Getting Snuggly with My UPG

 

 

Kreative Expression

I, usually, shy away from sharing UPG in many places. I have my blog here and a space on Tumblr where I speak about more off the wall pursuits and revelations, but I tend to keep the personal shit to a minimum lest I scare the customers; the customers being those crazy enough to read the ramblings that pass for “posts” round these parts.

The last 2 months have been a dizzying experience in religious expression and growth for me, not only in my relationship with Dionysus (which has taken on a completely different turn and tone than I’ve experienced before) but also with a new deity/entity who made himself quite known for awhile before finally deciding that he had had enough of my pussy-footing around thank you very much.

Lumiel. Phosphorous. Lucifer. So many names and all of them seemed to represent some different aspect I was meant to research and read into. What started as brief bits of research here and there became compulsion. Until there were a couple of days where it seemed as if some form of negotiation was occuring between two, particularly, high maintenance (I say that lovingly *nervous laughter*) entities with regard to just what I could and could not do; with Dionysus laying out the ground rules; take it or leave it.

It was either on his terms or I say no. Period. End of discussion.

In the end, while I serve Dionysus whole heartedly and with the full passion he deserves, I’ve been given the go ahead to work with The Light Bringer and Morningstar, provided I mind my P’s and Q’s. Folks, I don’t even want to discuss the amount of snark that may or may not have passed between the two. Let’s just say there were instances where, a lesser person, would have said “Dayuuuum, you gonna let him get away with that!?” while shoving another handful of popcorn into their mouths.

What all this means is that I have to actually start getting comfortable with my UPG and stop being, not ashamed, but almost skeptical of my experiences because I’ve had my fair share and as I’ve begun to really sink into my religious/spiritual/occult roles they’ve begun to pick up and take on a very persistant place in my life.

And it’s scary because tripping into the unknown is something I am loathe to do at 28 years old gosh-darn it! It’s isolating at times to experience connections that one cannot readily share over lunch with coworkers or even other pagans/polytheists. You can’t necessarily talk about how “charming” Lucifer can be until you’re working with him and then come periods where he’s like that guy who gave you a really good dicking and then only calls you when it’s convenient for him.

Yeah, I said that shit.

Luckily in some, rare, circles it’s perfectly acceptable to discuss your interactions with those who chose to interact with you on a level beyond just giving offerings and walking away. Which is where I had been for awhile. It’s safer and easier that way; especially after years of tumultuous and down-right white knuckle at times service.

So I’m back to square 1 with Numero Dos and coming around full circle, in a different capacity with Numero Uno.

And getting snuggly with my UPG seems to be the first step in keeping either of them happy.

I’d say FML, but I think they’d take that shit seriously and I don’t go courtin’ no trouble .

Melani’s Verse

 

And I choke back slave’s words
On my thick lips like honey from the bee’s comb

And I rut in dust and spittle
Little black girls in purposeful rags
Singing hymns to a god they don’t know

And I dance on soft glass
with edges made for shaving heads and cutting lines

A  chance for fortune left behind

in pools of old malt liquor

And I gather them up
into a bundle of faggots
and burn them all as offering

Drinking ash and salvation
in flavors reminiscent of semen.

Then He Comes to Me

Spirit in the Dark

And this is how it feels.

Pagan Blog Project: B is for Becoming Hardened

If I tell you guys I’m a fucking sap would you believe me? Would you believe that I have fantasties of saving the world, of going to impoverished places (including here in the US) and helping people see their true value? If I told you I spent one election year convincing people in a ghetto to vote, telling young black girls they were intelligent and beautiful, and bargaining discounts for good grades (I worked retail) would you think I was lying?

Because sometimes I think I do lie; about who I am and what I stand for. As a little girl, I couldn’t listen to some songs without breaking down into tears because it hurt to think there were people in the world who hurt so much, who felt so helpless, who had to endure pains I could never imagine. I was an idealist. I wanted to save and give and give and give until nothing was left of me but the memory that I had given all I could.

And as I got older, this attitude of complete giving, of unconditional love, of empathy that seemed to fuck up things more than it helped, got pushed to the back since I ended up being more hurt by it than anything else. I want to hate my enemies. I don’t want to forgive them and have them talk to me and tell me how they really feel.

I want to actually feel good in relishing in someone’s suffering, not think of ways their suffering mirrors some of my own. I want to be calloused and cruel because it’s easier, in my opinion, to not care. It’s easier to become hardened and with age, I’ve found that while I am no longer weepy and sentimental, that nagging feeling of not doing enough eats at me every day.

Nagging and petulant.

So I’ll say this here and now; sometimes I listen to “Heal the World” because I think the song channels something in me that makes me remember one of the few things I’ve cared about. One of the few things that makes me donate time and money, makes me militant and refuse to back down, makes me someone who has faced barbed tongues and raised fists; because I love too much and too hard and I wish I didn’t, but sometimes it’s nice to think that there’s nothing wrong with loving too hard.

