Persephone, Ogboinba, Cybele, Oya: or, What Samhain can do for you, pt II

(If you missed Pt I, you'll want to start here.)

And fell for the longest time.

Persephone. Ogboinba. Cybele. Oya.

With the exception of Oya, who wasn't drawn, but jumped out of the deck, not a single one of those goddesses was mine. 

Persephone was where it began. I sat back, curious to see how she had been interpreted:

Persephone, the Maiden. Find ways to use your innocence as your strength.She is for innocence, and you had yours taken from you much earlier than it should have been, and I think she is here to point out that you need to explore your relationship with that. But there's something else here, something about how you've felt towards that self, maybe? I'm not sure, but I get this feeling that she's here to point to an anger, or even something darker, that you feel to the part of yourself that is vulnerable.

So easy. It would have been so easy to pull back from that, tell her she was wrong whilst acknowledging that 'Yes, I do need to tap into my innocence and vulnerability to be stronger as per Brene Brown, blah blah. Thank you for this, but I might be just a bit angry about it all, but really, I'm just fine.' *Good Mother Demeter airy handwave*

But to do that would have been to continue the lie, to deny the tidal wave of feeling emerging, to make the choice to continue my parents' work and remain disconnected from others. The time had come to make a different choice and speak the truth. But as it always is when I lose myself in writing, I'm never sure what that truth is till I read it back:

Fuck. YES... I am SO angry. Yes, you're right. I've hated Persephone since I was a child, because she pranced around picking flowers doing girly shit FEELING SAFE and HA! LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO HER, SEE, YOU STUPID NAIVE BITCH???? And then she tried to trick her way out OF WHAT SHE DESERVED BECAUSE SHE WAS TOO STUPID TO KEEP AN EYE OUT. As far as I was concerned, she was weak. I wanted NO part of her in Jean Shinoda Bolen's book, NONE. SHE was weak. *I* was not. Fucking Kore.

And that's how I've felt about my vulnerability: not just ANGRY at it, but repelled by it. At some level, part of me thinks that vulnerable child got exactly what she deserved because she wasn't looking. Like Persephone.

I typed out the full comment, not fully aware of what I was saying till I sat back and read it. Again. And again. 

Horrified. Shaken. But finally knowing the truth: 

I'd always blamed Persephone for her rape, because of her innocence, her freedom from care (which I equated with irresponsibility) and her lack of vigilance. And in the same way, I blamed the child I'd been, her vulnerability and lack of vigilance, for her parents' emotional abuse and her uncle's sexual abuse.

MY. MY PARENTS. MY UNCLE.

And yet, I'd rip the throat out of anyone who dared suggest that a child was in any way at fault for any abuse that befell them; that a woman was at fault for being raped. But somehow, it was ok to blame the child I was for not being stronger, more vigilant, for not acting.

I'm just starting to cope with that. As I continued in my comment, 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I knew it was bad, but.'

And in the moment I realised what I'd done, I finally understood the truth about innocence, which I'd conflated with naivete and wilful ignorance:

[W]hat strikes me about innocence is that it is a NATURAL state. Like Cybele's wildness. And in my rage at my NATURAL innocence, twisting it into a reason for being abused, I cut myself off from my NATURE as a whole. That's why I don't know who I am outside this identity of helper; what my gifts are; what my intuition says for ME; why I'm not in touch with my wild side, as it were - why it's only the responsible, CONTROLLED side that shows.There's so much in my nature I'm not even aware of, such primal, passionate, wild side - Cybele, who Persephone really needs to grow into, not her more controlled mother (hence no Demeter in this reading, because she is very much part of my persona, and this reading is about who I REALLY am underneath it all, the parts I don't know).

In my vulnerability, my innocence, is my wildness - and my way. As Clarissa Pinkola-Estes put it, 'The wild has a vast integrity to it.' And that is what I have cut myself off from - and why I find it so hard to move.

It is why I have never found this - which I desire more than anything - because to have that intimacy - emotionally, spiritually and sexually - one needs to be able to truly surrender, to truly let go - to become vulnerable and trust. To be wild, natural. And I can't. I'm not easily held, even - perhaps most especially - in the deepest pain and despair. 

But perhaps yesterday made a start. Time will tell. 

Persephone and Cybele, anchoring the reading because they were the overarching theme: innocence, nature, wild, integrity. 

