Another post

(trigger warning- this post includes mention and some description of rape/sexual assault) 

I've talked a lot about cutting ties, and how I've cut a lot of people from my life over the years... but what I haven't really talked about is how many wonderful people I've gained in my life.

There are people in my life who I consider family (you know who you are) but none that I share any blood relation with as far as I know. These are people who have stood by me and accepted me, and who know my deepest secrets. These are people who I trust with my life, and in some cases, my soul.
I share many wonderful and deep connections with people who I have adopted as my chosen family.

I used to live a double life, where some people would know that I'm a magical person, and others would have no idea. These days I mostly just live life as myself. If people ask about my religious orientation, I'll tell them. (provided they're being polite about it) Are there some people who I don't really tell about this side of myself? Yes, but I'm not actively trying to hide it either. I'm also at a place in my life where I don't have to be discreet.  I run my own business, I'm at a very liberal college, and I live with a delightfully bizarre group of people who are quite happy to have me here.

It's strange, because I find when I cut ties with people, the void fills up pretty quickly with other people who I may have never met before, or noticed before. Suddenly I have new people in my life to fill the gap, or even completely bridge the gap of where someone else was before. The connections I've been seeing to people over the months has been incredible.... but this is also because when I cut someone out, I find myself seeking out the people who I know I can rely on. I've reconnected to so many people over this last year, because suddenly I realized their value on a level that I may not have before.

People are beautiful. I love people. Sometimes I think it's one of my greatest flaws. I love to the point of excess, and so I forgive to the point of excess, because I know human nature and what it means to be a beautifully flawed creature. I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, some traditions consider forgiveness to be the greatest virtue. On the other hand....some people are just scum. But the problem lies in the fact that when I look at people, even the bad ones....I see the beaten child, I see the acting out and violence out of perceived helplessness and I can't help but feel sorry for these people, even when I'm the victim. I see everyone's inherent godhood buried under the layers of muck, and I feel sorry that these people may never realize their own worth, or even realize that they're alive. Except in the moment of being harmed, I feel no anger. I feel only pity.

There's this concept of righteous rage, and when I worked with Sekhmet originally I felt it.  It was pure, and strong. It felt "right"so the question I have to ask myself as I ready myself to call on Sekhmet again, to work with her and walk with her, where does righteous rage end, and just "rage" begin? It's not an emotion I'm familiar with anymore. I let go of it a few years ago, or I just turned it off somehow, and buried it under other things. The issue is I don't know. When is rage balanced? When is it "right?"

When I was being held against my will by my attacker, that feral that primal side of me wanted out. It wanted to rip his throat out. But the way I was being restrained...and the injuries I had already been dealt...my rational side told me that dropping into a "beserker" sort of mindset and just letting the animal out to do its damage had the potential of being fatal. There were too many variables, and I'd already discovered that this person could physically overpower me. So I just glared, waiting it out and evaluating every move. The beast was wild behind my eyes, and I know he saw it. I could tell he saw it, and it made a dark part of me proud that such a person could feel fear from me, especially with what he dared to do.

It still amazes me on some level that I was able to hold back...apparently that feral part of my mind understood enough that I was acting in my best interest, the interest of self preservation, of survival. But the rage, the seething fury of being restrained and used in such a way, the desire to break free, and rip, tear, and make this person scream as he faced something he couldn't possibly understand... it was strong, stronger than any rage I can ever remember feeling, and just like with Sekhmet, it felt right, and it felt pure.

So why do I question it now? Why is there this moral dilemma in my mind? This person deserved to die for what they were doing to me, and what they tried to do to me. They gave up the right to life when they took advantage of my trust, and used my body. They may have even tried to get rid of the evidence by killing me, if circumstances had been only slightly different. Am I in such denial of the severity of what happened that I can't feel my own anger? If so, then Sekhmet is the perfect deity to re-align myself with. I have a right to my emotions, and I have a right to my rage. I can feel hints of it on the edges of my perception, and I feel like I have to embrace it, this anger, this fire. Passivity doesn't suit me, especially now.

This really isn't what I wanted this post to be about... but it's what came out, so I guess it's what needed to be said.

Cutting Ties

There comes a time in life when I find that I've cut ties from things and people that I know were unhealthy for me, and still I find that there are still cords in my heart that need to be severed. It's never so simple as just putting your mind to cutting someone out of your life and leaving them. There's always a residue. It can take the form of finding yourself alone and thinking "I should call such and such person" and then remembering that you broke up with that person, or otherwise have distanced yourself from that person recently, or even a long time ago.

