#ariadne's thread

“You're here."

Hyunjin's voice was torn between despair and admiration. The crestfallen smile that crossed over his face disappeared with a flash of lightning to reveal the glowering gaze that consumed him once more. It was almost like he was untethered, vibrating between emotions like an electric wire. Flip-floping between rage and acceptance.

The Runner took a step forward and there was a rumble in the strange ethereal room like thunder. He took a step back for the first time.

“Beware, Y/N.”

The word was deep and inhuman from his lips. Like a wolf cornered, he bared his teeth in a facsimile of a smile.

“I have been generous up ‘til now. I can be cruel,” Hyunjin warned.

Once upon a few hours ago, that threat would’ve been fear-inducing. Now, she simply scoffed.

“Generous?” the Labyrinth-Runner repeated, almost laughing.

Like a movie reel, moments of her journey flashed through her mind. Being dropped into an endless labyrinth, walking for hours on aching feet, falling, tumbling, bleeding, being chased, being taunted, being trapped, being torn through space and time.

“What have you done that’s generous?” she asked.

“Everything,” the King claimed, taking an insistent, desperate step towards her. His fingers outstretched as if to touch her. He trembled with some sort of emotion she couldn't place.

Y/N did not shudder like she once did as he crowded closer.

“Everything you wanted I have done,” his hands did cup her cheeks now - with ferocity. He directed her eyes met his. Deep and dark, he swore her eyes were almost as dark as the infinite of the magic around them. “You asked to be stolen away, I took you. You cowered before me; I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it. All. For. You.”

The smell of smoke danced in the air; it was fire-smoke with a hint of honeysuckle illusion. The world about them shuddered and shifted with his emotions like an old glitching, fizzing television set. An undulating creature, alive. Part of him. Or perhaps he was part of it.

“I am exhausted living up to your expectations,” Hyunjin murmured.

His voice was gentle now, lacking the frustration and disdain it previously held. His head lulled forward, and she was reminded of her peach-induced fantasy. His gentleness mixed with his cruelty always gave her whiplash even now. His long hair brushed her cheek with a knife’s gentleness. His forehead pressed against hers for the barest of moments. Icy cold skin sizzled against her warmth. His eyes fell shut, and he shuddered quietly.

“Isn’t that generous?” he breathed out with a soft, disbelieving laugh.

“What more can I do?” he whimpered, his fingers tightened on her temples as he threaded through her hair distressed. He didnt tug or pull... yet. “Please, Y/N. Tell me.”

It was strange to see him jump from threats to begs. It would’ve confused her before. But here, before him, she felt different. It wasn’t as frightful. He wasn’t all that powerful she realized. Everything he’s thrown at her, she’s been able to face. By herself or with her friends. Her friends who were nearby, always with her even if they were far away.

When she didn’t say anything, Hyunjin sucked in a breath through bared fangs.

“You are cruel, YN,” he hissed.

It wasn’t a scold. It was almost pained. He turned away from her, pulling away from her skin. It felt like honey clung to his bare hands. He clenched and unclenched his fingers. He moved, circling her despite his gaze flickering around the strange room. His footsteps lingered in the air, almost palpable as he stalked her. Like a wolf, circling its prey.

But she refused to be something so weak. Her feet began to mimic; her steps echoed his until she was nearly one step ahead of his pace, walking with him in circles.

His gaze flickered to her sneakers… sneakers! It made a mad sort of laugh bubble up in his chest. A random human had made it here in tennis shoes. A dumb, useless hu- No… no… she wasn’t-

He couldn't even finish his thought - it was such a lie.

“We are well matched.” He almost giggled.

His hands, bare of any gems or metallic jewelry, tugged at his darkened locks, pulling at them as if that’d help him think clearer. He couldn’t think around her anymore, consumed by the anxiety, the whirl, the heart pulsing, head rushing energy that pushed through him like a hurricane.

“You and I… I need your cruelty,” he admitted, glancing her way. His eyes gleamed like golden sunlit seas, shimmering inhumanely. “Just as you need mine. I can endure, Y/N. What do you need from me?”

“I don’t need you.” She said, looking at him solidly.

It wasn’t a lie. They couldn’t lie after all.

His mouth didnt move and yet Hyunjin’s laughter sounded all around her. Damp and watery like it was echoing in a inlet of an ocean cave.

“You’re acting like… like you’ve won,” he lamented, facing away from her. The room vibrated and undulated like a beating heart.

“I am here,” she simply said.

“You understand nothing,”  Hyunjin bit out, turning to look at her. “You have answered none of the Labyrinth’s riddles. You don’t even know what the questions were!”

He sounded like a child now. Her head tilted.

Astrological Ariadne: Labyrinth and the Lunar Thread

Astrology has long been accused of being a prison of necessity, a web of iron fates traced by the stars upon one’s fragile body. But those who look beyond fortune-telling and prediction find that traditonal astrology is more than a fatalistic code. It is a mirror of the labyrinth itself, a language of the cosmic prison that reveals its walls and its passages.

