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How Do We Talk About the Workings of a Goddess?

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How do we talk about the workings of a Goddess? Sometimes we don’t. Well, not at length anyway.

This week I’ve been in the middle of intense songwriting work, all of it very rewarding. But as I wrote on my music blog, #allofthesongs, there are times when it is valuable not to speak about what we do:

“…Being in the middle of the artistic process reminds me that there is cause to be silent sometimes. There is a real value in not revealing who you’re working with. Tell the world what the process is like, and you change the process. Reveal how you feel about it, and that feeling is no longer contained in the same way.

Containment is important. Holding onto that feeling of creative anticipation and tension, and being willing to delay the gratification that comes when you let the world know what you’re doing — a world of people who in that one instant of reading your status update or tweet cannot begin to understand the gravity of your life, the complexities of your situation, who cannot savor in the pleasures of what it is to be a living, breathing, creative person in the exact body that you inhabit — makes possible some really transformative writing.”

What is true in the creative process is also true in the transformative work done to me/through me by the Morrígan.

I recognize that this kind of language — me being affected by the work of a divine being — may come across as a kind of certainty about the gods; a clear knowing about their nature, or a tangible recognition on what or who they are.

Don’t mistake me. I am not that bold, or that foolish.

I do not know what the Morrígan is. I do know, however, that the devotional ritual at PantheaCon, the one I wrote about last week, initiated a chain of events that have led me into a greater state of embodiment, a deeper connection with my own Will, and a “no bullshit” approach to my daily encounters.

I feel more willing now to speak with conviction about my perspectives, my doubts, my desires — oh, my desires! — and all of the things that I might otherwise tuck away inside of me for fear of what power they might hold over me or over my life.

And what is happening does not feel like the introduction of recklessness into my life. It isn’t that I am out of control, or that I’m becoming completely overtaken by the parts of me that have been ignored. It is rather that the parts of me that have been hidden (either out of fear or because of ignorance) are thrusting their way forward, jutting out of me with precision and sharpness. The inside of me projects outward and shouts —

“I AM HERE! DO NOT IGNORE WHAT IS HAPPENING INSIDE OF YOU!”

This I can speak about. This is how I talk about the workings of a Goddess. I do not presume to describe Her, but rather the way that She has initiated a transformation in me.

Photo by Sarah Gould

Photo by Sarah Gould

This theism, this religiosity, is motivated by the visceral feeling of this skin, this flesh, these parts that are filled with the blood we all share. In this blood is iron — iron!! 

Do you hear me?

In our blood is iron. Within us is flowing something so firm, so strong, something so raw and ready for the forge.

“I have a warrior heart,” I wrote in a song a few weeks before Pantheacon. I had no idea at the time how much a great, Goddess Warrior would wield influence over my body and my mind.

And yet here I am. Taken by Her. Inspired into a fuller life, a more honest life. In every moment.

How do we talk about the workings of a Goddess?

With a fierceness. That’s how.

The Heart Is The Only Nation

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I have met the Morrígan.

I have stood in a circle, a shape unlike any circle I’ve stood in before, and beside my human kin, a spiritual kin sharing breath and space and smell and touch, I made contact with the Warrior inside myself.

At this moment it feels as though I have never been in this body before, nor have I ever been to a ritual before this one.

I expected something great from Thorn and her tribe, but I did not know I would be shaken so profoundly.

And I feel shaken. Shaken to the core. The hot lava core. Forge fire core. The core of something that both transcends and embodies; all at once harmonious, and resonant, and ripe with the tension of anticipation and climax.

This is not what being alive is like. This is what being alive is.

Photo by Olivier Bacquet

Photo by Olivier Bacquet

My focus has been directed toward liturgy, which I continue to believe is a valuable tool. But at this moment, charged with the energy of an army calling out to a Queen, I recognize the need for something greater than just ceremony.

Ritual and ceremony are not the same thing.