As my friend pointed out, we ALL start from the Kore. For me to deny the Kore, yet accept Persephone, Queen of Hades and conveyor of the dead, is to deny my process, my wholeness, and in the end, myself.

That should have been enough, might have been, but Ogboinba appeared in the reading. I had a hunch she would, and she has always been the one I'd rather not see. The short version of her story is that though her powers grew and she became the most sought-after healer and prophetess, she could not have children, and travelled seven kingdoms to seek a way to become able to bear a child and become a mother.

The warning against discontent is too close to the bone, as is the desire for children - both of these make her an apparently easy read when she shows up for me. 

But as I fell into that literal reading, I felt an intense resistance. This wasn't right, and I knew it wasn't just avoidance. I sat with it for a while, asking Ogboinba what she wanted to say here. When the answer came, it shifted the ground under my feet, which will never be the same again:

I could see that [about the child], but I thought, 'Yeah, we know that about me. But this isn't quite about that.'

And then I realised - in this case, the child Ogboinba is looking for is ME. Me as a child who grew up in a happy family; me the undamaged child, the child who was allowed to BE a child. In essence, she is me, travelling over the world again and again, searching for that halcyon childhood I wanted so desperately, the only way I ever believed that I would find out who I was. Searching for the safety, the love, the time to become who I was, to have that group, those people who loved me unconditionally, in whom I could rest.

In my hands were all these gifts born in the crucible of my family - the ability to see, the ability to heal, the ability to know, the incredible strength, problem-solving, the empathy, the ability to use anger as a tool - my arms were overflowing with gifts.

But *I* wanted home. I was FURIOUS at having these gifts; furious that I would HAVE TO USE THEM, be a COMMODITY to the DIVINE, like I was a COMMODITY to my parents. I KNEW, when I asked you last night, that Ogboinba was going to show up; I knew it.

And when I read what you wrote about Ogboinba, this RAGE filled me; this UTTER FURY worthy of Oya. I thought, 'HOW DARE YOU. HOW DARE YOU DEMAND OF ME WHEN YOU GAVE ME *NOTHING*. NO PLACE TO REST, NO PLACE TO BE LOVED, NO SANCTUARY. HOW. FUCKING. DARE. YOU. I REFUSE. YOU *OWE* ME. WHY? WHY SHOULD I PUT MYSELF OUT FOR YOU?

"I WOULD HAVE GIVEN BACK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE GIFTS TO BE LOVED. TO FIND MY BESHERT AND BE MARRIED AND RAISE CHILDREN AND HAVE A QUIET LIFE. EVERY SINGLE ONE. BUT YOU GIVE ME NOTHING AND HAVE THE NERVE TO DEMAND SO FUCKING MUCH. I HATE YOU. I DON'T WANT THIS AND I WILL NOT USE IT OF MY OWN ACCORD. YOU WANT ME TO USE IT, YOU'LL HAVE TO FUCKING PULL IT OUT OF ME."

THAT, for me, is the essence of Ogboinba here. I want what I can never, ever get back; what I can never ever be. I hold all this given me, all that I've made out of it, but I want to be able to be that laughing little girl; that girl who walked into adulthood certain of love. That girl who grew up playing with fashion, clubbing, experimenting, loving college and forming lifelong friendships even through the angst. And I haven't seen that I've gotten so much, but not in the way I wanted.

Finally, finally, years after I should have done, I did what I tell everyone else they should do. I told G-d the truth, no holds barred - everything that was in my heart, everything raw and wild, not pre-processed and analysed in a neat little 'Yes, I know I'm upset about this, and this is why, so it's ok' package. It wasn't okay. It still ISN'T ok. It may NEVER be ok.

But you know what? That's ok.

Because as all that was ripped out - my solar plexus STILL feels sore - and released, something else took its place.

Connection. I finally FELT G-d. And I finally felt ME.

I did one more long overdue thing: I wept. I wept for the little girl I was, the one I wanted to be, the woman I'd wanted to become, the woman I am. 

At long last, I was home.

Christmas void

I'm not feeling the love. Or the magick.

When I was growing up in the States, long before I converted, I'd stay up in bed till after midnight Christmas morning with the sense that something special was happening, and I had to be awake for it. Shortly after midnight, I'd fall asleep, cradled, safe in the knowledge that the magick surrounded me.

Christmas always had that feeling, and after I converted, it was even better, because now, I was part of it.

