I'm not yet ready to rewrite the 'expose' post on my LJ so I'll just link it for now with the disclaimer that I am no longer a naive 20 year old. http://furry1337otaku.livejournal.com/4569.html Also this entry relates to my spiritual self concept at around the same time of my life http://therianthoughts.livejournal.com/5684.html
I will keep my LJ as a personal 'life sucks yo' blog(as well as start professionalisming it up to continue doing fursuit and art commission networking). I will keep my Wordpress blog as a longer term project for my outright political activism when I reach educated conclusions on my opinions.
This will be somewhere in between with the focus being on my personal Spiritual revelations, relating my hypotheses, theories and experiences. I'll also touch a bit here and there on social issues that I don't feel like I have the final conclusion to (so unready for the Wordpress), but still feel like I need to speak out about. Feminism/Gender Equality is the biggest one on that subject for me now, and occassionally, on related subjects as sexuality and social reprogramming.
So, as to the spiritual side of things I consider myself a budding Therioshaman. I have a background and general familiarity with Hermetic Kabbalism and Gnosticism, as well as a passing knowledge in Wicca, and a strong base of Michael Harner's Core Shamanism and basic Neopaganism. I'm not sure I'd call myself a Shaman just yet. I'm no longer a neophyte, and I am not part of a organization so I'm not an Initiate, though I would suppose that's my equivalent ranking. I'll admit, I just did a google search to try to find an appropriate term, and I think I've found one. We'll call what I am a Seeker. Not yet a Master, but no longer the Neophyte.
I'm not trying to organize an official structure, but due to my Kabbalistic/Psychological perspective, names are important and I need the terms to express myself in standard terms, even if I am the only one to hold this standard.
I have a number of animal totems and identify with an wider variety of entities. Sometimes when people ask me what I believe in I laugh and tell them everything, or if I'm feeling especially profound, nothing and everything as its all the same and the Truth is a lie and in lies can be found truth. I think I can say that the only thing anyone can really believe in is their sense of Self. Without the Self, what is there? Perhaps I am just young and limited or immature for considering maintaining Self rather than giving myself over to Other and becoming part of something bigger. Basically, only You can decide the Truth, and the Truth is unique to you, as well as being dynamic and wholly unknowable, revealing Itself like a coy lover, teasing and retracting, a delicate dance.
As for my direct totems, the first is Phoenix, burning higher and brighter than everything, less intimately personal, but no less formative to my existence. I have been dying and rebirthing spiritually for a long, long time.
At my center is Striped Hyena. I cannot detect a difference between Me as a human and Me as a Striped hyena. We are one and the same. The term for this state of animal spiritual connection is Contherian, there is no conflict and they are static. The only conflict that ever arises is over food. Striped Hyena would eat everything vaguely edible until sick. Human has to consider the social and physical implications and consequences of stealing food or eating out of the garbage. This is me. This is Kiyara. This is She who Saunters Softly in the Shade. I don't wait around too long in one place and I walk the line between light and darkness without succumbing to either side.
To either side of me is Cave Hyena and Spotted Hyena. Woody is a male Cave Hyena. He is submissive but mischievous. He's also necromantic, wearing skeletal markings and having taken me down back entrances to the underworld. There's also a fleeting sensuality. Miera is Spotted Hyena. Miera was the first 'other' force I had to come to grips with, and she's also the most personal intimate internal influence on me outside of me being Me. I have learned half her lessons, the most importance were those of Self-acceptance. Miera was the scapegoat subjected to all of my worst emotions and drives. She was everything dark in myself that I was afraid of. I abused her, but still she protected me, hurts for me, and forgives me. She is also Maternal love. I'm working on learning her assertiveness.
Nautilus is a strange one that I only really just realized my connection to. It is silly that it took me so long to realize the association given that I have known Spirals/fractals for a couple years now and have been on a quest to acquire Nautilus for several months now in growing intensity. Nautilus is fun. Nautilus is smart, Nautilus is about knowing how to build a strong foundation, without wasting the past and continuing to move in and out of different compartments of oneself to maintain the right level of buoyancy for the situation. Nautilus can't see where it's going, and is often moved by forces completely out of its control but gets there with great speed. Nautilus also changes direction to seize upon things enthusiastically, able to hold many things at the same time and sees the world in muzzy shades of grey. Its eye is actually open to the world, sealed only by a small film of mucus and cleaned by the action of cilia. And naturally it is worth talking about the shell itself, never mind for now just how sweeping and epic is the symbolism of the spiral, we're discussing the shell for its defensive nature and inner beauty. I have a very thick defensive wall, I don't let much through it. Enough of a breach might kill me, but I can recover from significant cracks. And while I can retreat back inside myself, nigh-impenetrable. When I emerge, I am soft and feeling.
