#I care about others but I also care about myself. christianity told me to sacrifice myself. to burn myself on a pyre of divinity

[neverendingford]

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[greenmansgrove]

When the Morrigan Calls an Atheist

Originally published in The Connexus of Reformed Druidry, Midwinter 2023. Sharing to my personal blog for the purposes of reaching a wider audience.

I consider myself an atheist druid. I do not believe in the existence of any gods, and I have a strong aversion to organized religion in the face of cultural Christianity and the US’s modern political climate regarding the separation of church and state, or lack thereof. I won’t lie about my still holding those aversions, including to those who consider themselves Christian druids–identities that seem at odds, given Christianity’s historic colonialism and its methodical destruction of indigenous cultures worldwide. But I have Reformed Druidry to thank for my efforts at pluralistic acceptance. I thank, too, my involvement in the LGBTQ+ community. A quote within the Bisexual Manifesto from Anything That Moves: Beyond the Myths of Bisexuality (1990) sticks with me: “There are as many definitions of bisexuality as there are bisexuals.” For the bisexual community, this frame of mind is an important one in the face of historical, systemic, and even internalized biphobia, where one is continually told to “prove” their bi-ness, that having preferences means they aren’t “actually” bi, or that marrying someone who isn’t the same gender as you means it’s a “straight-passing” relationship. Using this understanding, I am able to move much more quickly past questioning one’s labels and into acceptance of and trust for the ways one understands themselves. If a druid can be a Christian, then maybe an atheist can devote themselves to a god…

And so what does an atheist druid do when the Morrigan calls? What does the call of The Morrigan sound like to someone who wants absolutely nothing to do with gods, nor to be associated with theolatry, even if the gods invoked in the RDNA can be interpreted as aspects of nature or Jungian archetypes in the collective unconscious of humanity? Can the gods call to an atheist in the first place? These are questions I ask even myself after having been initiated as an Acolyte of the Order of the Morrigan this past October.

I knew very firmly when I began my druidic studies in May of 2022 that I would be approaching my practice as an atheist. I sought plainly to learn about druidry, celebrate the High Days, and enjoy nature in ways that I used to growing up. Studying druidry, like some study Buddhist philosophy, was a way for me to integrate my desire for intellectual growth, my care for my health, and my political activism. Intertwining all three helps me to live my life holistically and intentionally. My druidic practice consists of learning about plants, animals, and various religions and their gods not as a way to collect knowledge, but to understand the worldviews and lessons that cultures both living and dead have to teach. As a result, I deepen my empathy for others and for myself. I find studying divination to be especially enjoyable, and I even find it useful as an atheist. I think that suspending disbelief is a healthy practice, if not a pleasant diversion. I also see it as an aid to a busy mind. Divination can be helpful in not only listening to one’s intuition, but finding focus where there is chaos. When I am feeling emotionally distraught or when I am struggling to make a choice, I love doing Ogham readings. Whether picking a singular stave or placing a full spread, my divinations help me surrender decision fatigue and cold logic in favor of the imagination, creativity, and serendipity.

Thus, I believe the Morrigan first began “calling” me when my Elder Ogham stave fell off my altar in October 2022. Without noticing, it snapped beneath my boot in my rush out the door. I struggled to attach meaning to what had happened – a fun exercise I set upon myself. Elder is associated with protection, healing, cycles of death and rebirth, and even sacrifice. Had my Elder stave “protected” me from something? Had I or would I sleight someone, causing the “death” of a relationship? What else might be dying and be reborn, or even interrupted in that process, as symbolized by the break? Was there a sacrifice I was being asked to make? I did not know, and no answer came. I replaced the stave in my collection and burned the broken, unfixable stave as part of my sacrifice later that Samhain. Things were quiet in the months ahead, but then over and over again, the names and their various spellings associated with the Morrigan would appear before me in reading, in passing, in meeting people. And in my nature walks, I kept spying plants that I would later discover to be associated the Morrigan, often in unexpected places or forms I did not immediately recognize until using an identification app.  Chiefly among those was Elder, both red and black varieties native to the US, as well as hawthorns and nightshades.

All the while, and since beginning my druidic studies in May 2022, I was dealing very strongly with some grief. I’d hit the point where existing in my grief was beginning to weigh on me and frustrate me. I did not know how to move on. I did not know how to stop wallowing or what actions to take to make a difference. I was ready to enter that big “acceptance” stage that everyone talked about, but which I’d only experienced fleetingly or only logically but not emotionally. Studying druidry was one of the ways I hoped to find some method of managing my grief and finding joy again. It was working, but the grief still held me quite tightly moving into 2023.

When I finally caught the pattern of the Morrigan’s names and plants appearing in my life, I began my research. What could those appearances mean? Why was my brain picking up on those patterns? What tied them together?

In the three dark moons since dawning my devotional pendant, I am, naturally, still seeking the answers to those questions. I find these exercises of logic and imagination more entertaining than anything serious to pursue, but I can at least describe what I’ve gotten out of the experience thus far. A simple start to an answer might be that I relate to the ideas, the images, the lore, and the messages of the Morrigan.  She is a peacemaker as much as She is a warmaker. Through Her many incarnations, She has survived and overcome adversity and grief of all kinds. She knows what it means to be more than how others perceive you. I can appreciate what She has come to mean for women, queer individuals, and survivors of all kinds in the modern era, and it is that mutability of Her image between the past and in the present that also draws me to Her. Transformation and change, including to those of the current times, seems right up Her alley. Hers are qualities I would like to see in myself.

When Elder appeared to me on my walks for the third time earlier this year, that’s when I decided I would do something out of character for how I viewed myself as an atheist druid – I would join The Order of the Morrigan. I was already familiar with the liturgy John the Verbose had composed a few years prior, and with that third, final sign, I felt that it was the push towards the threshold of change I was looking for in my grief. I would use my initiation as a right of passage beyond my grief, to work to make change, to fight to pull myself out of where I had been wallowing so I could move on. As serendipity would have it, the day of October’s new moon was also the day of the partial annular eclipse for Minnesota, and John the Verbose was kind enough to allow the ritual he planned to simply be my initiation that day. All around, it felt not only appropriate but auspicious to have my initiation take place during a time of introspection and new beginnings. I went into it not just hoping it would be the hallmark of change in my life, but with the intention of making it the moment of change.

I’d spent the month prior making my preparations. I strung my devotional pendant, I wove my sling from hemp, I collected three black sling stones from the orange agate-speckled shores of the Mississippi near my apartment, and collected the Waters of Death there, too. I procured some of my second-favorite elderberry wine that John would consecrate as the Waters of Life. And I fashioned the first iteration (of three – I’m bad at sewing) of my vestments if the Morrigan accepted me. I awoke the morning of the ritual to the calls of the crow family that had moved into the forest across the street, and it was taken to be a sign.

The day was a little chilly and overcast, occluding our views of the eclipse for a majority of the time, but it meant more to me that the grove officers were all there, standing in solidarity with me. But as serious as the mood of the ritual is meant to be, it is difficult not to laugh as you crush a tomato in your fist with your grovemates in the splash zone…

When John asked for a sign of the Morrigan’s acceptance, he made an acorn divination while the calls of bluejays (my favorite corvid) rang out in the distance, heralding new beginnings, commitments, and the responsibilities therein.

And I did, indeed, feel a renewed sense of purpose, per the liturgy’s closing admonitions. I can say with certainty that while I still have good and bad days with my grief, I feel resolute in efforts to curate a more hopeful future for myself in spite of my grief.

My first few months as an Acolyte have been devoted to my research of the Morrigan. As an Acolyte, I am seeking to deepen my relationship with Her and what She represents. I have learned a lot. Studying what She means to peoples of the past and present has allowed me to learn about myself, too. “Shadow work” or self-reflexivity seems to be an important part of devotion to The Morrigan. It is something that comes naturally to me, which doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it’s affirming to know that something I work hard to practice is also something well-practiced by the Morrigan’s devotees.

And to be sure, I am still an atheist. However, I would be remiss not to treat my studies and engagement with the Morrigan’s lore and community with the same level of respect and seriousness that Her believers do. As an Acolyte of the Morrigan, I see myself as a student to Her teachings, rather than a worshiper. And if I were to become a Priest to Her Order someday, I might be more likely to consider myself a representative of Her interests and values.

I’m certain that as I continue my studies and deepen my relationship with The Morrigan that I may come to new realizations, and they are something I welcome. I am in a continual state of learning and becoming. I think atheists get a bad rep for being killjoy skeptics, but I see myself as just being deeply rooted in reality, working to keep an open mind for things that cannot or have yet to be explained, and trying to have more than a little fun while I’m at it.

Peace to the heavens!

[sumire-no-nikki]

Bad Apple

When I was in sixth grade my teacher ordered the class to form a circle. We were to play a game, she said. A student must volunteer to go in the middle, pick one classmate after naming one good thing about them to save them from the “sinking ship.” The one who has been saved will then pay the favour forward and save another student, and so the chain shall continue.

I’m saving this person because they’re really good at math.

I’m saving this person because they share their lunch with me.

I’m saving this person because I think they’re cool.

The game went on in between giggles and teasing and applause.

In the end, after a minute or so of awkward silence in a room that wants nothing to do with me, I was the last one to be chosen. A kind classmate eventually took on the task of being the one to get it over with, and so the whole activity was concluded. It was an exercise of emulating Jesus’ kindness, apparently, to not only save oneself but to also think of others during a time of crisis. I wonder if anyone realised later on that their kindness was in fact cruelty. I wonder if that teacher understood the violence she incited that day. The classmate who chose me was praised for her initiative and self sacrifice in being the one to do it. My teacher and the rest of the class certainly looked pleased with themselves for that display of "Christian goodness"—the very same people who ostracised me, the very same people who deemed me a nonentity because I'm "weird," because I’m "annoying." Because I spoke my mind. Because I simply wouldn’t let myself be swept by their hive mentality.

When I was fifteen, summertime, I caught the flu and it led to a middle ear infection. After a few nights of trying to bear the pain (because my instinct told me to hide the pain rather than inconvenience my parents) I couldn’t stand it anymore and told them that something’s wrong with my ear. My mother took me to the doctor and scolded me because, in agreement with my father, I was costing them an unnecessary expense.

Why did I have to get a middle ear infection, my mother complained. Why didn’t I just take care of myself better so I wouldn’t have developed an infection.

A couple of weeks after that illness, we boarded the plane for a holiday. My ear, having just healed from an infection was still quite sensitive. The altitude made it hurt. When I told my mother this she said, well, you’ll just have to bear it because you decided to have a middle ear infection.

I am a bad apple. I am the rotten one of the bunch. I get tossed in the trash, I don’t get chosen. I’m not pretty, I’m not special. I’m not particularly interesting and I don’t belong anywhere.

As I got older, I think I simply learned how to dress my rottenness up. I just learned how to fit in different costumes. I studied really hard in high school and suddenly found myself getting praised left and right. My parents were finally proud of me. I wasn’t a burden anymore. I quickly learned that this is how I could become a person worth looking at. This is the strategy, I thought, to work hard at adorning myself with achievements, to spray as much perfume over the rotten smell.

The same classmates who shunned me were the same ones to ask if they could come to my house so I could tutor them before the Algebra finals, the same ones who asked for my Biology notes as they showered me with compliments. I was no longer the black sheep of the family. I finally had something on the cousins I was constantly compared to. I was deemed the smart one, and that makes up for not being the pretty feminine one.

In adulthood all this meant doing all the work, covering for coworkers despite my already congested schedule, never saying no. If I couldn’t produce perfection in every aspect, then I’ve exposed my rottenness and people would withdraw any respect for me. If I let the side down, then I deserved it because I didn’t do my part in making myself palatable.

It also meant that I have become a person utterly incapable of forming any relationship. When someone tells me they like my photos, or that they think I’m impressive for what I’ve accomplished, or that my insight on something is illuminating, I appreciate it. But there is always doubt. Whenever anyone tries to befriend me I am wary, I am suspicious. Perhaps they only want to befriend me because they think I’m of use. Whatever that purpose may be, I am only as good as what I can offer. Because, well, why would anyone want me? And if they didn’t know that I’m a bad apple yet, when they come to see me as I am, why would they still choose me?

And who’s to blame? Who can I blame but myself?

I am a bad apple. While I’ve done well to make myself look a little better, the truth is I am unlovable. At the core I am still rotten. This fact ebbs and flows in my mind constantly. There are good days and I’m content in being a pretender. Then there are days when I can’t see past my ugliness.

(There's no resolution to this. Really, I don't know how to end this. I started typing this one day when the repressed memories of that sinking ship game in sixth grade popped up in my head but I'm not sure there's much insight to it other than it fucking hurts. I want to face it but I also know this isn't a Disney movie. I won't be the beast that would suddenly turn into a prince. It would be disingenuous of me to say "well, screw all of them! I'm so much happier now!" because I'm not, really. I'm fine, I suppose. I'm not that girl anymore, but I'll also never be someone who had a good childhood. I'll never be someone who had loving parents. I can't turn back the clock. I'll never be someone other than myself and it hurts a lot to think about that reality.)

[polyamwitchymom]

My personal beliefs on the matter of divinity

(this is a long post, if you want me to get to my point, scroll down for the purple text)

I grew up in the Bible belt, both my parents were/are members of the RLDS church (Reorganized Church of the Latter-Day Saints, or as I like to call it: diet Mormonism or Mormon lite), and when we weren't attending the RLDS church, we were going to a Baptist church. My parents homeschooled me and closely monitored who I made friends with. I grew up with a narrow, but common belief that big G is up in heaven, watching and knowing everything that happens and will happen, is all powerful but uses his power sparingly, has strict rules for how he wants humans to be, and requires sacrifice of some type to be appeased (in this case, Jesus was the sacrifice, but before him, they made animal sacrifices, and at one point God asked for a child sacrifice as a test).

But all of that was ok, because there was God in the flesh as Jesus. And to be fair, Jesus seemed like a pretty cool guy, he seemed to care less about The Rules, and more about people loving one another. And then Jesus brutally died because humans are evil and the only way God could tolerate us is if someone died.

While I was told that God is perfect, I kept seeing him contradict himself and act very... "Human" like (angry, jealous, needing praise, being violent, etc). I was told that there was no way to truly comprehend him, but also that he made himself comprehensible to us/he was now comprehensible to us because of the first sin (eating fruit from the forbidden tree, gaining knowledge of good and evil).

As I got older, other beliefs intrigued me, and I had plenty of experiences that the "Spiritual Leaders" around me either dismissed or just had no explanation for, along with feeling like I was evil for having same-sex attraction. I eventually delved into polytheism, at first believing that the Christian god is not real and never was, to then believing that he is real and is just a dick. Sure, there were other gods that were dicks too, but at least they didn't claim to be perfect like he did. But then I did research as to how monotheism came about and learned that the Christian god is most likely two gods that got morphed into one over time and tradition.

So where do I stand now on Divinity, gods, goddesses, monotheism, and polytheism?

Pardon me for how woo-woo this is about to get, but:

-Divinity, The Creator, "God", whatever you want to call it, I believe it is within all things. It is life itself. It is what animates us. A fragment of Divinity is inside you and me and is what is commonly known as a "soul."

-Divinity is also within the gods, spirits, etc., perhaps to some greater extent than us, even.

-The main source of Divinity is somewhere outside of all time and all space, and can hardly be comprehended as a person. It creates infinitely, and sends itself into its creations to experience it.

-Does it love? Does it have morals? Look around you. If you've been paying attention you've surely noticed by now that there is no One Human Experience. That even among our own species, so much can vary- from morals, sexuality, culture, empathy, wants, and needs to circumstances we were born into and what we choose to do with the gift of life. No, I don't think it truly has any morality or love, or at least any that I can comprehend. I think it's main objective/need is to experience all things.

Do I worship this thing? Well, no... Not exactly. But also, in a way, yes. I occasionally work with and devote myself to various gods and goddesses. I believe life is sacred and should be preserved. I give other humans respect, and in some ways love all humans for having the gift of existence. I do my best to take care of myself and learn so I can better myself and those around me. I don't directly worship this source of existence, but I respect existence itself as it is in all things.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has thought of all of this, but I've not heard anyone talk about the same thing and so I don't know what to call it. It seems kinda New-Age-y but not quite because I've not heard it expressed the same way. The closest I've heard is "You are the universe experiencing itself" which sums this up well but lacks nuance. Does anyone else believe this/know what this line of belief is called?

[procrastinatingsoicanreadfanfics]

Unexpected

Summary: Ivar finally decides to fuck the slave he’s been eyeing for so long, but when his angry side slips out, things take a turn for the wholly unexpected.

Beginning Notes: Inspiration hit me suddenly and I had to write this. It’s from Ivar’s POV entirely, but still a reader insert. Reader is non-descriptive apart from she/her pronouns and female body.

I'm actually so proud of myself for this one. Idk where it came from, but i think it turned out pretty decent for smut.

Warning: smut, very NSFW and a little kinky

Pairing: Ivar x reader

Taglist: @bragisrunes, @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie, @alicedopey

Masterlist | Part 2 | requests are OPEN!

She’s driving him insane. This new slave from gods-know-where, always in the hall when he is, as if he wouldn’t notice the glances she steals at him.

Does she stare because he is a cripple? Because the other thralls are afraid of him and he hasn’t hurt her, yet? Or are there rumors about him from where she was taken from?

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that all his brothers don’t take him seriously when he mentions her – to them, she’s like a mouse, scurrying around underfoot, never to be noticed. Innocent like a fucking Christian.

Maybe to the eyes of others, she’s invisible, but she’s a pain to Ivar. No matter where he goes, she’s always there, whether that is actually or just in his thoughts. She’s a plague.

