bloodteethandflame

A life in threes

Category: personal

Month for Loki, Day 17: Distraction.

So.  I am still sick with the flu that I’d caught from V the week before last.

And I was talking to a friend – who is spirit-touched and a Reiki practitioner – about my symptoms the other day.

You see, I have been suffering a great deal of sinus congestion, a headache, and most concerning of all, I have had a near-constant nosebleed for the past week.

My friend was pointing out that the combination of sinus congestion followed by nosebleeds could indicate the opening of my third eye.

And I was surprised to hear that, as I have always felt that I am almost completely headblind, but since my return from Arizona (following the ritual that occurred there), I have felt more ‘open,’ and as a result, I have had several rather vivid experiences.

Though I hadn’t thought to connect the increase in my experiences with the frequency of my nosebleeds.

~~~

(8:30 AM)

I have been stressing about what I should be writing again.

I woke  up about 30 minutes ago.

I hadn’t intended on getting out of bed.  I was still in that hypnogagic state, when I rolled toward the edge of the bed, and ‘sensed’ Loki there.   He was standing there by the bed, and I distinctly remember muttering, ‘Let’s go.’

I had just awakened from a vivid dream concerning a small body of water, because I could recall seeing Him standing in the water, naked to the waist, waiting for me to join Him.  And how, upon wading in, I received a clear visual of a short poem.

It looked like an Internet meme tile.

It was a poem about an experience – a magical experience – written by someone named Walter.

Unlike other times when I have dreamt of written words, the visual image of these words appeared surprisingly clear and easy to read, in black ink on a yellow lined paper.**

I think that I had been reading this paper.

But something had distracted me.

(Oddly enough, I could still hear the TV in the bedroom in the background — and it was distracting me.  I could distinctly hear some news channel commentary concerning Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, and all of that.)

I recall that I had been reading this poem to myself, as if I had been trying to memorize it, as I may have been intending to make a post of it today.

But then, I’d begun to wake up.

I am trying to think of what this poem had made me think and feel – as I’d felt that I’d almost had it memorized – but then I’d let the TV distract me.

All I can remember was the first line:

Let us go to the well, and you will chart your first experience here…

I recall that the poem had a lilting sort of subtle rhythm as I whispered the words to myself – possibly an ABBA or even an ABCD-ABCD rhyme scheme.  I was amazed that I’d been able to see the words so clearly as I’d spoken them aloud, and I remember thinking that I wasn’t that deeply asleep and yet, so deep and so clear were the words that I was speaking.  I repeated them to myself several times – but somehow – how? why? – had I allowed the TV to intrude, rather than to ignore it and focus on what I had been saying?

Maybe this is not about my memory of the poem at all.

Perhaps this is the lesson:

The words, the experiences would all be clear to me if I allowed them to be.

And yet I jump away from away from these experiences and cast about for a distraction to take my focus away from them, from the possibility of recalling them.

(Perhaps this is what He means when He insists that I am still running; I am still afraid.)

We are standing at the Well of Memory and I am fussing over poetry?

Relax. 

Relax.  Let yourself be like water. The words were flowing over you, were they not?

You asked for a session.  This was your session. 

You heard [the television], yes, but you still had access to your vision of Me, and what We were doing…

These things can and do co-exist.

These ‘realities’ are nothing more than undercurrents of each other and you can tap into these multiple streams at any time that you wish.

(Am I so skilled as all that…or is it simply that easy?)

Yes…and no.  It is that simple, but, as you might guess, it is not EASY.

Do you see the way you struggle with relaxing, with remembering? Let go of your need to describe every detail and just allow the flow.

That is the lesson.  Stop putting these rules and  all these parameters on it.  Stop trying to document the experience as you are experiencing it and just let yourself see, let yourself feel, and you will remember it.

Stop thinking of these experiences as something unusual that is only given to you in pieces with all those attendant fears that suddenly you will forget.  

Let yourself remember. Let yourself relax.  

The fear drives it away from you, pushes it away from your understanding.  

You will forget if you are always afraid to forget.

~~~

When I realized that I’d fully awakened, I blew my nose.  There was blood coming out of my left nostril again.

(Clear out this logic…trust this process rang in my head.)

Perhaps this is what was meant when another Lokean friend and I were discussing this project at the beginning of the month.

I’d asked Him for a clue, a means to begin the project, and He’d said (through her, through some automatic writing):

Be fluid.  Be more fluid.

~~~

And related to these hypnagogic conversations, here’s bit of pandoramancy:

 

 

~~~

 

 

 

TomGrasso

Month for Loki, Day 15: Waiting for you to say anything.

So.

We are halfway through the month now.

There is so much that I still need to write about…and tonight, I got this little bit of pandoramancy that seemed to confirm that.

This song:

Evidently, Someone seems to be waiting for me to say something in particular

…as three different friends of mine have pushed this song on me in the last two days:

Do you know Drowning Pool?  No?  Not so much?  Well you’ve got to listen to this song!…it’s a great song.  I promise you’ll like it.

and then,

Do you like Drowning Pool?  Well, this is my favorite song of theirs.  Listen to it!…

And finally…

Hey.  Listen…listen to this song, OK?  I think it might be… important.