To read the heavens with hermetic eyes is to recognise that the world is woven like a maze; there is confusion, repetition, turning upon turning, and a hidden beast demanding sacrifice. The work of astrology is not to flatter mere curiosity with fragments of tomorrow, but to map the paths of the labyrinth and to disclose the thread that leads beyond its confines. This thread is what the ancients encountered in Sophia in the gnostic hymns, in Shekinah, in Mary in the Gospel silence. Ariadne is the archetype who gives the cord, luminous and simple, guiding the soul back to the One.

More at The Mirror of Sienna.

~ @gazing-at-my-stage

Cycle 1: Questions to Ponder

To Kick off This Blog I've decided to Answer the questions within Cycle one:

First one is: What is a Witch?

If I am to look at the English word, it's derived from the Germanic word, Witch, as in Wise woman and essentially that is what a witch is to me, a Wise woman that knows herself intimately and therefore knows the world around her as she can be guided by her intuition.

The Word "Bruxa" is derived from the Word Bricta, Likely the root word that "Bridget" or " Brigid" was derived from and it means enchantment or magic or spell if you will. I see this word then relating Bruxa deeply with the Goddess, namely the Bruxa being a worker for The Goddess in all her forms.

The Witch/ Bruxa therefore becomes a symbol of Woman's myths and deep inner wisdom but also becomes a symbol of the wild untamed spirit of women that Patriarchy has repressed and demonized and her resurgence spells to me the beginning of the end of the Repression of Her and of her Daughters.

The second question that was posed by the book is whenever or not I see myself as a witch and short answer is: Yes. Long answer is that I see my ease with identifying with the term as me coming home after trying to squeeze myself so hard in patriarchal institution and thoughts; from being overly skeptical to trying to become a Christian girl; none fit like being a witch and a follower of my goddesses nearly as well and blends my love of Mythology, beauty, nature and reverence to The Female form that I did not find in overly ascetic religions and spirituality and in overly rigid atheism and In Phallocentric thinking.

Third question is what Makes a woman a witch?

I suppose in other times just a woman claiming to be a witch would be enough, but as both witch and women become shredded beyond compression as terms ( including males in the definition of women for example and regressive gender roles in New age spiritualities with a poor understanding of what constitutes as Divine Feminine), I suppose I am somewhat of a gatekeeper of a term. I suppose the closest people to embody the witch are those willing to help their fellow sisters when comes the need and that becoming one's Proper witch self comes with time, effort, trial and error and the general wisdom gained from the passage of time and deep immersion in the Self and Of The Goddess. I suppose it's why witches have been associated with Crones or the elderly woman in general; it may indicate that a Woman or Witch Woman is at her most powerful when aged or aging. I do think we all have innate magical qualities, some more developed then others and that a magical path is a girl and woman's best friend into developing such skills.

From the 4th question, I actually did grow up in a culture that suspected of the witch and saw her as a force of spite and evil even if many relied on witches to heal themselves. I've always been uncomfortable with this stories but am reclaiming this role for myself as even the negative connotations I feel strip the witch of her moral complexities I think. I'm sadden by those burned and killed to this day when accused of witchcraft, even if they weren't actually "witches" in the proper term; it does show that everyone is seemigly afraid of a woman's power and will burn her for it. I'm mixed on the idea of Goddess religion becoming even more mainstream and accepted, in a sense I have plenty to thank to many groups of outrageous women that helped pave the way for current Pagan thought, but I suppose I'm sadden how little traditions are 100% female focus or don't try to insert some heterocentric form of duality in it.

I elucidated my religious background further above, but yes I did go through a period of catechism thanks to my abusive mom but I was deeply uncomfortable by the idea of God and of a male God and was critical of male religion as the tool of social coercion that it was, winch my father tried to stir me into Atheism; but rather then fully indulging in that I became Agnostic for a bit until I decided to research into Wicca and had many of my thoughts and feelings affirmed by dozens of pieces of Pagan thought and never looked back. As I delved deeper into feminism and female spiritual thought, it has led to my goddess focused lean right now. Needless to say and to answer the 6th question my spiritual background has little to do with the Goddess and is actual opposite of it in many regards.

7th question asks me if I believe in a conscious being that can create life and the universe and how this being is; I like the idea of a Creatix instead of a Creator and see much of everything as tending to be female. Even many "male energies" I see as being Her all along. I suppose I believe in Passive energies and Active ones, Offensive vs Defensive, Kind Vs Harsh rather the n a strictly male-female polarity, male and female meant for each other way.

The 8th question asks how The concept of Goddess affects me; and needless to say I've always been enamored by Goddeses of Greek myth and much to no one's shock im a Greek hellenic devotee.

The final Question asks who or what is the Goddess; even if I believe in her as an actual creative energy, I feel we relate to her through powerful symbology to embody her power and to better worship her. We feel naturally attuned to Her and recognize her as a primordial mother that we as her daughters do things to please and she in turn helps us and our lives by giving guidance and meaning to.

And thus I'm closing off Cycle 1 of the book. Thanks for reading.

Ariadne

Ariadne, princess of Crete, daughter of Minos and Minotaur's Sister. Helped Theseus escaping the labyrinth with her magic Thread, abbandoned by the hero on the island of Naxos was rescued by Dionysus that took her as his spouse. According to the myth The God gave her a golden crown that gave origin to the constellation of the Corona Borealis, and after her death  he made her a goddess.

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