Sustainable body – The Sustainable Witch

When you ritualize ableism …

When you ritualize ableism …
by sisal

There are things I have wanted to say to you
for a long time. I was waiting
until I could approach you without anger,
without accusation.
But poetry is truth
and the truth is: I’m angry.
And how do I speak of what’s been done, wrongly,
without accusation being the underpinning?

I tell of three times that I witnessed
your communities claim to speak for the sacred.

Time 1: A cold night, a warm fire.
We were told the sacred asked us to brave the cold
go into the trees and listen for their voices.
I did. After some time
my legs felt needles
and I struggled to hear the voice of the sacred
beyond pain.
When I heard the drumbeat that called me back,
I saw the young ones, the dancing ones,
had remained sitting by the warmth of the fire
all along.

Time 2: A dark night in October:
clouds, no moon, and the smell of coming rain.
The ritual space is down a dark path, with piles of deadfall,
and the ritual planners, noticing the needs of an aging community,
switch the ritual space to be indoors
and are met with fury from the organizers
that the sacred is being so insulted.
(from ten years ahead, I send this blessing:
Thank you, ritual planners)

Time 3: I am being led down a path
toward the drumming circle.
I have just begun my relationship with the Fae.
The kind person leading me is telling me to hurry and
no, I can’t turn on my flashlight to see where I’m going
because the Fae don’t like the light.

Years gone by now,
I don’t come to your communities any more.
You ask more of me than I’m able to give
in so many ways.
But more than that – I’m no longer willing
to have you define the sacred
in ways that mirror your ableist shit.
I have pulled away from the human.
In my work now
the Fae tell me
“We need you among the living
for a while longer, sisal.
Shine the light if you need to.
And if you need to,
rest.
We will hold the portal.
You are always with us in spirit.”

I believe my communities need me too
but their actions, their choices
tell me they believe otherwise.
So for my own sustainability
I’ve left you
like so many of us have left you
because your claims of “inclusivity”
don’t include us.
And because
When you ritualize ableism, you are not my priestess.
When you ritualize ableism, you are not my community.
You do not speak for the ancestors.
You do not speak for the Fae.
When you ritualize ableism
You mirror who you are.
It is not who they are.
It is not who they are.
It is not who they are.

Allies and Sustainability

I didn’t work with allies, ancestors, spirits in my practice as a witch, until six years ago. They just never came up – when I called them, there was just a nothingness. I believed that was how it was meant to be, for me.

Then six years ago, at an Initiation path at California Witchcamp, they did come up. Four came to me – one I knew, three I’d never seen. And a lot about my practice changed.

I thought these four were bringing me magical practices, shamanic connection – I thought they were about deepening my spiritual practice, particularly my personal spiritual practice. And they were about that; but I realize, looking back, that they came into my life primarily for the purpose of sustainability.

It’s the Pierced One I work with most – a warrior, painted, pierced all over, and strong. The first time we met I think we both thought: what on earth – why would we be allies to each other? I saw why, in time. And I thought this fierce warrior would be all about me becoming more of a warrior, too.

Instead, I think we’ve shifted things for each other. He insists I make time to listen to him. He insists on accompanying me when I go to ritual, or to facilitate ritual. He tells me he is of Fire, and I am of Fire, and he’s here to teach me how to be of Fire in a way that’s grounded. And of late, he tells me: go rest, you’ve done too much. Ground. Breathe, and drink water –

There have been other spirits coming in, most recently a green blood I was aspecting in this year’s Summer Solstice ritual who was coldly furious at me for asking it to come indoors, rather than meeting it in its own realm. “Why are you with all these people?” it asked. “We want you to ourselves, out in the wild.” And I don’t ask for the sacred to speak to me so I can ignore it – so I listened. I’m backing away from group commitments, and making space for a more personal commitment.

It doesn’t escape me that these allies are showing me a way to transition – at 69 – from the demands of group leadership and facilitation, into something quieter. Something in which my feet are on both sides of the veil, and moving, more and more, toward that far side, in dream and practice. They are caring, and comforting. I told the Pierced One once, after a bad argument with someone I cared about, “I suck at being human! I have too much fire, I always have.” He surprised me (he generally does surprise me) by saying: “You don’t have too much fire for our side of the veil. Bring it over. We welcome it, we welcome you and all you are.”

And that acceptance also feeds my sustainability. I’m grateful to these allies. I don’t think the message they’re bringing me is something I could necessarily hear from a friend or human teacher. I’m exploring, more and more, what they lead me to, what they offer, and seeing where that takes me.

