It’s the teaching part I’m writing about today. Without any real intent to do so, and dragging my feet a little, I’ve accepted a few students who want to learn more about my particular brand of hereditary Paganism. They’re intrigued by the idea that my beliefs came from my mother and grandmother, and not from a book in a library that mixes a lot of truth with a whole lot of rubbish. They also find it interesting that I abhor the label “Wiccan” (mostly because it’s been so abused and twisted). So I’m a witch, but not a Wiccan. I’m Pagan but not a pagan. And yet I still seem to understand a few things about the world, magick and metaphysics in general. How is this possible?

Anyway, a few younglings (to borrow a word from an excellent book I’m reading), who are, admittedly, not much younger than I am, have asked me to teach them my path. And I’ve agreed. If nothing else, since I’m unlikely to be able to have children, I owe it to my mother to pass on our beliefs and traditions in some form.

I’ve decided to use PaganCentric to do this. There’s too much angst and vitriol on my personal page to ever insert any valid spirituality, so I’m going to set aside a section of PaganCentric and post lessons and information there. I’ve been using that site as a random Pagan news outlet for years, and it has a fair amount of traffic for something that rarely gets used (around 250 visitors a day). Something should be done with it. To that end, I’ve also created a Facebook page for PaganCentric.

I’ve always been reluctant to teach anyone. Too many of my friends have taken it upon themselves to start their own little cults. Call them covens if you will, but someone with very little training always appoints herself the High Priestess and proceeds to govern the group as if Jesus has come to Earth. I’ve always been afraid of being that person. And though I’ve been the High Priestess in several groups through the years, I was never comfortable with that mantle. I was always trying to do little more than aid people in their own searches, and they were always throwing laurels at my feet. Maybe removed from the formal structure of religious observance and worship, I can actually pass along some of my beliefs with establishing a Cult of Claire (although I do like the ring of that).

Anyway, this looks to be interesting. If nothing else, it might give me something to blog about here. We all got tired of hearing me whine about my life. Hopefully this will provide a new focus.

Links

• PaganCentric
• PaganCentric @ Facebook

I spend most of my days trying to get through the day, walking the razor’s edge between productivity, creativity, normalcy and a total collapse. The commercials ask me if I have thoughts of suicide, and I laugh. Every day. For decades. But I’d never do it. I’ve gotten this far out of a stubborn determination that I’ve worked too hard on this particular project to throw it away in a fit a self-pity and desperation. But I also realize that it might not be entirely normal to think about it so much.

I am firm in my conviction that I was put here on Earth to do some Great Thing, even though I feel terribly inadequate for that task. The Goddess, the Fates, The Universe, or Whatever, put into my head a thousand great ideas, but left me ill-prepared and lacking in ambition or focus. Sometimes I can almost hear the angels snickering as another idea is dropped into my head. Sometimes I won’t pick up a pencil because I know that when I put it to paper another issue will show itself – yet another project that I’ll never get around to.

The Lady put me here with the vision but without the means. I am wondrously made, and yet have no practical application. I’m an experiment that was intended to ponder the Universe, but was left without the time to do so. I am what I am, and hope my delusions of individuality are more than a fanciful, soothing balm, but have yet to find anyone who cares for the unvarnished reality of who I am. As I grow older I tire of trying to placate the drones. But I know that the mere glimpse of the unadorned machine would send them running.

The motto of a friend is a simple one, but it makes more sense to me as I get older. The Latin version is “utrum per hebdomadem perveniam”. Loosely translated, it means “if I can just get through this week”. That’s my life. Keep the bundle tied tightly together to seem as human as possible, hope the drones don’t notice the cracks in the facade, and work your way through each day. Every week survived without waking to torches in your windows at night is a good week. Every week survived without turning every person you know into an enemy is a good week. Some are better than others.

Sometimes I wish I could be what everyone wants me to be; the sweet, caring kid that I was so many decades ago. But I’m angry, and tired, and the voices won’t leave me alone, and the ideas and dreams keep coming, and I find myself sometimes looking at the dust on the window sill and wondering how so much time slips by me. As I sit here I study the cracks in the leather of my chair and reflect that three years of steady use has taken its toll, and it occurs to me that I barely tasted those three years. My life is slipping away from me, and I waste so much time and energy pretending that I am an actual human being. If not for the fact that I need those drones to accomplish whatever the Great Thing is, I’d steal away to a mountain cabin and spend my days as I damned well pleased, with no purpose or intent whatsoever.

