Memories

So I was wandering about the 'net today in between feeding/medicating kittens (I've brought all seven of them in the house as fosterlings, to eventually go to the no-kill shelter in of all places Salem, Massachusetts, to be adopted, where they will hopefully make very fine familiars to some lucky Witches. Ratty and Danny Lion and Aleister Meowley, of course, are staying here) when I found my way to this article by the Skeptical Historian:

Satanic Panic: an Incident from the Witchcraft Panics of the 1980s

Scroll down to the third picture. See that pasty dark-haired chick in the pale green gown? That's me.

Ah, what memories. That was my first taste of just how fucked-up and abusive police can be. I've never forgotten it. I'd say, in fact, that that incident was instrumental in making me the devout anti-authoritarian I am today.

Funny thing is, that though I'm pretty sure that I am the person referred to here,

Most recently, the wife of a local resident reported "a girl with a witch costume on" walking along the road. This was in reality one of Eagan's friends, who happened to be tall, thin, and wore a long dark cloak.

I didn't even identify as a Witch, or as a Pagan, at the time. Back then I would have said I was agnostic, or areligious, or even an atheist. (Also, last I knew five foot three wasn't exactly 'tall'. Ah, journalists).

I of course was outraged at the time, though at nineteen years old I could not articulate even a tenth of what was so fucked up about it all. Now reading that article I see so much more of it. For example, I hadn't at the time cottoned on to the fact that only us girls got frisked; but now that they mention it why yes, come to think of it, that is true. Lovely.

Now I know that compared to some of the fruits of the Satanic Panic of the 80s what happened to myself and my friends is hardly a blip on the radar. No one did jail time; no one was even 'officially' arrested, though if you don't feel you are free to leave while the police question you is there a difference?

It is still, however, outrageous. And looking up some of the key players, the police officer who led the whole 'raid', and the 'reporter' who pretty much just made shit up, it does appear that they both still have jobs. Assuming that the policeman of the same name who works in a town not too far from the original incident is the same man; the 'reporter' now works in PR, where, fair enough, I suppose the job requirement in large part is the ability to lie. I am not surprised, I suppose, but I do like the idea of justice. No one ever got an apology, after all, even when they finally got it through their heads that none of what they were accusing us of, or 'reporting' on, was in the least bit true.

I suppose there is a lot more I could say about all this, and maybe someday I will go into it in more depth, but right now I will say that what happened at Wompatuck State Park is one of the big reasons I am so out about my religion now. Because I've seen what deliberate ignorance can do.

Also, it still pisses me off.

Honor

Okay, this is going to be a little tricky, and I don't know how much I want to share, given that that is my real name at the top of this blog; then again, it's only been my real name for not quite a decade yet, so there is still a bit of camouflage there.

But Hecate's post got me thinking. And now here's the part I don't want to get into, much.

I should warn you all first, I suppose, that this blog may now well descend into the occasional navel-gazing; and I guess I have two things to say to that. One, this is a blog, and one can hardly be surprised, as hello, this is a blog; and, two, that one should rightly check one's belly button on a regular basis, as a lotus may be sprouting there. You never know.

This is the time of year when it is traditional to honor the ancestors. The veil is thin, so they say, and the ghosty sorts crowd us round, as the leaves fall and the trees shift through their annual deaths. I can't say I can really feel it this year, though, as I still have that cotton in my ears of necessity. But that's okay, as it really has done wonders for my anxiety level.

So now to that navel-gazing part I'm not sure I want to share, about the ancestors.

Or, rather, about my father. A warning to the stray cousin who may have wandered here: if you do not wish to hear anything bad about your Uncle Walter, you may want to leave now.

You see, my father was a deeply broken person. I say was, even though he is not dead, because he is now in a nursing home after a stroke several years back, and he does not remember anyone. This is a good thing; a great blessing, in fact.

He was seriously mentally ill. I mean, not that we recognized it growing up; I am only able now to see that there was something really wrong with him, or put a name to it. But he had a personality disorder, a severe personality disorder, one called obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. This is not, it should be noted, the same thing as obsessive-compulsive disorder, no. They are not even, as far as I've been able to find out, particularly related, other than the similarity of names. OCD is perceived as not-quite-right by the person with it; they know, on some level, that the compulsions and rituals they perform aren't rational.

