through galaxies and stardust

‘Realm of the Faery Queen’, artwork by Mythos

Here’s what it says:

“Sithamë (pronounced sit-ah-may) means the special thame of an individual. Thamë (with a small “t”) is a complex word that means “law” and “harmony” and “own-nature”. In a traditional society there is the thamë that is proper to everyone, there is the thamë that is proper to a particular estate (priestesses and intellectuals, nobles, artisans, servants), to a particular job or function (motherhood, musicianship, etc.) There is also the thamë that is special to an individual – her own personal nature, her “calling”, her “way”. This is called her sithamë or own-thamë.”

It seems to me that sithamë is the same concept as True Will in Thelema. (I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Thelema and Crowley, but I won’t go into any of that here.)

I’ve written up many posts over the past week–apologies, entreaties, rants, laments, mission statements, and even a couple goodbye posts–and I ended up deleting all of them. Without getting too much into my own issues, I will say that all of these posts have revolved around the concept of community.

Our community is very small and very unstable. I know this. But every time someone leaves, it hurts. Especially if I feel that I am in any way to blame.

I know it’s unfair of me to expect people to stick around. It’s also unfair of me to pin my desire for spiritual community entirely on Déanic Tumblr.

Déanic (Filianic?) Tumblr has its problems, as on the ground communities will, too, someday. Still, there is warmth, conviviality, and genuine human concern for one another here. I get emotional about it—I think most of us do—and that’s precisely how I know that, for all its faults, our little online community is a *real* spiritual community. Caring about it, even a little too deeply at times, is also perfectly natural.

Building an ekklesia isn’t like starting a country club; it’s a lot more like entering a marriage, or founding a city. If it doesn’t mean so much to you that you’re sometimes tempted to storm off into the woods alone because it’s too painful to see it being less than you know it can be, if it doesn’t mean so much that it keeps you up at least a few long, lonely nights, if it doesn’t mean so much that you’ve never choked down a tear so that no one would see just how much it meant, then it will never be able to, as Rumi says, “break your heart again and again until it opens.”

Cosmic Witch Aesthetic #1

Made by Hydix

Pictures from Instagram in “Cosmos” Pin Board

beginning of a goddess

by mica