you?
you are…
you are magic
you are everything
the power of a prayer and
the light of a brand new day and
the incense smoke in my offering and
the constellation guiding me back home and
the one more breath when I want to stop breathing
and you are the proof of divinity in this world
and the life pulsing in each heartbeat
and the circle connecting us
and the winds blowing
and the chanting
and the love
all love
is you
Category: [witchcraft & wonder]
anything related to witchcraft, magick, spirituality, and philosophy
selkie [poem]
You always said we could clean out the attic later,
only later never came. I thought I’d surprise you,
clean out the bits and bobs and old junk and
get the job done.
You always said I hated the sea, that the ocean terrified me.
It wasn’t until my fingers slid across the silky pelt
that I remembered. I loved the smell of the briny waters,
more than almost anything.
You always said I was yours, and I guess that was true
in the way you can own a fish kept in a bowl or
a bird with clipped wings and a gilded cage. A pet
is kept when it is tamed. Safe.
You always said you loved me, that you couldn’t imagine
a life without me. You must’ve, though, to do this.
To take my pelt and hide it in the old curtains meant
to know what would happen if it were found.
You always said you’d do anything for me.
I took you at your word when I led you out into the waves,
your voice calling me back, your hands gripping to
hold me, catch me, keep me.
You always said you’d die for me. And so
I held your arms tight as we sunk, ignoring the way
you thrashed for one last breath you didn’t really need
if you wanted to stay with me.
Your body floated like a newborn pup, tangled in the seaweed.
I kissed your pale eyelids shut one last time before
turning to swim out to sea on the next wave.
I always said I loved watching you sleep.
my gods [poem]
my gods are not kind and
they don’t care about you or
me. they want entertainment and
sometimes pleasure and
maybe helping us can bring them that but
most times watching is better. and
they watch your life crumble when you pray and
your desperate calls mean nothing, because
they know you will survive and
recover without their intervention and
that’s easier. always easier. and
sometimes they are terrifying and
harsh in their disinterest, but
invoking their involvement can be worse and
a bored god can be malicious and
you remember why we stopped the sacrifices and
closed the temples. the belief didn’t leave but
instead was replaced by reality. and
we figured out that the gods don’t care, because
the gods are not kind, not really.
on balance and opposites [poem]
power can be found in the strangest places
like in the broken body of infertility
or in the aching heart of the betrayed
but it’s found in the simplest places too
like in the inhale and exhale of each breath
and in the decision to climb out of bed each day
beauty is like power in the way it exists
in the obvious places we’re taught to look
but also at the clenched jaw of anger in check
and in the white knuckles from holding back
or around the dark circles from sleepless nights
and between the teardrops rolling down cheeks
life needs a bit of everything good and bad
from the bullshit in a liar’s words
to the moans from a lover’s touch
because the darkness can be terrifying
and the brightness can burn your eyes
but we need both light and shadows to thrive
the Moon [poem]
the Moon comes and goes and
I ignore Her because I can’t handle it
when She tells me to smile and
Her brilliant beauty in the face
of my aching patchwork heart hurts and
I hold myself apart from others
hoping to cut the ties now and
free myself from a world too painful
full of colors far too vibrant and
eyes too sharp when they see me
they see every broken piece of me and
I can’t sit here exposed like that
with every scar uncovered and
not hate it or them or myself
for letting it get this bad and
not having the power to save me
brave [poem]
You are brave
in the way you climb out of that bed
each morning and dare to face each new day
breathing. Inhale, exhale, repeat. Brave
in the way your dented tin heart keeps
beating in your chest, ignoring the rust and
refusing to stop pumping life through
your unwilling veins. Brave
in the way you insist on taking up space
when the urge to curl up into a knotted ball
of useless paper hits you, hard. You spread out
to make others feel your presence, saying
I’m here. I’m still here. Brave
in the way you don’t hide your scars and
your voice can be heard even when broken and
the wounds aren’t shameful secrets. Instead
you honor your survival with the admittance of
your weaknesses and their brutal beauty. Brave
in the way your soul fears the light and
the dark in equal measure. The light, a bright
unknown happiness. The dark, a seductive
and familiar pain. The fear, a sign you know
what’s necessary versus what’s easy. Brave
in every way. Brave.
something from last time [poem]
this body is temporary
it’s my home this go around, but
it could’ve been a cat again,
a falcon flying high,
a starfish in the deep blue sea,
or even a dragon!
okay, maybe not a dragon
but this spirit is formless until
it settles into a body again and again
and maybe sometimes it remembers
being a wolf pup once,
or being a minnow in a creek,
or maybe a unicorn?!
okay, so probably not a unicorn
but still, I think
it remembers something else
something from last time
on being pagan [poem]
I feel spiritual when
I step outside on an autumn evening,
just after work, and
I take in that first breath of
cold air that stings my lungs.
