaries? Hypocrisy? You don’t even know what I believe to call hypocrisy. Imagine the roles reversed with [my kid]. I have a problem with your tone. Leave me alone please.”

Me: “Also, i don’t appreciate the quotes around goddess, I have stopped disrespecting your beliefs I just don’t want them shoved in my face like you’re still trying to get me to convert, so don’t imply mine are fake”

Her: “I will leave you alone. I didn’t imply. You read into that”

Me: “And I can easily imagine the roles reversed with [my kid], i would be in the wrong.”

Her: “Shoving them in your face? No worries. I’m letting you go. Peace out”

And then she left the Messenger group.

The goddess posts she’s referring to is ONE post that I made yesterday, my first post of the whole year about anything going on in my spiritual life on Facebook. I have not made any other posts even hinting at religion on Facebook since November of last year. She’s not the only person on my Facebook who would be made uncomfortable by such posts, I typically take my spiritual blatherings to Tumblr, because I don’t feel like changing my privacy settings back and forth to talk about something important to me on my own timeline.

She’s projecting with that whole “not everything I post is attacking you” line. I never feel attacked when I see her posts, just annoyed and angry that she won’t leave me the fuck alone. She, however, being a petty and passive aggressive person who believes that I hate her and am always against her, pretty much thinks I’m always vaguebooking about her.

Then she had the audacity to call me later that morning to ask when I wanted the backpack I loaned her back. Like everything was hunky dory. I didn’t answer, she left a message, and quite frankly, it’s just another boundary violation, because for something so insignificant she could have texted me, since I have never and do not like phone calls. I call her because she prefers calls, but she rarely offers me the same consideration.

I’m not surprised by that, since she interprets any strong resistance to her as disrespect and any boundary setting as insulting to her. She has told me straight up that she doesn’t view me as equal to her, that her iron authority as “Mother” is immutable and absolute and not kowtowing or tone policing myself is disrespect, and that, because of that “disrespect” she always has an excuse to ignore my boundaries and disrespect me.

This is hardly the first back and forth about her bullshit that we’ve had, but today is just deeply bothering me. It’s gnawing at my spirit in a way I haven’t felt in a while and that’s why I’m talking about it on this much more public platform, because honestly I need to know that I am not being unreasonable. I know I’m not being unreasonable but as a victim of emotional abuse sometimes I need that external validation. I need witnesses.

Like, I wouldn’t mind her discussing her religious crap if she’d let me discuss mine. If she didn’t shove her shit in my face but the second I even hint at mine she shuts me down with “that makes me uncomfortable” like, yeah but you telling me that “Yah sometimes does things to get our attention” after I tell you about the car being totalled and our finances falling apart, knowing full fucking well I don’t want that attention or to be involved in any way with your religion makes ME uncomfortable.

If she wouldn’t attempt to bait me into asking questions about weird shit, if she didn’t put fucking quotes around the word goddess like she doesn’t know that’s disrespectful as hell. If she respected me as an adult individual rather than a rebellious extension of herself. If she respected me as a person, regardless of the fact that I haven’t respected her as an authority since I was a teenager.

And like, she treats me like this only to turn around and use me and my sis as a dumping ground. We’re not friends, unless she needs free therapy or wants to gossip. We’re not equals, unless she’s looking for validation or to do something for her. I can’t even talk to her because she gets offended when I tell her that the advice I didn’t ask for isn’t going to work or isn’t applicable.

Like, she got upset that I told her ten reasons I couldn’t go walk around the block every other day for fresh air. She’s been to my place, she knows there’s four flights of steps from my door to the sidewalk, that I’d have to carry my kid and a stroller, which doesn’t give me proper walking support. I didn’t even get to tell her that my whole neighborhood has shit sidewalks and nowhere to sit and rest. Her response was that I just was making excuses, that I should at least try, like I don’t already know my limits, like I don’t want to go somewhere. I fucking hate staying in the house all the time. “Sometimes we just have to push through.” Mmmm, yes, the old hurt yourself to prove you’re actually trying bullshit.

I don’t know why this particular instance of hypocrisy and bs is gnawing at me so much, but I’ll say this, I wish I had a proper altar setup.

Angry and Venting tw:abuse

Honestly I don’t know why I keep trying. My mother always stressing me out. My SO’s car got totaled, and then a fraudulent charge ate his entire paycheck on pay day. I’m black, so I was raised, shit happens, you call your family. Not necessarily for advice or money (that too) but just to vent, to keep them informed. Especially since they get mad when you don’t, cuz they could have helped. My mom is the type of person with no boundaries though, so for her, it wouldn’t just be “you didn’t let me try and help” but also “you lied to me.” Lying by omission and all that, like I’m not grown and have a right to privacy.

She likes to claim I’m disrespecting her because I talk to her like a fellow adult, rather than with however she thinks children, literal children, should speak to their parents. “I’m still your mother” are words frequently out her mouth when I didn’t like something she said or how she said it and let her know it. When I don’t filter and “have an attitude” (ie, speak authoritatively and refuse to let her put words in my mouth and interrupt her). Like, I’m not speaking to you the way I talk to my friends, cuz if my friends pissed me off the way you are, mother, we’d be having a different conversation.