None of this makes sense. It’s random words, strung together with bits and pieces of heartfelt meaning. But I’m tired of making sense. I’m tired of it all having to make sense.

I want to set the record straight about what happened, though I’m kicking myself for feeling like I need to explain it to you. I don’t need your validation. Let’s just be clear on that, okay?

Anyway, on Beltane I was with friends at a celebration that had carried over from April 30th. We left the location late Saturday night, on the 1st, and discovered that the Buncombe County Sheriff’s department had decided that all those Pagans wandering about was generally a bad idea – you know, drinkin’ and fornicatin’ and all that. So we got pulled over not far from the farm. Long story short, I got into a scuffle with a deputy who got a little too friendly while searching me, and I wound up in the back of a police car with a busted lip and a bloody nose.

This is where it gets weird…

Because of the scuffle, I was bleeding (busted lip and bloody nose – like I said), so they took me to the hospital, where more drama ensued (mostly yelling and cursing – don’t get ahead of me). Yes, I had been drinking, but the rumors that I was drunk are just wrong. The cops told me I was going to be arrested for drunk and disorderly, assault on an officer, and a number of other things they’d dreamed up. I’m still not sure which of those charges I’ll be answering for.

Anyway, it got worse at the hospital. A nurse with a cross around her neck and a chip on her shoulder took exception to the pentacle around my neck and my general heathen-ness, and took delight in cataloging the scars on my wrists as she patched me up. The next thing I know, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, after apparently conferring with the Sheriff’s Department and deciding that I was a danger to myself, the emergency-room physician made arrangements for an involuntary commitment to Broughton State Hospital for evaluation (for me – if you missed that).

I won’t bore you with details about my Broughton adventures right now. I’ll probably write about my unexpected vacation later. Right now I’m tired and this is weighing upon me. I thought maybe if I could get this out of me I could get some sleep, and wouldn’t lie in bed clenching my teeth. I had a lot of interesting conversations with the head-shrink voodoo doctors at Broughton about my apparently dis-associative world-view and “occult activities”, which will make for some interesting writing, but in the end they really had nothing to hold me on. As much as a few people might’ve wanted to paint me as a crazy bitch, I had too many lucid arguments for their bullshit.

Luckily, though, a friend got word to Uncle, who arranged for my release. I don’t care to think about how that might’ve gone had I not had Uncle. I finally got out on the 7th, and spent a few days with Uncle in D.C. But there are legal issues to consider here, and I need to be back here in North Carolina. But honestly, as much as I love Asheville, I’m beginning to wonder if it might be time to move on. I’m so tired of the Evangelicals and the Rednecks. Isn’t there somewhere in this country I can go where this kind of shit doesn’t happen? Somewhere in the world?

Anyway, I’m back. To all the people who’ve been saying that I’d finally flipped, I’d like to offer up a hearty “Fuck you”. To all those who were concerned about my safety (and especially those who spent two days trying to find out were they’d taken me), I extend my warmest regards and thanks. And to those who have offered legal advice and counsel, I’d just like to say that this fight is far from over. Although, as Uncle pointed out, there’s not a lot I’m going to be able to do to fight against the Good-Ol’-Boy network that represents law enforcement in Buncombe County. Not with my past.

Still, while I breathe, I will defy. It’s in the handbook.

I should be freaked out. But I’m not. I’ve felt this presence since I was a girl. Why now, though? I’ve stopped teaching. It’s been ages since I’ve cast a circle. If anything, I’ve shielded myself. Why now?

Maybe the last 72 hours stripped my defences. I haven’t slept since Saturday. I’m delusional. Or crazy. My sanity hasn’t been debated in awhile. Which is good. That’s progress, right?

What I feel most right now is a profound sense of peace. I’ve been afforded a visit from a familiar presence and an old friend. I’m fortunate that she still thinks of me and seeks my company. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Maybe I should dispense with my quest for distractions and face what I am. What I’ve always been. Maybe I should to listen more.

I wish next time she wouldn’t manifest at the foot of my bed, though. That was startling, to say the least.

I don’t remember much else. I got up and poured myself a small bit of Rock ‘N’ Rye. Needed something stronger than plum wine. I’m drifting. As I sit here the wind is howling outside. It’s so windy I expect to hear tree limbs falling on the house. The wind chimes are making an awful racket in the back yard. As I write and watch the lead of my pencil dance across the paper, I sense movement all around me. Shadows moving. Colors shifting, just outside of my periphery. The energies swirl and ebb in the house and the restless wind seems almost to have been brought out of my dreams and let loose upon the world.