Though it's been over two years now, I still find myself sometimes thinking "I should tell my mom about (insert thing here)" and then stop, freeze, and stare at myself for a moment, because its like I just realized my brain short circuited back five years. This used to happen all the time soon after I cut off contact with my parents. It was pretty frequent for about three to six months, when it started to taper down. Now it happens maybe a few times a year if that, when I suddenly seem to forget that I haven't spoken to my family in years, and for good reason.

I find myself going through the same thing now with my recent ex. He used to be my world, but time changed him, and time changed me. It hurts, but this is a fact of life, and just like cutting off contact with my family, I know I did the right thing- at least the right thing for me. Whether it was the right thing for him I can't say, and I can't let myself think too hard on that- that was the same question that led me back to him the last time I broke up with him...and this time there is no going back. I promised myself that, and I promised him that.

There is no place in my life for someone who claims to stand by my side and love me, who cannot understand that saying they love me means nothing if they are only loving a perceived image of who I am, or they think I should be- in that case they are loving a lie...and its clear to me, as clear as day that this is what was going on despite the insistent claims otherwise. I can not be loved by someone who knows the true me and yet turns their back on it, and yet fails to support me when I needed it most. Words are words, actions are actions. Words mean nothing when there are no actions to support them.

These are the harsh, but vital lessons that have been moving through my life- those of strict analysis of my life, the people in it, and how they may be helping me or hindering me...and that as a healer, sometimes people have to be harmed to be helped. So I've cut myself off...and the sudden change of perspective has been incredible. There are still bonds that need to be cut in this, but it will take time before they can be severed completely. I still have incredible and wonderful people in my life who actually do accept me and love me as I am, and expect me to be nothing less than myself. Maybe someday I'll actually find my other half who also understands that. I don't know.

What matters now is to throw myself back into the world and to live, instead of looking back at what could have been, and what never will be. I know what it is to love, and I know what it is to live. I haven't been doing either of those things for a while, and it made me vulnerable, blind, and in some cases deaf to warnings I shrugged off instead of acknowledged.

I'm back in college, making friends, learning a new language, and learning about a culture I've always been fascinated with (Japanese) and most of all, I'm rediscovering myself, and what it is to love myself as I am. I'm throwing away the chains I've put on myself, and rediscovering my Will...because I see now that I let it be trampled on, because I let myself be afraid, and I let that fear control me. I was afraid to be alone...or more accurately that without Tony I would be alone. Without his mother, without his father, that what...fragile a family I have built for myself would be gone.

But I've lived my life without family. I never considered my ties to my blood family strong, even when I lived with them. To me, they were people who were supposed to love me but never did. So I moved on, and I made myself a family of the soul...and that right there is what matters. While the circle of people I would trust with my life, the people I call brother or sister, are few... they still exist, even if I may rarely see their faces. They are with me in my heart, and that matters more than any physical presence, even if the physical closeness of a tender hug, the gentle touch of a lover, are something I miss terribly.

 I'd lost that before I broke up with Tony though- I lost that when he lost himself. I'd been ambling along for a good year trying to make sense of what had happened, before I finally accepted things as they were and made the necessary decisions to move on.  Despite that, he's still in my heart, just like my mother, my father, my sister, and her family, who I removed from my life out of necessity, out of a need for safety and my own sanity. He's going to become another name on the list of people I think of sometimes, and may or may not feel a pang of guilt about...and there's nothing I can do about that other than suck it up like always, and to my best to carry on. It's life, and it's the life I've chosen for myself, in accordance with my Will.

I don't know if the ties will ever be completely cut. I spent a large portion of my life with the people who still have some connection to my heart though I have tried to cut them from it. I can't cut them out completely, because I would be forced to cut out a part of myself, and my own past. I can't change what happened in these cases, but I can look at it, and accept it as it is- an opportunity for something new, something better, something I can look at with clear eyes and an open heart, and maybe have a greater understanding of what it means to be myself.

I'm the only one who can bind myself to things or people. The fact that the ties remain are because I let them, because I refuse to destroy myself. I love myself too much for that, even though sometimes I question how true that is.

Anubis taught me that it's ok to rely on others...and Sekhmet taught me to stand on my own two feet. Upwawet is preparing me for...something, and teaching me how to see the world, and myself as it is. It's cold, analytical, but strangely as I move through this shameless analysis of everything, my deepest desires and my deepest fears, I find myself understanding and being able to bring forward my own emotions. Where I was to some degree numb before, I find that I can feel my heart again.... and for now, that's enough.

