Queen of Swords

Today may be the first day since LM's death that I feel gratitude for being alive.

Over the past few weeks I've been reconnecting with my erotic nature, and it's been extremely nurturing to me. Add to that my intellectual pursuits, greater satisfaction at work, a resurgence in my creativity, and it's as if the shattered, scattered pieces of myself are being drawn back together. Instead of feeling empty, lonely, lost, overwhelmed, I feel depth, power, harmonious complexity, and solidity.

My gratitude came from having been able to reach this point. If I had died when LM had, I would have left this world being far less than I have become over years since. It's not about power or greatness, but about fulfilling the promise of myself, a promise that would have been only partially realized if I had passed with him. I want to grow and become all that I can before I pass over, learn all that I can, work off all the karma I can, provide whatever help and support to others that I can, before I pass beyond the veil and have to give an accounting of myself and the gifts I have been given. Before LM and I face together what comes next. I want to bring him -- and leave behind in this world - the richest Me that I can.

I feel myself becoming, in actuality, the person I have dreamed and groped toward being -- someone I caught glimpses of, had intuitions of, but could not have forseen.

I was sitting in front of my altar a little while ago, as all this welled up within me, and I bowed my head before Odin and thanked him for all that has been happening since He came into my life. He lifted my chin so we were looking at each other, and said, "We have work for you to do."

It remains true that the Underworld Path is my primary orientation as a priestess. I am initiated and ordained in this path, and intend to remain faithful to it.

I use the techniques and wisdom of Hermetic magic, including Qabalah, as my central mode of practice, and I both want and need to refine my skill and knowledge in this area.

I work with specific deities who don't have obvious connections to each other but who are all resonant with the Underworld Path as I walk it. (YMMV)

I want to increase my devotional practice to promote deeper relationships with my patron deities. This was once the center of my spiritual life, but grew tenuous in the years I wasn't sure about the nature of the Divine or whether there were individual gods or not.

My relationship with LM is a central part of my life and an integral aspect of my spiritual path. I want to enhance our working relationship as priestess and priest.

I am also ordained as a Grail Priestess, and I want to energize that aspect of my spirituality again. I smiled yesterday when I remembered that the oldest Grail text is Preiddeu Annwn the story of Arthur and his knights voyaging to the Otherworld to seek the Cauldron of Annwn. It's an Underworld text.

My sexuality is closely connected to my spirituality. I need to continue to explore how this expresses itself in public as well as private work.

I also have a vocation as a spiritual director and teacher, and it is important to me to strengthen my skills in this area and to express my gifts in public work. I would like to be financially rewarded for this work, but I don't want that to be my central motviation in doing it.

None of this is actually new, but as I re-establish myself in the upper world, it's evidently important for me to work through all of this again and reaffirm what I am doing and how it fits together for me, rather than just accepting what has become habit during the years of grieving.

Many years ago, I slipped in a movie theater and went down, crashing my ribs against a wooden arm rest as I fell. Although I was able to stand up and walk out under my own power, I was in terrible pain that night and went to urgent care the next day. There the doctor explained to me that in a situation where the body receives a painful shock like that, the muscles will remain clenched, prolonging and intensifying the pain. Rather than medicating me, he gave me my first chiropractic adjustment, which released the muscles and gave me relief.

I tell the story as background to a realization I had (again) today about my own emotional-spiritual state: that I have been in so much pain the last three years that even now when I no longer am "grieving" both my psyche and my body are still clenched.

I started a book today called "Your Heart's Desire", which surfaced synchronously with a visit to a possible new spiritual director. When I finished reading the introduction, which seemed sincerely enthusiastic and heartfelt, I was confused by how resistant I felt. I put the book down and paid more attention to my internal state and realized that some part of me was shouting No! No! No! No!

Doing what this book suggested was hopefully going to open me to new energy, new possbility, increased joy and satisfaction in my life -- which terrified the part of me that's curled up and clenched and afraid of further pain. In fact, just the thought of un-clenching seemed like it would cause even more pain because everything has rusted into a defensive, almost semi-fetal state.

It was sobering, a bit scary. . . And it reinforced my growing sense that I need to spend more time being gently positive and self-nurturing with myself instead of focusing on challenges and projects and demand a lot of dynamic effort to accomplish. I do want to do those things, but I'm beginning to realize that I continue to need a certain amount of convalescence as I transition out of grieving.

Some days even the thought of pleasure brings back the grief, because I still connect pleasure and happiness so much with LM, want him with me to share it or have intense memories come up, or feel his absence more keenly -- or all of the above. It's a terrible paradox that even good things can hurt right now.

I sometimes feel like the Tin Woodman: rusted and stiff, my chest hollow. . . I wish I could afford weekly massages, which I'm sure would help on multiple levels. Some of it will just involve being mindful of what I ask and expect of myself, and a lot of it will involve being mindful of when I slip into self-numbing behavior instead of facing the chronic pain and addressing it directly with authentic nurture -- no matter how much some part of me fears what will happen if I un-clench. . .