Temple Oracle

She unpacks bags of dirt and tells me how deep she would like the old soil, the new soil, and the magic begins. She has pansies, and I have herbs. Curry plant, rosemary, chives, basil and cilantro all give a sad smile from having spent two days drying out. They were being acclimated to the Alaska weather. I have spent the last six months acclimating to Alaska.

I aerate, mix, aerate, even out soil. I breathe in the sun, the soil, her smile. I breathe in, and let it all out. I have acclimated, I am home. After six months, we have decided we are staying.

It seemed very prudent and adult. And, in the end, I think it was the right choice. I had already packed all of my worldly belongings into a storage building, helping bookshelves hover in midair over storage boxes and a television screen. We did the math – between NYC storage unit rent for a year and the cost of one or two trips to visit my stuff, it was cheaper to move everything up rather than keep it all there.

The prudent part of it was the deal that it was a six month experiment. That we might be intermingling our households, but I wouldn’t get rid of much that I brought, and that we’d keep most of the boxes (that had not been too damaged in transport). That if six months passed and I could not do Alaska, or she could not live with me, or visa versa… we could ship me and my world back to the lower 48. That there was no harm in that choice either – that going back to being long distance was an option on the table. Because Butterfly and I are both pretty good at being hermits in our own right. But we have turned out to be pretty good hermits together as well.

A week ago I broke down the boxes, and we moved them to an attic that I spent the time to re-organize. I build the storage shelves I had brought with me, and her holiday decorations are now easy to find, to pull down. We got rid of the old golf clubs. I painted the porch and touched up the side of the house.

Six months in a life has flown by so fast. In two lives. In a world-wide web of friends, family, and more

I moved out of my apartment in Brooklyn in July, relocating to Queens. From there I roamed, and finally ended here. Before it shipped, Jeff Mach and his boy Alex came and claimed my TV and shelves… because they rock, and because I put a call out on social media. Social media is a blessing to me – on the road, in Alaska, in having woven a web worldwide of spiritual seekers, old lovers, friends, allies, kinksters, faeries, primal radicals, queer activists, family, leather folk, pagans, spirit workers, heart kin. It keeps me feeling closer. It keeps me locked into you as well – a collective place called home.

I am also home. I swept up the garage. I water the herbs each morning, painting a pentacle in the soil with my wand/sprinkler can. We looked at flooring, and recently bought some bamboo. We bought a porn DVD together (one of the ways perverts know they are together is shared, signed, porn).

Home continues to be this amorphous, curious thing for me.

You are home. You are in your web.

At Dark Odyssey Surrender this year, we wove a web. It was inspired by/copied from the work that Lady Pandion, Skywalker and I did at Circles of Kink down in Florida. A giant circle of hemp rope strung around the room, with each person holding onto it. Before entering, each person chose a bundle of yarn on a yarn-card (that I had made and bundled in advance, with a few helpers), and told to visualize on that yarn all of what they want to bring to the event, and are hoping from the event. One at a time (then two at a time, then four), folks entered the circle. The rule? Any time you cross a line, you wrap around it, knot to it, or catch it in some way.

Over, under, around and through they danced. Spider ballet clad in leather and lingerie. A deep breath, a slow grind, laughter and sighs. We move and shake, and as each red crosses an orange, each orange a blue, the web shakes. Shakes with our breaths, grinds, laughter and sighs.

We each touch one another. Even if we do not know it, or know how.

The web hung on the wall throughout the weekend, and at the end, folks at the closing ritual danced it, and took a piece home. The rest bundled up, twisted up, and was placed on the altar once more. One of the producers then took it home, to let its ashes fly, with the blessings having been danced. Blessings asked to dance and ripple out, as the world called for them.

You never know how you touch someone. You never know how the ripples land.

You are my grandmother, having painted when you were in Turkey. You are a silkscreen artist in Bali I have never met. You are the Olan Mills photographer who took the picture of my parents and I, when I was still in lilac lace. You are Jody Bergsma, calling forth Bear. You surround me. You are in my web.