Breaking the Silence

I've come a long way since January of this year, and a long way over the last few years. Some of my posts I look back on and think "man that was stupid of me, how could I have thought that?" But that's the point of keeping a blog like this- to show myself how I've been evolving, and to show others what it looks like to live this kind of life.

 Last night was a time of change, and it was a change that needed to happen- I broke up with someone who I loved dearly, but who has failed to show me the right kind of support over the last few months. Strangers had shown me more support as I struggled to understand my emotions and the trauma I recently went through, and I could feel the emotions of the people reaching out to me, and their concern.. but he wasn't there, and he was the one person who should have been... but ever since I've gone deeper down the rabbit hole, ever since after this last January when I took a spiritual journey to Canada, a light switch came on, and suddenly I didn't need to drop into deep trances anymore to communicate with the spirits in my life.

It overwhelmed me. I went from being in an altered state from lack of sleep on a greyhound bus coming home from Canada and chatting with Anubis because I discovered I could, to something falling into place and this becoming my norm. (not that he's super chatty in the first place, but I certainly heard a lot from him the first week when I was getting used to everything) I was unsure whether I had gone crazy, and with my relationship already strained from other circumstances surrounding my SO's lack of belief in my practices... things steadily approached the breaking point.

I have been checking myself for months to make sure that I'm not schizophrenic, or having some other kind of delusion. When I've been told something in my mind that I couldn't know otherwise, I check the sources. This has been everything from knowledge of herbs for healing/dulling pain, to historical/religious information, to warning me of trouble. The entity claims to be Anubis, "looks" like him, and has even been giving me magical advice in various situations, helping me to come to new techniques that I wouldn't have otherwise. At first I considered that this might be some kind of entity trying to trick me, but this has been months now, the feeling of his energy is the same as it always has been over the years.

I feel strange talking about this, but I feel like it's time to break the silence on this matter. Something happened, and I'm not sure what. Yes some things in Canada rattled my world, rattled my perception of it...but it seems strange to me that such mundane things would reflect on a magical level, as I've never had anything happen like this before on such a scale.

Something opened up my perception to another level. I can feel, I can hear, and in my mind's eye I can sometimes see the spirits/gods I'm working with, and I don't really have words for my emotions surrounding this. Awe? Fear that I could still be wrong, and this could just be some kind of protective delusion created by the mind of a girl who has been hurt one too many times? I don't know. I have no road map, and I can only try to be vigilant and balanced in all that I do.

Desert Healing

I spent my last week in the desert to heal and to re-gain strength and understanding after a terrible ordeal.  I spent some time up at Pine Mountain at the edge of the Great Basin. I hiked out beyond the barbed wire fence, with my trusty camera, and followed my intuition on where to go. After a bit, I reached a point that had a view unlike anything I had ever seen. I cleansed myself with the wild sage that grew there, and opened myself to the universe. The energy was incredible, and I had some spiritual encounters there, which are too personal to write about here, and it introduced me on a deeper level to some Netjer who I had been somewhat unfamiliar with.

Not only did I have some experiences which challenged and changed some of the theories I had about the entities I work with, but there was something incredible about working magic by a sliver of moonlight at the top of a volcano, overlooking completely uninhabited wilderness. (I’m normally not this dramatic, but after having a really bad time of things, I needed a boost to make myself feel awesome. And what isn’t awesome about doing spiritual work on a volcano by moonlight?)

After a couple of recent encounters with Upwawet, I’m reconsidering my ideas on trying to put the Netjer on the tree of life. While I thought it might help me to understand how they relate to each other more, and the spheres they may rule, this does not appear to be the case. While I do feel I was right about Upwawet being…darker than Anubis in his attitudes, I think the examples I gave in my previous post were exaggerated and severe compared to the actual attitude of this god.

I’m still processing a….ridiculous amount of things, and working on putting my life back together after the recent trauma. Thankfully I have people in my life who love and care about me, who are helping me through these recent events, and spirits who are willing to help me to see myself and the world as it is, and not as what I fear. 

I may write in more detail about some things later, but for now this is enough.

New Design

I futzed around in Photoshop and designed a banner/header for the blog. I also changed the width of the area for text, and I've started messing with some of the cooler features of blogger. 

What do you guys think?

More about Netjer than you can shake a stick at

The title of this blog is "Dances with Netjer" but where've the posts about Netjer been!? Here's something with bits from my personal journal to satisfy your hunger :)

 In one of my previous posts I mentioned that I'm trying to look more at other Egyptian deities, and examine my own practices more. As a Hermetic Egypto-pagan,  I felt that one way to start doing this would be to examine the basic natures of the deities who have made themselves apparent to me in my life. To do this, I began trying to look at their basic qualities, and place them on the tree of life. I backed this up with research and ideas that are already prevalent in various sections of the occult community.  Below is a very stream-of-consciousness piece that I took from my personal journal focused on furthering an understanding of the spirits I work with.