I admire Jaguars for their power and mystery. I feel the influence of a lucky dragon in my life, helping me in the little things even while larger catastrophes destroy me. Much as the Meteor is a sign of great trauma and destruction, drastic change is sometimes necessary. A slight fondness for jackals is a requisite for the amount of work I do with Death, considering Anubis is my primary concept for this paragon. Chimera are of interest, in the less specific sense of understanding a variety of shapes, and I feel aspects of shape shifting I am not certain relates to any one thing, my shape is fluid for so long as I choose it to be.
In anycase, there are a few entities of the Macroverse I have contact with. The primordial Hyena Matriarch has guided me around and I have had great adventures in, around and with the Clan. From my first hunt and acceptance into the family, to being provided intimate succor and even active rescue. And still maintaining my sense of autonomy. My higher realm spirit guide is called Sleet. She is ephemeral, more elemental than angelic. She is enigmatic, speaking through riddles and metaphor. Still she has on occasion shown me where I need to go and pushed me towards learning secrets on my own. The Archangel Michael is an interesting fellow. He's a bit of an Aries/Mars figure, and indeed, I approached him for martial lessons. He is not what I was expecting from an Angel. Much less an important, named one. While he has very strict discipline and strong morals, he has a biting sense of humor and great tolerance and care for other lower beings. Hell, he probably wouldn't even consider me lower. That being said most of our encounters consist of him beating the spiritual crap out of me 'sparring' and harrassing me about how fat my ass is. I once channeled him for assistance in a ritual and he set me and the space I performed the ritual on Spiritual White Fire. It burned for a week and the embers lasted for a month. It was the most altering of my experiences, as I am mostly of water and a shady character not well suited to the brightest of holy light, thought I do routinely travel up to the farthest reaches I can to bask in the Source.
Amusingly, the entity the most like Michael is the Pacific Ocean. She too took opportunity to berate me for the following: working with an orderly higher level FIRE elemental (Michael), moving away from her reach, getting my ears pierced, and getting married to a less than ideal mate. I miss her dearly, her demeanor of an overbearing mother, her insistence on her greatness and superiority and how small and insignificant I am to her and underneath it all the knowledge that she genuinely loves and is concerned for me. I haven't directly met Anubis yet. I am not yet experienced or prepared enough to meet him. I'm pretty sure there is the directive to see him as soon as I am able, and there is a growing impatience to the call, but I see him as a patient if harried figure. His purpose is to guide souls on their way, to gently show them understanding and hope. I don't think I will ever see him angry and I am glad I will never have to. He dispatches of the irreparably damaged with the clinical precision I associate with euthanasia, and Ammut is all too eager to gobble them up. That fantastic monstrosity is appears to be deceptively lazy, but she is tricky and humorous. I get the feeling I will get to know her rather well. I already shared her experience in one occasion where I (and my hyena compatriots) ate a malicious entity and absorbed some of its traits.
I have felt the love of the Mother Sophia, goddess of wisdom and understanding. I have been played again and again by an embodiment of Fate who is fickle playful and aloof as a cat. Speaking of cats Bastet is the cat/lion goddes of the Hunt, Defense, and Motherhood. I get the feeling I will get to know her in the future. After all she is sometimes depicted as Anubis' mate.
So hey, there's all that. My next post is likely to be a list of occult books I recommend, ranked by subject and skill level.
The rest is a TL;DR of my whole life story. It is super long.
And so, onto the Importance of the Human Animal, which is an essay I've been needing to write for awhile that will probably be cross posted to all of my blogs when completed.
In this case, we will only be addressing my own human animal. I was born the only daughter of a twice divorced mother, the third of four children. As a child, my femininity was something I played at precociously, only as an occasional whimsy. Most of the time I was keeping up with my brothers, trying to prove myself just as tough. I didn't have a lot of friends during my childhood. Well, aside from pets and those friends whose existence are solely in my head. There were a few passing attempts at feminine things: planning a tea party, making scones and listening to No Doubt to name a few, but most of my life was spent in books about animals and climbing trees and playing with the dogs.
I didn't try at being a girl again until Middle School, and that lasted only so far as to get me an N*Sync CD, kind of listen to the Spice Girls and get a Makeover at a slumber party. I gave up on it after one day where the group of girls I was with slung insults at another girl, and then the following day she was besties with the leader of the little clique I'd been absorbed into. It was then, processing the fact that without reason these girls were mortal enemies and then BFFs in the span of a day that I gave up, went to the library and focused on whatever I felt like being interested in, regardless of what my peers were doing.
By High School I was just one of the guys. I only made the mistake of dating one of my friends. I'd picked the wrong one, but it might have been for the best in the long run. Regardless, every male friend I had at some point confessed to his undying love for me. I went so far during high school as to intentionally obscure my body and looks. I didn't want to be desirable as I quickly realized there were no boys in my shitty little desert school that were worthy of me. I got my comeuppance at Senior Prom. I had a gorgeous iridescent blue gown with an open back that displayed the best of my curves, the perfect matching shoes, my hair neatly styled and a light application of make up courtesy of my mom. There was no greater victory than seeing jaws drop and the bewildered declaration from a boy who'd been picking on me the last three years of "I never knew you were hot." I meekly replied that he'd never bothered to check.