And so, I did.

One friend even sent me a link that to the first copy of the song that she found on YouTube that not only played the song along with lyrics (since I prefer to look at the lyrics while I listen to the song for the first time through) but then had the song lyrics posted a second time through – without the melody – for a total video length of 7 minutes, 40 seconds.

So, it was as if the Universe *really* wanted to make sure I had the access and the opportunity to study the lyrics not just one time through, but twice. O.o

So what could it mean?

Perhaps this song has a specific message that is supposed to serve as a nudge toward me.

Perhaps it’s supposed to be some subtle encouragement from Him

                         to continue along the same vein as I have been

                                           concerning the story that I’m supposed to be telling this month.

You know, that story that details the main things that I’ve learned on this path, followed by discussion of several of the major ways that my path has changed?

Yes, that one.

Or maybe, there’s no message; the song might signify absolutely nothing at all.

But still…this is a powerful song that has created quite an earworm for me today.

~~~

Oh…and in case that I had it in mind to

I dunno

Start running away from Him

again

here’s another bit o’ pandoramancy:

Point taken, Sir.

Month for Loki, Day 14: You’ve got it all wrong.

youareenough

I don’t know who Courtney A. Walsh is, but zie sounds like Someone I know.

Month For Loki, Day 13: Lover.

fridakahlolovequote

You deserve a lover

who wants you disheveled,

with everything

and all the reasons that wake you up in a haste

and the demons that won’t let you sleep.

You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe,

who can consume this world whole

if he walks hand in hand with you;

someone who believes that his embraces

are a perfect match with your skin.

You deserve a lover

who wants to dance with you,

who goes to paradise every time

he looks into your eyes

and never gets tired

of studying your expressions.


You deserve a lover who listens when you sing,

who supports you when you feel shame

and respects your freedom;

who flies with you and isn’t afraid to fall.


You deserve a lover who takes away the lies

and brings you

hope, coffee, and poetry.


*Frida Kahlo*

(shared by Lee Harrington)

Month for Loki, Day 11: Separated.

Being still sick with this flu, I spent most of this day in an almost meditative haze.

As in, I meditated heavily upon my follow-up to this entry.

And this is what came up:

Who bows to whom?

We are both switches, you see.

But I don’t know if He is talking about the relationship between He and Odin

… or if He is talking about the relationship between Himself and me.

~~~

The first thing that came up in my email feed was this powerful video post from a blog I follow:

Gage Wallace: How We Have Learned to Love

and how the poet has allowed words to separate him – how words separate us all – from facing each other in love.

 

That post was followed within moments by Jolene Poseidonae’s post on how ‘the heart must go first. [and] The brain may follow’ **

~~~

What I took from these two posts was to mean was that I have allowed this little writing project of mine to limit myself in my words already.

I promised to write and yet I have allowed the words to separate Loki and I from each other.

He doesn’t really care what words I use, as long as I write the truth of the story.

And the truth of the story is difficult for me to admit to because it requires a certain amount of writing with an openness and eye towards vulnerability that I am not used to.

I have begged Him to take me deeper and yet it has been the words that have always separated us.

When I taught other kinksters about words as ordeal and how words can make thoughts manifest –

How with the use of words alone, one can create powerful connections!

I was also acutely aware of the concept that Gage Wallace speaks of concerning about how the distance between lovers can be created just as easily — created by the words on the tiny screen of an iPhone.

Words can bring together and words can separate.  Names, titles, concepts, aspects….do they matter?

Well, it all matters just as much as it doesn’t matter, because words have a fluidity of meaning and power than is entirely dependent upon context and meaning.

We give words the power they have, and yet once they are said, or heard, their power becomes dependent upon others’ understanding of meaning and context.

Whether one is having a conversation or an argument, words are means by which access is given to thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

We connect with our words.  We encourage with our words.  We open up to others with our words.

But we can also wound with our words.  We can shut down connection with words.  We can separate ourselves from others with labels, titles, names, designations.  We can lie, confuse, obfuscate meaning.  We can hide behind our words.

Words can open and words can limit.

~~~

When Loki first came to me, almost from the beginning, I wanted to know Who He was.

And He wouldn’t tell me.

So I put words on Him:

Shadow in the Dark.

Invisible friend. 

Creature in the woods.  A shadow being that pursued me over a dark, empty field in a series of haunting dreams.

The Trois Frere Sorceror.

Teacher.

Magician.

Lover.

God.

 

But I realize that Loki encompasses all of these words…and yet, none of these words.

~~~~

 

**I love that last line, by the way.  It is a perfect description of where my devotional practice with Loki seems to be going this month.  I was equally tempted to use those words as the title for today’s post.

 

 

 

I don’t know how.

I’m sorry.

I don’t know how to follow up yesterday’s post.

So, if you are looking for the continuation of yesterday’s ‘to be continued’

– you aren’t going to find it here today.

I’m sorry.