He can fuck her if he wants, not only because he’s a prince, but also because she is a slave. A nobody, who still stares at him. Why does it bother him so much when she does it? People have always stared at him and yet…

At least now, the hall is empty. It’s late evening, and his brothers are all occupied with lovers and wives, his mother is asleep, and most of the thralls are sleeping. Except her of course. She’s still in the hall, scrubbing away on the floor so dutifully, kneeling only a few steps away. Her eyes still flicker to him from time to time.

With a few irregular steps and muted thumps from his crutch, he stands in front of her. She pretends not to notice him, and Ivar finds it infuriating. Quickly, he grabs her jaw, tilting her face up until she’s facing him. To his surprise, there’s no fear in her eyes, she only looks momentarily startled.

“Can I help you, my prince?” she asks, and Ivar swears by all the Gods that if he has to look at her staring up at him innocently like that for one second longer, he’ll throw up on the floor she just cleaned.

“Go to my room.” He replies instead, and she gets up, gathers her skirt and walks there without question or protest.

He follows her slowly. By the time he gets to his room, she stands in the middle of it, careful not to touch any of his belongings and Ivar is glad that, for once, she looks unsure and out of place.

“Take off your dress. It’s dirty.” He says. She does as she’s told, taking her time with removing her apron and folding it, before making to move on to the dress.

“Aren’t you going to protest?” Ivar asks, surprised that she doesn’t look the least bit disgusted by him. Not like Margrethe.

“Would you like me to?” she deadpans, but Ivar thinks that he can hear a bit of snark in her voice. It almost makes him smile, until he remembers that he is a prince, and she’s a thrall.

“Get on with it.” Ivar commands.

She shrugs off her dress and shift until she’s bare in front of him, and all Ivar does is stare. Still, she stays still.

Not a christian then. Or at least not a very strict one. Ivar thinks.

“Lie down on the bed.” Ivar continues, and he’s angry that she seems surer in what she’s doing than he is, even though she isn’t doing anything but following his commands.

For a moment, he can glimpse a change in her. For a second, she looks almost excited, and not at all scared, before her face reverts back to a stony expression.

Ivar pulls himself onto the bed, and only when he’s lying right next to her does he realize that he has no idea what he’s doing.

He makes a strangled noise, one that sounds like a dying animal at a sacrifice, and Ivar is ready to take his knife and hold it against her throat when she leans over him and kisses him. For a moment, Ivar freezes, before he slaps her. Not hard, and not because he wanted to, but more because he didn’t expect this.

There’s a short pause, and then she gives a moan. It’s quiet and short but Ivar knows what it is nonetheless. He tells himself that it has nothing to do with the slap, that the moan was too disconnected, but then he looks into her eyes and blown out pupils are looking back at him.

“You liked that?” Ivar asks incredulously. For the first time, she looks a bit flustered. Then, she nods slowly. Ivar sits up, leaning against the headboard. Years of pulling himself across the floor come in handy and he grabs her by the hips, pulling her on top of his.

“Kiss me again.” He demands. She leans down, and Ivar reciprocates the kiss this time, a hand snaking to her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheek, before he brings it down in a light slap again. She moans a little louder this time, beginning to grind down on him. There’s no shame in her.

“You like pain?” Ivar asks, not sure if she’s even real at this point.

“Don’t you?” she replies. He does, he supposes. Not being on the receiving end but inflicting it.

“You’re fucked up.” Ivar manages. She gives him a look that says And you aren’t?

To his surprise, Ivar begins to like her. Now that she isn’t pretending to be a ‘saint’, her company isn’t all that bad.

“What else do you like?” Ivar blurts out, before he can stop himself. A sly grin worms itself onto her face as she stretches out on his bed, as if it belongs to her.

“Let’s see.” She says. “Being manhandled. Spanking, scratching, choking-“

“Choking?” Ivar interrupts.

“Well as long as it’s not life threatening.” She shrugs. Ivar rolls over, until he’s hovering over her, and captures her lips in a kiss. Unsure, and strangly unwilling to hurt her, he begins to slide a hand down to her neck. He squeezes only a little bit, opening his eyes to make sure that she isn’t panicking.

It annoys him that she isn’t bothered by him at all, so he squeezes a little harder, until her eyes slowly open. He makes eye contact with her, and almost wishes he hadn’t, because there isn’t a trace of fear in her eyes, but the lust makes her look almost maniacal.

And then Ivar realizes that he wants to fuck her. Wanted to all along, all while she was pretending to be innocent and quiet. Not like he wanted to fuck Margrethe. This hasn’t gotten anything to do with proving something to his brothers. He wants to hold her down and fuck her into the mattress until her eyes roll back and-

She’s wriggling downwards under him, sucking on his neck and collarbones, and Ivar grabs her by the neck to push her down. She smiles at him, because she has to be insane, right?

“I need to catch my breath.” Ivar lies. What he needs is time to think. It’s obvious that she’ll enjoy most of the things he wants to do to her, and that she’s interested in him. He has to make a choice.

She lies her head down on his chest, fingers trailing down his still-clothed stomach slowly, and panic lurches in Ivar’s throat. She had to know about the rumors. Was this it? Was she Sigurd’s pet, trying to embarrass him even further for being boneless?

But then, Ivar realizes that he’s okay. It’s all going the way it’s supposed to, now he only has to get Sigurd off his mind.

The thrall is keeping herself busy, kissing down his body. Ivar wonders if she’s in love with him, or just doing this because she wants to have sex. He tells himself that he doesn’t care, but a tiny part of him wants her to love him.

Angry again, Ivar grabs a fistful of her hair and puts her where he wants her. She’s barely able to pull down his pants enough before she gives a muffled moan, taking him into her mouth. It’s almost as if she’s trying to worship him, the way she trails her tongue along his cock, before engulfing it until she gags. Ivar pushes her head down carelessly, but she doesn’t seem to mind, on the contrary, it’s only egging her on.

He falls back against the pillows, muffling a moan. Ivar wants to laugh at the irony of it, her, worshipping a cripple. When he gets close, he pulls her up to him.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asks, and her voice sounds genuinely concerned. Ivar shook his head.

“Want to cum inside you.” He manages. She grins, wiping her mouth, before she kisses him again, insistently tugging at the hem of his shirt. He lets her pull it off reluctantly.

Her smile widens and it’s at the sight of him. She licks a stripe up his neck and Ivar thinks it’s going to be too much. Still, he’s coherent enough to stop her when she tries to pull down his pants as well.

“No.” he says. “My legs.”

She nods. “Okay, that’s fine. But I can’t believe you wanted to hide this from everyone. From me.”

“I’m not yours.” Ivar snarls. Was it hurt that flashed in her eyes?

“I know.” She says, running her hands up his chest. Ivar grabs her jaw harshly.

“Lie on your back.” He commands

She complies, looking up at him with doe eyes, but this time, he doesn’t mind. Ivar pushes into her slowly, and she moans like a whore. When he tells her, hissing the words into her ear, she moans again.

This feels right. Better than Margrethe, better than Ivar had imagined.

He picks up the pace, until he’s fucking her like he wanted to moments before – or was it hours? Barely, Ivar registers her nails digging into his back, scratching down to his waist, before coming up again without rhythm or pattern.

She keeps moaning, and Ivar leans down to kiss her, sloppily, hungrily, swallowing some of the noise she’s making. He’s on the verge of cumming, even if he doesn’t want to. He wants to keep going, but his hips speed up from their own accord, going faster, deeper. Her back starts arching up, so Ivar grabs her hips and presses them back down.

His mind is completely empty, all he knows is that this is good. It’s fucking perfect. Her moans reach a crescendo, and he feels her clench around him. Is she there?

He wants to ask her, so he can know if he made her feel good, but one look at her tells him that she wouldn’t answer if he could form the question in the first place.

Ivar feels it creeping up on him, but he keeps going, grabbing her neck with his left hand, right still on her hip. Then, finally, he can’t stop himself anymore and lets go.

Moments later, he collapses on top of her. He’s still inside her, and after a few seconds, she wraps her arms around him, holding him tightly. He pulls out, lying on his back. She gives a small whine, moving closer to him again. Why?

“Was that- was it good?” Ivar asks. He’s afraid of her answer. He knows his brothers are all good and Ivar wants to be better than them at something else than strategy.

“Yeah.” She sighs, and he notices that she’s still out of breath. “But I doubt I’ll be able to walk tomorrow. Or right now, sorry.”

Still, she leans up, trying to reach her apron without moving too much.

“What are you doing?” Ivar asks.

“I need to clean this up.” She replies, motioning to her legs. “It gets sticky after a while.”

Wordlessly, Ivar pushes her back into the bed and reaches for the rag next to his basin. He has another one anyway.

He cleans her up quietly. There’s dark bruises on her hips, shaped like his hands. She flinches a bit when he touches her clit, and he’s careful to be quick about it.

When Ivar lies back down next to her, she’s smiling. Her eyes are closed, and she could be sleeping.

“Never took you for the type to clean up after themselves.” She says.

He doesn’t say anything smart back. Instead, he asks her the biggest question on his mind.

“Why did you do this? Were you looking for a quick fuck, or did my brothers put you onto this? Or are you in love with me?” Ivar asks.

“In love with you?” she replies. Her voice sounds a bit shaky. “I’m not in love with you. I just thought you’d have the same taste as me.”

He hopes she’s lying. Please, Freya, let her be lying. Let someone love me. He prays before he can stop himself. Ivar isn’t sure if he’d even love her back, but it’s something he wants to be able to say about himself. That someone fell for him like that.

While he keeps mulling over her words, she moves closer to him again. Quickly, she’s falling asleep. He could punish her, for just assuming that she could sleep in his bed. He could, but instead, Ivar moves her to lie in his arms. He smiles to himself. Despite her words, she’s here right now, holding him.

[timebird84]

🎄 PotO Advent Calendar 2020 🎄

By @paperandsong​

Feast Your Eyes

Gifted to @shinyfire-0​

Happy Christmas everyone!

     Christine rose from her bed long before sunrise and padded sleepily into the kitchen. She lit the oven and pulled down an old recipe book from a shelf. She cracked it open to a page marked with a red ribbon; recipes for Luciamorgon, written by the hand of Maman Valerius’ own mother, and brought from the old country long ago. Its tattered pages were heavy with the nostalgia of mornings past and the expectation that such traditions will go on forever. 

     She did not need the book; these were recipes written across her own heart. But she liked to trace the handwriting with her fingers, smudged with ancient butter and flour, and to stir up her own memories. She liked to think that her late mother had also woken up early on December thirteenths to pull out the same ingredients and to follow the same steps. The echo of this ritual was a comfort to her.

     She yawned as she set the kettle on the stove and pulled out the sugar, the butter, the flour, the yeast, the eggs, the milk. She reached far into the back of the pantry for a little bottle of saffron threads, neglected all year long until this dark morning. A sprinkle of cinnamon, a crush of cardamom. For the lussekatter buns, she steeped the saffron in milk, she kneaded the yellow dough, and shaped it into buttery swirled S shapes, pinned with currants on either end. She pressed an angel-shaped metal cutter over the thinly rolled pepparkakor dough, inhaling the ginger and clove with deep satisfaction. As the buns and biscuits baked in the oven she went back to her room to dress. 

     She struggled to pull her arms through the tight sleeves of the same white dress she had been made to wear since she was a just a girl. She had grown considerably in her bust and hips since it had first been made for her; she did not bother to try to button up the back. It was impossible. Maman Valerius knew it was impossible. But it so delighted her to see Christine wear that same dress, year after year, that she wouldn’t dream of complaining. She dutifully tied the red sash around her waist. The white of innocence, the red of martyrdom. 

     Just moments before dawn, Christine arranged the cat-eyed lussekatter and angel-shaped pepparkakor on a tray along with two cups of coffee with milk, and a small lit candle. She lit another four white candles and carefully set them in the wreath of evergreen she had woven the day before. She settled the glowing crown into her halo of loose and unruly hair. She delicately lifted the tray, careful not to tip her flaming head too far forward. She glided across the floor as lightly as a snowdrift, making her way to Maman’s room. She stood outside the door and sang, 

 Natten går tunga fjät rund gård och stuva; 

Night walks with a heavy step round yard and hearth;

      She nudged the door open with her elbow. The dim room filled with candlelight as she entered. There was Maman, sitting up in her bed, her long white braid hanging over her shoulder. She was waiting eagerly for this blazing vision of Christine. 

 Kring jord, som sol förlät, skuggorna ruva;

Around the earth, forlorn by the sun, shadows are brooding;

      The old woman clasped her hands together, her eyes glistening with tears. 

“Oh, Christine! You are an angel - truly, an angel shining on me from heaven!”

     Christine continued to sing, her voice high and sweet, as she used to sing when she was only a girl,

 Då i vårt mörka hus, stiger med tända ljus, Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia!

But there in our dark house, arising with her burning candles, Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

      She slowly walked towards the bed, allowing Maman to take in the holy sight of her. With each dazzling step she drove all darkness from the room. Truly, Christine was the daughter Maman had never had. And she had played this role of Lucia bride far longer than any other daughter would have tolerated. Perhaps somewhere in her heart, Christine knew this would be the last year. 

     She set the tray carefully on the bed. Maman pushed back the blankets and patted the place beside her. Christine first took off the candle crown and set it on the small table near the window. They had a laugh remembering the time several years ago when Christine’s hair had caught fire after wearing the wreath for too long. It took days to scratch out the melted wax from her scalp.

“Thank you, my child,” Maman said, nibbling on a lussekatter. “You are so good to me.” “It is you that are good to me,” Christine responded, kissing the old woman on the cheek. Tears rolled slowly down her wrinkled skin. “Maman! Don’t cry.”

“It is just - I can almost feel them with us. My dear husband, your dearest father.” “I know. I can feel them too.”

     Maman rubbed her eyes and shook her head with a sigh.

“It is almost seven-thirty! Shouldn’t you be leaving for the Opera soon? Won’t you miss your voice lesson? Won’t your teacher scold you?” She said ‘teacher’ with a knowing glance that made Christine's heart tighten in her chest. They both knew he was no mere teacher.     Christine blushed.

“I told him that I would miss my lesson today. You have me for the whole morning.” 

“Oh, I am sure he was not pleased to hear it!” “Why, Maman, he was very understanding. He finds it good and proper that a daughter should tend to her mother on this, the Feast of Saint Lucia.”

“It is a good and a proper thing, my child. The Angel of Music knows these things. Shall I read from my book? Hand it to me, if you will.”

     Christine went and found the ornately illustrated book of the lives of the saints, also brought over from the old country. Maman turned to the story of Saint Lucia and read aloud, as she did every year. Christine took a mouthful of pepparkakor and nestled deeper into her place in the bed. She tried to keep her eyes away from the brightly colored image of Lucia carrying her own eyes on a silver platter. 

      During the Diocletian persecution of the good Christians, there was a maiden of Syracuse by the name of Lucia. Even as a young girl, the light of Christ shined brightly within her. 

     As Lucia’s father had perished years before, the two women were alone and vulnerable in the world. Despite her faith, Eutychia arranged for Lucia to marry into a wealthy pagan family. Lucia wept with grief. No, mother, she cried. Let my dowry be distributed among the poor. I shall never marry here on earth for I am the bride of Christ and my husband awaits me there. Reluctantly, Eutychia agreed, for she could see the light that shined within her daughter. She gave Lucia her dowry, a host of riches and jewels. The maiden took to visiting the prison in the dark, to bring food and comfort to the men that languished there. She wore a crown of candles upon her head so that she might see through the darkness and keep her hands free to fill with alms.

     But gossip reached the ears of her jilted betrothed. He was told that Lucia had broken their engagement because she had found an even more wealthy patron of far nobler birth. In his jealousy, he denounced Lucia as a secret Christian to the Roman magistrate, Paschasis . Paschasis ordered Lucia to burn a sacrifice to an idol of the Emperor. To which Lucia replied, I would rather burn myself than to burn a sacrifice to a false idol. In his anger, Paschasis ordered the defiant maiden defiled in a brothel. To which Lucia replied, You could lift my hand and rub it against your idol and still I would be guiltless in the eyes of the Lord, who knows me and knows that you can defile my body but you can never defile my heart. 

     When the Roman guards came to take Lucia away, to have her maidenhead defiled, they found that she was immovable. Even when they tied a team of oxen to her waist by a rope, even then, they could not move her from her mother’s home. When they could not take her to the brothel, they decided to burn her. They built a pyre around her feet, but it would not light. In frustration, they gouged out her eyes - those eyes that burned with the light of Christ inside! They slit her throat, that throat as pure as that of any spring lamb. And so the virgin Lucia died a martyr for our Lord. The angels sang as she entered heaven and the good Lord restored her eyes, more beautiful than those she had possessed here on earth. For she was truly the light of his own eyes. 

      Christine hated the story. 

“It isn’t fair that she had to die,” she said bitterly, though her mouth was full of sugar.

“No. There is nothing fair about the lives of the saints. They have all suffered unjustly in one way or another. It is a great burden to be born a saint.” “I do not remember any male saints dying because someone forced them to marry some pagan princess.” “I am sure there is at least one.”

“But there are countless maiden martyrs. Do it please him, then? For us to suffer on his behalf?” “No, Christine. Our Lord suffers along with us. The tears we shed were his to shed first.” The old woman had become very serious. “No one is asking the Lucia bride to be a martyr. Only to carry light in the darkness.”

     Christine was chastened. She had not meant to antagonize. 

“I believe I am much like Lucia.” “Indeed you are, my child. The light of Christ shines brightly from within you.” “No, I meant only that I shall never marry.”

“Oh! You cannot mean that. Surely, you will find yourself a good husband. One who will love you as much as I do. For one day, I will no longer be here with you. No, no. Do not say that, Christine. You must find someone to look after you. What of the Vicomte de Chagny? Don’t you ever see him at the Opera anymore?” “Oh, I see him up there in his brother’s box. But he never looks at me. I do not believe he remembers me at all. But I could never marry him. I could never marry anyone. Then I would never hear the Angel again.” “Is that what the Angel has told you?” “Yes. He has told me that if I should ever marry, he would have to return to heaven and I would never hear his beautiful voice again,” she said sadly. 