She literally actually told me the other day “we’re not equal, you’re not my peer, you are not equal to me, I am your mother.”

Which is literally the entire problem with my relationship with her.

She doesn’t assume competence, or thoughtfulness, or integrity. All the opposite. She has a tendency to interrogate me when I say I can’t do something, don’t know something, or believe something isn’t going to work. Why don’t you know who the state trooper is? Where’s your cousin, where’s the report, what number does your SO have? Like, how about just assuming that we exhausted several avenues to find this information and that we have a good reason for not having it instead of assuming someone was being irresponsible, stupid or thoughtless?

Like, and how about stop assuming my motivations for resisting you are based in some petty, malicious shit. I ain’t “against you” and I don’t loathe you just because I frequently disagree with you. Maybe I’d push back a little differently if one of my grandparents were making the same suggestion, but they also talk to me differently than you do.

My mom is emotionally abusive and manipulative and these last two weeks with the car and all the other bullshit happening has been especially bad. I can’t really cut her off and I don’t really want to, but at the same time I know it’s futile to think she’ll change. She gotta see something wrong with her behavior to change, but the only behavior she sees as wrong is mine.

This woman had the audacity to start rambling about how her god is good, and I should pray because said god sometimes does things to get our attention, and when I cut her off to say “then he needs to stop because I have my own gods” she told me to stop talking about that because it makes her uncomfortable. Like, what? You have been fully aware of my pagan ass for literal years and I have told you repeatedly that YOUR constant shoving of religious crap into my eardrums and messenger inbox makes me uncomfortable, and here you are doing it AGAIN, while I’m in distress at that, but I have to stop talking about my  gods because you’re uncomfortable? You are literally telling me some god I want nothing to do with is fucking my life up and risking the stability of my child’s home in fucking December, but YOU’RE uncomfortable because I said “I have my own gods.”?!

I mean, at this point I am starting to hate her a little. She didn’t even apologize, just brushed it off with “you know, it’s not what you’re saying but the way you’re saying it that makes me upset, because how you’re saying it is disrespectful.” That and she insisted she wasn’t intentionally  trampling my boundaries, as if intent is magic. She was “just asking” always just asking. But it’s like, why? Why are you just asking, just talking, just presenting, when I’ve asked you to stop? Repeatedly? When I’ve already said no? Again, repeatedly. She also tried to brush it off with “I’m just speaking to you in the way I’m accustomed”, in the sense of she’s always spoken about crises in religious terms. This isn’t a true statement and it’s honestly irrelevant and doesn’t excuse it. She could just as easily say “have you prayed to your gods” and kept that same energy.

She turned her trampling of my boundaries and hypocrisy into an argument of tone policing. Looking back through my messages with her, she didn’t apologize AT ALL. Tried to gloss over the fact she’s been ignoring my boundaries for months by saying she only realized I was on a new path 2 weeks ago like I wasn’t calling her out before then, as if my being on a new path is relevant since she’s known for years I’m not going back to Christianity or this pseudo-Judaism she’s into and told her before I started my new path that she’s making me uncomfortable. Still made it to be primarily about how “disrespectful” I am. The disrespect being that I refuse to talk to her as if she’s above me or some high authority. Nevermind that I talk to “authority” the same way, so like, what is she even actually looking for.

Literally the only issue I had with her, was her continued insistence on her religious worldview. But she made it into this same refrain of “disrespect” we’ve had for years. My boundaries and respecting me as a person, as an adult, as someone who has a right to their feelings and opinions and speak firmly is always wrong.

That’s all I ever hear from her is that I’m arrogant, know it all. She insists I look down at her and think she’s stupid, even as a teenager, even though I’ve explained to her that my communication style, my thought process, my ability to explain things, involves saying *everything*, including the things I know she already knows. I cannot start speaking my thoughts from the center, they start with old information to build into the new information, I’m not saying this stuff to mock you, because I think you’re stupid or because I think you’re uninformed or don’t understand, it’s to place the backdrop for everything else I’m going to say, all the new thoughts and information you’re looking for.

But no, doing that clearly means I think she’s stupid. Even if I say “no, I’m not saying that because I think you’re stupid or think you don’t know, it’s so I can have a reference, so I know we’re on the same page when I keep talking, so you know exactly what I’m referring to at all times.” She just cuts me off and goes on a rant about how prideful and snotty and condescending I am. By being condescending to me.

She has always put words and intentions in my mouth. She always assumes I have negative and malicious intent and thoughts. It literally does not matter that I refute it and try to explain what I’m actually thinking and feeling and believing. It never has. Even in high school, she would corner me and scream and yell, accusing me of all types of shit that wasn’t true, and then get angry that I couldn’t explain what I actually thought and felt, because she was screaming and shoving me against a wall, dragging me by the hair, etc, and honestly I didn’t always have the words, because teenager! Then of course, in an effort to make things end sooner, I’d just “admit” to feeling/thinking what she was accusing me of and she’d deck me and scream about how none of this would be happening if I’d been “honest”.