And then I moved in with my Mormon no-longer-Best Friend and her family. There were twelve people, four cats, five birds, two dogs and three fish tanks in a three bedroom apartment. Needless to say it wasn't a healthy functional living situation. I ended up there from a combination of half formed plans made at 12, strained relations with my mother after the accidental death of my dog, and because I was going to go visit for my birthday anyway. I stayed there for a year. I took a few very small steps towards embracing my femininity, but the antifeminism of the church and the body shaming of my friend, as well as the pressure to date one of the brothers for whom I had no interest in while I was already dating someone else...
I didn't stay with my aunt and uncle again for very long, they started prodding me with the pressure a little too heavily and I had other friends to bail me out. Granted, again, these friends were Mormon, but aside from being chaste they seemed like strong independent young women. They actually encouraged me to wear more flattering clothing and started teaching me how to cope with my emotional issues and develop social skills. They were also supportive of my budding art skills and encouraged me to embrace my interests. It was the best time of my life. I graduated from a Veterinary Assistant program, I started dating in a healthy atmosphere, I was working the best job of my life and finally becoming independent.
I'm not sure exactly where I went wrong from there, but a bunch of things did fall apart in a row, and I accepted what seemed like a convenient change of scenery. There was a pretty nice honeymoon phase with the man who would eventually become my now ex-husband. We were living together but were still just 'casually' dating and looking for additional partners to explore polyamory as a group romance. I started learning how to express my opinion, realizing I had one, and also, exploring a worldview that didn't hinge upon me feeling guilty for being a healthy human being.
Things went wrong around the time we moved to Pittsburgh. Mostly, I had to do everything but the heaviest lifting. I had to pack all our belongings and clean the condo, then reorganize and repack everything for shipping across the country. Four years later I have only just begun to finish unpacking from that move. I also had to finish my college courses early. I had to be my then-just-a-boyfriend's emotional support and confidant over the fact the girl he was dating without me dumped him, ignoring the fact I was all alone and being pressured from all sides to take care of his mistakes. I should not have moved, but I had already gone past the point of no return and because I was so stressed and had become emotionally dependent on him I moved 2,000 miles away from everything and everyone I'd ever known.
It took me two years to make my own friends. Sure we hung out with other people, but they were his friends, and I was just his girlfriend of the week, and then just his wife. I was just the package that dragged along behind him. I managed to make it through taxidermy school, and I married him despite serious relationship issues regarding an ex-girlfriend of his. Financial straits became dire while I was in school. It took several months after graduating to finally secure a job that required me sending paperwork for months. I also had the mixed revelation that people would pay me for art, and was reminded of just how much I loved conventions and the Furry Community. I was working full time and did most of the chores as well as making most of the money. I asked my husband to do the packing when we decided to try communal living with some friends renting a house. I lost all of my dressy clothing because he didn't check the closets AND I still did half of the packing. He can't pack. He throws shit in a fuckhuge box until it's just heavy enough that it can still be lifted, then taped shut half full with disorganized crap.
I still worked full time and had changed to night shift. My roommates were inconsiderate, lazy and passive-aggressive. I started to realize I suffer from pretty intense Seasonal Affective Disorder. I started drinking more frequently and to greater excess. I actually started coming into work drunk and had managed to convince all of my roommates that I hated them. Then a girlfriend moved in with me and my husband and things got even worse. I was offered a job at the local zoo, and based on my poor mathematics and the annual increase in my husband's hours I thought that the money would be sufficient and based on the supervisor at the job fair I was for sure going to be networking with the Vet Staff and other departments.
Yeah, the money disappeared immediately, and the work environment was terrible. I hurt my knee, couldn't work and after suffering some very negative attacks on my art, I ended up falling into the worst depressive slump of my entire life. Eventually I hit rock bottom, but managed to find a counseling program available to me. It has taken me a year to regain my sense of self and start to think more seriously about what I'm doing with my life. We were forced to move again, due to the gross incompetence of a few roommates and my husband mismanaging the rent. The new place was too small, and already overpacked with another household's worth of stuff, not to mention all the things left over from our roommates and and Q's inability to pack.
I spent this last year living there, trying to continue working on my art as a business, but I just didn't have the space and I couldn't unpack or organize my belongings. After a visit home and the confidence of my friends, I finally made the decision to leave my husband and move out on my own. It was over and done with rather quickly and resulted in a constant stream of continued revelations. I am uncertain about my immediate situation as my new roommates have very specific ideas about how things are supposed to work without allowing for other options. It may be some simple misunderstandings that will be resolved with the letter I'm about to send them about 'this is how depression works, and here is what I'm doing, and please stop doing these things that are degrading to me" but just in case, I'm looking into my other options.
I'm going to work on finishing that off, go to sleep, and ask another friend's advice on where to go from here.