     The old woman grew very quiet.

“Perhaps Our Lord has a greater calling for you, Christine, than to be a wife. Perhaps he intends for you to devote your life to music, and music alone. To be a bride to no earthly man, but the bride of music itself.”

“Do you think so, Maman?” Christine asked wistfully. She was excited by the idea that her destiny might be great and divinely written. 

“I think you should listen to your Angel. He will know what is best for you.”

          Christine changed out of her Lucia gown and went to the Opera later that morning so that she would not be late for rehearsals. A part of her wished that the Angel would come to her, despite that she had missed her lesson. When she stood in his invisible presence, he blessed her with a warmth she found nowhere else. She regretted even one hour lost. But he did not make himself known to her that day. 

     In the evening, Christine served mulled wine with dinner. Maman drank too much and retired early, but Christine took her warm and fragrant cup out onto their narrow balcony to watch the people walking along the street below. It was quite cold and she pulled her coat tight around her body as she leaned slightly over the railing. 

     Thoughts of Lucia and her bloodied eye sockets had haunted her all day. Christine wondered now how the saint’s story might have been different had Lucia agreed to marry the pagan bridegroom. Could they not have become friends, like Saints Cecilia and Valerian? Could she not have taught him the love of Christ better as his wife than as a martyr? They could have learned to love each other somehow. There had to be some way for Lucia to survive her own story. 

     Christine shook her head angrily. But why should any woman lose her maidenhead to a man on the mere hope that her love might be enough to save him? Why should she have to save him?

      Her ears pricked up at a sad sound in the distance. Music, from directly above, but far away, as if from the clouds. Or maybe only as far as the rooftop. She turned and looked up towards the sky overhead. The streetlamps dimmed the light of the stars, but she could just make out the westerly motion of Freya’s cat-drawn chariot. A violin whined a melody so faint it could not be named. Had her Angel come to say goodnight? Her pulse quickened in her ears. If she could have no earthly husband, might she really be wed to the music itself? She listened for a while and then the cold began to bite at her fingertips and the music faded away and it was time to go to bed. She looked into her empty cup and smiled. 

     Inside, she placed the last lussekatter and a fresh cup of hot glögg onto a small tray and took it out onto the balcony. She kneeled to place the tray on the floorboards and stayed there a moment to whisper a little prayer,

“Oh Angel of Music, sent from my father in Heaven, I do not know that angels take offerings in the way of the saints. An angel is not a saint. But I offer you these in thanks for your music. And for your lessons. And for your arrival into my life. I thank my Lord every day that you have finally come to me. Please, tell my father I love him.” 

     Christine tossed about in her bed that night, straining to hear movement on the roof or on the floorboards of the balcony. In the morning, she found the tray quite empty. The cup was dry. She turned her face to the sun and threw a small laugh of delight up to heaven.

[nordleuchten]

The Death of Adrienne de La Fayette

In January of 1808, shortly after the death of his wife Adrienne on December 24, 1807, La Fayette wrote a lengthy letter to his dear friend César de la Tour Maubourg. In this letter he described Adrienne’s final illnesses, several conversations they had towards her end and how he felt losing her. The letter is very long and just so, so heart-breaking …

I have not yet written to you, my dear friend, from the depth sees of misery in which I am plunged. You have already heard of the angelic end of that incomparable woman.

I feel I must again speak of it to you. My grieved heart loves to open itself to the most constant, the dearest confident of all its thoughts. As yet you have always found me stronger than circumstances, but now this event is stronger than me. Never shall I recover from it. During the thirty - four years of an union in which her tenderness, her goodness, the elevation of her mind, charmed, adorned, honoured my life, I felt myself so used to all that she was to me, that I could not distinguish it from my own existence. She was fourteen, and I was sixteen, when her heart amalgamated itself with everything that could interest me. I knew I loved her, I knew I needed her, but it is only now that I can distinguish what life which I had thought was to have been entirely devoted to worldly matters. The foreboding of her loss had never crossed my mind before, when, on leaving Chavaniac with George, I received a note from Mme de Tessé. I was struck to the heart. On arriving in Paris after a rapid journey, we found her very ill; there was a slight improvement the next day, which I attributed to the pleasure of seeing us; but soon afterwards her head was affected. She said to Mme de Simiane: "I was going to have a malignant fever, but I shall be well attended to, and shall get the better of it.” Unhappily it was not a malignant fever, it was something still worse. One day only Corvisart had great hopes. Our dear invalid was already beginning to wander, when her confessor came to see her. In the evening, she told me: “If I go to another dwelling, you know how much I shall think of you there. Although I shall leave you with reluctance, the sacrifice of my life would be little, if it could ensure your eternal happiness.” The day she received the sacrament, she was anxious to see me near her. Delirium came on afterwards; you never saw anything so extraordinary and so touching. Imagine, my dear friend, a mind completely disordered, thinking itself in Egypt, in Syria, amongst the events of the reign of Athalie, which Celestine' s lessons had left in her imagination, strangely blending every idea that was not from the heart, in short the most constant delirium, and withal that kindness which always seeks for something pleasing to say. There was also a refinement in the way she expressed herself, a loftiness of thought, which astonished every one. But what was admirable above all, was that tenderness of heart which she was incessantly showing to her six children, to her sister, to her aunt, to M. de Tessé; she thought she was with them at Memphis, for, by a miracle of feeling, her mind was never invariably fixed but where I was concerned. It seemed as if that impression was too deep to be obliterated, was stronger than sickness, stronger than death itself. Life had already fled; feeling, warmth, existence, all had taken refuge in the hand which pressed mine.

Perhaps did she even yield to her affection and her tenderness more completely than if she had had the full possession of her faculties. Do not imagine that the dear angel was alar med at the thought of a future world. Her religion was all love and confidence; the fear of hell never came near her mind. She did not believe in it for beings good, sincere and virtuous, whatever their opinions might be. “I do not know what will happen at the moment of their death, she would say, but God will enlighten them.” However, had her mind been clear, she would have thought of what she called her péchés, though she did not believe in any other di vine punishment than that of being deprived of the sight of the Supreme heard me joking her about her aimables hérésies ! Who knows whether the fear of increasing my regret would not have partly restrained the outpouring of her feelings, in the same manner as when, during our married life, her utter unselfishness prevented her from yielding to what was most empassioned in her nature ? «There was a period, she said a few months ago, when, after one of your returns from America, I felt myself so forcibly attracted to you, that I thought I should faint every time you came into the room. I was possessed with the fear of annoying you, and tried to moderate my feelings. You can scarcely be dissatisfied with what remains.”

“What gratitude I owe to God, she would repeat during her illness, that such passionate feelings should have been a duty! How happy I have been! she said the day of her death. What a lot to be your wife!” And when I spoke to her of my tenderness, she answered in a touching tone: “Is it true ? Is it indeed true? How good you are! Repeat it again, it does me so much good to hear you. If you do not find yourself sufficiently loved, lay the fault upon God: He has not given me more faculties than that I love you, she said in the midst of her delirium, christianly, humanly, passionately."

When she was pitied for her sufferings, the fear of exaggerating them to herself and to others would come up on her. One day, as I was watching her with a look of pity: “ Oh! I kind look."

She often begged of me to remain in the room because my presence calmed her. Sometimes, however, she would ask me to go and attend to my business, and when I answered that I had nothing else to do than to take care of her: “How good you are, she would exclaim with her feeble though pénétrante voice, you are too kind, you spoil me, I do not deserve all that; I am too happy.”

…. Her delirium was intense. It bore principally on the reign of Athalie, on the family of Jacob in which she liked to persuade herself that I was tenderly beloved, on the contentions of Israël and Judah. “Would it not be strange? she said, if, being your wife, I was obliged to sacrifice myself for at king."

She was in fear of troubles, of proscriptions, and prepared herself to meet them with the fortitude which characterized her in real dangers. She thought there was to be a persecution against christians and reckoned upon me to protect the oppressed. “It appears to me, she said, that the world is beginning over again;. nothing but fresh experiments. Why are not all things going on according to your wishes?” All these thoughts were confused in her head; she believed we were in Egypt and Syria. We thought once her ravings would cease. “Am I not mad? she exclaimed. Come nearer, tell me if I have lost my reason ? ” I answered that I should kind things she had said to me for absurdities. “ Have I said anything kind ? But I have also said many silly things; have we not acted the tragedy of Athalie? What ! I am married to the sincerest of men, and I cannot know the truth. It is still your kindness; you want to spare my head. Do speak; I am resigned to the disgrace of being mad.” We succeeded at length in calming her. I told her she was valued and loved. “Ah! she answered, I do not care to be valued, so that I am loved.” Another time she said: “Fancy what a state my poor head is in; what an odd thing it is that I cannot remember whether Virginie and M. de Lasteyrie are betrothed or united. Help me to collect my thoughts."

Sometimes we could hear her praving in her bed. She made her daughters read prayers to her. There was something heavenly in the manner she twice repeated Tobit's prayers applicable to her state, the same she had recited to her daughters on seeing the steeples of Olmütz for the first time. I approached her. “It is from the book of Tobit, she said. I sing badly, that is why I recite it.” Another time she composed a most beautiful prayer which lasted full an hour. She only once or twice seemed in error about me, persuading herself that I was a fervent Christian. “You are not a Christian,” she said one day? And as I did not answer: “Oh! I know what you are, you are a Fayettiste. -- Do you think me so presumptuous, I replied? But are you not a little Fayettiste yourself? – Oh” yes, she exclaimed, with all my soul; I feel I could die for that sect.”

One day I was speaking to her of her angelic gentleness. “Yes, she said, God has made me gentle; though my gentleness is not like yours; I have not such high pretensions. You are so strong as well as so gentle; you see things from so high, but I will allow that I am gentle, and you are very good to me. - It is you who are good, I answered, and generous above all. Do you remember my first departure for America? Everybody against me; and you hiding your tears at M. de Ségur's marriage. You tried not to appear in grief for fear of bringing down more blame upon me -- True, she said, it was rather nice for a child. But how kind of you to remember so far back!” She spoke very sensibly of her daughters' happiness, of the good and noble character of her sons - in - law. “Nevertheless, I have not been able to make them as happy as I am. It would have required all God's power to have brought about that again.” It is not to boast, my dear friend, that I tell you all this, although one might well be proud of it, but I find comfort in repeating to you and to myself how tender and how happy she was. How happy she would have been this winter! all her children near her, the war finished for George and Louis, the birth of Virginie's child, and, I may add, after an illness which, owing to the last, the kindness of thinking of my amusements at Lagrange, of my farm, of all that was of daily interest to me! When I spoke to her of returning home: “Ah! she said, that would be too delicious. My God, my God, she exclaimed, six more poor years of La grange! ” She wanted to return there with me, and begged of me to start before her. I entreated her to allow me to stay, and asked her to rest a little. She promised to do her best, and as she became calmer, “Well, she said, remain, wait a little; I shall go quietly to sleep.”

The disordered state of her brain did not prevent her having misgivings as to her approaching end. The night which preceded the last, I heard her saying to her nurse : “Do not leave me, tell me when I am to die.” At my approach, her fears subsided; but when I spoke to her of recovery, of returning to Lagrange: “Oh! no, I am going to die. Have you any cause of complaint against me? — For what, my dear? you have always been so good and so loving. — Have I then been a gentle companion to you? — Yes assuredly. - Well then, give me your blessing.” On all these last evenings, when she thought I was going to leave her, she would ask me for my blessing. I spoke to her of the happiness of our union, of my tenderness; she took pleasure in hearing me repeat the assurance of my love. “Promise me, she said, to preserve that affection well believe that I promised. “Are you satisfied with your children?” she added. I told her how completely they satisfied me. “They are very good, she said. Support them with all your love for me.” Then delirium coming on again: “How do you think they feel with respect to the house of Jacob.” I assured her that they entered into all her own feelings. “Ah! she replied, my feelings are very moderate, except those I have for you.” Twice only her excitement became intense. It was then the wanderings of maternal love. One day George, to prevent her speaking too much, had, for several hours, kept away from her room. When he came in again, she evidently thought he had just returned from the army. The wildness of her joy on seeing him made her heart beat in a fearful manner. Another time she fell into an ecstasy of joy at the thought of an anniversary dear to our hearts, of the day when, twenty eight years before, she had given me George. That anniversary was the day of her death. «One cannot admire sufficiently the meekness, the patience, the un changing kindness of that angelic wo man during this long and cruel malady. In her delirium, which lasted a whole month, she was always thin king of us and fearing to importune her friends. “I am very troublesome, she would often say; my children, she one day added, must make up their mind to have a silly mother, a silly wife.” But never the slightest sign of impatience nor of ill humour. Even when it was most repugnant to her to drink anything, a word from me or from her children, or, in our absence, the idea that the nurses might be blamed, sufficed to decide her, and, up to the last, each service was acknowledged by a kind word, a motion of the head or of the hand. “Never, the doctor said, have I seen in the course of a long practice, anything to be compared to that adorable disposition and to a delirium. so extraordinary. No, never have I seen anything which could give me the idea that human perfection could go so far.” A few moments before she breathed her last, she murmured to us that she was not suffering. “No doubt she does not suffer, exclaimed the nurse; she is an angel.” It was very remarkable to what a degree her wanderings corresponded with the different shades of her affection. When I was concerned, her judgment was always sound. Though placing us all in the most fantastic situations, her mind was never at fault with respect to my principles and fee lings. She would exclaim : “Decide, you are leader; it is our happy lot to obey you. ” One day I was attempting to calm her; she gaily repeated this verse:

“À vos sages conseils, Seigneur, je m'abandonne.”

With respect to our children, I speak of all six, whom she always recognised spoke to in the kindest and most loving manner, and whose various characters and dispositions ever remained clearly pre sent to her mind, there was still some thing less lucid in her thoughts than with regard to me. As for her grand - children, she spoke of them several times to me with charming details; but more frequently her ideas were confused with respect to their number, their sex and even to the existence of the two last. She was most affectionate throughout to her sister Mme de Montagu; she frequently inquired from us both how my mother was, fancying we had seen her lately. We shuddered on hearing her calmly say on the morning of her death: «To - day I shall see my mother.”

“Our dear Mme de Tessé, who had been ill during the last weeks, and obliged to keep her room, wished to see her during her sleep. A! my friend, in what a state was that poor Mme de Tessé on leaving the room ! Her niece, knowing that she was ill, thought in her delirium that she was in a fit state to be carried near her bed. She spoke of M. de Tessé's health (he also was unwell) as if she had been in full possession of her faculties; she told me to go and take care of him. I am sure my uncle is pleased to have us all around him. Is it not troublesome for my aunt, she said one day, to have us all here? -- Certainly not, I answered laughing, we are only sixteen in number. -- It is true, she added, that my aunt must be as much pleased to have us, as we are to enjoy her hospitality.” The last day she told me: “When you see Mme de Simiane, give her my love.” Thus her heart was all life when - her poor limbs were already numbed by approaching death. I have already told you without any particulars that she had received the sacraments. I was present during the ceremony, which was more painful to us than to herself, for she had already taken the sacrament in her bed a short time previously. The next day, before she became quite speechless, Mme de Montagu and my daughters, fearing that my presence might prevent her from praying at her ease, asked me to leave them. My first impulse was to refuse their request, however tenderly and timidly made; I had a passionate de sire to occupy her thoughts exclusively. However, I repressed my feelings, and gave up my place to her sister. I was scarcely gone, when she called me back. So soon as I got nearer, she again took my hand in hers, saying: “Je suis toute à vous”. These were her last words. It has been said that she had often lectured me. That was not her way; she frequently expressed, in the course of her delirium, the idea that she would go to heaven. She told me several times: “This life is short and full of troubles; let us unite in God, and depart together for eternity.” She wished us all, and me in particular, the peace of the Lord. Such is the man well as in the will she had made a few years ago, and which is a model of refinement, of elevation of mind, and of eloquence from the heart. It seems as if, by dwelling on these details, I was trying to defer that last period, when, on seeing the doctor giving up all hopes of her recovery , and only thinking of prolonging life, we felt that for her there was to be no morrow. Until then we had only appeared before her two or three at a time, but that day, as she seemed to be seeking for us, we saw no harm in admitting all the members of the family, who seated themselves in a semi-cercle before her, so that she could see every one. “What a pleasant sight!” she said while looking on us with complacency. She called for her daughters in turn, and had a charming word for each of them. She gave them each her blessing. I feel confident that she was happy during that morning. And how could the last moments be otherwise than calm for her whose piety, far from being troubled by terrors and scruples, never ceased to be, all the time of her illness, before and during her delirium, all love and gratitude for the blessings, to use her own words, which God had bestowed and was still bestowing on her; for her who, notwithstanding the state of her brain, never lost a single jouissance which a heart such as hers could feel? Her delirium even became much less de Montagu how my mother was, she told her: “I look upon you as having succeeded to her.” No doubt she felt that the last moment was approaching, when, after having told me in so touching a manner: “Have you been happy with me? are you kind enough to love me? well then, give me your blessing;” and when I answered: “You love me also, you will give me your blessing ” she gave me hers for the first and last time in a solemn and loving manner . Then her six children, each in turn, kissed her hand and face. She looked at them with inexpressible tenderness, Still more surely had she the idea of her approaching end, when, fearing a convulsion, as I believe, she made me a sign to step bac; and, as I remained near her, she laid my hand on her eyes with a look of tender gratitude, thus giving me to understand what was the last duty she expected from me. We felt during these hours of gentle agony a struggle between the want of expressing our love, which she enjoyed so much, and the belief that these emotions wore out the little that was left in her of life. I kept in my words with nearly as much care as I repressed my sobs, when the touching expression of her eyes, a few scarcely uttered words, tore from my lips the expression of the feelings with which my heart was bursting. She revived, and found strength to exclai: “Is it then true! you have loved me. She raised her poor arms which were al most lifeless with wonderful animation. She passed one round my neck; and drawing my head towards hers, she pressed me to her heart, repeating: “What a blessing! how happy I am to be yours!” Until her right hand became motionless, she carried mine successively to her lips and to her heart. My left hand did not leave hers, and as long as she breathed I could feel that pressure which seemed still to mean: “Je suis toute à vous.” We all surrounded her bed which had been drawn into the middle of the room. She motioned to her sister to sit down by her. Her three daughters were continually applying hot towels to her hands and arms to preserve the last remnant of warmth. We knelt down, following the slow motion of her breath. There was no appearance of pain, the smile of benevolence was playing upon her lips, my hand was still within hers, and thus this angel of goodness and love breathed her last. We bathed with tears the lifeless remains of that adorable being. I felt myself dragged away by M. de Mun and M. de Tracy, and so bade my last farewell to her and to all happiness on earth …

“On Monday that angelic woman was borne to the spot near which repose her grand - mother, her mother and her sister amongst sixteen hundred other victims.