Blessings to us, the witches who walk on both sides of the veil – and learn from both.

The Sustainability of Remembering: I Don’t Do This Work Alone

I’m noticing, at this time of the first harvest, what I’m harvesting in my life. This will be a post in honor of teachers – on both sides of the veil.

I’ve been doing online work with three teachers – transformational work with Karissa Schwartz, who is an Inner Alignment Coach, and work with the Iron Pentacle, one of the core magical tools within the Reclaiming and Anderson Feri tradition, with Chelidon and Raven Edgewalker of the World Tree Lyceum.

I was doing work with Karissa when she mentioned that of course, those of us who came from difficult childhoods often assume we have to do everything ourselves. We couldn’t count on others – so we learned not to ask. As is often the way with insight, when she said that, part of me thought, “Yeah, I knew that,” at the same time that another part of me realized, for the first time, what it meant.

It meant that all my life, I’ve taken the long way around to get from one place to another, because I did it all myself. And I suddenly realized how unsustainable that approach was, and is.

On the heels of that realization it came to me how rich it is to learn from others. To have like minds on kindred paths sharing knowledge of that path and the tools that help sustain us. That’s been very rich in both the work with Karissa and in the Iron Pentacle course, which is about reclaiming the vibrant points of our souls that make us fully human (my take on it). It’s about reclaiming the richest parts of our humanity.

The online work in both these courses is shifting decades-old personal challenges in my life, and giving my magic much more breadth. It’s teaching me to sometimes look to others for what I need – like last full moon, when I was walking out in my back yard to honor spirits, guides and ancestors. I did the preliminary casting and chanting, and later, after the spirits had joined me, one of my primary guides said, “It is good to be with you. You should call on us more often, so we could come and be with you. You should ask us for our help.”

Of course I often ask for their help when I’m doing focused magical work. But I hadn’t thought that they could be support for me at other times, too – I hadn’t thought to ask. “We are here for you,” my guide said. “We’re ready to give you what you need, and we hope you’ll ask – but for us to help you, to advise you, you have to ask.”

I was struck by how powerful support like that could be in my life – that insight and ageless wisdom. So I’m going to be asking – my friends, my loved ones, my teachers, my guides. All that great support there for me, all that sustainability – if I can just let go of the past and remember that I don’t do this work alone.

Golden Lammas blessings to those who teach, those who learn, and those who ask and are answered.

Sacred Calling in Unhealthy Communities

My friend Shauna Aura has been blogging about her experiences in unhealthy communities – specifically, pagan communities that fall into the patterns that evolve as a result of narcissistic leadership. From the response her posts are getting, the dynamic strikes a chord, and a number of people weigh in with painful stories of their own, as well as weighing in with fierce defense of communities they remain committed to.

Some comments express the opinion that those who were caught up in such communities enabled the abuse they experienced. That they needed approval, they needed love (it bothers me that some of the comments are so dismissive of the power of that basic human need). The comments note that neediness makes possible “narcissistic love-bombing”, and there’s discussion about the repercussions of choosing to give away your power and faith to those who are human, and fallible.

I’ve been interested to see that none of the comments have addressed the dynamic that snared me in such communities in the past. I don’t give up my power to humans, and I catch on to narcissistic manipulation pretty quickly. In the past, though, I did give up my power to the sacred. Give me work that changes lives, and I have been inclined to do whatever was required of me so I could do that work – whether the community had healthy leadership or not.

That approach – to make things work no matter what it took – would leave me with tough choices. Often, communities that were less than healthy had leaders who were more insightful than any I’d worked with before, or thought I might ever get to work with again. It was a joy to work with them, and learn from them. That joy was coupled with the stress and sadness of seeing them caught up in the same unhealthy dynamic I was, and seeing the toll it took on them.

Then there were the amazingly positive things happening to those not in leadership. Many newcomers to the communities experienced transformation and epiphanies, and, with communal support, risked opening to vulnerability and love again. I saw what a difference the community made in their lives – for me, working for that kind of change is good work.

So whatever the work asked of me, my heart urged me to push on, which I did until, inevitably, the manipulative dynamics overcame me. In one community where scapegoating was rampant, I came to a point that I tried telling myself the Hanged One/Scapegoat was an archetype, so there must be a sacred component there, if I could only find it. The deeper I explored the sacred aspect of the scapegoat, the more I realized how dangerously unhealthy the community dynamic, and my role in it, had become.