You are the girl who I bit in elementary school when you and your friends had beat me up. You are the boy I made out to while listening to Phantom of the Opera for the first time. You are the girl who fisted me when she was drunk, while I was in a strait jacket, who did not recall having done so the next morning. You are the old woman who I met at the bus stop on the way to TNG in NYC. You have shaped me. You are in my web.

You are my silent tears at the bus stop. You are leathers draped in history. You are my songs etched with memory. You are whispers and secrets in the middle of the night. You are stories proclaimed upon the wind. You are my web.

I sweep away the cobwebs in the corner, and remove the last remnants of the vole who tried to move in before I did. We take the dogs for a hike, and wonder why, yet again, we have allowed our golden retriever to douse herself in mud. Butterfly kisses me on the cheek on the way into the kitchen. You are my web.

Anchorage is beautiful. Highs and lows, depth and discovery, healing and hope, The Blacklist and bumps along the way, great food and delicious nights. Anchorage is beautiful. You are part of my web.

I am in my web. Ready to catch my dreams.

I have, after all, caught so many already. You. You, my web.

My deals with divinity have come in so many forms over the years, but tonight I am thinking about lights and discernment. My word of the year of clarity, and clarity keeps pouring out across my skin like the waters of Aquarius, the the waters of the maiden, like a sea of stars falling from her starry cunt, her starry thighs from which the universe exploded out of her mighty womb.

Bear owns my ass. I am hers, locked and collared and claimed, by my own choices and by the growl on the back of my neck. Three vows by word, by mark, by blood. Three twists and turns and my forehead down on the ground, her pelt around me, her scull lit with incense as I prostate myself before her. Her body so large that it blacks out the starry night sky. She moves and her fur is lit with dew. She moves and I am wet beneath her. She is Mother and I am child and son and daughter and monster and bear cub. I am hers and I am Hers and I am claimed and I am free for this is truth, my place, here on the dirt before her, here on the dirt beside her, here curled up in Her massive paws. I pour out my blood, and she pours out her light. I hunt with her grace. I open up my vessel and she acts through my claws. I open doorways in her name. I collect keys in her name. I am her emissary, and am nothing, because there is nothing wrong with being nothing.

When I became hers, we worked on a system, because I work for Others as well. I have danced with Trash (one person’s trash is another person’s treasure); I have tread under the cloven hooves of Baphomet and Gorson; I have bowed my head before the powerful grace of Hera; I have brought Isis a beer as an act of service that the great Goddess deserved. I used to say She deserved so much more than me, but She has since corrected my folly in believing the act of bringing a beer and a tray of dried fruit somehow is lowly. As I bow my head low, it is a powerful gift, one that She wanted, and thus deserved.

I speak the names of those who allow me to, and keep silent lips to the names of those who have asked otherwise.

When asked to do the work of others, it is like being rented out. And I no longer hang the shingle off the back of my head that says “FOR RENT.” I am not available unless I or I AM (that is I am she is he is they and we are all together, three souls in one, three cauldrons in alignment, vivi/emi/ori as the I AM) or my Matron/Owner says otherwise. But to know the difference requires clarity.

Clarity. The word echoes again. I stand beside myself again, tie the threads together. Sex and kink and spirit and authenticity. University and books and sweat and cum. Open heart and closed doors and silent mystery that none need see.

I see myself typing as she leans down and urges me onward. It is not disassociation when I am fully present. My body is here with me and we are one. I am one, fully and wholly in alignment. I know the rose above me, and I am following my path, and my path dances the fingers forward across the keyboard. I am in the temple of an open living room on a cold winter night, role playing game books and a box of Dr. Pepper.

When I asked for signal clarity years ago, I was gifted with a Work light. I did not know to call it that until another spirit worker called it by that term, and I smiled in recognition. When something is mine to take on, that my essence or my Owner knows it to be part of my purpose on this planet, the Work light goes off.