The tools we use for ritual are tools, and they are not the same thing as the juicy, bloody, fleshy, powerful potential of what ritual can be. There must be magick.

There must be.

There must be a movement of that stuff in the belly of bellies, in the gut of all guts. The words you speak are only useful if they mean something. They have to mean something. If you are going to speak — if you are going to stand before an altar and recite words to your Gods — you better say something that matters.

Liturgy is empty without heart, and as we sang at the tops of our lungs tonight —

The heart is the only nation.

A Goddess cut me deep tonight.

Cut a hole and filled it up with…

reverence…

awe…

wonder…

power…

unexpected gratitude for the force which drives me to fight, to have sex, to use this body for all it’s worth, to stand up and speak…

These are the things which flow through me right now.

There may be no one right way to have a spiritual life, but fuck if this wasn’t a right way tonight.

If I had wings, they would be those of the raven.

Trans Is A Teacher For All Of Us

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It snowed last night. First of the season. There wasn’t quite enough to break the branches like last year, but it was enough to remind us that the season of fall, as much as I’d prefer it last forever, is simply a transition. What we’re witnessing in the seasonal display of colors is the letting go of something we’ve grown accustomed to.

Transitions, periods when something is neither one thing nor the other, boggle the mind. It would be so much simpler if the world was binary, which I think is why so many people continue to hustle that fallacy. Convince the world that things are either/or, and you can eliminate the need to deal with the grey-area transition periods, some of which can last for weeks, months, lifetimes even.

My kid has been engaged with transition for a while now.

It began with pronouns. She preferred he, and so we began to give that a go. It can be harder than you might think. I’d slip sometimes, especially in private, because I’ve grown accustomed to having a stepdaughter for seven years. I’ve gotten used to thinking of her in a number of ways, and adjusting those perceptions takes time.

Then, there was the period when, with the aid of some ace bandages, the chest of a she looked much more like the chest of a he. This made him incredibly happy, and he seemed to come out of his shell even more when presenting as a boy.

I saw him with binded chest and I remembered being seventeen, sneaking out of the house in a mini-skirt, a baby-doll shirt and motorcycle boots, with full makeup. I kept my sideburns, though. It wasn’t show-girl drag, it was gender-play.

Playing with gender felt so natural to me, and so liberating. Rather than perform masculinity in the way that I’d struggled to do for most of my young life, I gave myself permission to be something in-between.

It would be unfair of me to lacquer my memories and understandings onto my kid, thinking that what was, for me, a period of radical exploration and expression, must be the same for him. It might have similarities, but it is certainly different.

My kid is trans.

In a few weeks, the transition speeds up for him, becoming more physical. Binding will no longer be necessary, and presenting as a boy will begin to be much easier for him. Interestingly, his transition will become — in a way — fixed. His state of in-between becomes more permanent, more an extension of who he his.

For keeps.

I’m scared for him, and I still can’t completely location the reason for my fear. Perhaps it’s that transition is inherently scary, or maybe having grown up an other in this society I understand how challenging that role can be, in practical terms. To be gay has become much more fashionable, but to be trans is still very difficult. Even the people on the fringes want things to be black and white.

We want our gays and straights, our Gods and a Goddesses, our men and women, our clear, unbreakable lines between what is masculine and what is feminine. We want everything to be simple, and explainable, and assignable to whatever categories we’ve become most comfortable with. Those among us who resist the categorization, who not only accept transition but embrace it, force the rest of us to take a hard look at our assumptions. About everything.

Transition is inevitable. It just happens. The winter comes whether you’d like it to or not, so you might as well search out the beauty in the snow. Ours is not to force nature into being what we would like it to be, and neither is it mine to tell my trans kid that he really would make all of our lives easier if he could just keep being a girl.

It doesn’t work that way.

I like to think of trans people as agents of transition and transformation. They call on all of us to acknowledge that what we assume about the world is not always the case, and what we believe is fixed about humanity is often quite fluid.