So at some point, despite my best efforts, I had to push my heart aside, and accept that the price I was paying wasn’t worth it. Sustainable body – I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, and I have no way of knowing if the years of stress and overwork in my communities contributed, but I suspect they did. Sustainable spirit – my partner was threatening to leave me if I didn’t separate from this work, because he saw my spirit fading, and he was so frustrated. Sustainable community – in the end, the joy I found in people’s initial epiphanies darkened, as I watched them travel the arc most people follow in such communities: enchantment and transformation, to shaming and abuse, to despair and separation. I began to see that I was playing a role in that initial enchantment that set them up for the despair, later. I felt that despair, too – when I finally left, my heart and my bones physically ached for months and years after the separation.

This seems to be a lesson I keep having to learn in a number of different ways: I have to balance what I believe the sacred is asking of me, with what it’s possible for human me to do. My friend, Reclaiming Walker O’Rourke, once suggested to me that I tell the sacred “no”. I had never even considered that. Acting on his suggestion was my first step in taking the approach I take today, which is: sacred, you are the authority beyond the veil, and I grant you much authority on this side of the veil. But I have authority over my own body, and what’s doable for me and what isn’t. I am in service to you, but first I’m in service to my own sustainability.

That sustainability means that now, I only give my heart to communities with healthy leadership (thank you, Ella Andrews). If I choose to work in less healthy communities, I carefully manage how I commit to and do work there – I set boundaries with the sacred. I never dreamed such boundaries would be needed – but as it turns out, for me to be sustainable, they are, and I’m grateful to finally know it.

Beltane blessings to those of us who hear the call and find ways to answer it, and to thrive.

Sacred body – because, face it, you have one

A good friend of mine believes many healers, shamans, witches, were something other than human in most of their other lifetimes. She believes we chose to be in a human body, on this earth, now, because the earth so badly needs us. I was skeptical at first – but that concept would explain so much about why being in a body is sometimes a challenge for me.

I’m an Enneagram 7 – I flee from pain, and part of what I’m fleeing from is physical pain I experienced when I was very young. In my early years in earth-based religion, my joy was to sink into trance and leave my body behind. I thought of my body – my humanness – as something that got in the way of my connection to the sacred. I sought to transcend being human, being of matter.

Then, some years ago, Mooncrone, a sister in one of my spiritual groups, offered a Hecate retreat on the sacredness of being human. When she told me the theme of the retreat – that it’s sacred to be human – I didn’t really understand what she meant. But over the retreat, Hecate gently led me to the understanding that being human wasn’t something to transcend, as I’d been trying to do. It was key – part and parcel – of being effective as a spiritual being and a spiritual leader. Sustainable body – the willingness to accept my body, in every way. Sustainable spirit – the uses and joys of my body as a pathway to ecstasy and connection, with the sacred and with other sacred human beings.

I worked with Andrea Barrett on my MFA thesis, and one thing she told me over and over was “Learn your own individual process, and learn to love your process, because you’re stuck with it. It’s all you’ve got. Learn to make the most of it.” As a daughter of the Goddess and a priestess, I am human. That’s my process. I have worked to do more than learn to live with that process – I am beginning to fully understand that, far from being something that stands in my way, my humanness and my body are the essence of sacred. Pretty basic for a pagan girl, I know – another basic insight that I somehow missed along the way, and am so grateful to be exploring now.

The blessings of Hecate on us all, spiritual beings having an earthly experience.

The Power of Saying “I Can’t”

I can generally see to the heart of a tangled myth, but I miss simple things that are right in front of my face. Things that are very obvious to others. It’s like some kind of insight dissonance.

This week I realized the power of saying “I can’t” – something others probably figured out long ago. “I can’t” is different from saying “no”. Saying “I can’t” is recognizing when I have no choice, and surrendering to that. Just accepting my own limitations, instead of fighting (again) what I won’t defeat (again).

This week’s “I can’t” was in the realm of sustainable spirit and sustainable body. It acknowledges that I can’t sustain a relationship that consistently wakes me up at 3 a.m.

It’s my way to wake at 3 a.m., unable to sleep, when a relationship or other issue is bothering me. During those early hours, I am generally sitting at the kitchen table, trying to decide whether to make coffee or not, and going over all the ubiquitous guidelines: you can’t change others, you can only change yourself. And let go of the past – it’s just information.

And underneath my inability to go back to sleep is the feeling that gee, I’ve done an awful lot of work to still be someone who struggles with things at 3 a.m. Do I really have to wait until my next lifetime to get this? To be the wise woman who deals with every challenge with equanimity?