I do something that I'm not sure that many others do. I incorporate the idea that the sephera are not limited by purely "holiness" and that as all other things they can have positive an negative aspects which for simplicity sake I differentiate between by referring to the negative pole of a sephera as the "lower vibration" of any particular sephera mentioned.

With this in mind, if I were to place the deities I work with on the tree of life: 

Anubis is Hod, Wepwawet (also known as Apuat) is his lower vibration. Sekhmet is the lower vibration of Hathor, who is Netzatch. Despite being on opposite sides of the reversed tree, Sekhmet and Wepwawet have something in common – they are both war deities.

Sekhmet of lower Netzatch, is ruled by her emotions. She fights, she slaughters in the name of her God, of Ra who sends her to purify the land of those who have turned their back on the gods. She is unbridled furious emotion gone out of control. Her rage consumes her and the “reason” is forgotten.

Wepwawet is also a war deity, but while Anubis carries the truth, the pure knowledge of Hod, Anubis is a more gentle and kind protector, like cool flowing water. Wepwawet of lower Hod is the cold calculating knowledge combined with the blazing hot sun. His heart is in his work. He is the calculating war general. People are pawns for war and to him everything/everyone is expendable except for the purpose he is summoned for (and himself) He does what he is tasked to do, but he will do it in the most simple and logical way, which may or may not involve harming others. Unlike Anubis he is more egotistic, and as he is a bearer of knowledge of logic, it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that he always has to get the last word, and always has to be correct in everything.

Do not misunderstand, there is no mal-intent here, and this isn’t to say that he is completely without emotion, but calculated plans are more important to him than emotion. Both Anubis and Wepwawet will “open the way” but Anubis is more keen to grasp and take into account the underlying desires that you may or may not voice. This is simply my opinion based on what I have encountered. I understand it may be different for others.

Looking at Wepwawet and Sekhmet, their purviews cross as solar war deities, but very unlike Wepwawet, once Sekhmet is set loose no reason is needed anymore. Everyone is ripe for the slaughter. If I had to phrase it more simply, Sekhmet is Instinct, Wepwawet is Thought. 

“But Silv!” You may ask, “What about your experiences with Sekhmet where she wasn’t a bloodthirsty rage-lion?”

My response would be that this doesn’t invalidate that, because Hathor and Sekhmet are two sides of the same coin. Sekhmet is a goddess of emotion, of devotion. Hathor is not a killer; Sekhmet is and can easily get caught up in the power of emotion and forget reason. This doesn’t mean that she is “always” in a state of perpetual bloodlust, but unlike Hathor that is still in her nature regardless.

I found myself wondering where the other gods would fit in the tree of life…. Then I realized that there could be other gods that can still be ruled by the same influences as Anubis/Wepwawet Hathor/Sekhmet! Why am I limiting myself to one god or goddess ruled by one Sephera? Hell, It’s been more or less clear that Bast/Sekhmet overlap in some ways. Other aspects of the same god/goddess could still be covered as well. It shows how a simple change of perspective can turn things on their head. ( I wonder where Hermanubis would fall? Hmmmm)

Despite this, I have no idea if putting other gods/goddesses under the same Sephera would be accurate, and I have yet to seriously look at whether it would work it is only up for consideration because I feel it’s something that should be considered.

Does this mean I have to throw out my theory of where these Egyptian gods and goddesses fit on the Tree of Life? Nope. This just gives me more to work with, and tells me that I might want to take a closer look at things.

Over the years my study has been leading me deeper and deeper into the beautiful clusterfuck intricacies of Ancient Egyptian cosmology.  One of these days I need to take an actual academic course in Egyptology. I’m sure I could learn so much more about the beliefs and every day life of these people, and how they interacted with and viewed their gods. Books, and the Internet are wonderful, but there’s just so much out there!

As wonderful as UPG is, I find it even more satisfying to back up UPG with solid academic facts. After a chat with Anubis (or others) I always check academic sources to see if there is anything that backs up new “knowledge” I might have obtained from what would otherwise be considered a voice in the head of a girl who thinks she might talk to Ancient Egyptian gods. My experiences in this regard have grown much stronger over the past six months, and validation has become a necessity to make sure I keep myself in check.