I often curse my Work light. Why the hell do I have to travel to do that when I would rather be at home? Why do I need to fall in love here and have my heart broken afterwards, and see it coming? Why do I need to sleep with them? Why do I need to, for no “particular reason,” get up from the table, say I’ll be back, walk a few blocks, follow a cat, break into a construction site leaving the gate open, and then head back for desert?

Why? Because the Work light is on.

And no… no work lights of love sort are on right now, for my dear ones who might be asking right now. But when they have happened… that have been such a profound blessing on my life in the long run, and I am grateful, now, for each and every one.

Because the Work light is a sign that I am on the right path, for it is a gift from divinity. I had to go to that seemingly random gig that I didn’t really want to do because one person wrote me years later and told me how my words (not even to them, funny enough) had changed their lives, and in turn had a ripple effect to other lives. Because I needed to remind the next person of the power they had in their capacity to leave someone when it wasn’t right, rather than being the one who always clung on in desperation. Because I was there to show someone how important it is to respect their gut instincts. Because, in the last case, I ran into a group of homeless guys, and was able to tell them where an open construction site had a place with a roof they could hide from the coming storm in for a night.

I am not saying in any way that in some cosmic jigsaw puzzle that I have some sort of mighty powers. I do not consider myself an all-powerful indigo star child born to lead the universal pattern into alignment. I just do my Work when it happens.

It makes some of the folks in life a bit nutty, because there are times I take gigs that make “no sense” financially, that I need to spend six hours in devotional prayer, that I have to give away yet another drum. Actually, on the last one, I was finally able to make a deal that I don’t have to buy any more drums, and thus don’t have to give away any more drums. My Owner might make demands on me, but she is incredibly reasonable in the long run.

But my life is not my Work light going off. I am guided by my journey, my Quest, my path, my great Work. I believe we all have a path, a journey, a sacred contract as Caroline Myss might call it. I believe we each have a reason to be, even if some of those reasons and contracts might not be so sexy or elegant or even what we “want” in the short term, or hell, in the medium or even long term. The world is not some happy fluffy perfect thing. But I believe it happens for some sort of cosmic overarching “I don’t really get why but, yeah, it’s what I believe” sort of way. This of course sucks as a belief, because it infers that I believe rape and genocide happen for a reason. I struggle with this, and have little of interest in debating it right now, but thank you for being present with your own beliefs if it triggers you. My faith is not about hurting you or challenging your beliefs.

I have two other lights, as a note. One is what I call my Black-light. It makes things look pretty and beautiful under it, like black lights in a dance club, but I now know that when that light turns off and the light of day comes back on, I will be in a crappy ass warehouse that is filthy and that I really don’t want to be stuck in. The other is the Blue-light, you know, like blue-light specials at K-Mart. It is here, now, on sale, shiny, good… but only here and now. Accept it, enjoy it, but this is not for long-term.

Not all of my lights are perfect, because I as a human am imperfect. When the Work light goes off saying to go to that event, that’s what I have. I don’t have details. Those are called human will. That is called independent action.

But discernment when working with my lights is important. Am I interpreting a message to the fullest of my capacity? When the memo says that something needs done, does it mean that it needs done now, does it mean that it needs done… but anyone can do it? That it may not be my own job, but that I am just there to deliver the telegram?

Being egotistical in the past, I have had windows where I thought I knew what certain Work lights meant, but in reality – never checked. I just assumed that I knew what something meant. As I work towards clarity, I have been coming to realize in the past few months that just because someone tells you something, it does not mean that you understand.

The problem with communication, after all, is our assumption that it is happening.

Repeat it back in your own words. Try doing it once in front of me. Make lists and notes, while it is fresh in your mind. Do it over and over again, until your body knows the knowledge. Ask questions. I say these things to students all the time. I teach from different approaches so that different folks pick up the knowledge. So why not, gasp, apply it to my own spirit working?

