This is how it feels

To shake off the thickly caked rust that surrounds my joints, especially at neck, at wrists, a painful endeavor, one that tears and rips and moans with the chilling promise of pain and the bliss of release. Release - let go. Release - let go. It hurts, it hurts. Step by step I move through the pattern of my days, creaking, streaked with tears, lost, lovelorn, afraid. But I am augmented by Aphrodite's presence; I feel Her nearness even as I feel dreadfully, terribly alone.

It is always multiple things, never just one thing. I am too complex for that, too changed by my environment to expect otherwise. And so it has been a great long while since I've written and I must apologize for that. The election in the so-called United States last fall nearly took me down with despair, but I have tried to struggle up and out of that terrible and loathsome pit. I am sure it is understandable to many. And at the time I wondered... what does it mean to be a priest of love in a time of hate?

The moment to define that and act on it is now here. And I have no better answers than I did eight months ago. Oh, certainly it means to love and to love harder, to spread our joy, to nourish and nurture our bonds with one another so that we are a unified front against the dread forces of fascism, but I suppose that is not enough for me.

Maybe the real question I want, I need to know is this: how can a priest of love fight in this battle? In what ways? How can I be most effective with the resources at hand? To that end I have started exercising again, though at present I am pitifully weak. Yet my brain burns hotter and sharper than it ever did, and I feel capable of magic again. For all this time I have been in a free fall of questions and doubts; perhaps the clouds are clearing and more is being revealed.

I will own my queerness and share that queerness without shame, operating as a living, loving queer witch who can and will read tarot and provide spiritual support when needed by those who request it. That is what I can do, in part, in this great battle for decency and kindness and empathy and truth. We have to play to our strengths. I am a great listener and a compassionate person who understands so many plights and quirks and foibles. Aphrodite has blessed me with an enormous love for the people of the world. I can use that, I can help so many people.

But first, complete removal of all this dreadful rust is necessary. Reaching my feelers out into changing how I present is necessary. In fact, so much has changed since I drew back from the world eight months ago. Not everything is as it was, and I'm not just speaking of politics in this case. Vast changes have been made with every app and every business tool and they must all be relearned. I am fortunate to have the time and ability to work on this in myself, albeit slowly and with great care. I deserve no less.

And it's the same for you. You deserve the absolute best when it comes to taking good care of yourself. This is Aphrodite's most insistent message to me: self-care is one way to fight, no less noble than any other. Ritualize it, make of it a sacred time you spend with yourself, aiming to reach parity with your true inner spirit. When you need to, relax. Take a breath. Take a bath. Read a book. Plant some flowers. Volunteer at a library. See if you can attend local protests. Express your anger, your fear, your unbridled fury at what is being done to literally everything and everyone in this gods-rotted country. We all must find our parts and play them with skill, if we're to make it out of this. The chances are not great. Everything is stacked against us. But if we are brave and true, if we do the right thing, we can topple this regime. We can survive it.

We have to. We are calling in the next world to be born, and our voices are needed now more than ever.

--

Aphrodite wills the strength of love into us, into our cells. Into the organelles. Into the molecules. Beyond the atoms into a different sort of universe held within us. It will bolster; She will bolster us. Areia sing and Your deadly sword will be at the throat of the adversary, out of protection, out of compassion, out of strength, our own steel mettle.

Finely woven and impervious, we will find our mettle tested again and again in these days. This will come to be natural and part of the new normal but none of us will appreciate it. The tired will become the weary. But She infuses us with what we need to go on, to lift up off our knees, to walk again, to run, to chase the enemy screaming into the cold night with our steaming fervor. We will learn to tame the lion in many ways. We will grab his great head, press our foreheads to his, connect feline to human to spirit to soul.

Areia rise and fill our blood with righteous fire! Give us the bodies to endure it! For it is hot and it is difficult to control, hard to know. Let it flow and let it go. Think on the things that make you feel strong and bring more of them into your life. Comb through experiences and use unconventional means to deal with existential threats. There is hope. There is always hope. Aphrodite promises it; it will be so. But we are expected to be fighters, each in our own way. We are being prepared for it. Slowly the world shapes us into things we never imagined we'd be. Stay flexible and do not calcify. We've got this. We've got this. Freak out when you need to. Scream for five minutes. Then get to work.

We are stronger than they are, we are more vital, more real.

I love you dearly.

XO,

J