Queen of Swords

My household altar is on the upper shelf of a two-level bookcase that, by necessity, also serves as my tv stand. (I'd prefer not to mix those functions, but my space and furniture are limited.) The bottom shelf contains my favorite of my oversize books -- or it did until about twenty minutes ago.

During my morning altar time my eyes kept going to those books, which are lovely, but never get looked at where they are. Then I thought about my need to move my spiritual/esoteric books from the corner bookshelf and put them somewhere more accessible. (Another space/furniture issue: when I put my books up after this last move, I put them, by habit, into the far left bookshelf. Which turned out to be sitting next to the only place I could store my treadmill, so they aren't easy to get to.)

The books which are most important to my path are now on the shelf under my household altar, where I can see them on a regular basis. Just looking at the titles is a good reminder.

Later I'll make a post about which books are there, and why, but for now I'm going to do a quick LJ skim, then shower and get dressed and retreat into my temple space to finally finish my submission to Lee Harrington's Spirit of Desire anthology. I've finally realized that working on that type of writing at my desk is counterproductive.

I just sent notifications to my Bibliotheca Alexandrina editor that I've posted my last two personal pieces to our shared workspace for her review: my version of Inanna's Descent (which I'm calling "The Ways of the Underworld") and an account of how Ereshkigal unexpectedly claimed me during a ritual I was doing with LM.

I still have to write the Introduction -- and am finding it unaccountably challenging. There is so much to say, and Ereshkigal has so many facets. . . and it can't be a textbook but it does need to be informative. . .

Almost done. . .

And then I have a rededication ritual to perform with Her as my relationship with Her shifts and changes in response to my own growth and changes. More on that as appropriate. . .

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Thinking about how others will react to my fiction is the worst thing I can do to myself when writing. I completely shut down the creative process on my novel because I stopped writing from my gut and started thinking too much about appealing to a hypothetical future audience.

Getting input from friends didn't help either. At first it was fun engaging my friends in the story, seeing their enthusiasm about it, enjoying their ideas -- but over time I found myself struggling with one or two of them about their interpretations of certain characters.

Wolfling really likes my Star Wars fanfic that I sent her -- a re-write of A New Hope based on my group's RPG characters.

*does happy dance

I'm not going to write about death tomorrow morning. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the story of how Lohain and I met. It's hard, because there are mysteries involved, and the backstory is complex. I simply won't be able to relate anything but the essence.

I used to write here about my daimon, the "masculine muse" and ideal lover. My daimon first began to appear in my fantasies when I was twelve, and although his original, more gentle form was eventually replaced by a warrior-prince, his spirit shone through every romantic hero in my personal mythic stories.

Behind the cut is a brief episode from that very first story. The prose was edited many times over the years, but basic actions and chemistry of the scene have never changed. I wrote this for the first time when I was perhaps fourteen years old, probably before I'd ever actually been kissed.

I'm posting it here now because it has everything to do with meeting Lohain for the first time.

( Adria is a seventeen year old girl who won a fan magazine contest and is guest starring in a popular television show. After a somewhat rocky rehearsal, she's about to shoot a scene in which her character kisses Richard, one of the stars, who she has a huge crush on. Richard was the first personification of my daimon and this was the first kiss I ever wrote. )

"That which does not kill you was simply not permitted to do so for the purposes of the plot."

- Anon

I'm frustrated and blocked at my day job, but two publishers have already asked me to consider them when I'm ready to market my Ereshkigal book. This is in addition to the folks at my P-Con class who urged me to publish on that topic.

My oldest dream is to be a published author, and my primary resolution this year was to do just that. Looks like the universe agrees with me.

Time to step things up in that area.

From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below.
From the Great Above the goddess opened her ear to the Great Below.
From the Great Above Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below.


Inanna, Ereshkigal, great goddesses of love and death and sovereignty,
Bless my words, bless my work
Let me bring forth something new and worthy
From your depths.

Things have been in a deep/quiet stage recently. The "Watcher on the Threshold" tests seem to be over, but that means I'm entering a new phase of my work that hasn't been completely defined. It didn't seem right to just go back to doing what I'd done before. . . but I also didn't get any handwritten scrolls telling me what I'm supposed to do next. So I've been trying to keep gently on my current path and see what comes up.

One change I did make was to start my evening devotions earlier, to give me more time without compromising my sleep. Last night was the first time to do this, and I was richly rewarded with a helpful inner journey followed by the best contact I've had with LM in weeks.

My path has never been straightforward, and it's becoming more and more clear to me that I need a certain amount of complexity to keep from getting bored. The challenge is to choose the right variables and pursue them in a persistent, meaningful fashion, not just chase rabbits and end up with nothing to show for it but grass stains.

The journey last night reinforced that I do need to keep pursuing some of the same things I've been, but go on to new lessons: the Otherworld/faery work, the sacred sexuality, deepening my contact with LM, the work with Ereshkigal that touches most of the rest but also will expand more into the Ordeal Path. I also need to continue the hermetic work I started, to help add discipline and structure to my work with energy and spirit.

My inner guide also pointed out to me that I need to do more of my own brand of journeying. I've been working with teachers more faithfully than at any other time in my life, but I need to stay in touch with my own gifts. I need to be doing at least a couple of journeys a week: at least one on a weeknight and a longer one on the weekend. That's where I will be able to go deep and make the contacts I need to help guide the other work.

On top of this, I'm doing personal reflection and writing and "workshops" with Michael to prepare for teaching my class at Pantheacon, and I need to put together a book proposal (on the mysteries of Inanna and Ereshkigal) for a meeting with a publisher while I'm there.

After spending two hours trying to get to work, only to be thwarted by closed roads and heavy traffic, I've come back home.

Ereshkigal gave me stern talking-to's last night and this morning about maintaining my discipline of daily practice. Last night I ended up on the floor of her throne room. This morning it was more of a drill sergeant in my face. I've been showing up for my practice every day, but some mornings I've been letting other things slip in before practice, and I haven't been doing a good job of keeping up with my yoga.

Once she was sure she had my attention and was going to mend my ways, she eased up a bit. "It is very important that you do these things," she told me. "There are difficult times ahead, and you need the grounding and connection this will give you."

Then she told me she loved me -- which took me utterly by surprise.

So today instead of working at the office, I'll be spending time working on the article I said I would write about (and for) her.