No, I don’t have to wait to get it. I can claim equanimity, if I acknowledge “I can’t.”

This week’s 3 a.m. “I can’t” realization – I need more distance in a relationship in my life. A relationship that brings drama, and is lacking in personal responsibility. But it’s important to say – this isn’t about what the other person is doing wrong. If they were solid, had healthy relationship processes, were impeccable – but being in relationship with them still kept me from sleeping – I’d need to say I can’t be in relationship with them, either. It’s not about others being wrong; it’s about acknowledging my own nature and limitations, not as they should be, but just as they are.

I do believe what’s put before me is for my growth, and a gift – whatever form it takes. Saying “I can’t” doesn’t relieve me of responsibility for my actions or choices. But it lets me deal with my life from a place of at least having gotten enough sleep. It’s admitting I’m human, and in admitting that I’m human, setting myself free of expectations that I’m not.

So this week, yes, there’s a relationship moving out of my life. I hope I can navigate that without undue pain to someone else, or to me. But it’s moving out, because I accept that I can’t do this (my life) any other way. I’m finally acknowledging “I can’t” because hours awake in the wee hours of the morning have taught me – it’s the only sustainable thing for me to do.

Blessings of this Pisces eclipse, to those who seek the balance between accountability and sustainability.

Giving the body its due

Before I knew I was a witch, I read a book by Karen and Poul Anderson, The King of Ys. In it are nine priestess witches, and I was in love with the thought of being any and all of them –

At one point in the story, the King desecrates the sacred river. The nine priestess witches know the Goddess will punish the city for the King’s transgression. They send the strangest of the nine of them into deep trance, where she communes with the Goddess, placates Her, begs for forgiveness. When the priestess witch comes out of the trance, she’s a shell – the other eight put her to bed for days, nurse her, nourish her, heal her as she slowly comes back to this side of the veil, and regains her strength.

For those of you who invite the sacred to inhabit your body in aspect, I invite you to compare this process, to yours. My process is: I aspect easily, and enjoy the challenge of being of two minds (the “Goddess” mind / and the “I am the one with a body and looking out for the group” mind). I find it a seductive and captivating experience in which I always learn much that is useful. I believe it serves the group and is sacred work. While in aspect I don’t feel my usual physical challenges. And when I come out – I very much do.

I come out of aspect quickly and easily. When I come out, I feel the physical repercussions of the Goddess’s free and dancing movements. I feel a sort of backlash from being so vibrantly in tune with Her, and beyond the veil, for so long. From channeling. When I say I come out quickly and easily, I mean I look fine, can interact with the group as myself, and can drive home if I need to. But the truth is, my mind and consciousness linger on the bridge between the worlds for a day or so. I am not fully ready to be in the mundane world.

When I wake the next morning, it’s like a psychic hangover. Then I remember that priestess witch of Ys, and I long for those other eight priestess witches to care for me and support me. And – if I’m in sacred community, at witch camp or on retreat, I have that care and support. The between-the-worlds functioning I’m still caught up with is understood, accepted, even useful. So are the repercussions to my body.

And if I’m not in sacred community? In the past, I often went into the office the next day. I looked at maps, I led teams of strategists. My poor head did its best to fully inhabit the world on this side of the veil again, with varying success.

Then I found myself remembering the priestess witch of Ys, and I realized – ok, the overculture doesn’t value or honor the work of aspecting, and doesn’t support that process. But I do value and honor it – and to be sustainable, I must support its process.

Now, if I won’t have the support of sacred community the day after aspecting, I’ve made the commitment to give myself the day after to honor this sacred process, and myself. Sacred body. My human body and mind, I remind myself, are sacred too. If I’m not going to be in sacred community after aspecting, I’ve made the commitment to stay home the day after and just be gentle with myself.

I’m not lucky enough to be a priestess witch of Ys. But that’s part of what it means to be a witch doing this work, in these troubled times. It means I walk between the worlds in a number of ways, every day. The overculture doesn’t believe that’s of value – but I do. Giving myself the time I need to fully honor the process of aspecting is a way I honor and sustain the mundane, human mind and body that support me in this work. “My body is the body of the Goddess,” as the chant says; in aspecting I’ve accepted that having Her in my body is glorious, and exacts a payment I’m willing to acknowledge and pay.

If you’d like to know more about aspecting, here is a link to an excellent article by Pomegranate Doyle that was published in Reclaiming Quarterly

http://reclaimingquarterly.org/86/rq-86-invitingdivine.html

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