I look up and
see the purpled clouds and
reddened skies, and
I feel the beautiful cycle of
day to night to day
all at once. And then
I walk down the steps to the parking lot,
jumping in the car to
beat campus traffic on the way home.
Because life is spiritual,
always.
take it [poem]
I knew.
You watched me from the shadows,
eyes flashing in the dim light as
I swayed with the music.
You tracked my every move,
a cobra caught in a snake charmer’s thrall,
my pulse hypnotic
even in the cacophony of life all around us.
You followed me out the backdoor
and into the sudden quiet of the alley,
and I had to laugh. Your eyes flew wide
when I turned to face you with a knowing smile.
Like I didn’t recognize a vampire when I saw one.
You were so hungry, I could see it
in the way you quivered as I approached,
your teeth glinting white as a bared my neck to you.
Take it, I begged.
Just take it and make the darkness come.
And you did.
And I was free.
the Phoenix [poem]
The first time I burned,
I awoke in the ashes of a boy’s pothead promises
and climbed out of his ashtray a sooty mess,
weak willed and skittish
from his hard hands
and cold heart.
The second time I burned,
I heard my grandfather’s death from an ocean away
and this new man-child laughed
at my loss, my tears, my heartache.
I branded vengeance across his entire life
before soaring out of it.
The third time I burned,
I was ready. The flames consumed me slowly
from head to toe as I set my lover to sail
on a boat to happiness without me,
and I felt only warmth as he smiled
at the new sun beside him.
The next time I burned,
the sharp heat tore through me without warning,
long before my time came due. I awoke
to gasoline fumes on my womb as he struck a match,
his betrayal turning my body into
an unquenchable furnace
and my will to smother the flames
nonexistent. Extinguished.
Just gone.
The last time I burned,
my newly reborn body ached as she,
the sweet honeyed hope on my tongue and
the lie so willfully believed,
she who spoke friend and lover both,
left. The embers beneath me rekindled
into flames at
her silence.
And yet, again, I rose.
I rebirthed myself from the ashes
that others mistook for cremation,
for death and destruction and ending,
and I flared back to life
not to spite them,
the ignition switches and
matchbox strikers and
pyromaniacs
content to watch me burn and
burn and
burn.
I came back
because it is my way.
A phoenix never dies,
we burn and rise.
We All Started Somewhere
We all started somewhere.
Walking the pagan path may be a family way-of-life for more people today, but back in the 1990s and early 2000s it was a personal choice. You had to find your way home, often with minimal guidance and a lot of luck.
This is my story of “coming home”.
Living in California during the mid-90s, I was really into magic. Sabrina the Teenage Witch was my thing, The Craft (movie) came out, and Harry Potter was soon unleashed upon us all. I enjoyed writing little rhyming spells, LARPing with friends (not that we called it that at the time), and mixing rainwater into potions for fun.
In 1999, I was a middle school student in Kentucky. A high school girl who spoke to me from time to time at the bus stop mentioned this book she’d found in the school library. It was “Wicca” by Scott Cunningham, and it spoke to me from the first line. I self-dedicated within a week.
My parents weren’t religious, so I managed to avoid that drama. Instead, I enjoyed going to my friend’s youth group meetings while simultaneously praying to the Lord and Lady at night. There were a couple of books at the public library (under 133 in the Dewey decimal system, I recall). The only one directly related to the growing pagan movement was “Spells” by Matthew Green. I almost memorized the book cover to cover, though it was full of witchcraft (i.e. spells and charms) rather than Wicca (the spiritual practices).
I faced little issue as a Wiccan in my early years. In high school, I had a couple of friends who weren’t allowed to have my over anymore after I was discovered to be a witch. It hurt, because no one had ever disliked me before; I didn’t understand why I was the perfect influence as a straight-A student with perfect attendance one minute, the devil’s minion the next. That seemed… silly. I hadn’t stopped being a good student or well behaved all of a sudden, but you’d think I’d taken up smoking pot or drinking by the way their parents reacted sometimes.
I found myself fascinated by every little piece of paganism I ran across back then. I didn’t have internet at home, just a computer with Windows 1994 that I used to write and play Tetris for hours. If a friend printed out a copy of some spell or ritual for me, I cherished it; who knew when I’d get to see something new again. I even snuck a chance to print the long version of the Wiccan Rede poem while at my dad’s office one day; he was mad, because that crap was printed under his login and blah blah blah.