But personality disorders are different. They are perfectly in harmony with the ego. Which means that not only does a person with one think they are perfectly rational in their behaviors, they think they are right in doing what they do. Especially someone with OCPD, with its focus on perfectionism. Other personality disorders, by the way, include narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and the ever-fun antisocial personality disorder.

Anyway, this made my father, well, not fun. Actually it made him an impossible completely opaque control-freak who could not be reasoned with, even a tiny little bit. Oh, and he was a hoarder, too, of an extreme sort. If you wish to hear about this more in-depth, really, go read my other blog, Tetanus Burger. There is more than enough about him and the effects his behavior had on us over there, as, well, that's the stated purpose of that blog. I would like to especially direct you to a recent post on his OCPD.

So, back to the ancestors. Though I know that honoring them is a big part of this time of year, and of this religion of Paganism in general, it has never been something I've been all that interested in doing. I suppose some of it is that my family (to either side) is not all that close-knit. As a family we don't really do family. And that's fine.

And some of my family are just, well, dysfunctional, as Hecate put it. And I don't wish to honor that. Acknowledge, sure, that's fine, and healthy, as denial won't get you anywhere, but honor? Not really, no.

My father's father, my grandfather, died when he was young, when my father was I think eleven years old. My father was the eldest of three boys; so his father also left a six year old and a two year old. My grandfather died suddenly, and unexpectedly, in 1934, right in the middle of that Great Depression which also wiped out the family's savings. Fortune, actually, one might even say, or so I hear. There was money on that side, once, as evidenced by the numerous rich houses my ancestors built, including a big stone number that now functions as the Historical Society for the next city over.

So, bad times. And one could reasonably surmise that that childhood of loss, insecurity, and deprivation triggered my father's later hoarding.

His mother, so I have heard, was also a piece of work, perhaps a hoarder herself. I don't know; I was very very young when she died, and I don't remember her.

So. Back to things of a Pagan nature.

A couple years ago, my father came down with some kind of raging infection in the nursing home. He was taken to the hospital where they started pumping him full of intravenous antibiotics. We went to visit him there. He was running a high fever, and was very very out of it. Or, almost, to my Witchy eye, very very in it. Some part of him, it seemed to me, was seeing very clearly. Oh, not in an intellectual sense, of course; but some part of him knew he was very close to the edge, very close to dying. And he was terrified. Because he was completely unwilling.

I'm not surprised; the man was terrified of any kind of change, even the littlest sort. And it doesn't get much bigger than death for changes, does it?

But as much as I have reasons, good reasons, to dislike the man, or, even, to hate the man, I am a compassionate person. I think I am, anyway. Though at that point, really, it wasn't my father there. Just a scared, terrified person.

So when I got home I invoked my ancestors, his ancestors, though I had never felt the need to before.

I did not honor them. I did not ask nicely. I told my grandfather, the one who died young, that I did not know if he left willingly or unwillingly, but that his leaving had caused a profound mess, a real fucked-up pile of shit, one that my father had happily passed on to the rest of us. And so I told him that it was now his responsibility to get his ass over to that hospital bed and be there for my father. And the same for my grandmother, too. Because I sure as fuck was not going to do it. As if I could have anyway.

So I don't know about honor. I figure the ancestors are dead already. They can deal with the unvarnished truth.

Or maybe that is honor. I have always considered the telling of that kind of truth, that level of honesty, where nothing is sugar-coated and I just tell it straight from the soul, to be a form of respect. So maybe it is.

The next day my father was much better. Remarkably so, and the doctors commented on it, even. Though I don't remember now if I thanked them. The ancestors I mean. They still owe me, a lot.

Goddess of the Week

This is the first time Kore has come up, as Goddess of the Week; She is the springtime aspect of Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld in Greek myth.

