From here on out, I’ll only be using the Facebook page I set up some time ago. Honestly, the profile was just a distraction. Too many people didn’t know the rules. Given my approach to things, a page will work better than a profile. On a page I won’t have to pull my punches or worry that some folks won’t understand what’s going on. At this point, if you don’t understand the necessity for this, you haven’t been paying attention.

Anyway, there’s nothing much to report about this. No big deal. But I wanted to mention it. If you’re one of those brave and treasured souls who have engaged with my Facebook profile, you’re cordially invited to come over and hang out on the page. I can’t promise I’ll be entertaining. But when have I ever been one to give the masses what they want?

I love ya.

~ Claire

Engage @ …

The human men in the room thought differently. They leered at her alabaster skin and traced the soft swell of her breasts, belly and muscled hips with their eyes. A murmur went up among them as they regarded the juicy morsel, and all attention in the room quickly shifted to the naked woman who stood among them.

She was unaffected. There was no insult. You can’t hate monkeys for flinging their waste. It’s their nature. She smiled serenely and scanned the bar, making short, poignant eye contact with each of the men. So piercing was her gaze that many looked away. But she meant no challenge. No condemnation. Her stare was that of a mother who loves her children, but knows all of their hidden transgressions. Welcoming and benevolent. But aware.

The men who looked away did so with an unexpected shame. Some deep part of their reptilian brains recognized that, despite their layered clothing and armor, beneath that gaze they were just as naked as she. Shadows that shrank away from the light.

My auntie, Victoria, just sent up a replacement for my old shirt. The old one had developed so many little holes in it that Tam finally threw it away (without my knowledge or consent, mind you). When I pitched a bona fide hissy fit, Tam bought me a new one from Aunt Vic. Which goes to show you. I might be spoiled, but sometimes I get my way. Although maybe sharpening all the knives in the kitchen didn’t hurt my case any. That’s a benefit to living with someone who’s not really sure if you’re crazy or not. And it helps if you’re not sure yourself.

Anyway, I have my shirt back. Everything’s shiny, cap’n! And yes, I’m taking the opportunity to shamelessly shill for Aunt Vic’s store, Floozees Doozees. She keeps me properly attired. That kind of love deserves mention. Fek, I’d love to open up a satellite store selling her designs up here in Asheville. Maybe when I finally get tired of hacking computer code I’ll set up a nice shop downtown and spend the rest of my days drinking coffee and smoking weed, explaining the wit in some of the t-shirt designs to the college girls who are majoring in philosophy and art appreciation.

Okay, so what started it was that a young male barista was flirting with me as I ordered my coffee. I smiled wanly, gave a few complimentary bats of the eyelashes, and retreated to a table to work on my laptop, my favorite ceramic in-house coffee mug in hand. It was there at the table, catching up on e-mail and invoices, that I overheard a conversation among the baristas there. As I warmed my hands, I heard them whisper;

“Why don’t you ask her out?” one of the two girls there asked the guy.

I glanced up in time to see gazes quickly averted. It was a reasonable assumption they were talking about me. But no harm, no foul. If anything, I was a little flattered. You know, in that way you’re flattered when somebody thinks you’re hot and you’re just out in your comfy clothes picking up some milk.

“She doesn’t date men,” the other girl said.

True enough. She’d seen me around enough to gather that much, I suppose.

“You should ask her out, then,” the other girl said to her.

“What?” she giggled. “No way. She’s too old. I don’t do soccer moms.”

Soccer moms?

My sarcasm machine powered up. I queued a litany of devastating comebacks, and actually took a deep breath with which to power the barrage of observations and suggestions that would reduce them all to tears and seen yours truly forever barred from the establishment (or at the very least a lifetime award winner of perpetually saliva enhanced coffee). But I bit my tongue. What was the point? And then, to my astonishment, I found myself murmuring a word to myself that chilled me to the bone. It echoes in my ears still, and depresses my young and beautiful soul.

“Kids,” I said softly, and shook my head.

Then I blinked. That had’t just been a dismissive tone. I’d meant it. They were kids. Late teens. Maybe 20 or so in a stretch. Not so much younger than me, really, but, to my horror, I found that when I looked at them, they all really did seem like middle-school children to me. The girls were cute, but I’d never date one. We’d spend have our evenings fumbling shyly with clothing and then the other half giggling through the deed. Sure, maybe it’d be good for a laugh, and there are worse ways to spend your evenings. But it really struck, and surprised, me that I wasn’t the least interested. Not because they weren’t attractive, but because they hadn’t wandered far from the mall just yet. They still had their baby fat. I am old enough now that I have no intention of baby-sitting anyone, or proving to be the muse upon which they explore the culturally imposed experimentation one expects in college towns like Asheville.

That’s when it struck me. Somewhere, somehow, when I wasn’t looking or paying attention, I had become an adult. I’d spent too long spiking my coffee with rum in the mornings without feeling any guilt, or even getting that thrill one gets when you’re doing something society frowns upon. Those hundreds of little rebellions that excite us when we’re young and doing things for the first time were long behind me. I suppose it had to happen at some point. No one just wakes up one morning and discovers that they’re 40. It happens in stages. Perhaps marked by little moments just like that, when you realize that not only can you not hang out with the cool kids at the mall anymore, they’d be creeped out by your presence and call security.

No. I’m getting older. I’m far from old, though, damn it. I’m just old enough to have put away the toys and pretend jewelry. I own my own business, for Lady’s sake, and have a wonderful, loving woman waiting for me at home. I own my home and have bills and responsibilities. And while maybe some small part of me envies the general cluelessness and associated freedom that comes with being a little younger, I’m quite happy with my life. Isn’t that what’s it’s all about?

I did have one minor triumph, though.

“I’d do her,” the male said.

That made me smile. He was the only one of the three who didn’t have a shot. But then, all things pass and all things change. I suddenly found myself feeling a little uncomfortable. Not because of anything the kids had said. Just that I’d suddenly found myself much older than when I left the house this morning. I felt like I was hanging out with the kids at the mall, and maybe all of us were wondering why I was there.

I closed my laptop and took my coffee to the counter, and asked the boy if he could put my coffee in a travel cup. He did so, smiling serenely at me as if he’d heard a great joke he was dying to tell me, but didn’t have the nerve.

“It’s okay,” I told him as I took my coffee, “I’d do me, too.” I grinned at the girls, who looked shocked and were perhaps just realizing that voices do carry. “In fact,” I told the girls, “I do me quite often.”

They let me get almost out the door before bursting into horrified laughter. And I found myself lugging a laptop that suddenly felt very heavy, trodding across the parking lot on old bones that complained from a few aches I’d been ignoring for weeks. I tossed the laptop in the back seat, slipped behind the drivers wheel, and sat there for a moment, sipping my coffee. Those kids hadn’t bothered me. Perhaps if anything bothered me it was that time was slipping away from me. I suddenly found myself missing Uncle terribly and wondering what my life is going to be like without him in it. I so firmly tied my identity to his that I’d left a part of me back there where he died, and I was reluctant to move on. But there I was, just some old soccer mom sipping coffee in a cafe. Whether I had planned it or not, time was moving on, and it was dragging me along with it.

However it sounds, there was no intense soul-searching in that moment. If anything, it’s like when you realize that the flesh colored crayon matches only white people, while real human flesh comes in all sorts of hues and textures. I sipped my coffee, put it in the cup holder and smiled to myself. Then I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, please to find myself looking forward to getting home to the missus. I’d work at home instead of in town, and maybe later on I could strip down and get Tam to look me over real good, to tell me if she thinks I’m looking like a soccer mom or a hot twenty-something.

All in all, it was a good day. Everything changes. Really, if anything bothers me, it was that some things had changed while I wasn’t looking. Some guide I am.

This year’s wrangling over Saint Patrick’s Day might have been the tipping point for me. A post I wrote in 2009 about my family’s personal traditions has become a popularly shared topic this time of year (it got over 16,000 unique visits on Saint Patrick’s Day this year). Needless to say, that has invited the attention of all the know-it-alls and the crazies – neither of which I’m inclined to engage with. It’s stunning to realize that on occasion the replies to my post, as well as some of the arguments with other visitors, have been longer than the post itself. Who has that kind of time?

But, really, the more I read the more I realized that the distance between my beliefs and the concepts of popular Paganism have widened from a few cracks (when I was younger) to an insurmountable gulf. I no longer recognize anything of myself in most of the Pagans, Wiccans and witches I encounter these days. I have become something else. Or they have. And there is little common ground.

I believe a lot of people are looking for what I have found. My students prove that. The outright rejection of religious thought, dogma and tradition is really the only way one might reach a true understanding of the divine aspects of the Universe. The rejection of organized religion is crucial to our individual development and enlightenment. And yet so many of the people I know who calls themselves Pagan have done little more than trade themselves from one organized religion to another, and they approach Paganism with the same kind of intolerant zeal as some of the Evangelical Christians they love to demonize. Myself, I have a hard time telling them apart. It’s like hearing black people complain about racism while denouncing all white people. It’s the same language, just with reversed roles.

I’m not looking to repeat the mistakes of the past. Life is short. Too short. I’m closing in on being 30 years old. And while I have no real fear of that number or growing older, I am keenly aware that seemingly just a few months ago I was 20 years old and thought about little more than getting high and getting laid. A few months from now I might be approaching 40. And then 50. That’s how life gets by you, in a flash. And before we know it, we’re sitting on a porch somewhere crippled by aching bones, watching children play and wondering what the hell happened; sitting there as we sift through our bucket full of regret and wishing we had lived our lives differently.

Wow.

In writing that last bit, whatever reservations I might have had about leaving PaganCentric just evaporated. This isn’t working for me. It’s become something that’s not only very different from what I set out to do, it’s actually getting in the way of my goals. Perhaps PaganCentric can be of some use to other people. But it will be up to them to keep it going. I’m done. I’m just… done. In the end, I was not the one.

I only remember bits and pieces of the dream now. I tried to write down some notes when I woke up, but my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t hold the pencil. Not that the dreams was that bad, exactly. It just seemed… overwhelming. It felt real. When I woke up I didn’t feel like I had just woken from a dream. I felt like I had just returned from being somewhere else. That’s hard to put into words, really.

I remember standing over a valley. Somehow I knew that I was in Kashmir. I expected to be there. Below me, armies were battling. It was a bloodbath. Think of the old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat you see in war movies, only with automatic weapons and bayonets. But in the midst of the chaos seemed to be a moving wave, like you’re looking down on a field of wheat and something is moving through it. Wherever that wave went, it left behind it dismembered bodies and a trail of blood. It’s impossible to express the carnage.

In that detached way you have in dreams, though, I wasn’t repulsed. Just the opposite. I was exhilarated. And I watched as that wave of horror washed through and across the bodies of the soldiers and, in a meandering way, worked its way toward me. I remember stepping back and stumbling to the ground, and suddenly there was a rush of energy – a palpable force of will and existence which took my breath away.

It was the presence of Mahakali herself. She stood over me. Beautiful and terrifying. She was naked. Her blue skin was drenched in blood. In each of her arms she held long blades which were distinct and yet somehow a part of her, like extensions of her arms. I closed my eyes and opened my arms to embrace my death, but instead felt only a sudden rush of warmth against me and Mahakali’s breath upon my neck. She kissed me and caressed my breasts and began making love to me. With all of her hands upon me, she kissed her way down my belly and between my legs, and she began to devour me.

What happened next is hard to describe. It’s the only reason I’ve mentioned the sexual aspect of it instead of just brushing over the expected “we did it in the dirt”. Her spirit entered me with all the warm, throbbing physicality of a penis, and yet at the same time I realized that she was literally consuming me, first with small bits of flesh, and then with great bites and chunks. Each bite was incredibly painful, but indescribably orgasmic. Each bite was a release. And with each bite I felt myself becoming more and more a part of Mahakali herself. She was entering me, and I was entering her, and we were both becoming the other, one and the same. It was bloody and terrifying, pain I cannot express and yet it also felt so good. Literally agony and ecstasy.

And then in that next moment I found myself squatting on that ridge-line overlooking the valley, marveling at my many arms, licking my own blood from my wrists, and looking down at the evil ones below. I had become Mahakali and she had become me. The soldiers made me angry. The fighting enraged me. In a great roar I found myself leaping down into the melee, my hands become swords like long fingers, and I felt the warmth of flesh being rent from bone as if my blades were a part of my body. I cut through hundreds, or even thousands, of soldiers, awash in their blood and gore, and cut a swath through them toward the center of the battle where there seemed to emanate a strange, white light.

Suddenly I stumbled from the press of bodies into a wide, clear circle. While the battle still raged all around me, no one ventured into that circle. In the middle of it knelt a small, naked girl with incredible blue eyes, shimmering blonde hair and a serene expression upon her face. She beckoned me, smiling, and I went to her. She reached up and touched my face. As she did my rage dissipated. I found myself weak-kneed and sank to the ground before her. She just smiled.

“It is not the time,” she said.

Just like that, I was awake and sitting on the side of the bed. I could still feel the blood and gore upon my skin. I could still feel the warmth of the bodies where my long fingers had sliced deep into the flesh. I could still hear the screamed of the dying. And yet what had horrified me so was a few words from a little girl.

I can still hear her voice.

“It is not the time.”

I wish I knew how to summarize this experience. It was just a dream, perhaps. Nothing to be overly obsessed about. And yet as I’ve walked around the house today everything seems different. It is as if Mahakali is still a part of me. Tam hugged me earlier and all I could think about was the beating of her heart and her pulse in her neck as I lay my head upon her shoulder. I feel as if I am between worlds somehow. And yet no special messages have come to me. No revelations. I simply see the world through different eyes. I am me, and yet I am not, and everything is different. The same, but different. Like waking up in your own house and realizing that you are from somewhere else. You are someone else.

Tam knows I am in an odd way today and is keeping her distance. I’ve been arguing with some of the well-meaning souls on the PaganCentric web site, trying to get back to normal by sparring over Saint Patrick’s Day. Yet it all seems so meaningless. I’m trying to live out a normal day in an ordinary life, and yet at the same time I feel as if something profound as just happened in Kashmir, and I am the only human being in North American who knows about it.

With that in mind, we need things from the supermarket, and I’ve been elected for the trip. It’s my turn. Maybe that’s what I need to get back to normal; a trip into suburbia. Or maybe I’ll get as for as the bread aisle and find that without meaning to I have brought Mahakali down upon the unsuspecting hordes in Asheville.

I posted a question and answer to the PaganCentric web site, and immediately regretted it. While our local “gang” has its own identity in the real world, the web site has taken on a life and character all its own. It seems that whenever I stray from that, we start losing people. So I’m faced with a vexing question. Should the web site have its own identity, separate and distinct from our group in Asheville, if the greater good would be served by it? Do questions such as the one I posed belong not on PaganCentric, but on my personal site?

You decide. Here’s the article.

We’ve all asked the question at one point or another. Is there a God? You can take the word “God” and rephrase it as you like. God. Goddess. Gods or gods. Assign a name in its place. Yahweh. Krishna. Great Father. G. Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat. Whatever you want, and whichever makes you feel more comfortable. But the question remains. Is there some kind of Supreme Being who looks over the Universe and keeps everything running like it should?

Depending upon whom you ask, there are a lot of different answers to that question. But since it has been put to us directly, I’ll try to answer it. Of course, I’m arrogant enough to believe that I have the right answer, and I refuse to get into any lengthy arguments over the substance of my answer. Not because I don’t want to defend my contentions, but simply because each of us perceives this thing we call “god” through our own preconceptions and understanding. It’s necessarily going to be very different for each of us. If there’s a difference between me and a lot of other people, it’s that I concede that my conception of god is not the only valid conception.

So… is there a “God”?

Yes, there is a god.

Beyond that simple statement, though, there’s actually very little any of us can prove. Atheists, of course, would scoff at this idea, but for most of us the basic truth of the matter is that we’ve felt the presence of this thing we call “god”. While we may not all have been aware of it, we’ve felt this presence since birth. We know god is there in the same way we know that gravity is there. It just is. However much we might argue about the true nature of gravity, it’s still there, and it doesn’t listen to us as we try to define it in ways which suit our own purposes and arguments. Neither does god. But at some point in our lives we start to become aware of a god, or presence, that lives in every fiber of every living thing, and which we are all a part of. You are as much a part of god as a cell is a part of your body.

My intent here is not to provide a definitive answer. I know that when someone asks a question like “Is there a god?” they don’t expect the answer to be left at “Yes”. They want more of an explanation. They want more details, and the why and where of it all. But whatever theology I, or anyone else, might come up with, it would all be theoretical. As such, our individual opinions are like our preference in clothing. Wear what you like, and don’t worry about whether it fits in with someone else’s ideal of fashion or aesthetics. None of that matters.

Accept the basic premise that all spiritual and religious thought begins and ends with acceptance of the existence of god, and the rest is really easy. It’s only that first, central question that matters. It’s the only one that will ever matter. And whether you decide to define god as a holy, unnameable creature set high in the firmament or a being closer to home in the form of Thor, Odin, Yahweh, Krishna, Great Father or G. Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, there’s only one thing that matters. You’re right. And so am I. And so is everyone else. We are all using our own comfortable terminology and theology to describe the same thing. Just because we disagree on the particulars doesn’t mean that any of us are wrong. That’s like arguing over a favorite color, and just as pointless.

There is a god.

That’s all that matters.

The rest is just semantics.

[artwork by Isra2007]

May the blessings of the growing light be upon you.
May the blessings of the quickening earth support you.
May the blessings of the morning chorus regale you.
May the blessings of the first shy flowers greet you.
May the blessings of Nature waking enlighten you.
May the blessings of Maiden singing bless you.
May Briganti’s fire light your path.
May Briganti’s blessings live within your hearth.

With our warmest regards, we look forward to walking with you on this journey of human exploration and experience. Love and light, friends! The world is full of wonder and promise, and we are all made of its cloth.

[cross-posted @ PaganCentric]

If I’ve learned anything in my short time here on Earth, it’s that time keeps moving and things change. We can meet each new year with a renewed optimism and purpose, or we can huddle in our bubbles and pretend we have it all under control. Either way works. It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself, or how you comfort yourself with some of the more banal details of your existence. But time keeps moving. There’s a certain beauty in that.

I’m not here to wax poetic about the possibilities of 2013. It’s another year. Another number we have to remember to write on our checks. But there’s still a part of me that wants to acknowledge the new year. Which is why I’m writing this. I have a mountain of work on my schedule, but I wanted to take a moment to publicly say to 2013 that I am not afraid. I am not intimidated. I survived 2012. I’ll survive you, too. In fact, I look forward to whatever challenges you may have in store. To quote my dear, departed Uncle, “I am wondrously made, and I am hard to kill”.

If you are one of those meandering souls who checks in on me here on this web site from time to time, I thank you for having interest in my journey. I have written little of entertainment value in this collection for quite a while, and I won’t promise that my output will be much greater in 2013. But I feel like I’m finally getting old enough to have a clue about some things. Being the self-centered and somewhat arrogant person I am, I suspect I’ll occasionally share my ramblings here.

For 2013 I am hoping for continued success with my business (though it often gets the better of me). Despite my best efforts to destroy the company, it thrives. I’ve brought on extra programmers to help me with my work load. The contracts keep coming in. While I am, perhaps, a bit lazy when it comes to seeing the work, I am not foolish enough to turn it down when it’s offered (though I am, perhaps, a bit mystified that it keeps being offered). No, there’s no great business plan here. I’m just good at breaking things, and for some reason people like paying me to break their things. It’s really that simple.

To my dear Tam… I love you so much. We have both made our mistakes. Never doubt that I love you as much today as I ever have. We both inflicted wounds upon the other in 2012 that will not soon be forgotten. But we are both still here. As long as that one constant remains, we can work the rest out. I love you.

To everyone else, I wish you well. Something feels different about 2013. Perhaps it’s just that usual optimism that attaches itself to the start of each new year. But I have a good feeling about this one. I hope you and yours prosper and are happy. I will pray for you.

With love and light, tinged with shadows and possibility… I am, as ever, yours…

~ Claire Mulkieran

The election hasn’t been officially called in Sinema’s favor yet, but it appears she’s beaten Republican Vernon Parker, if only by 2,000 votes or so. What’s most significant about her win, and the main reason I’m writing about it, is that Sinema was running for office in Maricopa County, Arizona. That’s the the same county that just re-elected that troll Joe Arpaio as its Sheriff.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a nod to America’s first openly bisexual member of Congress. She’s an inspiration to people like me, those who long for the day when our sexuality and our religious beliefs won’t automatically disqualify us from public service. The only way Krysten Sinema’s win could be better for me would if she turned out to be Pagan instead of a non-theist (is that the same thing as an atheist, or is it something like a deist?).

Who knows? I might move to Arizona and volunteer as a page or something. Who knows what fun the Congresswoman and I could have?