Wanting academic validation does not invalidate faith, and having faith doesn't invalidate logic. I’ve heard this before, and I think it’s foolish. Spirit communication isn’t always clear. One “word” can mean many different things depending on context in my experience, and sometimes multiple meanings are inherent in a single thing. Checking for validation can correct you where you might have misunderstood something, or even give you more information that for whatever reason wasn’t communicated. 

 We are our own worst enemy, and it's important to remember this when on a magical path. Its easy to get caught up in wanting to be right, to the point that you can't admit when you're wrong... and believe me I could be wrong about everything ;)

I'm a Mage

A few weeks ago, I started doing more work to get what I need out of the universe.
I'll be honest, despite calling myself a "Mage" for the better part of my teenage years and up until recently, I hadn't really applied myself when it comes to asking the universe for things. I didn't ask for money, I didn't try to control my environment, or influence much of anything. I healed friends, did readings to try to understand what forces were at play in my life and the lives of others when things got hairy.

Yeah I did my shapeshifting thing, chatted with Anubis now and then, did my LBRPs... but the most I really did to deliberately influence the world around me was work with Fotamecus to do things like make the day go by more quickly when I was bored/having a bad day, or slow things down when the sun was rising and I needed to actually get a decent bit of sleep before class. I've never really seen the need to go after money or to establish myself as master of my domain....and then I stepped into the adult world, and shut the door on the people who kept throwing money at me before, in an attempt to control me, and keep me from taking the steps that I needed to. Before long, I was at the mercy of the universe because I dared to do the right thing, and worked my ass off to grow into a better and stronger person.

I once was afraid of the idea of summoning spirits for help, of delving too deeply into this world, out of fear that I would go insane like so many others I know who've pursued the path of magic over the years and lost their abilities to live normally in society. Somehow after being on the brink of losing myself and nearly everything I cared for(combination of a bad prescription for a health issue and lots of real life drama earlier this year that I've been pulling myself out of) I've hit a point beyond what I had experienced before. I shattered when my world did.... but I was able to build myself up again. My own perception of myself and the people around me has shifted in a significant and life-changing way that I can't begin to explain. There's more...depth to everything, and I've become significantly aware of more of the layers of cause and effect in the world, which in turn has boosted my empathy, and brought me back to a point that I thought I had lost when I was a child. The world seems more full of color and wonder. I won't call it innocence, because I'm not so naive; but there's something to this world that I think I lost my understanding of on the way. 

I'm learning how to just BE again, but not in a way that means I won't work my ass off to protect myself and those I care about. There seems to be an idea in the world right now that negativity in our lives is of our own making, and some apparently will even go as far to say that if someone is being attacked, that it's their karma, and that the Magician should do nothing.... and I want to call bullshit on that. Is it my fault that I was born into an abusive household? Is it my young nephew's fault that his father thinks it's ok to put a shock collar on his neck as a form of punishment? Fuck no it isn't!

Is it someone's fault when they gamble away all of their money instead of paying a mortgage and taking care of their family? You bet! In the first situation, any responsible, GOOD person, should interfere, and though to this day I have no idea about the state of my nephew because I was forced to cut off ties with my toxic family, I did my damnedest behind the scenes to point authorities in the right direction, to open an investigation with the California State Department of Children's Services. I did what I could. I have no regrets.

 I wish someone had worked half as hard to get me out of my situation as a child instead of pretending my parents were lovely sane people. Maybe if they had, I wouldn't have been forced into a cosmetic surgery at 9 years old, the effects of which now allow me to use my legs as barometers, and sometimes leave me nearly crippled a few weeks out of the year. Anyone who says that I brought that situation upon myself, can take that opinion and shove it. I didn't subconsciously want to have my legs ripped open, broken, and have bolts shoved in them so I could spend the rest of my life wondering if I'd be able to walk or carry something the next day. Who the fuck would?

There's a point when the "everything negative in your life happens because of you" ends, and I think we as magicians really need to realize this. If you believe that, and you allow others to be harmed because it's "their karma" you need to look in the fucking mirror and realize that what you're experiencing is sociopathic behavior and thinking that you're somehow "more enlightened" because of it, is bullshit. Yeah I'm sure I'm going to get some flack for this, but frankly I don't give a damn, because I actually stand up for what I believe in, instead of hiding behind false hypocritical ideals. I'd be doing myself, and those in my life, physical and spiritual, a disservice to do otherwise.

I'm a Mage damn it, and so I'm going to do my damnedest to grow into the best person I can be. There is no going back, and no reason to. There's nothing to do but go forward, and establish my personal domain. The first steps have already been taken, and things are moving into place beautifully. All I had to do was ask, be honest with myself, and put forth the appropriate effort.