~~~

I have been thinking all day of how I could write the continuation…but it isn’t happening today.

I made the mistake of going over some old posts from my notebooks from 2013, thinking that I could glean something from the pages of rage and despair.

He is correct, you know.

I wasn’t learning anything from all the pain that I’d felt – that I’d sought to feel – back then.

Reading all the pages today of that awful story – my story – was heart-wrenching.

I know what I said.  I know what I promised.

I just can’t deliver today.

 

Perhaps…tomorrow.

Month for Loki, Day 10: Story

I feel like my throat is closing up.

My throat feels raw and it is painful to swallow.  My senses seem dulled as my sinuses are filled with congestion.

Perhaps this is nothing but a chest cold, a head cold.  My head feels as if I am under water, and there is a strange metallic taste in my mouth.  My eyes water and my muscles ache.

Perhaps this is really nothing at all besides my simply being sick.

But I am not telling my story.

I know my task.  I know what stories I have promised to tell and yet I am having trouble speaking of them. I am having trouble writing about them.

I know that He wants me to write of how things changed.

How Loki as the Teacher and the Magician slowly morphed into Loki as the Lover in mid-2013.

You see, my husband of 20 years was having an affair and that knowledge of that fact devastated me.

So Loki came forward, first to comfort, and then to strengthen and empower me in my feelings of brokenness and betrayal.

Ever the Teacher, He sought to show me –through use of Himself as an example – how I should be loved.  Simple as that: He sought to love me and to heal me with a fierce and steadfast tenderness that I continue to marvel over, even to this day.

But I didn’t want His love…in the sense that I felt that I could not possibly deserve it.  I did not believe that I deserved His fierce loyalty, His honeyed promises, His gentle touches.  Instead, I insisted upon a passionate, almost feral connection.

I was angry and avoidant.

I didn’t expect to be understood, much less, did I expect to be loved.

I pushed Him away.

I refused to see; I resisted recognizing Him as anything other than a Being Who could break me and I sought to be broken.

I wanted to experience the height of relationship that I had recently been teaching others about – I wanted to experience a consensual, BDSM-fueled dynamic.

But He refused.

Our ‘scenes’ were passionate, yes, but He refused to cause me any pain.

Though I begged for Him to transform me through pain, He responded:

Why? You have been through enough pain…and yet you have not learned.

So He approached me with care and kindness.  I daresay His behavior was all romance and gentility, and my response was I wanted desperately to shut down:

That is not for me, I wept and I raged, That has never been for me. I don’t believe in that.

And so I hid from Him.

I pushed Him so hard.

I dared Him to grab me by the neck and shame me like an errant puppy.

I waffled between fear and rage.

I was either afraid of Him or I was angry/despairing of Him.

I was insistent: You do not love me.  You cannot love me.  No one can.

But He simply smiled and blinked and continued to present Himself to me, in dreams.

He spread Himself out like water at my feet.

He stroked my face with tender hands.

He bowed down low, head to the ground, and asked me how He could serve.

To be honest, He was a better submissive than I ever could have been, and yet I still argued, how – why – what had I ever done to deserve such devotion, such heartfelt words, such considerate actions?  The acts of His submission were all rooted in my own personal repertoire, and yet He faced me with every single one of them, challenging me to consider Him and to receive Him as I sought to be received in the BDSM dynamic I craved/created with so many others.

Allow Me to care for you as you have cared for others. 

Allow Me. 

Allow Me, He whispered over and over.

submissive-man-kneeling-in-submission-2

He often tried to convince me, cajole me into recognizing Him in the shape-shifting flurry of faces, of former play-partners and past lovers that I’d see in my dreams:

I see you. Do you see Me?

See Me.

Look Me in the face.

See Your Beloved.  I am here before you.

He demanded eye contact.  He accepted no less.

And still, I ran.  I avoided.  I cried.

I would not look Him in the eye.

But He was patient…and He was relentless.

~~~

By 2014, I stopped teaching at BDSM events.

Though I’ve been involved in ‘the scene’ for over 20 years now, I have not attended a BDSM event in two years.

(to be continued…)

Month for Loki, Day 9: Poetry

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

 

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

Month for Loki, Day 7: Magician.

As I was becoming increasingly aware of my unease with my role as a Student, you can be certain that Loki sensed that I was struggling.

It didn’t seem to deter Him from trying to instruct me, however, and His lessons for me increasingly involved transformative rituals.

I began studying runes, at His request, and it was around this time that the rune, Eihwaz first came to me.

I created a prayer to Eihwaz asking for protection, connection and transformation.

My meditations were full of trees – visualizations of an Ancient Tree with gnarled branches that twisted toward the sky – and the points of the Eihwaz rune were sunk deep in its bark, facing out in all directions:

massivetree

I learned that this strange Tree

with its dark, almost sentient presence

was the Axis of All That Is

and that Eihwaz served as an anchor to my understanding of it.

And there, in dreamspace, I would meet Loki.

malewitchMagoBruxo

He looked a lot like this.