To embrace trans is to embrace a truth about the world.

That’s how special my kid is.

Awaking Me Loudly: Seduced By the Tarot

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Transformation is a slow process, and challenging to describe. Best to be on the lookout for that initial spark of change, and then follow it wherever it leads you.

The Chariot: The pursuit of the Divine is a series of sublimations; a refinement of the base; lead to gold.

– March 29th, 2009

The tarot has been an initiator of change for me on many occasion. In the early months of 2009, at a moment of transition for the public voice of Weiser Books, known on Facebook and Twitter as “Ankhie,” I took over a Twitter tradition which was first called #1card, and which grew under my watch into #amtarot and #pmtarot.

The work involved tweeting a single tarot card in the morning and evening which included the hashtag, and encouraging people to respond with their own tarot interpretation. I held on to the responsibility for months before handing it over to the amazing Theresa Reed, and the tradition continues to this very day. Being the steward of #amtarot and #pmtarot allowed me to build community on the internet for the first time. I began to understand the tarot as a key to unlocking our own skills of inner knowing.

And, I fell in love with the cards.

The tweets have long since been lost in the annals of Twitter, and I’m not sure how to retrieve them. But I was smart enough to print out several pages of my interpretations, and I’ve kept them on a bookshelf alongside my decks and tarot books. Looking back on them now, I’m amazed the succinctness of the language. Tweeting a tarot interpretation is very different from the long-form explanation one might give in a face-to-face reading. You’re seeking to reduce the card down to its essence; at least, whatever essence might look like to you in that moment.

Seven of Cups: When there is no map, when no device can discern the direction in which to walk, look inward.

March 22nd, 2009

I learned something about myself through these daily interpretations, and I began to develop a deeper relationship with my spirit again. The tarot encouraged me to look inward, as well as at the world around me, with the eyes of a mystic. Rational thinking, practicality and good sense, while useful in business, had become barriers to my own sense of wonder. The tarot allowed me to return to a state of mystery.

I’m saddened that people fear the tarot. I feel like they’re missing out on something truly great. I’m not a prognosticator, nor do I believe that I have the answers to all questions. I do believe, however, that there is beauty in reaching for the answers. There is poetry in the act of interpretation; in the seeking of meaning in the abstract.

The Hanged Man (XII): That which appears to bind you may turn out to be the instrument of your freedom.

March 12th, 2009

There is no need to fear the symbolism of the tarot, any more than there is to fear the symbolism inherent in language itself. Symbols are tools, and the tarot is but a tool to open one’s self to broader thinking. Reading the cards can be an experience of deep inhalation; an expansion of the mind and the soul.

This is all on my mind right now because tomorrow I begin a new adventure: giving tarot readings at my local metaphysical bookstore. This is the first time I’ve ever opened myself up to giving readings for the public, outside of my Twitter interpretations. As with my claimed name, this endeavor is an outward expression of an ongoing inner change.

Ten of Wands: Reinvention is to the artist what tilling the soil is to the farmer; rich darkness brought into light.

March 21st, 2009

I approach my reading table with a humble heart, and look forward to the first person who walks through my door. I don’t promise answers to every question, or solutions to every problem. But, as with this blog, I will seek to engage whoever comes for a reading in a deep dialogue about the substance of our lives. I will encourage her to look inward, and to seek out the hidden narratives of her heart. I will allow the tarot to continue to be a tool for transformation, hopefully for the both of us.

I’m curious – what is your relationship to divination? Do you incorporate it into your daily practice? Are you a professional reader? Have you had positive or negative experiences with the tarot? If you’ve found your life enriched or changed by a divinatory practice, please share that in the comment section.

(And, if you’re in Englewood, Colorado on Monday afternoons, feel free to come by Isis Books and pay me a visit!)

I, Teo Bishop, am Coming Out as Teo Bishop

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It was my first time being fingerprinted and I couldn’t stop giggling.

