Toxic Masculinity vs. the Divine Masculine

 Dear Reader,

In a chat group I am a part of, one member expressed some distress over the idea of interacting with the Divine Masculine. This saddened me. The fact that toxic masculinity is so prevalent in so many places that it makes the thought of the Divine Masculine a source of distress is tragic. Some people argue that the Divine Masculine is war-like, power hungry, and dismissive of their people unless constantly placated with servile displays of devotion. This projection of the traits of toxic masculinity upon the Divine Masculine is precisely what drives people away from him in his various forms.

The Divine Masculine is not a club to beat worshippers into submission, though there are parties out there who use the threat of the Divine Masculine's potency to do exactly that. At the core of things, the Divine Masculine is equal to the Divine Feminine. They are two halves of the same coin, in some ways. The Divine Masculine is as nurturing, loving, and supportive as the Divine Feminine. The Divine Masculine is as protective of worshippers as the Divine Feminine. 

Where does this image of the Divine Masculine as a vengeful entity come from? Where does this image of the Divine Masculine deriving pleasure or some measure of satisfaction from harm that is wrought in their name come from? This is projected on to the Divine Masculine by institutions and people who are in positions of power that seek to use the Divine Masculine as a tool to manipulate and subjugate others. This is a cultural attitude that does not match the nuanced reality. The Divine Masculine has no need for machismo or other attitudes intended to prove dominance.

Are there war-like gods? Yes, masculine, feminine, and intersex ones. Are there gods that have high demands of their followers? Yes, regardless of their gender identification there are gods like this. This is because gods are infinite in their complexity and not so neatly defined by a single culture's concept of gender politics. 

We must correct the problems within our culture that make the concept of masculinity terrifying for many. It is only when we confront toxic masculinity that we open our eyes to see what masculinity really is. The gods are more than what we project on them. If we project toxic masculinity onto the Divine Masculine, we limit our ability to perceive the Divine Masculine more clearly because we are forcing all other possibilities out of our perception.

Godspousery Notes: Just hang in there.

 Dear Reader,

You may have noticed my recent posts have been talking about my struggle with depression. It makes a lot of things hard. I haven't been sleeping well. Freyr's expressed concerns about this making my depression worse. He is of the mind that my taking naps during the day is aggravating my sleep problems. It's hard because I wake up feeling exhausted. He wants me to try to be a little more physically active. It kinda breaks my heart when he is sitting there beside me going "Please, just try to do it. I know you can, you just have to believe in yourself too."

When I'm depressed, I'm terrible at self-care. Time blurs together and I lose track of just when I last showered or did I brush my teeth this morning or not? I have such low energy that I run out of spoons just trying to get through the day doing the bare minimum. I plan to do things like exercise and drink more water than coffee. I find myself failing on a regular basis and it hurts. I expect for Freyr and Loki to be mad at me for this. I was raised in a toxic environment where failure was punished severely and when I am depressed I project this expectation of punishment onto Freyr, Loki, and Beloved. At the same time, I feel terribly guilty for projecting this expectation and feel more depressed over it, as if I'm broken.

Freyr, Loki, and Beloved all tell me the same thing: You're not broken, you're injured. Beloved phrases it as "You can't run on a broken leg. And it's not like you broke your leg on purpose. Woo, look at me having fun in crippling pain. Stop trying to run on your broken leg." Loki usually says something along the lines of "You have battle fatigue. You need to rest and recover before you can fight some more." Freyr just tells me to hang on. No matter how depressed I get, he tells me to hold on and be patient because it will pass.

It's the middle of the afternoon and I'm exhausted. Send coffee pls?

 I have been struggling with depression. It makes me feel like my brain is gelatinous and I'm trying to think through mud. One may ask, how does depression impact spiritual activity? It's a good question and I'll try to answer it. It is like being wrapped up in a wet wool blanket that covers your face and ears along with everything else. You can sort of perceive what is going on but it is difficult and the information is garbled.

For this reason, I put of doing tarot readings for myself when I am in this state because I just stare at the pretty pictures and wonder why I am not getting anything from the cards. If the depression is mild, I can still read for other people with relatively high accuracy. But for myself or a situation that I am close to (like how to move forward after abandoning Keen's platform) is really difficult because the impressions are clouded and colored by my depression. I tend to take a fatalistic approach to the reading, or I just get gibberish.

If I am in a state of panic, all bets are off. I am too caught up in my anxiety to think clearly about mundane things never mind anything mystical. Combine panic with depression and my brain chemistry soup is toxic. It is just a bad time in my head because I can't get out of the past trauma that plays on repeat in a loop of flashbacks. It's bitterly ironic that severe depression is a trigger for my PTSD. If I'm at that place, I'm useless for anything magical or spiritual because I'm locked into a fight/flight state. At best, I can accomplish a prayer to Deity to help me get out of that state.