The usual legend says that Kore was abducted and raped by Haides, the King of the Underworld, taken by force to be His wife, with the express permission of Zeus, Kore's father. Demeter, Her mother and Goddess of the Earth and crops, of course would have agreed to no such thing; and when Demeter found out that Her daughter was gone, She was so outraged by Zeus's complicity She struck the earth with famine, forcing Zeus to make Haides release Kore. It would have been a joyous reunion save for the fact that Kore had been persuaded to eat several seeds of the pomegranate while in the Underworld; anyone who had eaten of Underworld food was bound by Divine law to remain there. With the future of the fertility of the world at stake, however, as Demeter was righteously stubborn in holding out for justice, a 'compromise' was reached: Kore would spend one third of the year in the Underworld, and the remaining two-thirds with Her mother on the Earth.

Her disappearance below ground was said to be the reason for Winter, for during that time Her mother Demeter, still angry, withheld Her gifts to the Earth; but when Kore returned the Earth burst forth in blossom to welcome Her, creating Spring.

None of that, of course, is told from Kore's point of view, is it? She is simply an object to be fought over, among the Gods--it is usually phrased as Zeus 'giving' Her to Haides.

Kore means 'Maiden' or 'Girl'; Her story of death and rebirth formed the thealogical foundation for the Eleusinian Mysteries, which promised those initiated into them a blessed afterlife. What has always struck me about the Eleusinian Mysteries is that though they are at the heart properly women's mysteries, they were taken to apply to all of humankind. It is so often the other way around; men's stories are taken to be representative of all.

The Mysteries proved very popular, which is probably why the story of Kore's abduction is the best known tale of Her; in other tales, however, She is simply the Queen of the Underworld. I have always suspected that aspect came first.

Which I why I painted Her with that looming black background, to represent the Underworld and the cold dark Earth.

Aaron at Theoi tentatively translates the name Persephone as 'Destructive-Slayer'; a translation I've often seen is 'Destroyer of Light.'

She is the force that waits beneath the earth in Winter, slowly growing stronger within that darkness, to come out into the light at last in Springtime. She is the dreams and the visions nurtured over Winter which are manifested in Spring. Make no mistake, though, darkness is Her root; in some tales Styx, the Goddess of the Underworld river, Whose name means 'Hatred,' was considered Persephone's mother, not Demeter. The Underworld is Her first home.

Her appearance this week is hardly surprising, especially following last week's Gaea; or at least up here in New England it's about right, in this the second week of March, as late winter turns its way towards Spring. My front lawn, today, was a mass of pale violet crocuses; but the cold weather is not over yet, and, having lived here all my life, I know better than to declare Winter over prematurely.

So: there are signs of spring all around you at this time. Things are finally coming out into the light, both the literal flowers and the things you create and manifest. It is all beginning to emerge and unfold. But do not take too much for granted; you are not quite out of the woods yet, and there may be a setback or two. Though nothing can really stop the forward progress now.

In the southern hemisphere, though the Earth is only approaching the harvest of the autumnal equinox, and is not fully into autumn yet, there are still already signs of things slowing down. Look for them around you and within yourself; what are you getting ready to let go, or lay to sleep within you? How are things progressing towards the coming journey into the dark?

She has thick hair the color of ash, with a heavy woolen robe trailing behind Her; She is swaddled, cocooned within it, deep in the dark. Her heavy-lidded eyes are of black. What does She say?

This is my home. I emerge only reluctantly into the light. I do not like light.

I am the Destroyer of Light, after all. It is defensive, almost. Some things cannot have light if they are to grow. Or decay. They are nearly the same thing.

Be careful; do not force yourself into the light if you are not ready. There is still time to rest.

To read Her tale, go here.

References:
The very excellent Theoi, as usual.

Shadow

These last few years I find myself craving black in this season. Not at Samhain; no, then I crave orange and russet and red, the colors of the leaves or the fat full moon rising at sunset. But now, as we spiral down to Yule and the Solstice, and the light gets smaller and smaller like the aperture of a camera closing down, I want black like you wouldn't believe.

