Feather, Fur, and Tusk

Pleasure is Pleasure, Not a Workout Regime.

Clutch your malas, chickadees. I’m gonna rage-post.

For the last month-ish I’ve been tossing about in my head the notion of getting a jade egg. I’d never even used a sex toy until a few weeks ago and that’s been a good experience, so my though is maybe this could be similarly good. So I’ve been researching and the findings have been a frustrating mess of bullshit.

The most cited of the common…

Since stepping away from reconstructionist-based practices five years ago I’ve been in something of a mire where ‘worship’ is concerned. So much is meant to be communal, but I have no community in the physical world (and very sparsely in the cyber one) and I’m unlikely to ever find an active group with which I would feel a real alignment.

These first five months of 2018 have been very much about…

Why was I not enough?

An acquaintance posts a picture of herself and her daughter. She wears a flowing blue dress. She dances with her flower-crowned maiden child. They are both smiling, joyful. This photo expresses their bond, she says.

My ribs contract and all I feel is rage.

All. Day.

All. Fucking. Day.

I have to look at these pictures of what this bond is supposedto be and know that I cannot share in it. Sacred.…

Enter the Shadow Year

How quickly a whole year passes!

I’m a woman ten months married now. I have a new name and–soon–a new look. I have crossed the boundary from the liminal place between adolescence and first adulthood into Real Adulting and oh the shadows I am finding!

The first months of this year have brought about some revelations both painful and liberating. I set out in January to commit to learning methods…

Building a House in the Wastelands

On the continent of Non-Christendom, in the wide expanse that is broad-brush defined Pagania, I have no village. There is no “tribe” for me. I’m not a witch. I’m not a Wiccan. I’m not a devotee of The Goddess Movement. I’m not a recon. In each of these I find undercurrents that repel me, and most of all I can’t toe the communal line that seems to exist, which demands rejection of reason and…

New Year’s Reading 2017 I rarely lay full spreads anymore, but I do keep up with a New Year’s Day reading and this year’s turned out to be, well… Intense.  The Two of Arrows up there carried over from last year, when it was manifesting and from the year before when it was the key theme. This card has represented my depression/anxiety struggles and to have it in the “leaving behind” position is…

When the Student Is Ready.

Hello friends. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? A good deal has changed since my last post in March. I’ve gotten officially engaged. We have a new home and new jobs and have added a sweet, snuggly hound to our family. I have my workshop back, even if it still is a shambles from the move, and I’ve been taking steps to commit myself to following my bliss. My bliss is telling stories, and I will be…

The Forge Is Never Cold

Imbolc Eve and I have circled our beloved star twenty-eight times. Ten years ago today I became an adult in the eyes of our law, with no ceremony, no words, no ritual or marker to divide me from my past child-self. Sixteen years ago, mere days after today, I became a woman in the eyes of Time, as untold billions have before me. The week preceding today has been a trial. I have struggled with pain…

The world is so full of hard edges. I feel harsh tones like a paper cut and had I hackles to raise they would be bristled. I want to cover my ears or hide and when prevented from either I strike back. As a child all three brought nothing but more harshness. I couldn’t “stop it!”, no matter how much my mother demanded it. And so I learned to become empty. If I was empty I could acquiesce, play…

I don’t do vulnerable. At least, not willingly. You can only fall backwards, eyes shut, so many times on the assurances that someone will be there to catch you so many times, and I have a very bruised back to show for it. My mother, my grandmother, friends…when it comes to other women in my life the track record of support is not the best. Freyja gave me a spear to lean on when I couldn’t stand,…

A Heart on Fire

Inspiration is ugly. It is greasy-haired, piles of dishes, and desk cluttered with wine bottles ugly. It’s not pretty or pastel or patient, not for me. When it comes, there is no choice in the matter there’s just managing it as best you can, stretching a thin smile through the workday until you can escape and hit your sketchbook or your easel, your clay, your page. It gives you no peace until it…

I am covetous of silence. Quiet is my nature, stillness my comfort. Without them, I sicken. I become despondent and sharp. My slow-burning temper rises to the surface where it hardens me into the worst twisted, spitting image of my mother and I know I need to go away. It’s an almost animal panic. Apple branches, weathered and wise I have not had near enough quiet over the past weeks. New guests…

In Darkness, Day Begins

“The artist’s life cannot be otherwise than full of conflicts, for two forces are at war within him—on the one hand, the common longing for happiness, satisfaction and security in life, and on the other a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire. There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative…