Blades & Sibling Polarity
Aug. 4th, 2008 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosLast night my daughter and I were visiting my sister and brother-in-law, and the talk turned to woo-woo. I told them about my initiation and the Two of Swords aspect -- and my sister got a bit bristly, because although I am the Queen of Swords and she is the Queen of Cups, she has always felt like the Two of Swords is one of her cards.
Was it non-rational of her to get defensive because that pattern was a part of my initiation? Yes -- but I've been equally non-rational about things involving her. Fortunately, now that we're both in our forties, we're usually able to identify when we're being non-rational and get past it, but that doesn't mean the impulses don't come up.
I also told them about an unexpected and somewhat unsettling encounter I had with my underworld knife after I got home -- in which the knife started talking to me via images, something which had never happened before.
In response to that story, my brother-in-law, who is a warrior, brought out his two magical blades.
The first one was his ritual knife. He withdrew it from the leather scabbard, and showed me that it had two separate blades coming from the haft, one consecrated at the full moon, one at the new moon. He offered it to me to hold -- and I was extremely disappointed in myself when I couldn't feel anything special about it.
My sister, on the other hand, was like a hunting dog coming to point. Her attention was fixed on the blade, and she was visibly twitching with an energy surge. She loves that blade, wanted to hold it, and wanted me to not be holding it. Fortunately, she had enough self-awareness to not let the latter feeling overcome her, but she was like a drug addict starting at someone else's stash.
I continued to hold the blade, closing my eyes and centering, trying to get any kind of feeling at all from it, and failing. I sighed, gave it back to BIL, who turned it over my sister to hold for a while. Her cheeks were flushed, and her energy rose even higher when she finally had it in her hand. I've seen her in many different moods over the years, but this one was new to me.
Then the BIL took out his "killing blade," the one he uses when squaring off against dark spirits. It's not something he makes a fuss about, but part of his calling is a spiritual warrior-protector, and this is what he does sometimes. This blade had the same style haft as the first, but was larger.
He pulled it out of its sheath -- and I felt energy leap from my heart to my groin and back again like a double lightning strike. He gave it to me to hold and I felt my own cheeks flush. I loved this blade. I loved the aesthetics of the shape and the color. I loved the spiritual feeling of it. I literally felt the urge to embrace it in my arms.
My sister was fascinated. She doesn't like the killing blade, but she could see that it was affecting me almost as intensely as the ritual blade was affecting her.
I wanted to keep the killing blade, take it home with me, wanted to make it mine. So I very carefully gave it back to my BIL, got up from the table, put on LM's overshirt, which was my jacket for the evening, and got out his kukri -- which I had brought to get the BIL's help cleaning. I removed it from its sheath and held it, grounding myself with the energy of my own parter-priest.
My sister eyed the kukri warily. She did not like it at all. No reason why, just didn't feel comfortable with it.
It was a fascinating episode on several levels. The first was that -- for now at least -- I'm more tuned to certain frequencies, so not sensing something special about a particular place or object might not mean that either it is inert or that I lack any psychic sense, it's just that I don't key into that wavelength. It also dramatically highlighted my sister and my polarity differences -- as well as the fact that we've come far enough over the years to be able to observe and comment about them rather than get caught up in them.
Was it non-rational of her to get defensive because that pattern was a part of my initiation? Yes -- but I've been equally non-rational about things involving her. Fortunately, now that we're both in our forties, we're usually able to identify when we're being non-rational and get past it, but that doesn't mean the impulses don't come up.
I also told them about an unexpected and somewhat unsettling encounter I had with my underworld knife after I got home -- in which the knife started talking to me via images, something which had never happened before.
In response to that story, my brother-in-law, who is a warrior, brought out his two magical blades.
The first one was his ritual knife. He withdrew it from the leather scabbard, and showed me that it had two separate blades coming from the haft, one consecrated at the full moon, one at the new moon. He offered it to me to hold -- and I was extremely disappointed in myself when I couldn't feel anything special about it.
My sister, on the other hand, was like a hunting dog coming to point. Her attention was fixed on the blade, and she was visibly twitching with an energy surge. She loves that blade, wanted to hold it, and wanted me to not be holding it. Fortunately, she had enough self-awareness to not let the latter feeling overcome her, but she was like a drug addict starting at someone else's stash.
I continued to hold the blade, closing my eyes and centering, trying to get any kind of feeling at all from it, and failing. I sighed, gave it back to BIL, who turned it over my sister to hold for a while. Her cheeks were flushed, and her energy rose even higher when she finally had it in her hand. I've seen her in many different moods over the years, but this one was new to me.
Then the BIL took out his "killing blade," the one he uses when squaring off against dark spirits. It's not something he makes a fuss about, but part of his calling is a spiritual warrior-protector, and this is what he does sometimes. This blade had the same style haft as the first, but was larger.
He pulled it out of its sheath -- and I felt energy leap from my heart to my groin and back again like a double lightning strike. He gave it to me to hold and I felt my own cheeks flush. I loved this blade. I loved the aesthetics of the shape and the color. I loved the spiritual feeling of it. I literally felt the urge to embrace it in my arms.
My sister was fascinated. She doesn't like the killing blade, but she could see that it was affecting me almost as intensely as the ritual blade was affecting her.
I wanted to keep the killing blade, take it home with me, wanted to make it mine. So I very carefully gave it back to my BIL, got up from the table, put on LM's overshirt, which was my jacket for the evening, and got out his kukri -- which I had brought to get the BIL's help cleaning. I removed it from its sheath and held it, grounding myself with the energy of my own parter-priest.
My sister eyed the kukri warily. She did not like it at all. No reason why, just didn't feel comfortable with it.
It was a fascinating episode on several levels. The first was that -- for now at least -- I'm more tuned to certain frequencies, so not sensing something special about a particular place or object might not mean that either it is inert or that I lack any psychic sense, it's just that I don't key into that wavelength. It also dramatically highlighted my sister and my polarity differences -- as well as the fact that we've come far enough over the years to be able to observe and comment about them rather than get caught up in them.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-05 01:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-05 03:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-05 05:21 am (UTC)I don't have a sister, but there is something similar to that in my relationship with my other half, where we have noticed a strange yin/yang polarity. It should be mentioned also that I am Sun Aquarius with Scorpio Rising and he is Sun Scorpio with Aquarius Rising. Anyway... he is better at warding and dealing with "ookie" stuff; I am better at healing.
But it's definitely a milestone in both your and your sister's progress that you can talk about it rather than squabble too much ;)