For a while, I had about 95% of the Wiccan Rede poem memorized by wrot, largely due to rewriting it over and over for myself in notebooks and on new copies for friends. Not having a printer meant handcopying everything I wanted to keep for myself, which made me willing to admit the brilliance of “ancient” practices like forcing a new coven member to handcopy the coven’s BOS themselves.
Anyway, I ended up teaching various people along the way. They were curious, mostly, and I don’t think more than one or two of the dozen actually remained pagan after experimenting with me. It’s not for everyone.
At the start of the new millenium, we moved to Germany (Army life, yay). I became more solidly pagan when surrounded by the gloriously weird people of my high school. I taught a few more people, led and joined teenage circles for moons and sabbats on a regular basis. I wrote my own rituals, with all the bells and whistles. I danced in a circle until the energy crackling across everyone’s skin and made us moondrunk. It was beautiful.
Coming stateside again was hard, because we moved to El Paso, Texas. Catholics, everywhere. I returned mostly to my little broom closet, but it was more an act of antisocial behavior than any real attempt to keep a secret. I tried out a local pagan CUUPS group, but they were too anti-Christian for me. I found a pagan-ish store that sold incense, herbs, and candles. I waited.
I got married and moved to Germany again (Army life, round two). My then-husband switched from Christianity to paganism for me, without my request and of his own free will. That didn’t go well. I didn’t do much in the way of practicing, because I was a new adult dealing with a new marriage, deployment, and the adjustment of living overseas once again.
I got divorced, returning to Texas to start over. There’s a lot of life drama in between there, but it had little to do with my spirituality (other than remembering I didn’t believe in cursing or hexing others just for being jerks). Once life settled down, I found a local coven and joined.
I learned, and I grew. I initiated, and I taught. I led rituals, and I helped others lead. I left for a while, disillusioned by circumstances I couldn’t control. I returned, ready to wipe the slate clean and try again. And I wrote. And wrote. And wrote.
And now I’m turning 29 in February. It’s been 16 years since I started down the pagan path, about two decades since the interest in magic and nature budded in my heart. I’ve never left my path, not completely. I’ve taken breaks where I didn’t do much in the way of practice outside of the occasional candle or prayer. But all in all, I came home to the gods and stayed.
As I research my move to Washington for the spring, I’ve discovered that the most abundant members of the local pagan community are 16-18 years old and full of spunk. At first, I wanted to roll my eyes as I saw a 17-year-old boy starting up a coven in the small town I used to visit during the summers. But then I remembered…
At age 8, no one would’ve considered the choosing of a pagan path as valid or mentioned it to a girl with leaves in her hair and flowers in her heart. At age 12 when I dedicated, I would’ve still been seen as too young to be taken seriously as a follower of anything, old gods or new. At age 16, the very thought that I bothered to try teaching others about a path I’d barely walked would’ve been laughable. At age 21 when I initiated, I still recognized the way my youth could and sometimes did make it hard for older pagans to take me seriously.
I have to remember those times. *We* have to remember those times.
Why?
Because a person’s age isn’t all about the number of years they’ve lived in this particular body. Because they can be wiser and more spiritual than the oldest members of our community, sometimes. Because they can be lost and hurt by our lack of faith in their budding spirituality. Because it isn’t our place to judge the path another person chooses to walk.
I repeat: It isn’t your place to judge the path another person chooses to walk.
We all started somewhere.
On not truly being a “peaceful person” [poem]
I am an agent of peace, but I am not a peaceful person at heart.
You see my patience. I calmly explain things to someone, things they’ve been told before. I give second, third, and fourth chances to people who ask for them. I allow things to slide, things you might find hurtful or frustrating or infuriating.
You don’t see my violence. It’s in the way my jaw clenches when I have to repeat myself (again), the way I consciously unclench it and force my voice to remain level. It’s in the way each lie and misstep is filed away in my mind, the way those chances I give are laced with mistrust. It’s in the way I swallow pride and anger together, the way I allow words to wash over and away from me without reaction when a reaction is what they want.
I am an agent of kindness, but I am not a kind person at heart.
You see my gentleness. I accept new people into my life when they enter the lives of those who matter to me. I brush off discomfort and social awkwardness to make others feel welcomed. I speak up for giving people chances, even people who I wouldn’t be friends with outside of whatever specific situation we find ourselves in.
You don’t see my ruthlessness. It’s in the way I watch new people like a hawk, recording every mistake and bad choice in case they need to be sent away. It’s in the way I question everything about a new person, my guard always up even as I hug them close. Why would I trust someone who isn’t mine, who wasn’t brought into my life by my own choosing? It’s in the way I knowingly allow others to try and fail at life, rather than stepping in with guidance and support to get them through hard times. Sometimes I take great pleasure in someone’s failure, even as I help them stand back up.
I am an agent of calm, but I am not a calm person at heart.
