Fail

I seriously fucked up last night.

I had made a commitment to both Ereshkigal and LM that I would dedicate several hours of quality time to them, but it didn't happen.

Eventually I realized what time it was.
Eventually I gathered my wits and collected my focus.
Eventually I made an offering of myself, which was accepted -- but there was more of a feeling of duty to it (on their side as well as mine) than the mutual joy and delight that I had intended.

When I went to sleep afterward, I dreamed that I was vacationing in LM's least favorite place on earth, and that I dropped and lost one of the earrings that were his favorites when he was alive.

I've felt like shit all morning.

Ereshkigal is remote, reserved. She's not the smiting type, but if I'm not holding up my end of the relationship She doesn't batter down my door either. She hasn't abandoned me utterly, but by removing Herself to a distance, She lets me know that I need to shape up.

I feel especially sick about LM. It was hard to approach his altar a little while ago to do my morning devotions. I felt guilty, ashamed, unworthy. He didn't deny his disappointment in me nor his desire that I do better in the future -- but he did hold out one piece of reassurance that had never occurred to me before: You are trying to maintain a relationship that you could never have imagined a couple of years ago. There was nothing in your life that could have prepared you for this. I need you to not give up, to keep working at it -- and I promise that I will not give up on you.

It brought me to tears.

a_belletrist is going to be here in a few minutes to do an important ritual with me. After that, I need to approach Ereshkigal and LM again. Even if I don't manage the more elaborate devotions I had planned for last night, I need to spend some focused time with them.

I was browsing books online this morning and saw one called Wasting Time with God -- or something like that it. It was about how dedicating the time to develop a more intimate, mystical, personal relationship with God can look like "wasting time" on the outside. You would think I would know better, but I keep losing track of that. I also feel like I need to develop more personal rituals, to give some shape and structure to my devotional time. I'm just not sure how to do that yet.

Part of me wants to offer some kind of penance for last night, but the other part of me knows that's not the answer. Penance is no substitute for tender, open-hearted presence and attentiveness. For loving companionship. That's what I denied all of us last night. For someone like me, in a situation like this, penance would be more masturbatory than meaningful.