I'm not as bad as I used to be because I have a great psychiatrist who works with me. He has helped me avoid the really bad depressive episodes that trigger my PTSD hard core. He also doesn't judge me on my spirituality or anything else like that. Having a support like that is beyond worth its weight in gold.  A good support system when you are depressed is like a good support system when you're sick in any other way. Having caring people who try to understand and help you through your period of weakness is pure magic. People who remind you to do the mundane self-care things that you might forget in the fog of illness and can do little tasks like help out with the dishes once in a while is enormously helpful. Virtual support networks from friends on-line are just as helpful. They can give you that extra push to go to therapy on the day where you're honestly not sure if you have the spoons for it. They can listen and give good advice on how to resolve the brain fog related problems that pop up (like staring into your fridge for about 10 minutes wondering how on earth you're going to make dinner when you have sandwich fixings).

And, don't forget, you also have your spiritual support network as well. Brain fog may have eaten where you put your car keys but the Good Folk that have taken a shine to you may put them in the most obvious place ever for you to literally trip over them. Gods can do wondrous things but sometimes the biggest miracle of the day is them granting you the endurance to get through when you are at the end of your rope.

Seasonal Affective Disorder Sucks.

 Dear Reader,

I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. This is also known as seasonal depression. It's such a lame disorder that the acronym in SAD. This and my most recent Bipolar depressive episode has been getting in the way of my accomplishing much of anything on any front right now. I feel pretty awful, to be honest. It's been bringing up some trauma memories on top of it all. I'm doing my best but I feel like my best isn't good enough.

Scumbag brain is telling me that sharing this is a vain attempt to get the internet to throw me a pity party. (Quips from my ancient past arising again, yay complex post-traumatic stress disorder.) But, I've got two deities leaning on me saying that I should talk about this. Something about mental health is not a stigma and it'll help me push through the lies that are being recycled on loop in my head about it.

I grew up in a household that didn't believe that mental illness was real. They decided that depression was laziness and anxiety was being a drama whore. It was harsh, especially as I hit puberty and depression got really bad. I still struggle with the concepts that were (in some cases literally) beaten into to me. When I get depressed, I have a hard time seeing that my value is more than what I can produce or what the sum total of my parts may be on the black market. It's been part of a mental loop that I've had stuck in my head since about the age of ten.

I am not suicidal. I am still taking my medications and they are helping. But the medications are not "happy pills" they are just enough to keep my depression from sinking so low that I start having problems with psychosis. Because my flavor of Bipolar II comes with psychotic features. I don't have psychosis symptoms when I am manic but when I'm very severely depressed. And then, it is reliving the abuse that I grew up with. It's auditory hallucinations that get so realistic that I could swear that the person speaking is standing right behind me one foot to the left. Due to how much I was gaslighted as a kid, I reality test anything weird that happens. So, if I am sitting with my back against a wall and I'm having a hallucination, I know it's not real because there is a wall behind me.

I have been told that my ability to distinguish when I am having hallucinations is highly unusual. I had a brief period where I thought they were real. Then life circumstances changed and I realized with horror that what I had thought was neighbors screaming in the next apartment over was a hallucination. It just got worse from there and I had times where I was shaking from the effort to ignore the hallucination and continue on with my day. I'm not at that point in my depression right now, thank gods. I fear having hallucinations and the prospect of being hospitalized again due to depression.

Right now, I'm pushing forward on the grim hope that things will get better. I tell myself every night before I go to sleep that tomorrow will be better than today. I try to make it happen. It's exhausting. Some days, I don't get very much done at all. Other days, I have the energy to do the bare minimum. But I wake up everyday with the intent to come on here and post. It's just been really hard to find the energy and the mental focus to do so. Please bear with me as I am working through this.

My Tarot Reading Service Has Changed.

 Dear Reader,

If you are looking for a tarot reading from me, please don't use Keen. Due to changes in how they do business, I am literally losing money just signing in to do readings. I'm still in the process of deciding if I am going to go with another telephone psychic's service or not. I am currently very frustrated because I had been working with Keen since 2007 and their recent predatory business practices have driven me away from a platform I enjoyed using. 

If you are using Keen as a client and your favorite advisor has functionally doubled their rates it isn't because they're trying to price gouge you. It is because Keen's now bumped up how much they take from advisors in fees to the point that it is approximately 80 cents on the dollar. Yes, you read that correctly. If you're looking for a service to work with to find clients don't let Keen fool you by their articles about how good their psychics are or how long they've been around. Keen of today is dramatically different from Keen of 2007. 

I am still more than happy to do tarot readings. Currently, it would be via email with payment on paypal. If you are looking for a tarot reading, please don't hesitate to contact me. A basic Celtic Cross spread starts at $20.00 and includes a lot of details such as explaining what each card position means and what clarifying cards are put down with each position as needed. If you have any questions, please contact me at cydira13(at)yahoo.(com). Obviously, remove the parenthesis, they're there just incase bots are looking to spam me.