You see my serenity. My voice and mind are so quiet and still, my ears open and listening to other’s opinions before making my own. I sit to myself and seem at ease, my eyes skimming a book or my phone or even the crowds around me. I hum along with the radio and let traffic just be traffic, steadily making my way to my destination without issue.
You don’t see my anxiety. I judge others on their opinions, and sometimes my silence is less about listening and more about deciding if they’re worth speaking to at all. The quiet ease I show is often a mask, as inside I’m screaming and aching or empty and lost; my depression is quiet, too, you know. My fingers tell everything to my journal, every honest and hateful thought; I filter nothing from myself, and the words I write are drenched in loathing. I move from place to place and goal to goal with very direct intent, and my decision to flow with and around life’s “traffic” is the reason I get what I want more often than not; people do my will long before they realize I want it done.
I am an agent of darkness. We all are.
I used to be so frustrated with myself. I thought I was broken, that something in me was violent and feral and nothing like my mother’s groundedness. I thought my actions meant nothing when my feelings and thoughts were so dark and negative. It took years to recognize that the choice of peace and kindness over anger and violence wasn’t meant to be easy. The good in me is the desire to continue choosing peace, to continue making the harder decision to be kind, to continue walking softly through this life. Making a choice to be peaceful when it goes against gut reactions is “being the bigger person”, struggling for maturity when instinct screams for anything but.
180,000 Words to the Void + this post
I have been a horrible blogger, but a great writer this year.
Since 2015 started, I’ve managed to write approximately 180,000 words. It all started with a goal of just a thousand words per day. I figured if I could start a real writing habit up, maybe I could get around to writing something worth sharing.
At first, it was a struggle. I’m used to self-filtering before my words tap across the keyboard; so much of my personal journals is left unsaid, because I never wanted to record the embarrassing or negative things with too much detail.
Eventually, I opened up to the honesty I was offering for myself. I promised myself that I could write *any* without guilt, because I would be the only person to see it in its original form.
The floodgates opened, and the words came flowing out of me.
I’ve started two stories, meatier than anything fiction I’ve written in years. One has around 7,000 words to it so far (mostly outline and character descriptions), and the other has around 25,000 words (including character descriptions, an outline, and several scenes so far). I say these stories are both meatier than my previous fiction attempts for a reason. They have depth. Instead of being two-dimentional attempts at a fairytale, these stories and their characters can stood up and made themselves into something. Characters told me who they wanted to be, rather than me filling in all of the blanks myself.
It feels… amazing.
Added to that, about half of the remaining words I’ve written this year are related to my spirituality. I’ve been brutally honest with myself and my thoughts, and I’ve explored deeper into my hopes and future plans than I have in ages. My own journaling has given me the ability to understand myself and voice my needs to my coven and high priestess; it’s helped me to seek out challenges I might’ve ignored before, like offering to teach classes and lead rituals without them filling any special requirements for elevation.
You haven’t really gotten to see any of this. I’ve been hiding in my little writing cave, typing away without any effort to update or share on my blog beyond an occasional “yeah, I’m still alive” post.
I’m working on things, I swear.
Due to health reasons, I never got around to being comfortable on camera and starting a YouTube channel. My skin was (and partly still is) a hot mess and a long story at that. In place of a YouTube channel (or in place of a live-action me, I should say), I’ve been exploring the possibility of doing a podcast. I don’t mind people listening to me; the speaking-for-others part isn’t the issue. This is a newer idea that I’m working on figuring out; right now, it’s a rough draft of a rough draft of an idea.
I’ve also been working on a pagan book. I’ve been using my coven’s beginner-level notes to kind of guide my outline. In the process, I’ve actually been updating the coven notes as well, but that’s a different project all together. In approaching the topics (like energywork, divination, and tools) from a teaching standpoint instead of as just a student, I’m seeing what I like and what I would change more clearly. As an initiate, I’ve considered making these notes (once updated) into my outline for a book… and then making that a personal challenge to complete. We’re all about pushing ourselves and growing into our potentials, and this feels like the right direction.
Through everything, I’m still working fulltime and trying to manage a household of adults (like herding cats AND dogs together). I’m also working on plans for moving up north to Washington state next spring. It takes a lot of planning these days to fling yourself so far from your current home; you can’t expect to just pop up, find a job and an apartment in a week or two, and get to living. Unfortunately, there are fewer jobs, a higher cost of living, and very little support if you fail to plan ahead. Good thing I’m a planner, huh!
I appreciate anyone who’s bothered to stick around and read my occasional posts. Sometimes the internet is a giant void and my words just a whisper, but it’s nice to know someone hears me time and again.
Until next time, keep breathing.
Larissa Lee 