So tonight I am on a white leather couch, sitting with lights and discernment. I am curled up in front of a heater, and I am oddly smiling, yet fearful as I prep to send this out.

And then I breathe. And then I sit in reflection. And then I feel her claws tracing slowly op my spine, and her paw along the back of my neck, and I remember why.

We stood two or three feet away from the scene, and were watching. The person before us was sitting on a chair, their hands lashed into wrist cuffs with a grip on them, the cuffs lashed to a giant chain spiderweb. An 8g lock ran through their septum piercing, attached to a chain, and the chain also was attached in turn to the same web. The top had their throat on the bottom’s neck, claws running down over their skin.

I looked over at the older woman next to me, and we looked back at the scene. All three of us were me.

I was the bottom. I was myself, standing and watching the scene. I was the woman, long gray hair, standing at my side. We were one and we were three, and in the immortal words of the Beatles, we were all together.

She turned to me and asked me what I was doing. That I didn’t really want to be in the scene, that it wasn’t working for me, so why was I there. I spun tales of how long it had been since I had gotten to bottom. Of how much I had wanted to be chained up by my nose. And yet, and yet I understood. She and I talked about how I was disassociating, and that that was a sign that it really wasn’t working for me, now was it?

Your erection, your wet cunt, they are part of a gift, she said. When she said it, she was not talking about my phsyical reactions, though that was part of it. My/our engagement in reality, my being fully present, my being passionate, my being here, now, now… it is a gift. When my body and essence reacts, it is because my flesh knows something that my mind may not be aware of. It is like wandering through a produce isle, and my body stopping in front of the oranges, or carrots. My hand reaches out and picks one up.

It is not because I think I want a carrot, or orange. It is because my body knows I need that thing inside me. That it is part of me thriving as a creature. When I am hard, am wet, am present, am engaged – it is because my body knows I need that experience. That it is part of my path, my best good, my truth. This is what she/me was telling me.

She asked me why I was settling. But she was not talking about the scene that was clearly not working for me, as I stood a few feet away and watched fist blows landing on my unmoving body. My pale skin was turning pink, and my breath alternated in time with the top before me, who was playing with my body in ways that I have liked in similar ways before. I stood a few feet away, and listened as she asked why I was settling… because I do, so often.

I want to get laid. I want to play. I have these thoughts, these hungers, these desires. And yet, I know that I keep gravitating towards junk food play, interaction. That is not to say that the scene was not hot conceptually. It is not that it was not what I wanted. But it was not what would nourish me in that moment.

I shove a chocolate bar in my mouth, when really what my being needs is to get up, have a glass of water, journal for a while, have a good conversation with others, read a book, go for a walk. Why do I shove the chocolate bar in my mouth? Because it is full of tasty tasty sugars. Because the story of the chocolate bar is what I want. Because my tongue becomes happy. Because…

My reality is “because” does not nourish me

When my battery is on low, I settle for the amazing chocolate bar before me. It is amazing, beautiful, tasty… but it is not the nourishing kale and tofu salad with basalmic garlic dressing and that glass of carrot/orange juice that leaves my whole being smiling. If is not a single piece of dark chocolate melting on my tongue.

The being whose lips taste of hard cider becomes a single piece of dark chocolate sliding between my lips, a night later, and I remember the lesson. Deep conversations, good music, shared truths, and a perfect kiss on a cold night.

I watch the scene again, chains frozen in space, breaths silent and still. The world pauses, and she and I continue to talk. As I AM who is myself who is my higher power stands there beautiful, she asks me why.

Love. Truth. Capacity.

I try to come back and do not succeed. I stare on as the body does not move, pain somewhere in the scene that the body has turned off from experiencing, as I watch on. My lips finally move as I begin to slip back in, my flesh an old friend I am curling up with in bed. I curl up behind me, big spoon for my own little spoon.

My lips speak of the fact that I have been gone. My lips speak of wanting to say I am sorry, but knowing that it is not true. My top understands with such grace, and we share thoughts on connection rather than play as I try to come back. Two spoons start to settle into the drawer of my self.