But for the last two years, nothing. 25 December has been just another day. Part of me is terrified that what has happened is akin to what happens with me in relationships or situations where I've been unhappy/accommodating for too long: one day, I wake up and something has snapped. There's no feeling, no desire to keep trying, nothing. Whatever it was is broken.

It's known as the INFJ doorslam. It takes a long time to get me there, but once I'm there, it's not that the door is permanently shut. It's that there is no longer a door.

Not Christmas, please.

It used to be that I'd get excited about buying cards and presents in October/early November. I'd have my cards by 15 November; they'd be posted out by 1 December. The real anticipation began with "Carols from Kings", getting ready, followed by walking down to Midnight Mass/carols at 10pm Christmas Eve night. The beauty of the church, the carols, the first strains of 'O come all ye faithful'. (Note: those who wish to petition the O to have Midnight Mass in sung LATIN rather than English, let me know.) All of it used to help me reach kairos, where I could be in the manger at the Christ Child's bedside.

The last two years, I've been stuck firmly in chronos. To quote people suffering burnout speaking to Rachel Remen, "I don't know what's wrong with me. Terrible [and in my case, great] things happen in front of me and I feel nothing."

For someone for whom reading and picking up emotional resonances is easier than reading a book in her native language, it's like being stripped of a sense...of an ability you've always had. It's not the most comfortable feeling in the world.

I take comfort in Rachel Remen's explanation: we burn out because we don't grieve. We're so full of emotion, we can't hold anything else. As she points out, psychopaths don't burn out.

So she's reassuring me that I'm not a psychopath. *Phew*

But she is telling me that I need to unload. A lot.

As one of my friends said to me a week ago, "Irim, you've worked through a lot of emotional stuff lately, you've been working, learning and still supporting every person who needs you. And you're surprised because you're exhausted, cranky and you don't give a toss about Christmas. I'm not. You haven't stopped to process ANY OF IT. You HAVE to do it. Stop processing for everyone else."

Fair point. Now that I've stopped, it's all caught up with me. So, what to do?

I've heard the suggestion that I should talk to one of my numerous clerical friends. Reasonable suggestion. But, well, no.

"???????" I hear.

I can't. I just...can't. For me, clerical friends are to *be supported*. They get enough emotional drama crap from every Catholic who thinks they need a priest to sort out their lives; they don't need it from me. And whilst I love to challenge my men in black, I wouldn't DREAM of asking them to deal with my challenges. Many clerics are seriously uncomfortable with dealing with negative emotions: anger, conflict, sadness, doubt. Bring up a crisis of faith? Youch. That goes to the heart of their identity...no, can't mess with that.

And the ones who can deal? Well, every emotionally psychic vampire in the church (and the conservative wing has more than their share, as a lot of people here are using traddiness to fill a void) has already latched onto them. They need a shoulder; they don't need to BE a shoulder.

No, my spiritual conversations and support come from an eclectic spiritual community outside the church, which include the likes of Ari, Christine, Vera, and so on. The heart-to-hearts and long discussions on the nature of God and the directions in which our faith is taking us are blessed oases on my spiritual path. Often, they are huge pushes forward. But still, not the place to deal with this emptiness, because it's not about my faith in God; that's still there peeking out from behind the faces of my friends and events in my life.

So...where to?

For me, music.

Advent, Christmas and Epiphany have carols with some of the most wonderful and salient lyrics. I find these lyrics recurring at odd moments, so maybe I need to stop and listen:

Fear not to enter His courts in the slenderness
Of the poor wealth thou wouldst reckon as thine
Truth in its beauty, and love in its tenderness
These are the offerings to lay on His shrine

Ah. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's...about what I think I owe God.

Maybe it's about thinking that I have to BE something or FEEL something to earn God's grace. I'm very given to that way of thinking because I'm very given to the idea that one needs to make a difference, that one needs to DO to prove that they have any real faith at all. One of my favourite quotes is Gibran's "Your daily life is your temple and your religion", but perhaps I have been using it the wrong way: your faith should permeate your life, both being and doing; you shouldn't use your faith as a rod to drive yourself to exhaustion, doing what you feel needs to be done.

Let your actions FLOW from your faith rather than drive yourself to PROVE your faith.

Big difference, not least because the second framework means you judge others harshly for not living up to a standard of perfection you expect of yourself. It leaves no room for humanity.

Hmmmm.

I don't mind entering God's courts without material wealth. That doesn't bother me in the least. I fear entering God's courts in the slenderness of not having been there enough, listened enough, offered enough, tried to change enough, made my corner of the world better enough. Even tonight, I sat with my Christmas dinner balanced on my lap, counselling a friend online.