Oh, and she’d tell me how my emotions were too strong. They were on an adult level and I needed to “reel them in” and get control of them and stop them from being so big. It’s been 12 years and I still struggle with anxiety and expressing my emotions before they explode, usually inwardly. Told a 15 year old her emotions were too strong! And she needed adult level control! because her emotions were….adult intensity? Like, I still don’t even know what that means, for a teen to have emotions that are too intense.

Nevermind that she made this statement with zero attempts to help me learn emotional control and management. But of course, she also abandoned me in my struggle with depression. I didn’t want to see the therapist she picked, so she told me to find another one then. I had never even made my own doctor appointment (and in fact needed help with that until I was 19) but sure, I could somehow find a therapist and make an appointment. Her only advice was to use the find a doctor tool on the insurance company’s website. The fact I didn’t do that, or most of her other “suggestions”, clearly meant, to her, that I wasn’t “that bad”, if she wasn’t telling me that depression is normal and I’m supposed to feel this awful because I’m a teenager.

Oh, or her telling me that going to the hospital is a bad choice because they can just keep me there forever. And losing her fucking mind over my grades, which were bad because depression, and because I’d never learned time management skills and my school thought that volume of homework was equal to be challenging and stimulating.

Even my stupidly high amount of student loan debt is because of her controlling nature. She resolutely refused to let me take a break. I wanted a break after high school, and after I dropped out of my first school due to depression. Nah, “you’ll never go back and your degree is mine!” because she chose to drop out of college and not go back because she chose to have me and my sister.

So I tried school after school, never getting a chance to actually heal myself, or learn about myself and what I’m really after. When my SO tried to help, but suggesting his school, where he can help me and keep an eye on me, got shot down. Not because it was a bad idea but because my mother assumed shady intent.

I think, often, about what my life would be like if things had gone differently. If she had backed off sooner (in the end, it was moving into my grandmother’s, getting a job and the health problems I was having that made her back off for a couple years). If so much had been different.

I’m doing all this ranting because I am anxious and depressed and awake and everything I keep seeing is reminding me of how angry I am at her. Do I loathe and hate her? No. Otherwise I’d have cut her off a long time ago, financial help and her chance to be connected to her granddaughter be damned. But I am so, so angry. I am so incredibly angry. She only has intellectual remorse over our relationship. There is no visceral remorse, because quite frankly, the only thing that has changed is the intensity, the mode of control and abuse.

And some people have the audacity to say “rise above” or “learn to heal so you don’t bleed all over people who never cut you.” It’s condescending, like yeah, don’t lash out at people who never hurt you, but like, it’s not that simple, even with good therapy. Especially not when you can’t get rid of the abuser.

 

I’m Mad

So someone linked my old post on cultural appropriation in Kemeticism and their conclusions are insulting. It’s obvious the person quoting me did not understand anything I was saying in my post. Honestly, I could rip their entire post to shreds (here it is, if you want to see the travesty).

They linked my post like this:

I read an article produced by a black pagan woman in which she was unhappy with the perception of a whitewashed Pagan culture and was seeking to express her views on the topic as she was a part of the real Pagan community not that of the aesthetic and fake Tumblr witch community.

This was NOT the point of my post. Not even close. The Earth is closer to the Andromeda galaxy than this person’s conclusion was to the actual point of my post. I would reach the edge of the visible universe before this person’s interpretation of my post came close to the actual point of my post. The point is, don’t erase the Pagans of Color from Kemeticism, and cultural appropriation is not really a thing in Kemeticism (though RACISM and whitewashing absolutely are things and should be criticized and rooted out, Egyptians were still not White, even if they weren’t necessarily African).

I’m part of the Tumblr pagan and witch community. That is literally my community, I don’t interact with other communities. Even my pagan friends on Facebook are part of my Tumblr community. I was making zero comments about Tumblr being “fake” and “aesthetic”, or that I was somehow part of the “real” pagan community.

Tumblr has it’s problems, but all communities do. To reduce my post to that, to petty elitism and snobbish refusal to acknowledge Tumblr’s validity as a community, is infuriating. Nevermind that it totally erases what I was saying.

Furthermore, the pagan community is not uniform. Neither is witchcraft. It is not one culture, or one religion. From the very first sentence Tasmin is outright, completely and blatantly Wrong. They don’t know what they’re talking about, at all, especially not about how or why pagans of color and non Christians (because not every non-Christian religion identifies as pagan) talk about cultural appropriation. Their post is full of shallow, poorly thought out statements and conclusions, based on hearsay and myths.

I’m gonna pull it apart, because I’m that mad that they tried to use me as a backdrop to their fallacious reasoning.

It is a common perception that the pagan and witch community is just a trend or is predominantly a white community. This is not the case, the two people I know personally that are pagan are not practicing that religion as a means to be accepted by society, they’re practicing that religion because just like Christians and Muslims, it is their religion – something they believe in.