Video ??? - Thoughts on Clergy in Paganism

There is no transcript for today's video because I just haven't the proverbial spoons to write everything out multiple times and make the video. I will, however, summarize the main points of my video. The Christian model of how clergy works is not how it worked in antiquity across world cultures. The modern argument that all pagan clergy should be performing their duties in the same fashion as the Christian clergy is nonsensical. In antiquity, there were three classes of clergy. The highest class remained in the temple and served deities directly. The intermediate class of clergy served to facilitate public ritual and make sure that the offerings of the general public were properly handled. The lowest class of clergy served to assist lay persons with their personal worship practices and provide spiritual guidance.

Modern pagan worship has seen a re-emergence of these three classes of clergy. As much as some member of the Filianic community may dislike it, the emergence of these three classes of clergy are happening here as well. The expectation that the clergy of non-Christian religions to serve the same function as Christian clergy does is not possible. The cultus of Christianity is built so that the clergy are the direct intermediaries for worshippers to access their deity. It is only in relatively modern times that the idea of a personal relationship with the Christian god has arisen. In pagan worship systems, that personal relationship with deity is the norm. 

The expectation in antiquity was if you had a question regarding your spiritual life, you performed divination on your own or sought out someone who was good at it to get answers. You didn't go to the clergy of your faith for spiritual direction unless the situation was dire. Most often, you went to them for assistance in performing public rituals of worship. The rest you handled on your own. That is why there is a history of people making offerings to deities like they're paying the mob to get something they want. 

Prayer was entirely different in antiquity. What would be considered to be vulgar in today's Christianized over-culture, was simply the norm. That's why there is graffiti at sites like Pompeii where someone wrote that they got screwed over by a deity and there is historical record of pagans doing things like threatening deities if they didn't get what they wanted. The relationship between worshipper and deity is far more personal and direct. The three classes of clergy that served deity directly, facilitated public rituals, and directed persons in the proper execution of private ritual is re-emerging across pagan belief systems because it is necessary.

And, as some in the Filianic community may hate to admit it, it is necessary in Filianism as well. The groundwork for this three tier structure was laid out early on. We can not expect one person to serve all three major functions. There simply is not enough time in the day. The Christian model of worship is based around a hierarchy of clergy that work together to fulfill all three functions. Filianism does not have that. Those who have attempted to take up the mantle of leadership and serve the higher functions of worship have stumbled and then vanished from the scene because of overload due to the fact that there is a lack of structure to support them in a model of worship that resembles Christianity.

Filianism is not Christianity. We should stop trying to force it to be like it and allow it to grow into what it was meant to be.

Taking a break from Edits to Visit With You!

 

I apologize, my dear Reader, for the lack of a transcript. This was very off the cuff. I give a quick update on how things have been over here. I talk a bit about how I am clergy and I can help you out if you need me. And I ask for your tricks to keep kids from photobombing videos.

Taking a break.

 Dear Reader,

Things are getting crunchy with the editing process. As such, I am taking a brief (1 week) break from blogging here so that I can get through edits. Aside from working on a new edition of the Clear Recital, I have another book that I am in the process of editing (from my fantasy series The Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar). It is my hope that spending this week focused on the Clear Recital, I can get it cleaned up and ready for beta readers by the end of the week. If you are interested in being one of my beta readers, please contact me. My email is cydira13(at)yahoo(dot)com. I have need of at least two beta readers. The window of time that I have open to reply to this request for beta readers is two weeks. Monday, October 19,2020, I will no longer be accepting offers to beta read. As a beta reader, you will get a .pdf of the raw version of the text. This will be yours to keep. Please do not distribute the .pdf you receive or publish it in part or whole. You will also be credited as part of the team working on this edition of the Clear Recital.

Line edits are driving me batty.

 Dear Reader,

I have the rough draft of the Clear Recital up on the editing block. I'm working to make the language easier to read and fix grammatical issues. It is slow going. There's a ton of comma splices and sentence fragments. I've been breaking things out of the prose that need to be put into different structure to make it easier to read (i.e. lists of attributes). I have mashed together all of the sources I could get my hands on and made a mess of the grammar in the process.

I'm almost finished with my second round of line edits. The first one was really rough and putting in sentence/verse numbers. I found mistakes in that and corrected them. The hardest section to work on wasn't the Holy Mythos, which I thought it would be. Nope, it was the Pillar of Light and the Heart of Water. It's a literal coin flip which one of those two texts was harder to edit.

Now, I'm not removing material from the wisdom texts. I'm changing phrasing and fixing things like run on sentences that last for over three lines. There's a lot of run on sentences. I am also updating some of the language because there are random bits with dated language that got carried over from the Aristasian version of the Clear Recital which I had to fix so it fit with the rest of the text.

There is two sections in the wisdom texts that I am adapting to reflect the modern social structures that we're living with. I have zero guilt about doing this because it is my understanding that the Clear Recital is a living document that must change and adapt with the changes and adaptations that happen for the community that references it. For example, there is very few households who can actually afford servants or staff of any sort. It's slow going, to be honest, because I have to make sure that the 'modernization' of the text is accurate. 

Note: If I see another sentence spliced together with a comma, I may just scream. There's just SO many.