 

Pagan Blog Project: Absolution

Forgive me Dionysos for I have sinned

And fret, and tossed, and buried my head in shame

Against, thine will
For you have never sought a bended knee from me
For “crimes” of passion, drink, and mind
For dancing under the influence
For rutting in a darkened room filled with incense smoke
For slurred philosophy and maddened haste
For slips of the tongue

In more ways than one

In no words have you ever spoken virtue over vice
Or temperance over ecstasy
You’ve only asked me to worship
And through you I reach the kingdom of heaven.

Pagan Blog Project: Late January 4th- Acheron

 

Some find it kind of odd to not be afraid of death, because we have so much to live for and hold onto. But death and Charon’s boat awaits us all and it makes more sense to embrace it than to fight against it. To fear it. To hope those cold waters never touch our feet, that our nerves never tingle due to its waves.

Acheron, the river of pain, the swamp of death. At some point we will all cross it, or fall into it, or glimpse it during dreams. Some of us eagerly await it, if only to feel a moment’s peace before the next incarnation.

 

 

Sannion; Muse of Madness, Harlot of Words

 

“There is madness needed to touch the gods, yes, this is true. Few mortals posses it the willingness to step away from the protection of sanity. To walk into the wild wood of madness…”

-Loki (The Sandman: The Kindly Ones)

-Bosch

 

 

Hail Dionysos Saotes!

To Err is Human

“Greed”- Brittany Jackson

There’s something candidly cold about being in love with money. It’s a very easy ledge to get to. You start making a little more cash and your options open up. You start seeing people and activities as “opportunity costs” as opposed to experiences and fellow human beings. Each action has a dollar figure attached to it.  Each movement and thought focused singly on one goal; the accumulation of wealth. Duckets. Dollars. Benjamins. C-Notes. Dough.

So many words.

I would have to say that I’m a pretty shitty Hellenist. Sometimes I forget to pray, practice, or live in moderation. Sometimes I take the gods for granted, as if they’ll always be there when I “get around to it.”

But my biggest failure, here lately, has been greed. Pure and simple.

I have a friend who has asked me to help her set up a budget that includes debt elimination and a solid savings plan. When I look at her I see two things:

1.Someone who is financially ignorant. (And that’s not a bad thing, we’re all ig’nant about something or another.)

2. A fucking sucker.

The prior is a reason to help. The latter is that voice in my head that tells me her continued use of credit cards and over-consumption is what keeps my dividends coming in every quarter. Every piece of jewelry, every mile she drives to and from the mall, every cotton and rayon dress she will only wear once, drives her deeper into debt while buoying my ability to turn a profit. Eat me. Drink me.

Greed is being willing to eat someone else even when you aren’t hungry. Even if you know better. Even if that person is someone you love.

And it’s sitting inside of me now; brewing, coiling in the pit of my stomach to the point that I have taken to avoiding my normal investing/finance blogs so I can get back to some form of equilibrium.

So what do you do when your conscience says “no” but your mind and society says “yes?”

I guess I’ll pray and get back to basics.

Thoughts on the Obama Win

Since most people of color are too P.C. (read: scared) to say it, I will go ahead and get this off my chest; there are some pissed off white folks in America right now. Now whether that makes me laugh or once again consider burning a few flags just for fun, I’m not sure yet, but I’m glad as hell Obama won and it has everything to do with what I believe the second term of his presidency will bring.

I expect he’s not going to play as nice with the Republicans and Dixiecrats who stood in the way of progress for the past 4 years. Now that it’s been made VERY clear that he didn’t get into office on some Affirmative Action fluke, it might not be so seemly to literally hold the country, and its citizens, hostage on the basis of ideology. And nothing made me skip with more glee then walking into my office and looking into the face of every. single. Republican with a smug satisfaction.

Today I walked the walk of the uppity negro. The only thing that kept me from giving middle fingers was the supreme urge to keep my job. For now, we have a president who views our macrocosm as a pragmatic which I much prefer over some spoon fed jerk off who thinks you can run a country like a mergers and acquisitions firm and treats citizens like mere opportunity costs to his “real” constituency; corporate America. And coming from someone who loves her some corporate, I definitely recognize how the culture of short term gains and brutal greed has permanently altered the American philosophical, economical, and spiritual landscape.

If Fundies were half as concerned about greed as they are about sodomy in my bedroom, I might take them seriously. And like these Deep South apologists who try to pretend “state’s rights” doesn’t mean “putting niggers/fags/women in their place” plenty of Right Wing pundits have reasons for why the GOP lost the race, but my favorite HAS to be Billo’s. I mean, the man literally bleeds elegance.

 

I’m in ur country, messin’ up ur traditionz.