It is two nights later, and I am sitting on a leather couch, in front of a heater, and she is smiling behind me on the couch, curled up like a big spoon, with me as the little spoon.

I have a story that I am a top. I have a story that I am a bottom. I have a story that I like sex. I have a story that I am a hedonist. I have a story that I am an ecstatic body practitioner. I have a story that I am a good friend. I have a story that I am a writer. I have a story that I am a teacher. I have a story that I dance with mental health. I have a story that I am fearful at times. I have a story that I am powerful. I have a story that I like to travel. I have a story that I can’t do it. I have a story that I can do it. I have a story. I have a story.

She curls up with a book next to me on the couch, and lets me sit with it. She is now and future and past, and she is he and beyond. She’s in a warm black robe and a flowing blood red night gown. Her gray hair is pinned back, and wears rings on most of her fingers. I want to know what she is reading, but I know it is none of my business.

My friend who is my teacher through being on the path that he is on and I am on the path that I am on and I am sitting with him for two days and I were talking. That our passion and bodies and flesh are profound tools, but that not everyone has the discernment to know when it is a hard on, and when it is a truth-on. I speak the word truth-on, and my cock leaps.

I want to wake up into my truth-ons. I open my third eye and turn back and look at her next to me and she smiles, kisses me on the lips, and thanks me as her wife. I am married to myself after all. It can be a tumultuous open relationship at times, but she and I have learned to sit while I type and she reads, while he reads, while we sit in silence together. While I listen to Omar Faruk Tekbilek and think of mango juice, and she remembers the moment where I first danced to this music too. My body remembers it, we all lick our lips, and I go back to typing.

I am she and she is me and my flesh is me and we are all together.

My feet freeze on the path
eyes blinking
at the sun in your eyes

Boxed up around me a life of lives
ready to spring
ready to spring

Bones and postcards
light my way
leading me back in time

Wrap me up
take me home
to a tomorrow to come
warm under the altar
of your heart

You are
at the end
of the steel lines
drawing us together
brown eyes
glistening
in the snow

Flashing
eyes white
you urge me on
staring back
staring back

Hearts
open wide
on the ice

My hand runs along the ground, dirt under my fingerpads. Long hair catches the wind, and I turn away for a moment as my fingers make contact. White flashes underneath, catches my eye.

Catching my eye, my fingers dust away the layer of dirt over the veins beneath me. I knew they were there, but never looked and saw. I knew they were there, pulsing white, pulsing white. I knew they were there, pulsing white.

Dust me away from the chaff. I find the white and my fingers make contact. Body locks in place, eyes wide, eyes white, pulsing white. Solid white, lips white, skin white, lungs locked, white. Without breath, the frame dies my mind flashes. I urge my fingers away. I pry my fingers away. I pray my fingers away. My hand pulls free, shaken and inspired.

To tap into the limitless, there is a need for capacity.

Let me gauge up. Let me become a conduit, a vessel, worthy of the work.

Let me run my fingers along the dirt, and breathe in white.

My heart is yours. My hands are yours. My feet are yours. My skin is yours. My lips are yours. My eyes are yours. My ears are yours. My bones are yours. My breath is yours. My blood is yours. My life is a gift to you, as long as you will have me.

My heart is yours. It beats in a pattern that will keep doing your Work on this plane. It echoes our your rhythm. I offer out my heart to you, blessed mother, blessed mother.

My hands are yours. Let me craft reality in a way that does your Work on this plane. Let me pen words and works in your honor. Let me caress those with wounded hearts. May my hands do the work of healing, destruction, and creativity in your honor. I offer out my hands to you, blessed mother, blessed mother.

My feet are yours. Whether I treat one mile or one million miles, I do so to enable your Work on this plane. Take me to where I am meant to be, even if I do not understand the purpose at first. Tired or rejoicing, or rejoicing in my exhaustion, my steps walk for you. I offer out my feet to you, blessed mother, blessed mother.