Paganism has been a thing for decades. For longer than I’ve been alive, for longer than my parents have been alive. It is predominantly white depending on how you categorize things. See, every community has the right to self-definition. White people like to categorize Hinduism as “pagan”, along with Voudou, and the thousands of indigenous and tribal religions and spiritual systems of non white cultures around the world. Some folks even call Judaism pagan. If you asked the actual people those religions belong to, they wouldn’t categorize themselves as Pagan, because it’s an insult. White Christians used it, still do, as an insult. White pagans reclaim it, but like, paganism is “so white” because, at least in part, a lot of non-Christian religions do not want to be under that umbrella. So, it covers mostly European non-Christian religions.

Witchcraft is not a practice that is strictly pagan. There are Christian witches, atheist witches, and again, paganism is not a single religion or culture. You don’t have to be a witch to be a pagan and you don’t have to be a pagan to be a witch. It is an umbrella term that covers multiple religions (and those religions have denominations and sects, just like Christianity)!

In terms of Discrimination Pagans have never really had an easy time. with the fact that even when we go back as far as the 16th century, just being believed to having been a witch would have had a woman burnt at the stake. While the modern day is by all means nothing like that of the 16th Century, pagans and witches are still discriminated against and believed to be members of cults. Despite them not having hurt anyone. Yet those practicing other faiths take their beliefs to the extremes and there have been multiple cases of these extremists hurting others. In Pagan culture one of the main teachings is that of “An it harm none, do what ye will” which simply means, do what you will, as long as you harm no one in the process.

Witchcraft fears didn’t have anything to do with paganism. It had to do with the devil, with Satan. Witch fears were firmly in a Christian context. Tasmin also has zero concrete backup to these claims. Further, there are extremists in paganism too, and they have hurt people. As an example, neonazi sects of Asatru and Hellenism have and do attack minorities, be it racial, orientation, disability, or misogyny based, etc. Lobbying against equal rights is also doing harm, not only hate crimes and harassment.

Again, there is no grand unifying Pagan culture, and “An it harm none, do what ye will” is an extremely misunderstood and misquoted tenet of Wicca. Wicca is a specific religious tradition that falls under the umbrella of Paganism, but it is not all of paganism and it’s tenets are not taught or adhered to by every pagan everywhere.

Upon doing research for this topic I found an interesting case study. That of the West Memphis Three In which three children were reported missing and three teenagers were persecuted for allegedly murdering the children. The bodies were found mutilated, naked and tied up by their shoelaces near a ditch. The three teenagers were jailed for “committing a Satanic murder” due to some police working the case believing there were “cult-like and satanic overtones to the murders” and one of the teenagers was believed to have had an interest in occultism. The boys all received different sentences and after 18 years in jail they were released when new evidence eventually came to be found.

This bit gives zero support to what Tasmin is trying to convey. Which, I’ll be honest, it’s difficult to decide what they’re trying to say anyway, but this case had little to do with paganism. It was about Satanic panic in the 80s. Which, again, has little to do with paganism and was about Christianity.

My view is if the referenced cultures practice is marketed by a major company, many people will practice it if it becomes enough of a societal normality. Such as box braids or cornrows being something of black culture. Understandably there is a difference between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation.

Cultural appreciation being that of someone who takes time to look into another persons culture because they appreciate and are interested in it then embracing the culture respectfully. For example; enjoying Chinese food but knowing and appreciating it is from that culture.

Cultural appropriation being when elements of one culture are incorporated into another and then not giving credit to the culture it originally derived from. For example; Selfridges shopin London receiving backlash for their Braid Bar ad, as it only contained white girls with cornrows. This was an issue due to cornrows being a part of black culture and the shop “whitewashing” and making a trend of what they should not have.

Another example of cultural appropriation would be that of an Ad by Tory Burch in which 3 white models are in a car with a monkey in the passengers seat and they’re singing along to “Juju on That Beat’ a song by two black singers that celebrates cultural diversity. A monkey was typically used as slander towards black people and many considered the inclusion of the monkey in the ad to be there on purpose.

And finally my last example of cultural appropriation would be that of a photoshoot for Vogue featuring white model Karlie Kloss dressed as a Geisha despite her not having any Japanese ancestry.

The conversation makes a 180 degree turn. There is no lead in to this. One second we’re talking about paganism being misconstrued and discriminated against and satanic panic and the next a poorly phrased start of talking about cultural appropriation. Tasmin doesn’t seem to know much about it or cultural appreciation for that matter. Their understanding and definition of both lacks nuance, awareness of oppression and racism, of classism. The complaint of cultural appropriation goes beyond failure to credit the originating culture. Cultural appreciation is more than just “research” and what it means to respectfully embrace another culture needs to be defined, the failure of Tasmin to research the difference between Americanized Chinese food and actual Chinese cuisine is a perfect example that they don’t know what they’re talking about and should be deferring to others.

The issue with black hairstyles and white folks is, again, more than whitewashing or making trends. Tasmin fails to go into any depth whatsoever about what whitewashing is, or why it’s bad, or why black folks would be against their hairstyles becoming “trends”. Even with the monkey, a total failure to address nuance or any deeper explanation. The same goes for her example with Vogue. Nothing to explain why it’s a bad thing to utilize the image of a geisha, or the problems that white people have caused by commodifying and deliberately misunderstanding what a geisha is.