We found in her writing book a several injunctions made in 1792, and an official will of 1804. This memorandum, which was only a rough copy, was nevertheless a masterpiece of tenderness, of refinement and of heart - felt eloquence. It speaks of religion with simple and touching sublimity. I love my dear friend, to confide to your bosom all these recollections of the past, for what else now remains, save recollections, of that adorable woman to whom I have owed, during thirty - four years, an ever - enduring and unclouded happiness? She was attached to me, I may say, by the most ardent feelings, yet never did I perceive in her the slightest shade of selfishness, of displeasure or of jealousy. If I look back to the days of our youth, how many unexampled proofs of delicacy and generosity come across my mind! She was associated heart and soul with all my political wishes and opinions, and Mme de Tessé might well say that her devotion was a mixture of the catechism and of the déclaration des droits. I must again refer to an expression of her aunt's who said to me yesterday: “I never could have believed that it was possible to be so fanatic of your opinions, and at the same time so devoid of party spirit.” You know as well as I do all she was and all she did during the Revolution. It is not for having come to Olmütz, as Charles Fox so elegantly expressed it, on the wings of duty and of love, that I mean to praise her now, France until she had secured, so far as laid in her power, the material comforts of my aunt and the rights of my creditors; it is for having had the courage to send George to America. What noble imprudence to remain the only woman in France endangered by the name she bore, but who always refused to change it! Each of her petitions and declarations began by these words: La femme Lafayette. Indulgent as she was with respect to calumny and party hatred, never did she allow, even at the foot of the scaffold, a reflection upon me to pass without protesting against it. She had prepared herself to speak in that spirit before the tribunal, and we have all seen how good, simple and easy in common life was that lofty minded and courageous woman. Her piety was also of a peculiar nature. I may say that during thirty - four years I never once experienced from it the slightest shadow of inconvenience. No affectation in her religious practices, which were always subordinate to my convenience. I have had the satisfaction of seeing the least pious of my friends as well received, as much esteemed, and their virtues as fully acknowledged by her, as if there had been no difference of religious opinions between her and them. Never did she express to me anything but hope, even conviction, that upon mature reflection, with the uprightness of heart she knew I possessed, I should end by being convinced. The recommendations which she has left me are books which certainly I shall examine again with the most solemn attention. She used to call religion sovereign liberty, to make me appreciate it more, and often repeated to me with pleasure these words of abbé Fauchet: “Jesus - Christ, my only master (Jésus Christ, mon seul maitre).” This letter would never come to an end, my dear friend, if I gave way to the feelings which inspire it. I shall only add that that angelic woman has, at least, been surrounded with love and regret well worthy of her ….

“Adieu, my dear friend; with your help I have borne sorrows great and hard to endure, to which the name of misfortune might have been given until the greatest of all misfortunes had been experienced. But, though absorbed in the deepest grief, though given up to one thought, one devotion not of this world, though still more than ever I feel the want to believe that all does not die with us, I still appreciate the pleasures of friendship; and what a friendship is yours, my dear Maubourg!“ I embrace you in her name, in my own, in the name of all you have been to me, since we have known each other. “Adieu, my dear friend.

“Lafayette.”

[previouslynebraskan]

Why humans are assholes

Hi, my pen name is Gwendolyn, and welcome to my TED talk on empathy

*side note, I suck at writing, and my train of thought is derailed frequently.  So buckle up, and I’ll be surprised if you make it with me to the end, as we don’t know organization.

First off, I’ll disclaim something terrible about myself.  I’m a Christian.  Even worse.  I’m a rosary rattler.  A Catholic!  Oh and you thought it couldn’t get worse?  I’m not even a good one.  God and I are only on speaking terms when I need him (which is pretty frequent, but not the point).  Church feels like an obligation most weeks, and just because I know the rules and believe in the rules, doesn’t mean that I follow them.  

Alrighty!  Terrible things out of the way.  Let’s begin.  Humans are assholes.  Most people, especially the population of Tumblr, will agree with me.  Between human atrocities, selfishness, and down right lack of care, humans are just assholes.  I am too.  I am human.  Ask my siblings.  Like any good older sister, I wanted nothing to do with my siblings, and when forced to see them at school, I was unprecedently mean to them.  Ask my husband.  I am ridiculously selfish, and only do things when it suits me.  And yet, there is an entire history of the human race, with worse individuals than myself.  And a lot of people might see that, and think, cool, I feel better about myself, because I’m not Hitler.  I feel better about myself because I wasn’t a member of the KKK.  Well, personally, I don’t.  The next disclaimer I am going to make about myself, I’m a self-diagnosed empath.  I’ve never been to a therapist.  I don’t currently have plans to either, but I’ll let God decide that path later.  The reason I bring this up, and the reason I mentioned my religion at the beginning, is because I truly believe that if not for my first disclaimer, my second might not exist.  

I am a crier.  And I get annoyed at criers.  But I don’t cry at reasonable things.  No.  I cry at other people’s feelings.  Let’s bastardize the golden rule real quick.  For those who are unaware, “Treat others how you want to be treated.”  Now, I’m sure many people recall going through a phase where they could translate that in their still learning brains to “I can treat people however I want because I wouldn’t care if they were that way to me.”  Now back to the golden rule.  The bastardization is, put yourself in someone else’s shoes.  How many of us got told this by their parents at a young age after not playing nicely with another kid?  Apparently, God took it upon Himself to write that verse on my heart.  And it went something like this:  I cried when my mother told me that her grandmother (whom I had only met twice and had no actual recollection of) died.  I was inconsolable when my grandfather died.  So much so that even now, almost fifteen years later, it still stops me in my tracks, my heart hurts so much.  I cried when Michael Jackson died.  I didn’t really even like his music that much.  I’ve cried at almost every movie I’ve ever seen.  My sister’s speech at my wedding included the moment where she had to chaperone me on a date with my then boyfriend, and we went to Frozen.  Now yes, I cried at the scene when her parents die in the shipwreck.  But it gets worse.  Elsa is out there, just ran away, no plans for shelter yet apparently, and she begins to break out into song.  At first I’m fine.  But then I can feel my heart, as she sings, “well now they know.”  I start bawling my eyes out.  And all I can give in response to my sister’s quizzical look of “What the fuck is wrong with you???” (Yes I cursed, I told you, not one of the good ones. Fuck off), was: “She’s just so happy!”  I wouldn’t necessarily say I was sad at that time.  But I could feel the relase that an animated character was expressing on the big screen.  I could feel the weight come off of her shoulders, and I cried.  I mourned for what she went through, but shed tears of joy that she had found peace.  Tonight.  I was watching Facebook videos instead of taking care of my nightly routine of getting ready for bed.  And a Mengele twin told her story of survival.  When she mentioned looking around for her father and older sisters, I felt that.  When she said she could still see her mother’s outstreched arms, I could see that.  When she mentioned the panic of trying to save her sister years after liberation, trying to find records of what was done to them, her rage and anger.  And then her forgiveness.  Do you know how strong someone has to be in order to forgive?  To let go of the pain in your heart, knowing you’ll never get revenge.  You’ll never get an answer.  And you just let it go?  That strength is super human.  This week, as we pass the 20th anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11, my hometown did a wonderful commemoration.  I cried.  My aunt gave me a look of disgust because I was crying, again.  I cried not only for those who lost their lives, but for their families who would never be whole, for the heroes who stepped up, then and now.  I am a proud Navy wife.  My husband is out sacrificing his time, so that I don’t have to.  And so that I can worship my stupid religion that I cling to, so I can walk around saying inappropriate words and wear not enough clothing.  But he made that choice.  There are a lot who didn’t.  Earlier this week, someone posted the transcription of the phone call of flight 93.  The moment that he said that the passengers wanted to sacrifice their lives, for the sake of our country, I hurt.  And then he asked the person on the other end of the line to pray.  Another video this week, an ex soldier, who fought early on in Afghanistan was telling a story about one of his soldiers.  They were getting ready for a raid that would likely kill them.  His soldier asks, I know we signed up to fight, but why are we doing this?  The man’s response was, for the people up in that tower who didn’t.  He goes on to explain the story of a young mother. Two kids.  Went to work like any other day, and her last attempt at human decency was to hold her skirt down as she jumped out of the burning tower, so the people below couldn’t see up her skirt.  

Crpl. Page was a Marine from my state who just passed away.  He was two years younger than me.  I never knew him.  But I grieve for his family and friends.  

See the worst part about being an empath in a world where human’s are assholes, is there’s never a shortage of people’s feelings to feel.  I’ve been told that you can experience an emotion so strongly that your body’s only reaction to the volume of what it feels is to cry.  And that resonates with me.  I feel joy to such an extreme when I’m with my family, celebrating time together.  I feel the sorrow of people missing loved ones, and their hearts breaking.  And there are times when I wonder if it’s a gift? Or if it’s a curse.  It’s a gift to be able to go to someone and say, I can feel for you and your situation.  I don’t feel sorry for you.  I feel your pain as though it were my own. But it’s a curse to feel the attrocities of humanity and just sit and wonder why it had to happen.  Why it had to come to this.   I got told I was crying for attention.  I wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. Supposedly, behavioral psychology could “fix me” if I wanted it.  I could be trained to control my emotions, and process them in a way that wasn’t so consuming.  It would definetly help my self diagnosed depression.  But let’s posit that God made me this way for a reason.  He gave me this gift with a purpose in mind.  What then?  The problem is, I don’t know how to effectively use it without letting it ruin my life.  I can never be a therapist, because I would be able to take on the feelings of my clients.  And while I do very much believe in tough love, I also belive that if you just have the right push in the right direction, great changes can be made.  Would the Holocaust have happened if Hitler had  better relationship with his mother? (this is a personal piece, I am reflecting on history classes I haven’t taken since high school.  I’m not fact checking this. Don’t at me.)  Would Columine have taken place if those kids had been in a better place mentally?  

You know what the awful thing is...? Look at all of these events.  Look at all of these heart wrenching dates in history.  And then look what came out of them.  Out of 9/11 came one of the most unified fronts America has had in a long time.  Out of World War II came men of valor.  A chemical reaction occurs when you take an object, and force it to experience a high degree of change.  And that is what gives us assholes grit.  Our experiences make us tougher, and make us better.  And maybe less of a crybaby in my case.  Or more of a cyborg who doesn’t experience emotion for fear of being consumed by them. 

Ramble is over.  For those of you who persisted and tried to keep up, good job and I’m sorry.  For those who didn’t, don’t worry, I wouldn’t blame you.  

Some effort is better than none at all, and if all you are capable of is existing today, then I hope you do, and I know you will do it beautifully.

[hamliet]

Pain, Fear, Death, and God: Fyodor and Gogol as Two Halves of Kirillov

God is the pain of the fear of death. Whoever conquers pain and fear will himself become God.

-Alexei Kirillov, Demons

So remember how when I first read Bungou Stray Dogs I started screeching incoherently and turned those screeches into a somewhat-coherent meta on how Fyodor in BSD was modeled after Alexei Kirillov from Dostoyesvky’s Demons? 

Well, here’s the follow up.

As I said in my previous meta, Demons is (tied with Crime and Punishment) my favorite novel of all time, and Alexei Kirillov is my very favorite character of all time, in any fictional medium, ever. He’s a walking bundle of paradoxes, existential angst and stunning compassion. But Demons is not necessarily a popular novel by Dostoyevsky standards and so Kirillov, despite being written about by literary critics and Camus, is somewhat obscure. That Asagiri is so clearly inspired by his character is shocking and thrilling for me; I’m pinching myself. 

The tl;dr version of Kirillov is that his whole schtick is that he wants to kill himself to prove that he is free and thereby can escape. It’s far more nuanced and complex, as I’ll go into, but essentially both Gogol and Fyodor’s philosophies and goals reflect this.

Gogol does not want to kill Fyodor because he hates Fyodor; rather, it’s because Gogol and Fyodor are two halves of a whole. They are a paradox together, embodying Kirillov’s complexity. Like Kirillov, they are suicidal, because killing one of them is like killing themselves. To achieve their goals, they both need to die. 

Fyodor reminds Gogol that he is human and can connect; therefore, Gogol wants to kill him to assert his free will, as he views connections as a cage. Similarly, while we haven’t gotten much insight into Fyodor’s thoughts on Gogol, I think it’s highly likely Fyodor allowed Gogol to kill himself (he thought) because he clings to his beliefs at the expense of his (very much there) empathy, and it’s better for his goals if people who provoke his empathy die. Basically: Fyodor allowed Gogol to “die” not because he doesn’t care about him, but because he does. 

For a brief background: Demons itself is an allegory about how people who become consumed by their ideas become possessed by said ideas; thus, they become devils or demons. The actual title of the novel, Бесы, is difficult to translate, hence why it has three different titles in English: The Possessed, The Devils, and Demons. The word “Бесы” in Russian refers to the ones doing the possessing, which is why the latter two are generally considered to be more accurate translations of the title. In particular, the novel demonstrates the tragic consequences of Russian nihilism and singles out moral nihilism. (It’s also looked to as a rather eerie novel, because almost everything it wrote about happening in a--then fictional--political revolution is exactly what happened in Russia a few decades later.) 

As I wrote in my previous meta, Fyodor, like Kirillov, is “consumed” by his ideas, something Kirillov laments in Demons. Fyodor’s consumption with his ideals means that he is willing to sacrifice everything for his goals. Gogol, too, shares this trait. 

Where they differ is in motivations for their respective plans, motives they share with Kirillov. Kirillov’s master plan is to commit suicide for two reasons: firstly, that he has free will and will thereby inspire society to live freely, and secondly, because he sees life as nonsensically painful and thereby not worth living. The first reflects Gogol’s personal aims, and the second Fyodor’s.

Let’s discuss Kirillov and Fyodor first. Kirillov believes that mankind invented God (keep in mind the context this was written in; God=Russian Orthodox Christianity) to go on living because of the absurdity of life. 

Listen: this man was the highest on all the earth, he constituted what it was to live for. Without this man the whole planet with everything on it is--madness only. There has not been one like Him before or since, not ever, even to the point of miracle. This is the miracle, that there has not been and never will be such a one. And if so, if the laws of nature did not pity even This One, did not pity even their own miracle, but made Him, too, live amidst a lie and die for a lie, then the whole planet is a lie, and stands upon a lie and a stupid mockery. Then the very laws of the planet are a lie and a devil's vaudeville. Why live then, answer me, if you're a man.”

Fyodor's disgust for the world and determination to save it from the sin of abilities reflects this same attitude. Life is wrong, so it should cease to exist. Abilities are wrong, so everyone with one should cease to exist. The reason is, most likely, strongly based in how painful Fyodor’s ability has been for him.

Kirillov laments:

“God is necessary and so must exist… But I know He doesn’t and can’t… Surely you must understand that a man with two such ideas can’t go on living?”

...

“If there is no God, then I am God.”

If Kirillov is god, then he is the ultimate master of his fate. Kirillov is very aware of his own limits, and so he thinks this absurd and life pointless. 

That conversation continues (Kirillov’s responses are bolded):

“There, I could never understand that point of yours: why are you God?”

“If God exists, all is His will and from His will I cannot escape. If not, it’s all my will and I am bound to show self-will.”

“Self-will? But why are you bound?”

“Because all will has become mine. Can it be that no one in the whole planet, after making an end of God and believing in his own will, will dare to express his self-will on the most vital point? It’s like a beggar inheriting a fortune and being afraid of it and not daring to approach the bag of gold, thinking himself too weak to own it. I want to manifest my self-will. I may be the only one, but I’ll do it.”

This very much reflects Gogol: killing his high moral power (connection and empathy) through the man who identifies himself as a god (Fyodor) to prove his independence and freedom. 

But we’ve kind of already seen where this ends:

Gogol you’ve literally shown yourself terrified of dying (which Kirillov is as well). I know Gogol was likely acting in this scene, but given the themes of BSD and Gogol’s character, plus the fact that he did, in fact, choose not to die, I think this is likely somewhat reflective of his true feelings.  

But again, Kirillov asserts:

“I am awfully unhappy, for I’m awfully afraid. Terror is the curse of man.… But I will assert my will, I am bound to believe that I don’t believe. I will begin and will make an end of it and open the door, and will save. That’s the only thing that will save mankind and will re-create the next generation physically; for with his present physical nature man can’t get on without his former God, I believe. For three years I’ve been seeking for the attribute of my godhead and I’ve found it; the attribute of my godhead is self-will! That’s all I can do to prove in the highest point my independence and my new terrible freedom. For it is very terrible. I am killing myself to prove my independence and my new terrible freedom.”