My skin is yours. The sensations of the wind across my pelt is the sensations of the world across your pelt. My sensual experiences and suffering alike are gifts to your Work on this plane. I offer up my skin to you, blessed mother, blessed mother.

My lips are yours. With the words I speak, I do so to do your Work on this plane. Each kiss, each piece of food consumed, each sip of clean water that passes through is an offering to you. I offer up my lips to you, blessed mother, blessed mother.

My eyes are yours. Every image I bear witness to you, I do so as part of your Work on this plane. Every vision through the veil, every piece of art I observe, everything I see that shakes me to the core, I take in for you. I offer up my eyes to you, blessed mother, blessed mother.

My bones are yours. My body to the core I upkeep as part of your Work on this plane. Let my body be a temple to your endeavors, let my devotion be felt to the core. After my flesh has faded away, my bones that are left are left in your honor. I offer up my bones to you, blessed mother, blessed mother.

My breath is yours. Each moment I inhale, each scent I smell, everything that escapes my lungs I breathe as part of your Work on this plane. Let the winds echo through my being, let me craft the winds that echo through others. I offer up my breath to you, blessed mother, blessed mother.

My blood is yours. Pulsing crimson from my heart to my fingers, from my bones to my lips, my blood courses through me as part of your Work on this plane. I offer up my blood to you, blessed mother, blessed mother.

As you wrap your fur around me, I give thanks to you.

I give thanks.

I am yours.

I am yours, on this side of the veil or beyond.

The campfire dims down, as I cradle her in my arms. Chest to chest, breath to breath, sparks rise between us. Eyes lock to eyes, shaking back and forth. Moans escape lips, and we dig down deep, we dance.

My fangs sink in. Gods yes, I yes, fill me up. Fill me up. I pull her tight, and give back the gift. Screams erupt in the sparks between us. Growls and feral truths. Dance with me, dance with me.

Over the past year, I have done comparatively little energy play. I used to do a lot, but since I got sick last summer, I pulled back. Doubt and low energy reserves to start with, my inner self shriveled up. My spiritual practices fell by the wayside as I shook inside. Fears of my Goddess having left me.  Shaking in the loneliness as drop by drop my inner light fell behind a shade.

Moments would erupt out from the darkness of my spirit. Moments, and then back into the shade. Back into the shade.

The past two weeks, hope rekindles full form. I had felt times in the past year where the shade broke- pentacles coursing through my body and my lips tingling with potential, with truth, with life and spark. But two weeks ago a beast crawled out from the muck and the mire and into my claws. Dirt became mud became sighs and the gift of breath. They opened up their heart and I ate heartily.

I am an ethical psychic vampire. I have been for most of my life. Michelle Belanger argues that there are those of us who spend more energy than our bodies produce. That we need juice, energy, prana, mana, essence to be able not just to keep going, but to be emotionally, energetically and physically healthy. I walk the path of Priest, and hear their truths ring out in my ears.

But the advice I gave to another psi-vamp was unheeded by my own ears. I lay in my own shade and could not crawl up to feed. Stories of worth and how much work it would be, a literal “starvation mentality,” blocked my way. I wither, I shrink in.

And you know what? Folks can tell. Not just on my body, but how I walk in the world. When I fill up, I stand taller, I can grant my help to others, I can serve my purpose on the planet.  My weakness serves no one.

We each have times in the shade. What do you need to enter the light of your own being, or dance in the full moon rays?

I open up to bared necks and open hearts who believe in me. They are under my boot. They are wrapped in my arms. Their scales pass under my claws. Feathers brush across my cheeks.

My beloved looks in my eyes, and sees me again. We dive in and remember why we were here to begin with, because each of us are actually here and present to be part of it.

Hope pulses down my throat.

Wrapped in my arms, we dance. We write and bite and fuck and dream. We speak taboo words, or no words at all. We open up, and spiral towards the heaven.

Dance.

Dance.