If I were a girl again I would take off my clothes and walk in the yard to feel the wind upon my skin and have the darkness embrace me. The spirits call to me, but here I sit, sipping the poison that lets me shut them out. I am grown now. I am normal. I am sane. I can’t come out and play with you.

In the corner of my eye just now I saw a woman standing in the doorway to the den. I’ve seen her before, but I never see her clearly. The glimpses are shifting smoke, like shadows taking form, only to vanish as I become aware. Already I’m dismissing it as imagination. That’s what sane people do. But I know she’s not a real woman. She’s shifting energy that I see as a person.

I’m going to finish my drink and take a hot shower. Then I’m going back to bed. The leaves that blow across the porch sounds like clawing fingers on the door or the scurrying of tiny feet. But I’m going to open the door and see if I can find my Hannibal. He’s never around when I want him to be, But he usually is when I need him to be. If there was ever a night to have a warm, furry, orange body beside me on the bed, tonight is it. Hopefully he can tear himself away from playing with the air spirits.

If I close my eyes the movement doesn’t stop. It gets worse. I just wish they’d tell me what they want.

I told them I would think about it. As much as I love working for myself, the practical side of me would love the safety of an actual job. So far most of my business has just fallen into my lap. I shouldn’t assume that it always will. Or I should at least have some kind of plan to attract more business. Or I should consider joining a company where I can make good money and have a reasonable expectation of job security. Does that sound like fun to anyone else? Me, neither.

Anyway, today is my birthday. No more business. Aggie has offered to take me out tonight, and I’m thinking of taking him up on it. I’m fairly determined that this year’s birthday won’t be as horrific as last year’s. I worked through my birthday last year, and had a dark crash at the end of it. I’m in a better place emotionally this year. Maybe the day calls for a little time in the sunshine.

The one and only lasting Yule tradition I have is a Yule log. The one in my possession has been maintained since my great-grandmother’s day. Every year I keep a fire burning in the fireplace for the whole Yule season, starting with the Winter Solstice around Dec. 21 and burning until Twelfth Night (around Jan. 6). The fire is started with the Yule log from the year before. And when the fire is ended on Twelfth Night, the largest remaining log is saved for the next year. This way there is an unbroken chain from each year to the next.

My family has done this for many generations, passing down the Yule log to our descendent’s. It’s a way of inviting ancestors to join you at the hearth, because technically parts of the Yule fires they made in their time are still very much present, since the Yule log has been passed down through the generations and the each new Yule fire is started with a remnant of the previous one. There are carbon remains of every preceding fire, and when you believe in the elemental spirits, that’s a big bonus.

To my family the Yule log is the most precious heirloom we can pass down. I’d save it in an emergency before anything else I own.

“Whats up baby? Hit me up for a good time if you ever wanna party. I might show you a thing or two.”

Okay, my first question is; what kind of self-hating little slut does this kind of line actually work on? First off, you called me “baby”, which never goes over well. I was attending MIT by the time my friends were in high school, I own my own software development business, maintain two homes, and am a teacher to a modest gaggle of Pagans. How do you possibly think I’m going to be impressed by someone who starts off dismissing all that by reducing me to “baby”? And as for “I might show you a thing or two”, what makes you think a white boy gangsta wannabe with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes and making gang signs could show me a thing or two? I graduated from boys a long time ago. They lack imagination.

But this doesn’t bug me as much as the pathetic boys who write me assuming that I want to get freaky just because I like girls. Yeah. That logic makes sense. I like girls, so I’m likely to want to entertain your little fantasy. So, to the guy who wrote and said;

“what’s good wit ya sexy self i was wantin to know if yo would be interested in joining me and my girl for some fun… hit me back if ur interested”

I have an idea. Why don’t I get busy with your girlfriend and you take a hike? Go to the store and buy us some wine, and leave it by the bedroom door. If we need you, I’ll call you. If not… well, there are always Movies-On-Demand. There’s some lotion by the sink. Have fun.

And what about these creepy old men who keep writing me, telling me about their successful businesses, and how they’re sensitive to a woman’s needs, and are looking for someone to have dinner with and develop a lasting friendship, and maybe occasionally watch the sun sitting over a lake? Do you really think that because, at 45, you’ve begun to notice weather patterns and the rotation of the Earth that I’m going to be impressed with your maturity? And do you really think that because experience has taught you to maintain an erection for more than five minutes that you can do anything for me that a woman can’t? I might remind you that when I’m with a woman, maintaining an erection isn’t an issue. And scientists are doing amazing things with latex these days.

