Goddess of the Week

Weird. I usually shuffle fairly obsessive-compulsively, but this time, I had only cut/shuffled the cards a few times when I heard a little voice say, No, go back. So I uncut to what I think had been the top card after the last shuffle and was like, You mean this one? and the voice was like, Yes. And there She was, again.

So, Kamrusepas it is. I guess the question is, What do we still have to learn from Her presence?

When I wrote last week's entry, I was aware of the fact that in previous writings on Her, I had said that She healed through sweetness, placating Telipinu with honey and fruits. But suddenly having access to the translations themselves (via that new book, Hittite Myths, by Harry A. Hoffner Jr.) instead of a few oblique references found in the mythology books of my famously crappy local university library I found no mention of honey or fruit, at least not specific to Kamrusepas's spell to cheer Telipinu up, anyway. And so I figured that I had just researched it badly back in the day (not all that surprising given there is not a whole lot of information out there for the layperson on Hittite myths), or, more likely, that it just wasn't included in the translations in my new book.

But when I did the art at the time I was thinking that Kamrusepas healed Telipinu through sweetness. So let's see.

Now, I was going to try to expand on that a bit more, but She jumped right in, saying:

I am Magic, incarnate. I know all the spells, the sweet as well as the harsh. So yes, I can heal through sweetness, with honey and fruit--and yes, chocolate and sugar and macadamia nuts and bananas and cookies baked--and it works. Who is healed by being bee-stung? No, sweetness is not placation, or compromise, or being nice to someone through fear, or through expecting them to be nice to you in some way too; this is genuine. This is kindness. See where the other person is hurting, and soothe that hurt. Yourself too; in fact I always recommend you start with yourself. For one it's good practice, and will acquaint you with the process; for another it is best to start from a place of solidity if you are to most effectively help others; but most importantly, you deserve to see yourself whole first. You deserve it. All these good things you wish for others? You should have them too. Wish them for yourself. You must start with kindness for yourself. You must.

This is what I ask this week. It is your New Year; start with the basics. And this is most basic: how are you kind to yourself? What do you do, on a practical, real, level--I want a list!--to be kind to yourself, to be sweet to yourself? Answer this, deeply, honestly, and with great love. Yes, I am giving you home-work, if you will.

And then She laughed, and Hers is a very sparkling laugh.

Well. I guess then we all have our assignments. For me, I know it has been a continuing struggle to look at myself and my actions without judging them; and I have been trying for some time now to remember kindness towards myself.

Now, Leah on her Creative Every Day blog reminded me of an idea that my old late lamented really marvelous coven used to do, come Yule: pick a word (or two), a quality, that you wanted to work with for the next year. People picked things like Delight, Joy, Sufficiency, Balance, Direction, Gratitude, Grace; funny, I don't entirely remember now what I picked, though I think Play was in there somewhere.

But I hadn't picked a word in years, since my coven broke up when some of us moved north and some of us moved south. But this reminded me, and I got to wondering what I'd pick for the coming year. The more I thought about it the more I wanted something that was not, well, active, for want of a better word. Because where I am with things right now I feel like I need to let things settle, so the water can clear and I can then really look at what's going on; and at any rate I have found out through years of trying to force it that pushing this sort of thing is not going to work, at least not for me.

So I thought, and came up with stuff like Relax, Calm, Peace, Letting; but none of them were right till I hit on Permission. I know it's the right one because when I say it to myself I can feel my shoulders relax.

So to wrap up a long-winded tangent (get used to them) taking Permission this year as my theme is a big way for me to be kind to myself, as Kamrusepas is asking of us this week. Because it cuts right through all the shoulds and shouldn'ts and just says, Go ahead. You can if you want. Or not, if you don't want.

What ways can you think of to be kind to yourself?