As Gogol outlined, what disrupted his plans was Fyodor’s empathy for him, and his empathy for Fyodor. Their connection literally saved his life (hence I kind of doubt their connection will kill them in the end). He cannot die without killing that connection. 

Two things almost disrupt Kirillov’s plans. Firstly, and chiefly, it’s his empathy for others. Kirillov is noted to be a character who is extremely kind, good with children, and unafraid to risk himself to help others. When Kirillov finds out his friend betrayed him and is planning to use Kirillov’s suicide to get away with the murder of a third friend, Kirillov is horrified. He refuses to go through with his suicide at first, screaming in horror that his friend is dead and that he unwittingly enabled his killer to end his life. When he does ultimately go through with it, he states that it is because “I want to kill myself now: all are scoundrels.” He goes through with it because his human connections are failing. 

Even the novel’s most villainous character concludes “I agree” when Kirillov is called “good.” Kirillov will stop at nothing to help his friends, and he believes all people are good and will become good if they are just told they are. However, the tragic irony of this scene is that the person speaking to Kirillov--Nikolai Stavrogin--is very much a literary example of a psychopath. (Those of you who follow me know I don’t use that word lightly.) However, Stavrogin does not want to be this way; he wants to feel, he wants to be bothered by the terrible sins he’s committed. What he’s asking Kirillov, essentially, is to understand this and call him wrong for what he did, which absolutely no one does in the novel:

“Everything’s good.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he’s happy. It’s only that. That’s all, that’s all! If anyone finds out he’ll become happy at once...

“And if anyone dies of hunger, and if anyone insults and outrages the little girl, is that good?”

“Yes! ...They’re bad because they don’t know they’re good. When they find out, they won’t outrage a little girl. They’ll find out that they’re good and they’ll all become good, every one of them.”

“Here you’ve found it out, so have you become good then?”

“I am good.”

“That I agree with, though,” Stavrogin muttered, frowning.

“He who teaches that all are good will end the world.”

“He who taught it was crucified.”

“He will come, and his name will be the man-god.”

“The god-man?”

“The man-god. That’s the difference.”

Stavrogin’s examples are based on things he’s done. Kirillov isn’t aware of these deeds, but he does know his friend’s mind better than most of their other friends. The problem is that Kirillov refuses to truly act on this empathy, to accept that men can be scoundrels and good, because he wants what he believes (that all are good) to be so. Kirillov’s too consumed with his desire to end the world (hello Fyodor) to save mankind via proving himself free to actually use his empathy to help his friends. In fact, the murderer points out to Kirillov that if he’d focused more on his friend, he might have been able to prevent the murder. 

A similar attitude is reflected in Fyodor’s desire to destroy ability-users (i.e. end the world) and in his interactions with people. He doesn’t put his empathy into forming actual connections, and those he has he deliberately does not invest in (such as when he kills the kid in his introductory chapter). He kills ability users paradoxically because he cares about them and about other people. I wrote about it a bit in this meta here:

Fyodor... lives very much in a world of black and white. He makes Goncharov happy all the time, unable to experience pain or negative emotions. He believes all ability users are a sin and should be destroyed. He’s an idealist in a lot of ways, believing in absolutes (which is also a hallmark of a childish perspective...).  he wants to... force every single ability user to feel his pain (that their abilities are a sin) by wiping them out. In short, Fyodor wants empathy despite refusing to listen to the feelings of others. (He understands their feelings; he just chooses to emphasize his pain over theirs.) 

Unlike Kirillov, however, whose last scene is renowned as “the most harrowing in all of literature” (I can’t even describe it; it has to be read) I think there’s pretty good reason to hope that Fyodor and Gogol will not end up taking each other out. Because the thing about Kirillov, the reason his character resonates so much with me, is the second reason his plans are almost disrupted: it’s how desperately he wants to live. He just wants to know that his life matters. The way Kirillov expresses these desires is absurd in a lot of ways and certainly hyperbolic, but it’s a desire reflected in most of BSD’s characters, and in, well, a lot of us in real life, too. 

Empathy and genuine human connection are the greatest powers in BSD’s world, as we saw recently through Atsushi getting the location of the page from empathizing with Sigma by telling him what he most wanted to know: that he mattered. 

Sigma now knows, to an extent, that he matters. At least, he’s been told as much.  

Gogol states that Sigma is key to his plans succeeding: Sigma’s ability can tell him Fyodor’s ability, which will enable Gogol to kill Fyodor. Except... Sigma’s ability might just work in an way that cultivates empathy post-connection with Atsushi. If Sigma can trust that he matters, despite having been created by the page and having been abused and subjected to all manner of lies and exploitation, he might be key to Fyodor and Gogol’s conflict resolution rather than to them actually killing each other.

Fyodor matters despite having an ability that seems to make him unable to touch people--because he can touch people with his empathy. (His empathy is, of course, literally what draws Gogol to want to kill him.) Fyodor’s empathy with Gogol has already physically saved Gogol.

Gogol matters even if he is understood by someone, because empathy is a strength and not a weakness. Someone understanding him doesn’t make him matter less, and being bound by feelings isn’t actually a bad thing. His connection with Fyodor has already saved his life.

Both Fyodor and Gogol have now saved Sigma at some point. Sigma’s design, of course, is literally split with two different colored halves of his hair, indicating that the artist likely means to symbolize the clash of two halves (see: Q, who represents how soukoku (Dazai and Chuuya) are two halves of a whole in terms of their best and worst traits). However, they exist in one person, and Sigma seems reasonably stable for someone with his situation. 

Additionally, Fyodor and Gogol both are also somewhat modeled after Rodion Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, whose name literally means “split” in Russian. (Actually, Kirillov is very much a more internal, tragic version of Raskolnikov.) Like Kirillov, Raskolnikov is a paradox embodied: he’s stunningly empathetic and kind (rushing into a burning building to save orphans), but his philosophy is that it’s fine for him to kill others because he’s a “Napoleon” (special figure; “man-god,” to use Kirillov’s term). 

But what is split is ultimately made whole in Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov meditates on the raising of Lazarus from the dead and essentially resurrects himself, redeems himself. 

I highly doubt Gogol and Fyodor’s story will end with them dead because:

It’s BSD and nobody stays dead unless you’re Oda or a red shirt; 

Gogol and Sigma have already served us fake-out deaths, so it’s a lot to ask your audience to buy another death from the same character (killing Fyodor is essentially Gogol killing himself);

them surviving and having Fitzgerald-esque redemption arcs very much fits with the themes of Dostoyevsky’s works and specifically with the book after which Fyodor’s ability is named;

resurrection seems to be a motif with everything involving Fyodor, from Cannibalism to this current arc.

[hieromonkcharbel]

Vibia Perpetua, was executed in the arena in Carthage on 7 March 203. The account of her martyrdom - technically a Passion -is apparently historical and has special interest as much of it was written [section 3-10], in Latin by Perpetua herself before her death. This makes it one of the earliest pieces of writing by a Christian woman.

PROLOGUE

1. If ancient examples of faith kept, both testifying the grace of God and working the edification of man, have to this end been set in writing, that by their reading as though by the showing of the deeds again, God may be glorified and man strengthened; why should not new witnesses also be so set forth which likewise serve either end? Yea, for these things also shall at some time be ancient and necessary to our sons, though in their own present time (through some reverence of antiquity presumed) they are made of but slight account. But let those take heed who judge the one power of the Holy Spirit according to the succession of times; whereas those things which are later ought for their very lateness to be thought the more eminent, according to the abundance of grace appointed for the last periods of time. For In the last days, says the Lord, I will pour my spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and daughters shall prophesy; and upon my servants and upon my handmaids I will pour forth of my spirit; and the young men shall see visions, and the old men shall dream dreams. [Acts 2:17, cf. Joel 2:28]

We also therefore, by whom both the prophecies and the new visions promised are received and honored, and by whom those other wonders of the Holy Spirit are assigned unto the service of the Church, to which also was sent the same Spirit administering all gifts among all men, according as the Lord hath distributed unto each [I.Cor 7:17]- do of necessity both write them and by reading celebrate them to the glory of God; that no weakness or failing of faith may presume that among those of old time only was the grace of divinity present, whether in martyrs or in revelations vouchsafed; since God ever works that which He has promised, for a witness to them that believe not and a benefit to them that believe. Wherefore we too, brethren and dear sons, declare to you likewise that which we have heard and handled [I Cor 15:1?]; that both you who were present may call to mind the glory of the Lord, and you who now know by hearing may have communion with those holy martyrs, and through them with the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is glory and honor for ever and ever. Amen.

2. There were apprehended the young catechumens, Revocatus and Felicity his fellow servant, Saturninus and Secundulus. With them also was Vibia Perpetua, nobly born reared in a liberal manner, wedded honorably; having a father and mother and two brothers, one of them a catechumen likewise, and a son, a child at the breast; and she herself was about twenty-two years of age. What follows here shall she tell herself; the whole order of her martyrdom as she left it written with her own hand and in her own words.

PERPETUA'S ACCOUNT

3. When, she said, we were still under legal surveillance and my father was liked to vex me with his words and continually strove to hurt my faith because of his love: Father, said I, Do you see (for examples) this vessel lying, a pitcher or whatsoever it may be? And he said, I see it. And I said to him, Can it be called by any other name than that which it is? And he answered, No. So can I call myself nought other than that which I am, a Christian.

Then my father angry with this word came upon me to tear out my eyes; but he only vexed me, and he departed vanquished, he and the arguments of the devil. Then because I was without my father for a few days I gave thanks unto the Lord; and I was comforted because of his absence. In this same space of a few days we were baptised, and the Spirit declared to me, I must pray for nothing else after that water save only endurance of the flesh. After a few days we were taken into prison, and I was much afraid because I had never known such darkness. O bitter day! There was a great heat because of the press, there was cruel handling of the soldiers. Lastly I was tormented there by care for the child.

Then Tertius and Pomponius, the blessed deacons who ministered to us, obtained with money that for a few hours we should be taken forth to a better part of the prison and be refreshed. Then all of them going out from the dungeon took their pleasure; I suckled my child that was now faint with hunger. And being careful for him, I spoke to my mother and strengthened my brother and commended my son unto them. I pined because I saw they pined for my sake. Such cares I suffered for many days; and I obtained that the child should abide with me in prison; and straightway I became well and was lightened of my labour and care for the child; and suddenly the prison was made a palace for me, so that I would sooner be there than anywhere else.

4. Then said my brother to me: Lady my sister, you are now in high honor, even such that you might ask for a vision; and it should be shown you whether this be a passion or else a deliverance. And I, as knowing that I conversed with the Lord, for Whose sake I had suffered such things, did promise him nothing doubting; and I said: Tomorrow I will tell you. And I asked, and this was shown me.

I beheld a ladder of bronze, marvelously great, reaching up to heaven; and it was narrow, so that not more than one might go up at one time. And in the sides of the ladder were planted all manner of things of iron. There were swords there, spears, hooks, and knives; so that if any that went up took not good heed or looked not upward, he would be torn and his flesh cling to the iron. And there was right at the ladder's foot a serpent lying, marvelously great, which lay in wait for those that would go up, and frightened them that they might not go up. Now Saturus went up first (who afterwards had of his own free will given up himself for our -sakes, because it was he who had edified us; and when we were taken he had not been there). And he came to the ladder's head; and he turned and said: Perpetua, I await you; but see that serpent bite you not. And I said: it shall not hurt me, in the name of Jesus Christ. And from beneath the ladder, as though it feared me, it softly put forth its head; and as though I trod on the first step I trod on its head. And I went up, and I saw a very great space of garden, and in the midst a man sitting, white-headed, in shepherd's clothing, tall milking his sheep; and standing around in white were many thousands. And he raised his head and beheld me and said to me: Welcome, child. And he cried to me, and from the curd he had from the milk he gave me as it were a morsel; and I took it with joined hands and ate it up; and all that stood around said, Amen. And at the sound of that word I awoke, yet eating I know not what of sweet.

And at once I told my brother, and we knew it should be a passion; and we began to have no hope any longer in this world.

5. A few days after, the report went abroad that we were to be tried. Also my father returned from the city spent with weariness; and he came up to me to cast down my faith saying: Have pity, daughter, on my grey hairs; have pity on your father, if I am worthy to be, called father by you; if with these hands I have brought you unto this flower of youth- and I-have preferred you before all your brothers; give me not over to the reproach of men. Look upon your brothers; look upon your mother and mother's sister; look upon your son, who will not endure to live after you. Give up your resolution; do not destroy us all together; for none of us will speak openly against men again if you suffer aught.

This he said fatherly in his love, kissing my hands and grovelling at my feet; and with tears he named me, not daughter, but lady. And I was grieved for my father's case because he would not rejoice at my passion out of all my kin; and I comforted him, saying: That shall be done at this tribunal, whatsoever God shall please; for know that we are not established in our own power, but in God's. And he went from me very sorrowful.

6. Another day as we were at meal we were suddenly snatched away to be tried; and we came to the forum. Therewith a report spread abroad through the parts near to the forum, and a very great multitude gathered together. We went up to the tribunal. The others being asked, confessed. So they came to me. And my father appeared there also, with my son, and would draw me from the step, saying: Perform the Sacrifice; have mercy on the child. And Hilarian the procurator - he that after the death of Minucius Timinian the proconsul had received in his room the right and power of the sword - said: Spare your father's grey hairs; spare the infancy of the boy. Make sacrifice for the Emperors' prosperity. And I answered: I am a Christian. And when my father stood by me yet to cast down my faith, he was bidden by Hilarian to be cast down and was smitten with a rod. And I sorrowed for my father's harm as though I had been smitten myself; so sorrowed I for his unhappy old age. Then Hilarian passed sentence upon us all and condemned us to the beasts; and cheerfully we went down to the dungeon. Then because my child had been used to being breastfed and to staying with me in the prison, straightway I sent Pomponius the deacon to my father, asking for the child. But my father would not give him. And as God willed, no longer did he need to be suckled, nor did I take fever; that I might not be tormented by care for the child and by the pain of my breasts.

7. A few days after, while we were all praying, suddenly in the midst of the prayer I uttered a word and named Dinocrates; and I was amazed because he had never come into my mind save then; and I sorrowed, remembering his fate. And straightway I knew that I was worthy, and that I ought to ask for him. And I began to pray for him long, and to groan unto the Lord. Immediately the same night, this was shown me.

I beheld Dinocrates coming forth from a dark place, where were many others also; being both hot and thirsty, his raiment foul, his color pale; and the wound on his face which he had when he died. This Dinocrates had been my brother in the flesh, seven years old, who being diseased with ulcers of the face had come to a horrible death, so that his death was abominated of all men. For him therefore I had made my prayer; and between him and me was a great gulf, so that either might not go to the other. There was moreover, in the same place where Dinocrates was, a font full of water, having its edge higher than was the boy's stature; and Dinocrates stretched up as though to drink. I was sorry that the font had water in it, and yet for the height of the edge he might not drink.

And I awoke, and I knew that my brother was in travail. Yet I was confident I should ease his travail; and I prayed for him every day till we passed over into the camp prison. (For it was in the camp games that we were to fight; and the time was the feast of the Emperor Geta's birthday.) And I prayed for him day and night with groans and tears, that he might be given me.

8. On the day when we abode in the stocks, this was shown me.

I saw that place which I had before seen, and Dinocrates clean of body, finely clothed, m comfort; and the font I had seen before, the edge of it being drawn to the boy's navel; and he drew water thence which flowed without ceasing. And on the edge was a golden cup full of water; and Dinocrates came up and began to drink therefrom; which cup failed not. And being satisfied he departed away from the water and began to play as children will, joyfully.

And I awoke. Then I understood that he was translated from his pains.

9. Then a few days after, Pudens the adjutant, in whose charge the prison was, who also began to magnify us because he understood that there was much grace in us, let in many to us that both we and they in turn might be comforted. Now when the day of the games drew near, there came in my father to me , spent with weariness, and began to pluck out his beard and throw it on e ground and to fall on his face cursing his years and saying such words as might move all creation. I was grieved for his unhappy old age.

10. The day before we fought, I saw in a vision that Pomponius the deacon had come hither to the door of the prison, and knocked hard upon it. And I went out to him and opened to him; he was clothed in a white robe ungirdled, having shoes curiously wrought. And he said to me: Perpetua, we await you; come. And he took my hand, and we began to go through rugged and winding places. At last with much breathing hard we came to the amphitheatre, and he led me into the midst of the arena. And he said to me: Be not afraid; I am here with you and labour together with you. And he went away. And I saw much people watching closely. And because I knew that I was condemned to the beasts I marvelled that beasts were not sent out against me. And there came out against me a certain ill-favored Egyptian with his helpers, to fight with me. Also there came to me comely young men, my helpers and aiders. And I was stripped naked, and I became a man. And my helpers began to rub me with oil as their custom is for a contest; and over against me saw that Egyptian wallowing in the dust. And there came forth a man of very great stature, so that he overpassed the very top of the amphitheatre, wearing a robe ungirdled, and beneath it between the two stripes over the breast a robe of purple; having also shoes curiously wrought in gold and silver; bearing a rod like a master of gladiators, and a green branch whereon were golden apples. And he besought silence and said: The Egyptian, if shall conquer this woman, shall slay her with the sword; and if she shall conquer him, she shall receive this branch. And he went away. And we came nigh to each other, and began to buffet one another. He tried to trip up my feet, but I with my heels smote upon his face. And I rose up into the air and began so to smite him as though I trod not the earth. But when I saw that there was yet delay, I joined my hands, setting finger against finger of them. And I caught his head, and he fell upon his face; and I trod upon his head. And the people began to shout, and my helpers began to sing. And I went up to the master of gladiators and received the branch. And he kissed me and said to me: Daughter, peace be with you. And I began to go with glory to the gate called the Gate of Life.

And I awoke; and I understood that I should fight, not with beasts but against the devil; but I knew that mine was the victory.

Thus far I have written this, till the day before the games; but the deed of the games tehmsleves let him write who will.

SATURUS' ACCOUNT

11. And blessed Saturus too delivered this vision which he himself wrote down.

We had suffered, he said, and we passed out of the flesh, and we began to be carried towards the east by four angels whose hand touched us not. And we went not as though turned upwards upon our backs, but as though we went up an easy hill. And passing over the world's edge we saw a very great light; and I said to Perpetua (for she was at my side): This which the Lord promised us; we have received His promise. And while we were being carried by these same four angels, a great space opened before us, as it had been a having rose-trees and all kinds of flowers. The height of the trees was after the manner of the cypress, and their leaves sang without ceasing. And there in the garden were four other angels, more glorious than the rest; who when they saw us gave us honor and said to the other angels: Lo, here are they, here are they: and marvelled. And the four angels who bore us set us down trembling; and we passed on foot by a broad way over a plain. There we found Jocundus and Saturninus and Artaxius who in the same persecution had been burned alive; and Quintus, a martyr also, who in prison had departed this life; and we asked of them where were the rest. The other angels said to us: Come first, go in, and salute the Lord.

12. And we came near to a place, of which place the walls were such, they seemed built of light; and before the door of that place stood four angels who clothed us when we went in with white raiment. And we went in, and we heard as it were one voice crying Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, without any end. And we saw sitting in that same place as it were a man, white-headed, having hair like snow; youthful of countenance; whose feet we saw not. And on his right hand and on his left, four elders; and behind them stood many other elders. And we went in with wonder and stood before the throne; and the four angels raised us up and we kissed him, and with his hand he passed over our faces. And the other elders said to us: Stand you. And we stood, and gave the kiss of peace. And the elders said to us: Go you and play. And I said to Perpetua: You have that which you desire. And she said to me: Yes, God be thanked; so that I that was glad in the flesh am now more glad.

13. And we went out, and we saw before the doors, on the right Optatus the bishop, and on the left Aspasius the priest and teacher, being apart and sorrowful. And they cast themselves at our feet and said: Make peace between us, because you went forth and left us thus. And we said to them: Are not you our Father, and you our priest, that you should throw yourselves at our feet? And we were moved, and embraced them. And Perpetua began to talk with them in Greek; and we set them apart in the pleasure garden beneath a rose tree. And while we yet spoke with them, the angels said to them: Let these go and be refreshed; and whatsoever dissensions you have between you, Put them away from you each for each. And they made them to be confounded. And they said to Optatus: Correct your people; for they come to you as those that return from the games and wrangle concerning the parties there. And it seemed to us as though they would shut the gates. And we began to know many brothers there, martyrs also. And we were all sustained there with a savour inexpressible which satisfied us. Then in joy I awoke.

NARRATIVE OF MARTYRDOM

14. These were the glorious visions of those martyrs themselves, the most blessed Saturus and Perpetua, which they themselves wrote down. But Secundulus by an earlier end God called from this world while he was yet in prison; not without grace, that he should escape the beasts. Yet if not his soul, his flesh at least knew the sword.

15. As for Felicity, she too received this grace of the Lord. For because she was now gone eight months (being indeed with child when she was taken) she was very sorrowful as the day of the games drew near, fearing lest for this cause she should be kept back (for it is not lawful for women that are with child to be brought forth for torment) and lest she should shed her holy and innocent blood after the rest, among strangers and malefactors. Also her fellow martyrs were much afflicted lest they should leave behind them so good a friend and as it were their fellow-traveller on the road of the same hope. Wherefore with joint and united groaning they poured out their prayer to the Lord, three days before the games. Incontinently after their prayer her pains came upon her. And when by reason of the natural difficulty of the eighth month she was oppressed with her travail and made complaint, there said to her one of the servants of the keepers of the door: You that thus make complaint now, what wilt you do when you are thrown to the beasts, which you didst contemn when you would not sacrifice? And she answered, I myself now suffer that which I suffer, but there another shall be in me who shall suffer for me, because I am to suffer for him. So she was delivered of a daughter, whom a sister reared up to be her own daughter.

16. Since therefore the Holy Spirit has suffered, and suffering has willed, that the order of the games also should be written; though we are unworthy to finish the recounting of so great glory, yet we accomplish the will of the most holy Perpetua, nay rather her sacred trust, adding one testimony more of her own steadfastness and height of spirit. When they were being more cruelly handled by the tribune. because through advice of certain most despicable men he feared lest by magic charms they might be withdrawn secretly from the prison house, Perpetua answered him to his face: Why do you not allow us to take some comfort, seeing we are victims most noble, namely Caesar's, and on his feast day we are to fight? Or is it not your glory that we should be taken out thither fatter of flesh? The tribune trembled and blushed, and gave order that they should be more gently handled, granting that her brothers and the rest should come in and rest with them. Also the adjutant of the prison now believed.

17. Likewise on the day before the games, when at the last feast which they call Free they made (as far as they might) not a Free Feast but a Love Feast*, with like hardihood they cast these words at the people; threatening the judgment of the Lord, witnessing to the felicity of their passion, setting at nought the curiosity of those that ran together. And Saturus said: Is not tomorrow sufficient for you? Why do you favorably behold that which you hate? You are friends today, foes tomorrow. Yet mark our faces diligently, that you may know us again on that day. So they began all to go away thence astonished; of whom many believed.

[note: Apparently Roman, as with modern, custom the condemned were allowed a choice of food. The martyrs used the opportunity to celebrate an Agape, or Christian Love-Feast.]

18. Now dawned the day of their victory, and they went forth from the prison into the amphitheatre as it were into heaven, cheerful and bright of countenance; if they trembled at all, it was for joy, not for fear. Perpetua followed behind, glorious of presence, as a true spouse of Christ and darling of God; at whose piercing look all cast down their eyes. Felicity likewise, rejoicing that she had borne a child in safety, that she might fight with the beasts, came now from blood to blood, from the midwife to the gladiator, to wash after her travail in a second baptism. And when they had been brought to the gate and were being compelled to put on, the men the dress of the priests of Saturn, the women the dress of the priestesses of Ceres, the noble Perpetua remained of like firmness to the end, and would not. For she said: For this cause came we willingly unto this, that our liberty might not be obscured. For this cause have we devoted our lives, that we might do no such thing as this; this we agreed with you. Injustice acknowledged justice; the tribune suffered that they should be brought forth as they were, without more ado. Perpetua began to sing, as already treading on the Egyptian's head. Revocatus and Saturninus and Saturus threatened the people as they gazed. Then when they came into Hilarian's sight, they began to say to Hilarian, stretching forth their hands and nodding their heads: You judge us, they said, and God you. At this the people being enraged besought that they should be vexed with scourges before the line of gladiators (those namely who fought with beasts). Then truly they gave thanks because they had received somewhat of the sufferings of the Lord.

19. But He who had said Ask and you shall receive [John 16:24] gave to them asking that end which each had desired. For whenever they spoke together of their desire in their martyrdom, Saturninus for his part would declare that he wished to be thrown to every kind of beast, that so indeed he might wear the more glorious crown. At the beginning of the spectacle therefore himself with Revocatus first had ado with a leopard and was afterwards torn by a bear on a raised bridge. Now Saturus detested nothing more than a bear, but was confident already he should die by one bite of a leopard. Therefore when he was being given to a boar, the gladiator instead who had bound him to the boar was torn asunder by the same beast and died after the days of the games; nor was Saturus more than dragged. Moreover when he had been tied on the bridge to be assaulted by a bear, the bear would not come forth from his den. So Saturus was called back unharmed a second time.

20. But for the women the devil had made ready a most savage cow, prepared for this purpose against all custom; for even in this beast he would mock their sex. They were stripped therefore and made to put on nets; and so they were brought forth. The people shuddered, seeing one a tender girl, the other her breasts yet dropping from her late childbearing. So they were called back and clothed in loose robes. Perpetua was first thrown, and fell upon her loins. And when she had sat upright, her robe being rent at the side, she drew it over to cover her thigh, mindful rather of modesty than of pain. Next, looking for a pin, she likewise pinned up her dishevelled hair; for it was not meet that a martyr should suffer with hair dishevelled, lest she should seem to grieve in her glory. So she stood up; and when she saw Felicity smitten down, she went up and gave her her hand and raised her up.. And both of them stood up together and the (hardness of the people being now subdued) were called back to the Gate of Life. There Perpetua being received by one named Rusticus, then a catechumen, who stood close at her side, and as now awakening from sleep (so much was she in the Spirit and in ecstasy) began first to look about her; and then (which amazed all there), When, forsooth, she asked, are we to be thrown to the cow? And when she heard that this had been done already, she would not believe till she perceived some marks of mauling on her body and on her dress. Thereupon she called her brother to her, and that catechumen, and spoke to them, saying: Stand fast in the faith, and love you all one another; and be not offended because of our passion.

21. Saturus also at another gate exhorted Pudens the soldier, saying: So then indeed, as I trusted and foretold, I have felt no assault of beasts until now. And now believe with all your heart. Behold, I go out thither and shall perish by one bite of the leopard. And immediately at the end of the spectacle, the leopard being released, with one bite of his he was covered with so much blood that the people (in witness to his second baptism) cried out to him returning: Well washed, well washed. Truly it was well with him who had washed in this wise. Then said he to Pudens the soldier: Farewell; remember the faith and me; and let not these things trouble you, but strengthen you. And therewith he took from Pudens' finger a little ring, and dipping it in his wound gave it back again for an heirloom, leaving him a pledge and memorial of his blood. Then as the breath left him he was cast down with the rest in the accustomed place for his throat to be cut. And when the people besought that they should be brought forward, that when the sword pierced through their bodies their eyes might be joined thereto as witnesses to the slaughter, they rose of themselves and moved, whither the people willed them, first kissing one another, that they might accomplish their martyrdom with the rites of peace. The rest not moving and in silence received the sword; Saturus much earlier gave up the ghost; for he had gone up earlier also, and now he waited for Perpetua likewise. But Perpetua, that she might have some taste of pain, was pierced between the bones and shrieked out; and when the swordsman's hand wandered still (for he was a novice), herself set it upon her own neck. Perchance so great a woman could not else have been slain (being feared of the unclean spirit) had she not herself so willed it.

O most valiant and blessed martyrs! O truly called and elected unto the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Which glory he that magnifies, honors and adores, ought to read these witnesses likewise, as being no less than the old, unto the Church's edification; that these new wonders also may testify that one and the same Holy Spirit works ever until now, and with Him God the Father Almighty, and His Son Jesus Christ Our Lord, to Whom is glory and power unending for ever and ever. Amen.

[mattchase82]

Cry of a Lost Soul

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This unusual narrative recounts the revelations of a lost soul to a former acquaintance. It is a powerful record of the steps which led a young woman to lose her soul in Hell for all eternity.

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Although it has several times been printed with imprimatur, this in itself does not guarantee the authenticity of the story.

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An imprimatur merely indicates that the subject matter is free from error in faith and morals.

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Is it true?

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Obviously, it cannot be "guaranteed" because the only evidence is that of the girl herself.

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It certainly may be true and its instructional qualities would pertain even if the story itself were not true.

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In the July apparition at Fatima a vision of a Hell of fire was given to the three little children, and significantly, its existence was confirmed by the great public miracle on October 13th.

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Yet Hell is little spoken of in the pulpits. Because of this, the special intervention of Heaven, may, as at Fatima, be necessary to restore this sobering doctrine to its important place in Christian dogma.

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It is well to remember that the Hell spoken of here is the Hell which has a significant place in Catholic doctrine, the Hell described vividly by Christ Himself, the Hell seen in all its livid horror by the children at Fatima on July 13th, 1917.

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The names of persons and places are omitted because of the nature of the Article.

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Clara and Annette, both single Catholics in their early twenties, worked adjacent to each other as employees of a commercial firm in Germany. Although they were never very close friends, they shared a courteous mutual regard which led to an exchange of ideas and, eventually, of confidences. Clara professed herself openly religious, and felt it her duty to instruct and admonish Annette when the latter appeared excessively casual or superficial in religious matters.

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In due course, Annette married and left the firm. The year was 1937. Clara spent the autumn of that year on holiday at Lake Garda. About the middle of September she received a letter from her mother. "Annette . . . is dead. She was the victim of an auto accident and was buried yesterday at Wald-Friedhof."

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Clara was frightened since she knew her friend was not very religious. Was she prepared to appear before God? Dying suddenly, what had happened to her?

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The next day she attended Mass, received Holy Communion, and prayed fervently for her friend. The following night, at ten minutes after midnight, the vision took place. . .

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"Clara, do not pray for me! I am in hell. If I tell you this and speak at length about it, do not think it is because of our friendship. We here do not love anyone. I do this as under constraint. In truth, I should like to see you to come to this state where I must remain forever."

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"Perhaps that angers you, but here we all think that way. Our wills are hardened in evil - in what you call evil. Even when we do something 'good', as I do now, opening your eyes about hell, it is not because of a good intention."

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"Do you still remember our first meeting four years ago at. . .? You were then 23 and had been there already half a year. Because I was a beginner, you gave me some helpful advice. Then I praised your love of your neighbor. Ridiculous! Your help was mere coquetry. Here we do not acknowledge any good - in anybody."

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"Do you remember what I told you about my youth? Now I am painfully compelled to fill in some of the gaps."

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"According to the plan of my parents, I should not have existed. A misfortune brought about my conception. My two sisters were 14 and 15 when I was born."

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"Would that I had never existed! Would that I could now annihilate myself! Escape these tortures! No pleasure would equal that with which I would abandon my existence, as a garment of ashes which is lost in nothingness. But I must continue to exist as I chose to make myself - as a ruined person."

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"When father and mother, still young, left the country for the city, they had lost touch with the Church and were keeping company with irreligious people. They had met at a dance, and after a year and a half of companionship they 'had' to get married."

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"As a result of the nuptial ceremony, so much holy water remained on them that my mother attended Sunday Mass a couple of times a year. But she never taught me to pray. Instead, she was completely taken up with the daily cares of life, although our situation was not bad."

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"I refer to prayer, Mass, religious instruction, holy water, church with a very strong repugnance. I hate all that, as I hate those who go to church, and in general every human being and everything."

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"From a great many things do we receive torture. Every knowledge received at the hour of death, every remembrance of things lived or known is for us, a piercing flame. In each remembrance, good and bad, we see the way in which was present - the grace we despised or ignored. What a torture is this! We do not eat, we do not sleep, we do not walk. Chained, with howling and gnashing of teeth, we look appalled at our ruined life, hating and suffering. Do you hear? We here drink hatred like water. Above all we hate God. With reluctance do I force myself to make you understand."

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"The blessed in heaven must love God because they see Him without veil, in all His dazzling beauty. That makes their bliss indescribable. We know this and the knowledge makes us furious. Men on earth, who know God from nature and from revelation, can love Him, but they are not compelled to do so. The believer - I say this with gnashing of teeth - who contemplates Christ on the cross, with arms extended, will end by loving Him."

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"But he whom God approaches only in the final storm, as punisher, as just avenger, because he was rejected by Him, such a person cannot but hate Him with all the strength of his wicked will. We died with willful resolve to be separated from God. Do you now understand why hell lasts forever! It is because our wills were fixed for eternity at the moment of death. We had made our final choice. Our obstinacy will never leave us. Under compulsion, I must add that God is merciful even towards us. I affirm many things against my will and must choke the torrent of abuses I should like to vomit out."

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"God was merciful to us by not allowing our wicked wills to exhaust themselves on earth, as we should have been prepared to do. This would have increased our faults and our pains. He caused us to die before our time, as in my case, or had other mitigating circumstances intervene. Now He shows Himself merciful towards us by not compelling a closer approach than that afforded in this remote inferno. Every step bringing us closer to God would cause us a greater pain than that which a step closer to a burning furnace would cause you."

.

"You were scared when once, during a walk, I told you that my father, a few days before my first Communion, had told me: 'My little Annette, the main thing is your beautiful white dress, all the rest is just make-believe.' Because of your concern, I was almost ashamed. Now I sneer at it."

.

"The important thing is that we were not allowed to receive Communion until the age of 12. By then I was already absorbed in worldly amusements and found it easy to set aside, without scruple, the things of religion. Thus, I attached no great importance to my first Communion. We are furious that many children go to Communion at the age of seven. We do all we can to make people believe that children have insufficient knowledge at that age. They must first commit some mortal sins. Then the white Particle will not do so much damage to our cause as when faith, hope, and charity - oh, these things! - received in Baptism, are still alive in their hearts."

.

"Marta K - and you induced me to enter "The Association of the Young Ladies." The games were amusing. As you know, I immediately took a directive part. I liked it. I also like the picnics. I even let myself be induced to go to confession and communion sometimes."

.

"Once you warned me, 'Anne, if you do not pray, you go to perdition.' I used to pray very little indeed, and even this unwillingly. You were then only too right. All those who burn in hell did not pray or did not pray enough."

.

"Prayer is the first step towards God. And it is the decisive step. Especially prayer to her who is the Mother of Christ, whose name we never pronounce. Devotion to her rescues from the devil numberless souls whom sin would infallibly give to him."

.

"I continue my story, consumed with rage and only because I have to. To pray is the easiest thing man can do on earth. And God has tied up the salvation of each one exactly to this very easy thing."

.

"To him who prays with perseverance little by little God gives so much light, so much strength, that even the most debased sinner will at the end come back to salvation. During the last years of my life I did not pray any more, so I lacked those graces without which nobody can be saved. Here we no longer receive graces. Moreover, should we receive them we would cynically refuse them. All the fluctuations of earthly existence have ceased in the other life. For years I was living far away from God. For, in the last call of grace I decided against God."

.