I wasn’t drunk. I wasn’t being arrested, either. I was in the police station by choice, and the man who was gently rolling my inked fingers across the regulation fingerprint-card was taking it all in stride.

“You know,” I said, “this action, when taken out of its normal context, is totally neutral. It typically has so much stigma attached to it, but it’s really nothing!” (giggle) “This is actually kind of fun!”

I don’t imagine this was a typical conversation for the policeman. I couldn’t help myself, though. I was beginning a process of transformation right there in the police station, my hand being guided by his, and I couldn’t help but be a little giddy.

Once we’d finished, I took the two cards in my ink-stained hands to the front desk, paid the nice lady her $18, and walked out of the station, one step closer to being fully me.

What is he talking about?

I’m changing my name.

For most of you reading this, there will be no need for adjustment. You won’t have to update your RSS feed or your address book. Nothing will change for you. You’ll continue to see my posts on the blog, or my musings on Twitter and Facebook. Everything will continue as it has since you first stumbled upon my writing.

But, for a few of you, and for my friends, my family, my bank, the Post Office, and just about every other institution I’m currently involved with, things are going to be very different.

You see, I’m not changing my name from Teo Bishop to something else; I’m legally changing my name from something else to Teo Bishop.

Simply put, this decision is an outward sign of my personal commitment to my spiritual and religious path. Changing my name is me owning up to the fact that the person I am when I call myself Teo is the person I’ve been at my core for all of my life, and the person who I wish to continue being. It’s not simply a commitment to being a Druid or a Pagan; it’s a commitment to being introspective, pious, inquisitive, passionate, and compassionate. It’s a commitment to nurturing my relationship with the Gods, with the Spirits of the Land, and with my Ancestors.

It’s me coming out as me.

Coming out is a spiritual experience. Whether you’re claiming a new name, being open about your gender identity, telling your family you’re a Pagan, accepting, publicly, that you no longer believe in God, or performing any other act which affirms something true about you that may have been unseen or unknown by others, coming out is willing your life to be different from how it was before. For all the magick workers out there, you recognize the power embedded in this language.

To be called by a new name, in my mind, is not to deny what I’ve been before. It’s simply to reassign my focus; to place the emphasis where I feel it truly belongs. I write these words as a cisgendered man, but I can’t help but wonder if this feeling of aligning one’s outer self with their inner self is an experience that my trans sisters and brothers could speak to.

When coming out, there’s cause to feel giddy–I think–even in front of an unsuspecting police officer. Coming out is worthy of celebration. Every moment we claim possession of our own life, our own identity, our own journey, we channel the power of creation; the power of the Divine. By being true to ourselves, we are honoring the Great Mystery, and we consent to participate in it.

Needless to say, I’m throwing myself a party once the FBI processes my fingerprints and feels satisfied that I’m not a dangerous criminal.

There are many of you reading this who have experienced coming out in one way or another. Some of you are a part of the Alphabet Community (LGBTQIA…), and many of you have come out as Pagan to your friends or family. Some of you might even be on the fence about coming out, and are seeking some words of encouragement or guidance.

I invite all of you to take a few minutes and reflect on what coming out means to you. If you feel comfortable, I encourage you to share your story here in the comment section, and reach out in support and compassion to your fellow commenters. Then, feel free to share this post with anyone who you think might have something to contribute to the conversation.

An Early Autumn Chill

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Our realtors walked through our bedroom and pointed out that my jewelry (a.k.a. Pagan Bling) would need to go, as would our book shelf of Buffy DVD’s and the half-dozen, brown, wooden elephant figurines left over from our big, gay wedding. They were pleased with the size of the closet, though, if not a little concerned with the clutter.

People like to see space, they told us.

How metaphysical, I thought.

They surveyed our kitchen next, which is lined with glass-doored cabinets, and they said that we’d need to do something will all that food.

Keep only the food you’ll need to eat for a couple weeks at a time.

How survivalist, and barren.