An example of cultural appropriation in terms of the Pagan community would be that of Sephora in America trying to produce a “Starter witch Kit” and it receiving a lot of well earned backlash from the witch community. Due to it being perceived as the company stating that anyone can be a witch if they have the stereotyped tools. Also the fact that the kit included a species of white sage that was endangered and no longer used within the community due to it being of such low quantities. The culture was then incriminated against for being upset with Sephora when in the eyes of other people in other religions, it was not oppression, due to the irrational belief that witches and pagans are predominantly white.

The problem with how cultural appropriation is addressed in terms of paganism is A) the assumption that we are all one unified whole (we aren’t), B) that pagans are incapable of committing cultural appropriation (white pagans are actually huge propagators of cultural appropriation), and C) the assumption that we are all one unified whole. Yes, I know I said that twice, but Tasmin is trying to argue we’re not all white, pseudo Christians while failing to acknowledge that we’re not all white pseudo Christians. Then, by failing to acknowledge that paganism is a litany of religions and cultures, they erase the cultures and their struggles, including the struggle against white pagans appropriating nonwhite religion and culture! You cannot fight oppression if you’re not specific, and the vague, nonspecific, poorly defined, shallow pass at discourse just damages credibility and gives people excuses.

The reason the witch kit at Sephora was reviled had nothing to do with culturally appropriating witches. Witchcraft is not a culture. It is not oppressed as an ethnicity and witches do not have a unified set of practices or rituals that are being commodified, trivialized and degraded while the actual practitioners are mocked, assaulted, and oppressed for practicing. It is annoying, yes, to have a capitalist company trying to buy into a niche market under suspicious pretenses, but the problem was their sale of sage. Sage is an endangered plant that is used in several Native American traditions for religious purposes. THAT’S what people were talking about in regards to cultural appropriation. That Sephora was selling white sage for “smudging” and witchcraft was the problem, since witches culturally appropriated from native american cultures with sage and “smudging” in the first place. Not appropriating “witch culture”, which doesn’t exist, but for appropriating native cultures. “Witch culture” wasn’t reviled for pushing back against Sephora (which, btw, was also being protested for promoting sexist ideals to sell their products and co-opting and bastardizing body positivity), social justice fighters were, and that’s not a “culture” either, just a social movement.

It’s disappointing that someone erases several cultures and their actual struggles with oppression and appropriation to claim appropriation is happening to a culture that doesn’t exist. Again, it is very obvious that Tasmin doesn’t actually know anything about cultural erasure and oppression, forced assimilation or the struggles of minority cultures and religions to be recognized as legitimate and valuable.

Wicca has become a normality on some social media platforms. But it is not that of the actual faith, it is perceived as a new trend. When researching for this topic I found that on social media, Mainly Tumblr I have seen posts about Wicca and paganism that are stylizing the culture. Where those online are fairly ignorant in their belief that Wicca and paganism is a trend and as such can be used for aesthetic purposes. Also the belief that Pagans must be white. This is of course not the case as Pagan culture is diverse in gender and ethnicity. I read an article produced by a black pagan woman in which she was unhappy with the perception of a whitewashed Pagan culture and was seeking to express her views on the topic as she was a part of the real Pagan community not that of the aesthetic and fake Tumblr witch community.

Now we come to the part where I got linked. Wicca is its own religious entity. It has well defined boundaries and is an initiatory religion created in the 50s. It is extremely misunderstood and most of the information available to the public is only of the Outer Court and is therefore misconstrued. Paganism and witchcraft are frequently conflated with it, as Tasmin does repeatedly here. They are correct in that what is usually seen on social media and the internet is misinformation and trendy crap, but that doesn’t mean everything on the internet about it is false. Perhaps if Tasmin had spent less time learning about Wicca on the internet they might stop equating it with witchcraft and paganism.

Further, they have no business gate-keeping who is or isn’t serious about their craft or their religion, especially since they clearly have no understanding of paganism outside of a trendy, racist idea of what paganism is. Ironic they are trying to argue against cultural appropriation while perpetuating the erasure and misunderstanding of minority cultures and religions and their struggles. Erasure and conglomeration is racist. One cannot claim that witches and pagans on the internet are “stylized” and “aesthetic” and “fake” without a clear idea of what is real, and the idea of a single, unified culture and religion called “witchcraft and paganism” is fundamentally not real. It isn’t real. It cannot possibly be real. There isn’t even a grand, unified religion called Christianity or Judaism. The various sects and denominations share scripture (mostly) and basic tenets (mostly), but honestly, in many ways, could each be categorized as their own faiths that share a base.

If you can’t even learn that paganism isn’t a single celled organism then what business do you have telling other people if they’re serious enough or not? Who are you to decide what’s cultural appropriation and who is being oppressed when you don’t even really understand appropriation or that Chinese food isn’t even actually Chinese cuisine!