These last few years the practice of lighting lights for the season has seemed so alien, so wrong, so, and I don't normally use this word, so blasphemous. One does not welcome the dark by lighting a candle. This seems obvious to me, these last few years. Perhaps I am becoming old and cynical and fed up with holiday spirit and the usual forced cheeriness; that is entirely plausible. Probable, even. But I want to sit with the dark. That feels proper. I do not want to hurriedly banish it away at the first thought; that feels like denial, like fear, like willful ignorance. This preemptive warding-off, this feverish and wide-eyed jumping ahead to the light feels disrespectful, like it is ignoring, dismissing the reality of the dark.

I want to sit with the dark a while, in quietude. Long enough, at least, for my eyes to grow accustomed to it. Long enough that I can, maybe, look around a bit.

For me, anyway, and only in these last most recent years. I do not know why my attitude has shifted, but it feels calm and measured, and not based in fear, or despair, or seasonal depression. Perhaps I have simply had enough of the blaring commercialism, itself a form of denial. I don't know.

And this year I find I want to paint Styx, the Goddess, She of the blue-black river, the eldest daughter of primaeval Ocean. A dark Goddess, certainly, but an uncomfortable one; and I am not entirely sure why I am so drawn to paint Her. For Her name means Hatred.

She is an ambiguous figure, or is, at least, to a radical feminist such as myself. She is a Titanis, one of the elder race of Gods, against Whom upstart Zeus started a war for supremacy. When He declared war He invited the other Gods to join Him, telling them He would heap status and gifts on those taking His side; and Styx, though a Titanis Herself, was the first to come to Him, against Her own people. For this, She was rewarded with a river named for Her, a river considered so holy the Gods swore oaths by it.

Did you catch that? When Zeus declared war, Hatred immediately flew to His side.

She is properly a traitor, this Styx, though of course described in glowing terms by the winners Who wrote mythic history, meaning, the Olympians, Who ended up dominant and victorious. Nike, Victory, is Her daughter, which is I suppose a large part of why the Olympians won, for when Styx went to Their side She brought Her family with Her. Victory, Daughter of Hatred. Something is being acknowledged there, don't you think?

But Styx is a Titanis, and is mentioned as early as Hesiod (which is about as early as you're going to get in Greek myth). And the thing with the Titanes is that they are generally regarded as belonging to an older stratum of myth, one likely held by an earlier people, who were assimilated into the Greeks proper when they arrived in the land; the mythic war between the two sets of Gods being a sort of fossilized representation of the conflict between the two peoples and their traditions playing out. That is of course simplified, and probably only true in a general sense; still, it makes me wonder about the roots of Styx. What is She really?

I would guess that the myth has it backwards, as myths usually do concerning attributes of the Gods; She was always Goddess of that Underworld river, as that is by definition what She is. The story about being given the river as reward is a later explanation, a rationalization; the river was always Hers. And it is unusual, also, that She is a river Goddess, for the overwhelming majority of river Deities in Greek myth are male, as a quick skim of the Potami page at Theoi shows. So She is a rare exception to the rule. That, right there, hints that She is old, or original, autochthonous if you will, sprung from the land, some older remnant that proved intractable to the new inhabitants, and could not be changed, only adopted. But I don't know.

She is, as I said, ambiguous, for although Her name means Hatred, Styx is also concerned with matters of justice and truth; Her river is so sacred, and so powerful, it knows, She knows, when the Gods are lying, and the waters will poison Them if They do, which is part of why oaths sworn by Styx are so strong. Or, at least, matters of justice and truth so far as the Olympian Gods, so far as Zeus, are concerned. I do not know that I consider His justice my justice.

I spent an evening not too long ago researching Styx, starting out at the Theoi page and following branching paths and faint scents; and I found that there is a real river, in Arkadia, Greece, which is called the Styx. It took a bit of research to get to its modern name, and where exactly it is located, but after a few hours I tracked it down, and, wonder that the internet is, it wasn't too long before I found a photo of it. It is quite dramatic, a high spring falling from a sheer cliff; and the rocks at the base are a rusty red and a deep, wet, black. Here, see for yourself.

If I paint Her I will make Her hair black, and long, and flowing, as is proper to a river Goddess. She will be in red and blue-black, I think, and in shadow. The north side of a mountain, of the underworld, kind of shadow, the kind that never sees the sun, deep and ambiguous and dark.

I mean, if I paint Her. I am not sure I will.