They looked at the wooden counters tops, which were once doors in a previous incarnation, and they mused that wood would probably be ok; the counters didn’t have to be granite. Our appliances, on the other hand, they would never pass. Stainless steel, it seems, is a crucial element in the sale of houses these days. This cold, hard metal can make or break a deal, our realtors assured us.

It really makes a kitchen “pop”!

Popcorn makes a kitchen pop. I love popcorn. I make it often, and I eat it in bed out of an oversized bowl that my mom gave to me. But my air-popper would have to go, and so would the bowl, and so would my grandma’s “See/Hear/Speak No Evil” antique monkey mugs.

They moved on to my office, home to my altar, my books on Druidry and Paganism, and all of my magickal supplies. This room would need a complete overhaul, clearly. The tapestries would come down off the walls, and the candles, statuaries and divinatory tools would be put into piles, first, and then boxes.

This room would make a good office. Leave the desk, and maybe a lamp. Again – space is a good thing.

I couldn’t breath.

Checklists and Upgrades

After their inventory of our possessions was complete, they gave us a schedule, a list of names and numbers of general contractors, and then departed with a forced cheeriness that could not have been more disconnected from the achy feelings in my belly. This wasn’t a home-invasion, exactly, but I still felt a little violated.

There was little time for the trauma, though. We had our task: pack up the outward representations of our personalities, and do it quickly. Like, two weeks quick. The air would turn cold soon, and we didn’t want to miss the Fall market.

Since that initial visit, we’ve erased much of what was unique inside our house. We’ve created a spacious (empty) and simple (bland) environment to put on display for as many strangers as possible.

(I have some parenthetical resentment, I won’t lie.)

Making space for strangers is weird. It almost feels like hospitality, but not quite. Never before have I sought people’s approval in such a outward, physical way. My treasure troves of trinkets and journals, aura photos and drams of oil, each picked out for its beauty, its function, or the tingle it gave me when I first picked it up, began to appear different when I stared looking at them through the eyes of a potential buyer. Liabilities? Maybe. These things that are connected to my spiritual practice were transformed, passively, into potential barriers between us and our financial freedom.

They needed to be boxed. My hearth must be dismantled for the change I seek to occur.

A Change Of Seasons

There are still two weeks left before Mabon, but I’m feeling the transition to Fall begin within the walls of my home.

Autumn is the season where we are all forced to accept that the year’s growth is coming to an end. The green of the leaves, the fruit from the vine, all that we’ve planted and made from dirt and sweat and water, it all begins to cease; to draw back. It is not dead yet, and it is still plenty beautiful, but the beauty is different now. The color is harder to hold, for you know that in time reds will become browns, and browns will take over the sidewalks and become crunchy and brittle, and everything that is now will soon not be. There is a melancholy beauty to the whole process.

Autumn is a season where we all consider the coming cold, and we wonder how we will survive it. The season has turned metaphoric for me in a profound way, for I stand now with uncertainty about who will take ownership of this space, and where we will land once it’s all over and done with.

How will our plants fair the move? How will we manage the dogs in the midst of house showings? What sorts of sacrifices will be made, unplanned and sudden, and how will we fare them? As I take apart the evidence of my achievements, removing the postcards and bookmarks that show proof of my journey thus far, what am I left with?

Perspective

I look outside my newly cleaned window (sparkling windows, our realtors told us, are essential when showing a house) I still see green. The tiny leaves which turn yellow and rain down on the grass and clog our gutters are still holding fast to their property. They aren’t selling just yet. They’re going to hold out until the moment is right; until the weather has turned and there is no sense in clinging to the life they’d grown accustomed to.

We’ve both got a little more time until we must become something new.

 

Have you had a similar experience? Have you been faced with the decision to sell or move out of your home, and did it give you cause to reflect on your life? If so, I’d love hear from you. Please share your experience in the comments. And, I’d be very grateful if you shared the post with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or your social network of choice!