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Pomegranate.
Dec. 30th, 2008 01:15 pmI've been contemplating menstrual cycles, seismic hormonal shifts, rage, darkness, and blood. I've always enjoyed bleeding a great deal, but the emotional earthquakes that accompany it can at times feel unbearable. It had begun to feel completely unnatural, these sudden cold plunges into insecurity, anger, depression, and desire. And each month presents itself so uniquely that I find it difficult to track or fend off.
That it felt unnatural was the thread I followed. When is the natural ever even? When is it ever smooth? It is quiet when it is hiding, and it is quiet when it is lying in wait. It is savage and protective, even when it is still.
I've met a great many pagans who worship some theoretical forest, some imagined field. I cannot. I worship the land that my boots walk. It is a land of good trash and broken glass, streets that I know and streets I do not, of underground rails, of glass towers that threaten the sky, of alleys, and drains, and hidden places. People get hurt in my city. People die. This city does not fuel or fund my magic. This city is my magic. And when I leave this city, if I wish to move with magic still, I must learn to listen and to speak to other lands.
Why then, if I claim to worship here and to worship now, do I insist on suppressing these things simply because they feel irregular, extreme, and unpleasant?
Will my anger erupt less forcefully when my blood calls it to do so if I more regularly allowed myself my rage? Will sadness refrain from crushing me if I explore it more honestly whenever I find it? Rather than suppressing these things, ought I to be owning them? I am honestly not sure that this will work. I explore my desires honestly more frequently than may be productive, and they still overwhelm me in ways that hurt in the days before I bleed.
Still.
I completely forgot to buy food yesterday, so today I cleared out my pantry in constructing lunch. I made lentils, some red onion sautéed in butter and red wine, some purple potatoes, and I mixed in the seeds from a pomegranate that was brought here on midwinter but never eaten. Red things, dark things, underground things, bleeding things: it's good underworld food.
That it felt unnatural was the thread I followed. When is the natural ever even? When is it ever smooth? It is quiet when it is hiding, and it is quiet when it is lying in wait. It is savage and protective, even when it is still.
I've met a great many pagans who worship some theoretical forest, some imagined field. I cannot. I worship the land that my boots walk. It is a land of good trash and broken glass, streets that I know and streets I do not, of underground rails, of glass towers that threaten the sky, of alleys, and drains, and hidden places. People get hurt in my city. People die. This city does not fuel or fund my magic. This city is my magic. And when I leave this city, if I wish to move with magic still, I must learn to listen and to speak to other lands.
Why then, if I claim to worship here and to worship now, do I insist on suppressing these things simply because they feel irregular, extreme, and unpleasant?
Will my anger erupt less forcefully when my blood calls it to do so if I more regularly allowed myself my rage? Will sadness refrain from crushing me if I explore it more honestly whenever I find it? Rather than suppressing these things, ought I to be owning them? I am honestly not sure that this will work. I explore my desires honestly more frequently than may be productive, and they still overwhelm me in ways that hurt in the days before I bleed.
Still.
I completely forgot to buy food yesterday, so today I cleared out my pantry in constructing lunch. I made lentils, some red onion sautéed in butter and red wine, some purple potatoes, and I mixed in the seeds from a pomegranate that was brought here on midwinter but never eaten. Red things, dark things, underground things, bleeding things: it's good underworld food.