Enough. It may be my gift, but it doesn't need to be on tap all the time. Occasionally, it needs to be shut off at the mains. Or maybe, I need to let it flow through me rather than *do* it. My gift is to be a vessel for it and remember from whence it cometh.

And how does that tie into Christmas? Expectation. The insistence that I CAN'T be tired, that I HAVE to feel it every year, or I've failed.

The child in the manger wants ME, not the person *I* think I should be. It is, as Rachel Remen reminds us, about wholeness, not perfection.

And there's a glimmer of a star in the East of the void.

Meanwhile, I'm wrapping up in my slanket, processing, having the odd good cry, letting go of the need to BE in a Christmas mood, and entering the Lord's courts in the beauty of truth and love in its tenderness:

I am that I am.

Wild boys...

I'm writing some very emotional entries at the moment, so I needed something cathartic and less emotional to write about. This post was just going to be about the video and why I love it so much, and ended up being about...men. *Slaps forehead*

Ah, well, the creative muse leads where she will. *Glares ineffectively at said muse*

I've often wondered why I fancy the men that I do. Leaving aside my need to be a 'fixer', hence picking out the most wounded/complicated men imaginable, and my issues with commitment (yes, I admit I have them!), why can't I pick the 'easy' ones?

We all go on about 'nice boys' and 'nice girls' - but the fact that they're *kind* isn't the problem. When I think of a 'nice boy', I think of a man who is trying to please me rather than being himself (not a problem I'd ever have, she says, *whistling*...wouldn't know any drama queens or alcoholic or insecure, needy men...not me...). I think of a man who isn't being *real*, authentic, who isn't fully *human*. In fact, I think of a 'nice boy' as *lying* to me about who he is so he can buy my love.

That's actually not very nice at all.

Having watched a number of shows recently, I've realised that it's men who care, but who can set boundaries, who can say 'you're wrong' or 'get off your ass' that attract me. Why? BECAUSE I CAN COUNT ON THEM. THEY'RE NOT LYING TO ME. I know they're strong enough to be there when the going gets tough - capable of being tender enough to cradle a newborn and strong enough to catch me when I fall.

I want a man with whom I can communicate, and a man with whom I can have a passionate row - followed by an equally passionate makeup session. I need the sensible, the sensitive and the sensuous.

And nice doesn't have the depth of the warmth and caring that comes from someone who really knows and loves themselves (yeah, he should do that too - how else is he going to know what he likes ;-)? ) - someone who has access to all his sides, not just the socially acceptable few.

Honestly? I don't want him tamed by the institution - the Catholic Church, society, power, any of it. I want someone who can walk through all that and hold onto who he is and what the truth is, despite the institutional hard sell. A guy who can wear a suit with a glint in his eye and ask the challenging questions and not take bullshit or an illogical argument for an answer - from an institution or from me.

I want a wild boy.

Not feral, that would be emotionally unavailable - though I find ferals attractive because they have many of the above qualities. He has to be housetrained and eminently touchable because I'm terribly affectionate, but he needs to be able to nip.

And yes, part of that has to do with me - I've spent my life being sensible, sensitive, capable and calm, but I've always been drawn to Goths and those that live on the edge. That abandon, that passion, is very much a part of who I am, but it has been corseted for a very long time.

So, in honour of that, I present you with a song that I played over and over when I first heard it, I had such a visceral, emotional reaction to it. It was my song...



The wild boys are calling on their way back from the fire
In august moons surrender to a dust cloud on the rise
Wild boys fallen far from glory, reckless and so hungered
On the razors edge you trail because theres murder (murder)
By the roadside in a sore afraid new world

They tried to break us, looks like they'll try again

(chorus)
Wild boys.. never lose it
Wild boys.. never chose this way
Wild boys.. never close your eyes
Wild boys.. always shine

You got sirens for a welcome, there's bloodstain for your pain
And your telephone been ringing while you're dancing in the rain
Wild boys wonder where is glory where is all you angels
Now the figureheads have fell?
And lovers war with arrows over secrets they could tell

They tried to tame you, looks like they'll try again

(chorus)

They never managed to tame me - now I need to find my wild boy equal, wherever he may be.

Oh, and of course, to all you fellow 80s girls, this video reopens the debate:

Simon le Bon or Nick Rhodes?

Answers on a postcard.