"I never believed in the influence of the devil. And now I affirm that he has strong influence on the persons who are in the condition in which I was then. Only many prayers, others and mine own, united with sacrifices and penances, could have snatched me from his grip. And even this only little by little. If there are only few externally obsessed, there are very many internally possessed. The devil cannot steal the free will from those who give themselves to his influence. But in punishment of their, so to speak, methodical apostasy from God, He allows the devil to nest in them."

.

"I hate the devil too. And yet I am pleased about him, because he tries to ruin all of you; he and his satellites, the fallen with him at the beginning of time. There are millions of them. They roam around the earth, as thick as a swarm of flies, and you do not even notice it. It is not reserved to us damned to tempt you; but to the fallen spirits. In truth every time they drag down here to hell a human soul their own torture is increased. But what does one not do for hatred?"

.

"Deep down I was rebelling against God. You did not understand it; you thought me still a Catholic. I wanted, in fact, to be called one; I even used to pay my ecclesiastical dues. Maybe your answers were right sometimes. On me they made no impression, since you must not be right. Because of these counterfeited relationships between the two of us, our separation on the occasion of my marriage was of no consequence to me. Before the wedding I went to confession and communion once more. It was a precept. My husband and I thought alike on this point. Why not comply with this formality? So we complied with this, as with the other formalities."

.

"Our married life, in general, was spent in great harmony. We were of the same idea in everything. In this too, that we did not want the burden of children. In truth, my husband would have like to have one; no more, of course. In the end I succeeded in dissuading him even from this desire. Dresses, luxurious furniture, places of entertainment, picnics and trips by car and similar things were more important for me... It was a year of pleasure on earth, the one that passed from my marriage to my sudden death. Internally, of course, I was never happy, although externally at ease. There was always something indeterminate inside that gnawed at me."

.

"Unexpectedly I had an inheritance from my Aunt, Lotte. My husband succeeded in increasing his wages to a considerable figure. And so I was able to furnish our new home in an attractive way. Religion did not show its light but from afar off, pale, feeble and uncertain."

.

"I used to give free vent to my ill humor about some mediaeval representations of hell in cemeteries or elsewhere, in which the devil is roasting souls in red burning coals, while his companions with long tails drag new victims to him. Clara! One can be mistaken in depicting hell, but never can one exaggerate."

.

"I tell you: the fire of which the Bible speaks, does not mean the torment of the conscience. Fire is fire! What He said: 'Away from Me, you accursed one, into eternal fire', is to be understood literally. Literally! How can the spirit be touched by material fire, you will ask. How can your soul suffer on earth when you put your finger on the flame? In fact the soul does not burn; and yet what torture all the individual feels!"

.

"Our greatest torture consists in the certain knowledge that we shall never see God. How can this torture us so much, since on earth we are so indifferent? As long as the knife lies on the table, it leaves you cold. You see how keen it is, but you do not feel it. Plunge the knife into the flesh and you will start screaming for pain. Now we feel the loss of God. The lost Catholics suffer more than those of other religions, because they, mostly, received and despised more graces and more light. He who knew more suffers more cruelly than he who knew less. He who sinned out of malice suffers more keenly than he who sinned out of weakness. But nobody suffers more than he deserves. Oh, if that were not true, I should have a motive to hate!"

.

"My death happened this way . . ."

.

"A week ago - I am speaking according to your reckoning, because according to pain, I could very well say that it is already ten years that I am burning in hell - a week ago, then, my husband and I, on a Sunday went on a picnic, the last one for me. The day was glorious. I felt very well. A sinister sense of pleasure that was with me all the day long, invaded me. When lo, suddenly, during the return, my husband was dazzled by a car that was coming full speed. He lost control."

.

"Jesus, used frequently by some people of German language - escaped from my lips with a shivering. Not as a prayer, but as a shout. A lacerating pain took hold of the whole of me. (In comparison with the present only a trifle). Then I lost consciousness. Strange! That morning this thought had come to me in an inexplicable way: 'You could go to Mass once more', It seemed like the last call of Love."

.

"Clear and resolute, my 'NO' cut off that train of thought. You will know already what happened after my death. The lot of my husband and that of my mother, what happened to my corpse and the proceedings of my funeral are known to me through some natural knowledge we have here. What happens on earth we know only obscurely. But we know what touches us closely. I see also where you are living."

.

"I myself awoke from the darkness suddenly, in the instant of my passing. I saw myself as flooded by a dazzling light. It was in the same place where my dead body was lying. It was like a theater, when suddenly the lights in the hall are put out, the curtains are rent aside and an unexpected scene, horrible illuminated, appears. The scene of my life."

.

"My soul showed herself to me as in a mirror; all the graces despised from my youth until my last NO to God. I felt myself like an assassin, to whom his dead victim is shown during his trial at court - Should I repent? Never! - Should I feel ashamed? Never!"

.

"However, I could not even stand before the eyes of God, rejected by me. There was only one thing for me: flight! As Cain fled from the dead body of Abel, so my soul rushed from the sight of horror."

.

"This was the particular judgment: the invisible Judge said: 'Away from Me'. Then my soul, as a yellow brimstone shadow, fell headlong into the place of eternal torture."

YOU CAN READ THE WHOLE UNEDITED VERSION HERE

.

http://sicutincaelo.org/b08_hell.html

[js116]

Silent Planet’s Everything Was Sound

22 May 2021

A wee bit of background before we get to the main event:

Silent Planet is an American post-rock metalcore band from California headed by retired psychologist/therapist Garrett Russell, and Everything Was Sound is their second studio album. Released in 2016, this concept album did nothing short of blow my mind; the total runtime is 41 minutes, but it took me a couple hours to write out everything I picked up from each song. 

Everything Was Sound has thirteen tracks, standard, so that is the album I listened to for this review! For the purpose of sticking with the album’s story concept, I’ll be adding my standout lyric quotes with the description of the song, rather than sticking them at the end. 

- I want to post a warning before I get into this album: this one covers topics some may view as disturbing. There are mentions of death, suicide, war, several mental disorders including depression and eating disorders), politics, and generally dark themes. This is where you should stop reading if any of these will bother you. -

The concept for this album revolves around the idea of the “panopticon,” which describes a circular prison surrounding a central guard tower. There are bright lights shining down from the tower so that the prisoners cannot see into the tower, where they are told there are guards watching them constantly. The prisoners are isolated from the guards and each other, being unable to see into the tower or other cells due to the walls and the lights. This setup removes the autonomy of the prisoners, and the paranoia that the guards are constantly watching (whether there are truly guards in the tower or not) removes the will to try to escape or act out. 

This concept is introduced in the first track of the album, Inherit the Earth. This first song begins by referencing the events of the previous album’s last track (Depths II from album The Night God Slept, in which the viewer has a vivid vision in the forest before falling asleep) as having happened only a few hours before, and now the viewer is waking up in the woods to find it is starting to rain. The viewer (us) stumbles through the rain and the forest under they find a structure: the panopticon. They enter the prison to escape the weather, and so we are pulled into the story of the album -- a metaphor for the human condition. 

“We inherit the earth, we inherit the war / I inhabit the wound, I dwell in the harm / Oh how far we fall: We’re casualties of time / Oh how far we fall: Forgive existence.”

The second track, Psychescape, (and each subsequent song, except the last one) introduces us to the contents of one of the cells: Schizophrenia. The theme of this song is paranoia and delusion, and the tower’s lights and watching guards are revealed to us; there are two distinct, conflicting voices. 

“I waited on the tracks of reason / But my train of thought never came / It never came.”

“Scrawled across the walls the suffering saint cries out: / ‘Is it madness to retreat from the myopic gaze that holds us captive?’”

Dying In Circles, the third track and second cell, holds the prisoner Organized Religion. Heavily rooted in Biblical principles, I was surprised to find this track used those principles to highlight and call out the hypocrisy of the modern church; the gatekeeping, neglect of those in need, the isolation of outsiders. Silent Planet calls on systematic religion (particularly modern Christianity) to return to its original purpose: to care for others, rather than turn them away or determine their worth as an organization. They are charged with trading their religious superiority for the awe and compassion for humanity they once had; to return to being a religion about the life of God, rather than being solely about his death. I really do love the idea of the “Image of God” being represented by a homeless person sleeping on church steps. 

“Beside the shadow of a frozen chapel / Under the marriage of cross and crown / Outside the privilege of the ‘chosen ones’ / The Image of God is sleeping on the ground.”

“We are the eulogy at the funeral of God.”

“Trade your certainty for awe.”

The fourth track took me for a spin, personally, as I’ve encountered the prisoner described here myself. Understanding Love as Loss opens with a few brief lyrics outlining the suicides of writers Sylvia Plath (“Searching for solace in a toxic temple--” death by toxic inhalation), Earnest Hemingway (“Fragments of lead climbing through your head--” death by shotgun to the skull), Virginia Woolf (“Stones load your coat as you wade through the winter current / Dancing with the dead on the riverbed--” death by drowning), and David Foster Wallace (“Wanton hanging of the wise pale king.” death by hanging). 

The line immediately following the deaths of these writers stuck out to me, as a fellow writer who has struggled with depression: “And I see myself.”

The title of the song explains that love is sacrifice; you lose a piece of yourself when you love someone else. Lose that piece, Silent Planet urges in this song; lose that piece to another person instead of losing yourself to your suffering. 

Lead vocalist Garrett Russell: “[Sometimes with depression,] the world feels like there’s no color. Even if you can’t see the color, be bold enough to ask someone to describe the colors of the world to you.”

This song was my favorite this far into the album, for its bare, unflinching honesty on the subject. The footnotes for this song in the album booklet include the number for the National Suicide Hotline. I respect that. 

The fifth track, Tout Comprendre, draws its title from the first half of a French quote, and translates loosely to “To Understand All.” This song is an interlude, meaning it does not contain any lyrics, and it is the first of two interludes on the set. 

Immediately following Tout Comprendre comes Panic Room, a track that tells the story of a veteran who has come home, but is mentally haunted by the war. The lyrics take us to bloody battlefields in desert sands, and lay out the plague of terror-memories. Panic Room’s prisoner is PTSD, and it delves into the American treatment of returned veterans and their struggles with armed-conflict trauma. 

“Praise me for my valor, lay me in a crimson tower / Justify my endless terror as my ‘finest hour’ / Treat me as a token to deceive the child / Whom we fatten for this scapegoat slaughter / I learned to fight, I learned to kill, I learned to steal / I learned that none of this is real, none of this is real / None of this is real, NONE OF THIS IS REAL”

Just after this verse, there is a brief, almost total silence, before the song resumes. There are several breaks like this in the music; periods of calm between the intense music. 

We move on to the fifth cell and seventh track, REDIVIDER. This song threw me off at first; I thought the words were being reused and rearranged before I realized the song is a palindrome. About halfway through, the lyrics flip to mirror the first half of the song. 

“Death ran away then life flooded in world / This I am: Imbalance, beautifully so / Hands connected, perhaps… / Then dead reflections saw you / I did, didn’t I? / I didn’t, did I? / You saw reflections dead then / Perhaps, connected hands… / So beautifully imbalance: Am I this world? / In flooded life then away ran Death.” 

The fifth prisoner is Bipolar Disorder. 

Nervosa is the name of the eighth track; this one disturbed me the most out of all of them. My first impression of this song was, if you’ll excuse my Irish here, “Holy sh*t.” None of the imagery prior to this song was nearly as vivid and disturbing as it was here. The clean vocals (singing instead of metal-screaming) are very well done, capturing the desperation of the situation in a very raw way, which is fitting for the theme of the song -- this cell’s prisoner is the deadliest of psychiatric disorders, bulimia nervosa. The entirety of the lyrics are well-written (although, again, vividly disturbing), so I chose the most poignant of them.

“I am not my own reflection / I am not myself, I am not myself / I am haunted by a non-existent lover / The spectre, the ghost, the self-starving host / I am haunted by a non-existent lover / I was gifted with the vision but cursed to be the witness.”

This song, too, contains links to help services for eating disorders in the footnotes of the album booklet. 

We come now to the second interlude, C’est Tout Pardonner, titled after the second half of the French quote, the entirety of which translates to “To understand all is to forgive all.” The prisoner held in the two of these is ignorance. 

Just as C’est is the second, contrasting half of Tout, which was followed by war-themed Panic Room, so Orphan, the second, contrasting half of Panic Room, follows C’est. 

Orphan relays the perspective of orphans of war, the prisoners of this track. Particularly focusing on crimes against peaceful civilians (especially in the Middle East), Orphan also describes the reunion of two brothers on opposite sides of war. 

“I’m finding the violence -- it looks like me.”

“Terrified little son, encumbered by your sword / You can hide your fear, but won’t shed the weight of your humanity -- Humanity / You can face me toward the mountains / Where I meet our mother’s gaze / Too blinded by this hatred / To recognize your brother’s face.”

The eleventh track, No Place to Breathe, was both ahead of its time and should not have had to be written in the first place. The prisoner in this eighth cell is fascism, specifically within enforcers of the law. It dives into how easy it is to turn a blind eye to issues like systematic racism, police brutality, and inherent injustice, if these things do not affect us personally. There are three murder victims, (Eric Garner [2014], Hernan Jaramillo [2013], and Kelly Thomas [2011]) all killed by police, whose last recorded words are attributed in the song: “I can’t breathe.” 

Does that sound familiar from more recent news? This album was released in 2016, to give some perspective on how things have changed. 

“We shout at fascists, hands fixed on asphyxiating those in need / Place your hands to the pulse of this city / Keep your ear to the ground / Hear him gasp, / ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.’”

The ninth and final cell is explored in the twelfth track, First Father (which is the partner of a song called First Mother from their previous album). The final prisoner is the grief over losing a loved one. Switching between a rushing, loud tempo and a low-toned quiet of guitars and vocals, the song captures the process of moving forward through personal loss. 

“‘You pulled me through time,’ through the edgeless night / I’ll learn to love as you learned to die / I’ll begin to feel again and finish the chapter you couldn’t write / Candles in the dark, defiant to the night / Defiant to the shadow / You pull me through time, through the edgeless night / I learned to love as you learned to die.”

With the thirteenth and final song, we’ve literally come full circle and are finally at the prison’s central tower, where we discover we are the guard watching the prisoners. Titled after a line from the first track’s lyrics (”We inherit the earth[...] We inhabit the wound”), Inhabit the Wound tears down the guard tower, freeing the prisoners from the confines of their situation or disorder. Each of the nine prisoners reaches into themselves and retrieves a seed, which is planted in the place of the tower. The album closes with this image:

“The earth, with a final gasp, shook free from our inventions. Grace and nature reconciled as I heard ‘it is finished.’ The final seal was broken, the concussion blew me back -- I teetered on the edge of re-creation and the wrath. The nine lovers stumbled out of their shells of brokenness, they reached inside their wounds to find the seeds borne from their suffering. Coalesce upon me to plant the tree of life inside the heart of the machine. Reach inside -- heal the wound -- make us whole.”

I found this album to be an absolute masterpiece, and metal isn’t usually a preferred genre of mine. I’ve got to give this one five out of five symbolic and vivid frogs. Well done, Silent Planet, both in composition and in raising awareness about different types of struggle.

Next week I’ll be reviewing an album that was recommended to me, and that was released today: Twenty One Pilots’ Scaled and Icy.

Thanks for listening with me!

[carriemaya]

COMING HOME — Healing from Housing Instability

CW: Childhood sexual abuse, parentification, slibling abuse, religious abuse, and PTSD.

INTERGENERATIONAL FAMILY TRAUMA

I grew up with a lot of material privilege: a beautiful home on 2 acres of property, cable TV, ducted heating/cooling, always had food on the table, and went to a private Christian school (even if it was through a bursary programme). I even had singing and piano lessons (and went to performing arts school with Zachary Ruane from Aunty Donna — true story!).

But there was a maelstrom of abuse going on behind closed doors.

What my five siblings and I experienced varied from child to child; a combination of sexual, physical, psychological, and spiritual abuse — from parent to child and sibling to sibling over the course of many years. While the onus for violence, volatility, and religious fundamentalism was on my parents, they were also the facilitators of beautiful moments of genuine care and joy — a toxic dynamic born of traumatised adults who find themselves the parents of little children whose entire world they’re responsible for.

And because our nervous systems remember things that we would choose to forgive and forget, it laid the rocky foundation for the early onset of a plethora of complex mental health issues that I still experience today.

And while my parents weren’t all bad or all good (as is the case with most people), the culture they created or allowed, made way for fractured relationships between my siblings and me — and unfortunately these sibling relationships became the catalyst for my personal ongoing housing instability and a deeper, more chronic experience of psychological damage that years of therapy, self-help books, and spiritual healing sessions haven’t been able to heal.

-

My siblings were traumatised by the person I was growing up. I was parentified from a young age and stepped into the mother role. At around 10 years old, my parents forced me to physically discipline my siblings. But I had the head and heart of a child which meant that I wielded power with all the wisdom and responsibility of, well, a child.

It caused lots of damage because I was the scary one in their eyes (not my parents) which set me up to be alienated from my siblings pretty much from the get go. I could be awful to them. But I also loved them and simultaneously felt responsible for protecting them against my parents. I look back at the moments born of these confusing dynamics and I can pinpoint them as the place in my life where my personality started to fragment.

When it came to trying to protect myself, my siblings, or to reason with my parents, I yelled. A lot. My voice was the only weapon I had to use against their size, age, fellow adult allies, and economic power.

I thought that by yelling I could get through to them — to help them wake them up and see how much their kids were suffering because of their behaviour. I didn’t learn until I was an adult that my brothers and sisters resented me for this as they wished I had just been quiet. The toxic culture in my family was normalised and my railing against it was seen as the cause of our household drama.

I was Crazy Carrie. The mentally ill one who yells a lot.