Quite frankly, I’d like to know where Tasmin found all this “evidence” that currently practicing pagans and witches are treating it as a costume and believe all pagans must be white. Again, nevermind that not all minority religions identify as pagan (and there are major religions that don’t identify as pagan and aren’t Abrahamic) and that can easily explain some of paganism’s perceived whiteness, who are they to judge that most pagans are fake?

That Tasmin put words in my mouth and drew such conclusions from my words is just infuriating icing on enraging cake. I do not believe I’m part of “real” paganism while Tumblr is “fake” and aesthetic. That is an insult to my community and all of my friends. Tasmin doesn’t know me, or them, and I am flabbergasted that they somehow drew such a conclusion about my personality and beliefs from the post that I wrote.

Also, I absolutely said, in my post, that I was speaking specifically about Kemeticism, not “paganism” at large. I wasn’t making commentary on cultural appropriation in paganism, but in Kemeticism, a branch of paganism. I wasn’t a generic pagan then or now or ever, I have never been more than fleetingly interested in Wicca and my witchcraft is freaking pop culture pagan based. Literally it is sigils, knot magic, a little bit of heka (kemetic magic) and based in video game magic mechanics because I am wholly obsessed with Okami. Am I fake and aesthetic and trendy?

This of course is not the case and when diving into it more, it turns out Paganism has been a recognized culture for longer than that of Christianity. In some cases, Pagans that have been practicing the culture for generations within families, may even believe that Christianity, along with other religions borrowed, stole and manipulated aspects of the Pagan culture as a means to claim these aspects of the culture as their own. Such as that of stories of Dionysus and Persephone in Pagan culture closely resembling that of stories of Jesus in Christianity. Or that Christians ethics may have originally stemmed from writings produced by Greek Pagan philosophers.

Paganism has never been a recognized culture. Ever. It is not a culture. It has never been a culture. It’s a term to refer to non Abrahamic religions that identify as pagan. It is a word that derived from an insult created by Christians. It was used to erase the enormous variety and diversity of religious beliefs, traditions and practices and dictate them as less than, as wrong, as foolish, compared to Christianity. It was used to dehumanize and delegitimize and enable genocide in the past.

The word was reclaimed. However, it was NOT reclaimed to then go ahead and erase the variety and diversity of current traditions or revived, reconstructed and near dead cultures and religions! Paganism is an umbrella. It is an easy way to refer to the huge, wide swath of people and practices that fall under it. Pagan, witch and Wiccan are NOT synonymous or interchangeable, they never have been, nor are they one big monoculture.

Also, what Christianity did manipulate or appropriate from pagan traditions, it wasn’t to “claim as their own”. It was to make conversion easier, and also because converts didn’t necessarily abandon all their beliefs and traditions when they converted, and not everyone in a family converted, so they got absorbed because the converts didn’t let them go. Also, nothing about Dionysus or Persephone has any resemblance whatsoever to anything about Jesus? How did that conclusion even come about? Dionysus and Persephone don’t even share any myths? None of their myths bear any resemblance to any of Jesus’ mythology?

Also, plagiarism is a widespread problem as far as philosophical crap goes, so that’s not even relevant, but even if it was, Jesus’ teachings come from Judaism, and he was born during the Roman Empire, so like, stop.

Tasmin’s entire post is disingenuous, clumsily written, unskillfully argued, inconsistent, shoddily researched, and rests on easily disproven assumptions and blatant erasure. They use bizarre and incompetently analyzed examples to try and support their argument. It totally misrepresents paganism and the problems of cultural appropriation and who suffers from it, fails to present any compelling evidence that it exists or should be fought against and essentially makes a mockery of thousands of peoples’ beliefs and the arguments against cultural appropriation. No matter how unintentionally, it trivializes the problem and actually feeds into the racism and appropriation that minority groups suffer from by equating us all as one mass, and failing to actually research and acknowledge how such things harm us, or that such things go deeper than mere appearances. I am insulted to have been linked as a supporting document in this travesty, especially without being consulted on what I was actually trying to say.

 

Can You Feel My Heart?

There’s a song by Bring Me the Horizon. I don’t listen to their music too much, it’s my sister’s type of music more than mine. I only listen to like, four songs off their album Sempiternal, one of which being the title of this post. It’s one of those songs that is deeply soul touching without being religious.

It’s pretty descriptive of my current mental and emotional state right now, (here’s the lyrics). My family is getting hit with a cascade of misfortune. It happens at least once a season, and it’s exhausting and demoralizing. Of course my health is one of the casualties, it always is, so I’ve got two new patient appointments next week and I don’t know what’s going to happen. At least the ER doc was nice, I’ve seen her before, she is the only ER doc I’ve ever 100% liked. Like, I’ve had a few where I didn’t hate them, but felt like they weren’t doing enough or listening enough. Can count them on one hand though. I’m just tired y’all.

I don’t know what to pray for anymore honestly. I can’t say I even really pray, not in the sense of asking for things or pouring out my soul or whatever. I have two mantras and prayer beads, and I say them in my head, 108 times each. Sometimes I’ll do one a second time. I figure, if Kali is gonna do something, she will do it. She hasn’t let me down yet, even if I don’t exactly see where she’s going with things. She at least responds.