And what about these young guys who post pictures of themselves holding their children? Oh, yeah. Nothing turns me on like the prospect of becoming a stand-in mommy while Young Stud runs around chasing other women who are stupid enough to think he’s somebody special because he posts pictures of himself with his kids. Hey, little Cindy Sue, would you like Mama Claire to tell you what your Daddy really likes to do with those handcuffs that you found in the drawer in the bedroom?

Let me see… what else annoys me?

Oh, yeah. Is it supposed to impress me when you tell me “I know I’m out of your league, but I thought I’d write anyway”. I haven’t given a mercy fuck since I was 16 years old. Grow a spine.

And please, please, please, no more terrible poetry. I’m not impressed that you can rhyme words or that you have a habit of reflecting on the profundity of life. Life is pain. Life is short. Sunsets are beautiful. There’s probably nothing you can relate to me in poetic verse that hasn’t already occurred to me. And unless you’re the heir apparent to Tennyson or Yeats, I’m probably not going to be impressed by your word-smithing.

So… with all that out of the way… what doesn’t annoy me?

You what I think is sexy? I think it’s sexy when you respect me as a human being, and you want to know what I think. By that, I don’t mean that you’re willing to listen to me talk, mentally tapping your fingers until I’m finished. I mean that you’re interested in engaging in an actual discussion. Once the mind is engaged, who knows where else that might lead? But please… let’s dispense with the pitiful attempts at being suave. And let’s dispense with the insulting vulgarity. If you want to get to know me, or any other woman, why don’t you just trying talking to me?

Honestly, nothing else is going to work with me. I’m an exacting taskmaster and a jealous mistress of mayhem. If you want to play on this turf, you’ll have to up your game.

“Bear witness,” the woman told me. “The old gods are returning.”

I didn’t understand. She watched me. I can still see her face. Dark, almost black, long straight hair. Delicate features. Porcelain skin. She struck me as perfect. The idealization of a woman.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am Asria,” she told me. “Or an aspect of Asria. As are you.”

“As I am?”

“You are an old one,” she told me. “A descendant of the pure blood. You have come home.”

Her words comforted me. They felt right. True. I didn’t feel like I was on a space ship orbiting Earth, my home. I felt like I was at home, at last, and was looking down upon my old prison. I felt like I had been released at last, and had finally found my way home. I wasn’t a realization, or a Eureka moment. It just felt right. Like an annoying, buzzing sound had been taken away and I knew I’d be getting my first real sleep in ages.

“We are all Asria,” the woman told me. “She is in all of us. She lives within us, and we live through her. Open your heart.”

“Asria is God?”

“No. You are god. I am god. We… are god. Asria is us.”

“And I am Asria?”

“Yes. As am I.”

I laughed at her, but felt guilty. On some primal level I knew she was telling me the truth. I just didn’t know how to work it through in my mind.

“So,” I asked her, “what does this all mean?”

She smiled patiently and patted my arm. “I told you. The old gods have returned.”

A lot happened after that, but I can’t remember any of it now. The conversation is almost seared into my mind, but the rest of the dream is a blur. Bits and pieces of images. Space ships covering the sky below me as I looked down on the Earth. Angels dropping through the sky, spraying great jets of flame onto soldiers. Armored women waiting to drop from floating platforms high in the air. And the woman I saw, in a room talking with other women who looked exactly like her.

The last thing I remember was standing on the steps of some kind of government building, wearing handcuffs, with dozens of angry people around me. They were all angry at me. A fat man forced his way through the crowd and raised a revolver at me. I looked at the policemen who were holding my arms, but I knew they wouldn’t protect me. They both looked away. The fat man’s hand shook as he squeezed the trigger. I looked past him, and across the street stood my old friend, Agnon, with a sad, stricken look on his face. Behind him towered a massive figure in seamless black armor, like it was a second skin or something. I wasn’t afraid. I knew everything would be fine. It brought me peace to know that my long road was finally over. I woke up when the revolver fired. But not before I felt the impact in my chest.

I’ve been trying to process this dream since I woke up. Now I’m just tired. My eyes are burning. I can’t think about this any more. So I’ll set it aside until tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be able to remember more of it. For some reason it all seems important.