Yet, yet, I still feel alone and lost. Left adrift. It’s depression, I know. I just feel lonely, and I am praying, even if it’s not formally. There’s a lot going on in my life, and a lot is negative and stressful. I need some relief, some saving.

Can you feel my heart?

A Lesson of Failure

I was reading last night and it came to me that, Kali let me meander around for years for a purpose. What I mean is, other than just being aware that I was inordinately afraid of Her due to ignorance, I really didn’t know what I wanted out of religion. She showed up around the time that I truly abandoned any form of Christianity, when I finally gave up on it and trying to find some sect that would mesh. It was at that time I also discovered Kemeticism and the wide world of paganism too.

I was only 18, still a kid, and I hadn’t had the time or experience to analyze myself, my needs and wants, or to process the abuse and trauma I’d suffered. For the entirety of the last six years I have been aware of Her and have described to others the feeling she gives me. Standing behind me, hands on Her hips, watching.

Now that I have my own child it’s obvious what she was doing. See, my daughter is only two. Anyone that’s ever met a toddler knows they’re pretty willful and independent, but also utterly clueless. The world revolves around them, that’s just their cognitive development. Baby brains can only process but so much. It’s completely normal and developmentally appropriate to pretty much not think about anyone else, or pay attention to anything other than what they’re after.

My daughter doesn’t get out a whole lot, because I’m disabled and her father works 5-6 days a week. So, when we do go out, she wants to explore. Reasonable. That means someone has to follow her though, which is obvious, but usually, that’s all we’re doing. Following, watching, only stepping in when she’s about to do something unsafe or inappropriate (like stealing some other kid’s toy or sprinting towards a door or stairs).

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

It took me all this time, all this trying and failing with other gods, to realize and learn what I really want out of divine relationships. Yeah, sure, we should worship gods without expecting or demanding some kind of reciprocation, they deserve it, whatever. Humans are not built like that. Nor do I believe they should be, it leads to abuse and lacks empathy.

Personally, I have always felt that, if a god wants worship, they should care about their worshipers and quite a few gods are just making empty promises. Sometimes it’s out of carelessness or malice, often it’s just promising more than what they’re actually capable of giving. Promising what they want to give, rather than what they actually can give. That’s how I feel things are between me and the netjer. They want to give more, but they can’t, or they won’t.

It’s been a long time since I was really excited to learn about a god and their practices.

I have learned from their failure, and my own as well. From fear and from deprivation. I’ve been deprived of love, of free, unrestricted affection. What love I have received always has strings attached, authoritarian deference, surrender of dignity, acceptance of disrespect, control. Even the netjer, whom I love, did not, or could not, give me unfettered love. I did not feel cherished, I did not feel loved in return. They wouldn’t even show up to hear me in joy or pain.

Do you know what I do when my daughter cries in pain? Doesn’t matter if it’s emotional or physical, she gets scooped into my arms. Kisses and soothing words can make a lot of things better. Even just a “I’m sorry you’re upset, I need you to wait” at least explains why I’m not picking her up immediately, and then I soothe her as soon as I’m able.

That is probably the most persistent vision I have of Kali. Outstretched arms. I imagine Her smile, sometimes mischievous, often gentle, hands to cup my face, arms to hold me tight. I don’t know why I didn’t turn to Her sooner.

Silence from Fear

I’ve decided I’m going to be open with my new religious direction on Facebook. I’m nervous, Kali is such a deeply misunderstood goddess. I don’t want to have arguments or “concerned” conversations with anyone. Most of my family on Facebook are Christians. There are a handful who I know for a fact will be well behaved. Ask some questions, leave it be, keep scrolling. There are a couple who I am expecting to be more aggravating, but I can’t say for sure that they’ll concern troll or whatever. Most of them I’m just not sure what they’ll do.

However, I deserve to be able to talk freely too.

I see Christian crap all over my timeline every day. I get it, they’re happy in their choice of religious and spiritual paths. It gives them hope, helps them heal, gives them strength. They want to express their feelings about it, and it’s their page, that’s cool. I can respect that, even if I really don’t want to see it. It makes me uncomfortable, sometimes even angry. Most of them don’t know how much trauma I have around that church and that faith anyway.

I deserve the same ability of expression. They can keep scrolling or mute me or whatever if it bothers them that much. I intend to tell them so. They don’t exclude me from seeing their posts and I don’t ask them to, so, they can deal.

It doesn’t stop the anxiety, but I will have my freedom. I’m tired of being able to express myself everywhere except the social site I spend the most time on. I am not ashamed of Kali, I am not going to hide Her presence in my life or my worship.

She is misunderstood yes, but that’s not my fault. I may only know Her a little, but She has shown me far more in this short time than I ever expected. How could I not then turn and share? Why shouldn’t I? Just because some people might be uncomfortable? They don’t seem to consider that they probably have a few friends uncomfortable with their religious posts.

I have this book, Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair. It’s a collection of poetry by the ancient poet Ramprasad Sen. I’ve already posted one of my favorites (I have a lot of favorites, two more are scheduled and I’ll probably add some more). He speaks quite often on being unafraid of Death, because of Kali. If death falls before Her, why should I be fearful of the words of humans? I will not be silent, I will not be afraid.

From Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair, Ramprasad Sen, #47

I’ve given my heart
To the feet that forestall terror–
What have I got to fear from Death?

Kali’s name is the wish-giving tree.
My heart is seeded with it.

I’ve peddled my bones in the marketplace
Of this world and bought up Durga’s name.

I’m rooming in the house
Of the good soul living in this flesh.

So when Death enter, I’ve made up my mind
To open my heart, to show Him all.

Tara’s name is the best remedy.
I’ve tied it to my topknot.

Ramprasad says: I have begun
My journey calling on the name
of Durga.

A Persistent Story

I’m a writer. Kinda obvious, but I mean of fiction and poetry. Mental illness and physical illness have conspired against me and my writing for years. I used to churn out poems all the time, now I rarely do. I still compose, but usually if I’m not immediately able to write it down, it evaporates and corrupts. I can’t finish any story, sometimes I’m lucky to get a few thousand words. It hurts, really. I used to be really good at it.

Regardless, I have stories in my head. There is one that just resolutely refuses to go away. It has a thousand iterations, and I can never, ever, write it down, but it also muscles every other story out too. It’s a painful story.

The MC is always traumatized. Violence happens in every version, no matter how different the settings. It’s basically me trying to work out my trauma, but it’s pretty exaggerated. Usually the MC is going through things that are far removed from my actual experiences. Not always, but often enough. It’s my own personal little terror story, and it does, in fact, terrorize me and I terrorize it back.

MC always gets a loving partner that is super supportive and handles all their shit with way too much perfection. It’s rarely the parents that inflict suffering (definitely not true for my actual life), if they’re even all that present. I often can’t help but give the poor piece of my soul that is MC money and financial security and a job and status I’ve always wanted.

Ah, but that’s just the nice parts. Last night it lashed out at me. See, in this iteration, MC has confronted a villain that tortured her. MC can shapeshift, so villain didn’t know she’s actually a girl, and MC was in a weakened state because still recovering from torture and trauma. Villain tried to kidnap her, and MC (with a small dose of help from Excellent Boyfriend) managed to use the distraction to stab villain in the fucking spine. However, Excellent Boyfriend stopped her from killing villain and the sheer distress. I can’t tell you how often this neverending story causes me actual distress and anxiety. Anytime I write anything I have that problem, I am not detached from any story I try to write.

That’s not actually the point of telling you this. MC always has a goddess. Sometimes they pay a lot of attention (MC isn’t always a chick) to their goddess and other times she has to blow the door down. Sound familiar? This stupid shadow work story started around the same time Kali showed up.

Guess who the goddess most closely resembles!

It’s funny, knowing something has a purpose doesn’t necessarily make it easier to go along with it.

Part of the reason I can’t write this down (besides executive dysfunction, and the distress of writing down something that is full of trauma that doesn’t even necessarily have a point besides suffering) is because I can’t figure out how to move MC forward. Which is pretty reasonable considering I don’t know how to move myself forward. That I frequently still deal with the family that traumatizes me, though maybe more “mildly” I guess than ten years ago, doesn’t help.

The last couple days said goddess keeps muscling into the story, it keeps muscling into my brain space. She is embracing, comforting, empowering (and I mean literally giving divine power). Talking, reminding that she’s there, that MC can see her, can hear her (that’s where my last untitled devotional poem came from in fact). Obliterating the world for MC for a moment, literally overwhelming with her divine strength and love to calm and soothe. Also filling her with the strength to completely destroy her enemies. She holds out her hands and cupped between them is her energy, soothing or strengthening, sometimes both. She sneaks up from behind and embraces, covering eyes to shut out the pain, whispering words to drown out cruelty, whether forthright or disguised.

I could really use that.

I’ve been having dreams warning me that my mom is going to call me and aggravate the hell out of me. It’s weird, since I don’t normally have such literal, prophetic dreams. I’ve always had weird ass dreams, normal ones throw me for a loop. I guess that’s one way to reach out. I mean, it’s definitely nice to have a warning, I can keep myself calm and soothed.

I want to see what’s on the other side of the abyss.

So look.

I can’t see, it’s too dark.

Of course you can see, you just forgot how, don’t you know you have the moon in your eyes?

I’m weird, I know. It’s hard, because I don’t want to be just imagining things. It’s hard because I want to trust so badly but I have been failed so much.

I can’t go back to before. I don’t want to. At the same time, I feel like I’m not doing enough. Is it really just enough to pray with beads? To worship in a realm inside my mind, where some piece of my heart is as healthy (physically) and wealthy as I have always envied? Is this ok? I feel like all I do is bitch and moan in despair. I feel despair lately, withering exhaustion, frustration and apathy all at once. I’ve always had chronic health concerns (asthma mostly) but goddess above and below am I tired of suffering, especially when I have repeatedly been rebuffed by people who could not care less. Who don’t believe me, who can’t help me, or who I can’t access. I just keep losing.

That, more than anything, is my most persistent story.