While experiencing abuse from my parents, I also abused my siblings.Thankfully, they weren’t subjected to the same kind of treatment I received from my parents as the eldest child. But unfortunately because of that, it meant they weren’t privy to the ways I was being tormented behind the scenes into becoming the kind of child I was. They remember me as an abuser. And why wouldn’t they? And as an adult with space and time between us, I can also accept that their feelings and opinions about me are valid.

But the thing that breaks my heart is that they don’t seem to remember the good things I tried to do for our family — or sacrifices I made. Like when I dropped out of high school in my final year to cook, clean, and be their emotional support because my father forced my mum to go work outside of the home full time. It was my dream to be the first person in our family to finish high school. B that honour went to my brother. I’m proud of him and glad he got to do it. Yet at the same time, it feels as though the things I tried to do right count for nothing.

And I guess that’s the complex nature of intergenerational family trauma.

Everyone’s a victim and no one comes out unscathed.

THE BEGINNING OF HOUSING INSECURITY

When I was 18, my father was eventually removed by The Department of Human Services.

And we turned to a church for hope and support. We were then exploited and abused for 6 years. You can listen to that story in full detail here.

[TLDL version: inappropriate touching of me and my siblings by church leadership, encircled by a group of church members in a prayer meeting and forced to take communion while crying and choking on breadsticks and cranberry juice, the pastor putting wedges in between children and their parents so she could be their mother).

My siblings and I had explosive relationships before going to the church. But after what we experienced at the hands of our former pastor, the dysfunction and dissension multiplied 50xfold. They became toxic and so did I. Our home, post-church, became a cocktail of trauma, brainwashing, and siblings hurting siblings.

Upon leaving that church, I became aware of how toxic I had been in so many ways. I started apologising to everyone in my family as soon as I became conscious of it. I still wanted to hold onto my faith and I wanted to process what we’d been through so that we could heal.

Unfortunately, the siblings I have had the most conflict with over the years — and I — had such deeply opposing perceptions about our behaviour toward each other.We all have contrasting feelings about who should be taking responsibility for what. Or what had transpired between us over the years and what hadn’t.

They told me that I was selfish for wanting to talk about what happened and that if I truly wanted to move on, I would just do it. I felt constantly shut down and dismissed by them — just as I had with my parents growing up when all I wanted to do was to connect by bringing things out in the open for two-way, exploratory conversation.

In conjunction with this, because of how much shame and self-hatred I had for the way I had been growing up (and who I’d become at church), I believed that even if I felt hurt by their behaviour now, that I should allow them to treat me however they want because maybe that’s what they need to do to heal.

But no matter how much I apologised or tried to change, it felt that they were committed to misunderstanding me because they wanted me to hurt as much as I’d hurt them. Which I understand because their pain and trauma needs a voice. And because I was the cause of so much of it, their frustration and anger landed squarely back on to me.

I guess they just didn’t realise how much I had been hurting, too.

This eventually led to me going into fawning mode. And I was eventually forced to leave home because of the bullying that I experienced at their hands. I felt really betrayed by my mum who allowed certain things to happen without standing up for me, a feeling which triggered painful emotions associated with the way she singled me out for abuse as a child.

When I finally left home, I told her that I wanted nothing more to do with her. And that if she ever wanted a relationship with me again she’d have to earn it.

Note: I’m sure you understand that I can’t share everything about my family in detail. This blog entry is actually a redraft of a much longer, much more explicit, piece that explains all the awful things I did to my siblings and all the awful things they’ve done to me. We’re all adults now. And at this stage we’ve all traumatised each other. It’s unfair. And it sucks for every single person involved.

When you are driven out of your housing by personal circumstances or through danger to your person, it’s a complete upheaval. Personally it was utterly jarring when my family situation led to me needing to leave before I was ready. Especially when it was catlysed by the dismissal of me and my survival needs in preference for another sibling who was causing literal damage to our house (among other things).

Once I’d moved out, I crashed. A sort of emotional paralysis took over.

And I’ve carried that paralysis and accompanying dissociation with me for the last 7 years. Every move bringing it to the surface and causing me to plummet into the self-hatred and fear associated with being driven out of my home in the first place.

Anyone who’s rented knows that good housing situations are the luck of the draw.

Throughout all the moves I’ve made in the last decade, some have been a dream: like Jake and Beth who were fellow live-in mentors to an at-risk young person for the Vista Lead Tenant Program where we had beautiful chats about faith, doubt, politics, and played Jackbox TV games. Like the international sharehouse where I learnt Farsi from Reza and Shohra — an Iranian immigrant couple who didn’t even have a mattress to sleep on but would invite me to eat almonds on the blanket they had laid out on their bedroom floor.

The majority of them, though, have been utter nightmares.

Like the one where I was being stalked by a neighbour in the unit behind mine. When I told her to back off, she retaliated by making a false report to the police — saying that she was fearful for the lives of her fiance, her pets, and herself. I was taken to court and the mediator saw through her straight away. Thankfully, he was incredible and encouraged me to file for a cross-order/ intervention order so that she didn’t just have one against me. Which would give me some measure of protection against her if she wanted to start making trouble for me. I agreed. That SAME day, she breached it and came right up to my bedroom window and started looking around my unit.

Another time, I moved in with a man whose Gumtree ad I responded to out of desperation for a place to stay. Then after a week, he told me that I wasn’t allowed to file for rental assistance from Centrelink because it would cut into his welfare benefits. I agreed because I needed a roof over my head. And it also didn’t take long to learn that he was an alcoholic who stayed up all night listening to the radio up to 11 and I found myself unable to sleep.

And finally, the nightmare of my most recent living situation up until two months ago. I lived next door to two meth addicts. Let’s call them Tarzan and Jane.

They were good enough neigbours until COVID-19 hit. I think it’s because they used to party at other peoples’ places before restrictions were implemented but couldn’t anymore.

The drugs, the psychosis, the cackling-witchy ramblings of Jane, and waking up to her yelling in the street early morning after early morning

One time, they had a 17-hour bender.

He groaned in this deep, demonic sounding voice for 40 minutes. She began to tell herself a story. At 4am, Tarzan stood at my bedroom wall shouting, “Fuck off, poofter” for 15 minutes. I dragged my mattress into the lounge and closed the door while they continued to party hard to loud music for a further 7 hours.

I spent most of 2020 sleeping in my living room because I was so scared. It triggered PTSD episodes for me on a daily basis.

Then Jane passed away from an overdose.

The woman from across the street (we’ll call her Julie), started coming over to visit Tarzan all the time. He started putting up a fence without permission from the landlord. I felt like reporting him at first, but decided to leave it alone.

And one of these days that she came over to visit Tarzan, I hear Julie start yelling about me through the wall. It wasn’t just about her being a bitch. She was another loud, rude, scary person disturbing my right to a peaceful home and I decided enough was enough.

I decided to confront them.

I grabbed my phone because I knew that if they reacted badly without video evidence of their actions towards me, nothing could be enforced by the authorities.

I’m glad I thought that far ahead because Julie physically assaulted me, snatched my phone away, and then smashed it on the ground. It turned out Tarzan had received a breach of lease notification from the real estate agency for the unapproved fence and thought I had reported him.

Because the attack was caught on camera, when the police arrived and saw the footage and damages, they arrested her and charged her with unlawful assault.there anymore. But that was it. I couldn’t stay there anymore.

The physical attack by my neighbor was just the beginning of a series of injuries that would also take their toll on my well being.

At the end of October last year, just after the assault, my friend Tash graciously offered her home to me while she and her husband lived in Melbourne short-term for his cancer treatment. In exchange for looking after her cats, I received rent-free, bill-free accommodation while I looked for a new place.

I needed a safe place to recover and roll out the first session of my online coaching programme Mother Mary Speaks, so I promptly moved into Tash’s and was able to run my first session.

One week passes, I’m working at my desk, and I get up to move around a bit because my legs have fallen asleep — my ankle crushes beneath me. I rolled it and couldn’t get up.

I ended up in hospital with ligament damage.

So there I was, living in interim housing, $300 in my savings, a cat in tow, unsure of how I’m going to afford a new place and whether I’ll be accepted by a real estate agency even if I can (because I am self-employed and don’t yet have a livable wage/ am still receiving Centrelink benefits). And now I can’t walk. Oh, and I’m running a 6-week programme where people need me to hold space for them.

And each day I’m without a home, I’m cripped more and more by PTSD associated with housing and family.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CONSTANTLY MOVING FOR 7 YEARS

Moving is expensive.

Like really expensive.

Transporting furniture and possessions is really pricey if you hire a professional. And honestly I’ve never been able to afford it. Which has also been really hard as someone who doesn’t drive due to having seizures since she was in her teens.

The stress of having to coordinate help when your former pastor made you believe that anything you express needing help with makes you a selfish taker of resources — someone who is unworthy of their faith for not putting it in God’s hands only. The anxiety and shame from those past conversations and beliefs about myself are almost unbearable at times.

Then there’s the cost of bond and first month’s rent. And all the utility connection costs that can really add up depending on how old a property is or what kinds of outlets and wiring a place has installed.

During the last 7 years, I managed to support myself financially for nearly 2 whole years with a livable wage. Because the work was flexible and online, it meant that I could work around the PTSD episodes and manage the effects of my Borderline Personality Disorder (like chronic self-harm urges, sui* ideation, and anxiety/ depression). More recently in 2019, I was casually unemployed for about 5 months and then COVID-19 hit and the work fell through.

I have been building a business using my life experience, professional experience, spiritual gifts, and a combination of small wages and welfare payments.

So one doesn’t have much savings or proof of income in these situations. I’ve had to borrow money more times than I can count to make sure I have a roof over my head. And I’m one of the lucky ones who has someone to help me in these situations.

Then there’s the deep-seated uncertainty that comes with constant unwanted relocations. Each move has felt like a deeper, harder blow to the foundations of my stability.

I’ve tried everything to ground myself and make myself feel safe over the years — and thankfully I’ve found many tools to make life more bearable.

And while I’m able to cognitively understand that renting is the reality for so many of us (and that in this day and age, home ownership is a privilege that fewer and fewer people are able to afford), my body and all my emotions have been ever filled with anxious anticipation that life is just about to be pulled out from under me.

The same question arises with each new property, “ What if this was how it’s going to be for the rest of my life? And what if it’s going to continue happening in really dramatic ways like being assaulted or taken to court? What if my life is a never-ending cycle of mental illness, trauma, and housing crisis? Will I ever get a chance at stability? A chance to build something sustainable beyond survival?”

THE END OF HOUSING INSTABILITY

Years ago, when mum began making amends for the ways in which she didn’t come through for me when my siblings bullied me out of home, she apologised to me as much as was humanly possible.

And while the journey toward reconciliation was far from smooth sailing, each year has seen our relationship blossom and grow. She has spent the last 7 years since earning my trust back. She hasn’t just said sorry. She’s made recompense where possible.

She has helped me with transport, paying rent, bills, bonds, moving costs, and has been an incredible rock of strength when I’m experiencing extreme mental illness symptoms. No one understands me or holds space for me with the love and strength that my mama does.

I’m open with her about the fact that I’m writing this article. I’m a writer, I need speak my truth. And the cost-benefit analysis of sharing the story of our healed relationship comes out as a choice with lots of benefits. I also want to say that I don’t just forgive her. I adore her. She is actually my most favourite person in the world and I can’t imagine my life without her. She even told me last year that she has left her house to me in her will because she wants to make sure I’m taken care of when she’s gone.

I’ve come to learn the ways in which her life was shaped by family trauma and abuse. And how that flowed down into our family unit.

She’s had her world destroyed over and over again. And I couldn’t see that when I was younger because all I could think about was that I needed her — in the ways a young child needs their parent.

But as I’ve grown older, I look at her with so much gratitude and compassion.

Because being an adult is hard. And life is mostly hard. And being an adult, with trauma, when you have children must feel insurmountable. Yet she never gives up. She never stops. She keeps coming back to our relationship to be the mum I need.

And this is exactly what she did when I got ligament damage at Tash’s house.

She moved in with me and took care of me every day for two months. While also working during the day from the office (because of COVID-19). It’s been a beautiful time of bonding.

During this time, though, she’s watched me struggle immensely. Because of inaccessible housing opportunity after inaccessible housing opportunity. The houses that are affordable are high-risk for dangerous neighbours and my mental health couldn’t handle another attack. And even they are so expensive that I couldn’t rent them.

Then on top of this, the rental market in Gippsland isn’t what it used to be. People from Melbourne have fled here in droves to escape catching COVID-19. bUT Their relocating and renting out all the properties with their big city incomes means that there’s hardly anything here for the locals who fall within the lower socio-economic bracket.

Time to leave Tash’s home was coming to an end and I had nowhere to turn. I ultimately secured the last affordable caravan in Gippsland and was going to live on mum’s front lawn. But then one day, about two weeks ago, she comes back to Tash’s after being out for the night and says she has some news.

She tells me that she is giving me her house.

Yeah.

Not the house I lived in with her and my siblings 7 years ago. She’s since moved into a home that I’ve never lived in.

She’s been in Gippsland for over 30 years. She’s originally from Melbourne way, and she’d like to do a bit of a homecoming of her own. Because she loves all six of her children and can’t fix all our divided relationships, outside of her working hours, she wants to be a wandering mama.

She’s decided to keep one room in her house for when she lives with me, and then she’ll be renting a place with one of my sisters who has been needing to move to Melbourne for her job (as commuting so far was exhausting her). And I get to start decorating it exactly how I’d like as though I already own it.

It’s going to be my forever home. From now until I inherit it (which will hopefully not be for decades to come). And then from when I inherit it until I decide to sell it (or not).

I’m a little shocked. The symbolism of this beautiful, full-circle and healing gesture is not lost of me.

Thankfully my siblings are pretty high-functioning people who have material stability and are building the lives they want. And I’m really glad for them. Even if I don’t have relationships with most of them. I want to see them grow and prosper. And receiving this generous gift from my mum is her way of taking care of me and ensuring I keep growing and prospering, too.

It’s the proof I didn’t know I needed that I am as loved as my siblings.

HOUSING PRIVILEGE

Some of us choose the nomadic life.

Some of us buy or build our own homes.

Some of us are living from rental to rental knowing that we’ll never be able to break the cycle.

And even worse still are those of us who end up on the streets because they can’t afford any of the above.

I can’t speak for everyone, but experiencing both homelessness and unrelenting housing instability drove me to the brink of madness. That’s not an expression. I mean, as much as I’ve healed myself in so many ways over the years, I was starting to lose my mind after living through these consecutive housing traumas.

I don’t care what anyone says: people don’t need to just learn how to make their bodies their homes and learn to make themselves feel safe. That’s New Age bullshit. The reality is that just like children need shelter and stability from their parents when they’re growing up. All people need shelter and housing security that isn’t going to be taken from them. They need to know they are loved and safe, and having a home helps ensure that. There are only so many grounding techniques, meditations, and reframes that one can do before the instability of housing insecurity hits sends you spiraling mentally

Coping every now and then isn’t flourishing.

Never having a solid, unmoving homebase to trust in so that a person can build their life financially and relationally is common but not normal. Or healthy. Or okay.

I’m 32 now and I work hard on my mental health. I have taken radical self-responsibility for my life and the direction it’s going.

But no matter how hard I work or try, I can’t hustle my way out of complex mental health issues that affect my ability to work in a mainstream job (and thusly earn the money that I need to live a comfortable life). I’ll never stop trying to build a degree of wealth that can help me make ends meet. But I will NEVER AGAIN shame myself for not being able to pull myself up by my bootstraps and climb my way up the socio-economic ladder.

The capitalist narrative that we live in a meritocracy where all you have to do is work hard and you can get everything you want is a lie.

The capacity to work varies from person to person. And this isn’t just in relation to physical disability but disabling mental health experiences.

I’ve struggled for 7 year up until yesterday, and all of a sudden I’m someone with housing privilege. I didn’t earn this home. It was a gift from my mum.

But don’t I deserve it? Doesn’t everyone deserve this?

I say a hearty yes.

And yet, it feels bizarre because I don’t know myself as a person who isn’t struggling to survive.

I know it’s going to require a LOT of unpacking. My identity needs to evolve so that I can adapt to this move.

WHAT NOW?

My body still holds a lot of fear around what some of my family can do to me. And moving into this home feels a little bit scary because of it. I asked my mum if she’d agreed to signing a written agreement with me. Something to support my right to be in this home if toxic sibling relationships bleed over into my housing situation again. She is the best. I can’t celebrate her enough for going the extra mile here to prove that she loves me and wants what is best for me.

Because of the familiar instability story, I’m feeling scared to trust that I have a home or won’t be driven out of this house, too.

But I’m choosing to put faith in my mum now. And in the 50% possibility that this situation can work out really, really well.  

I get to return “home” and give myself the parenting I never had.

And I’m devoting 2021 to figuring out what this means. Integrating it and working through the painful associations with it.

Fulfilling little dreams like: the joy of being allowed to put pictures up on the wall, creating Pinterest boards for each of the rooms in my new home, watching Workaholics with the sibling I still have a relationship with, and feeling peace because I know my cat can call it his forever home, too.

Adapting to the fulfilment of bigger dreams like: freedom from  landlords and real estate agents, and knowing that I can finally put down roots.

Where the repeated upheaval of my life was a constant trigger related to feeling unloved by my siblings and mother, it’s being replaced with a  home that represents my mum’s love for me; a testament to relationships that are worth fighting for, parents who are people with their own stories and need a chance to be seen in their humanity, and children who never stop needing to know that they are loved.

Follow me on Instagram: @heycarriemaya

[noctusfury]

Helping Others in Need

It makes me so upset when I see/hear people who CLAIM to be Christians who don’t help others who are hungry and need to be sheltered and clothed and provided for when Jesus CLEARLY commanded us to. It’s because of the cushy living that we’ve been living in. We’re so used to having jobs, having homes, having money, having food, having clothes, having everything provided for us since birth, and instead of being grateful and trying to use our blessings to bless others, as God commanded us, we decide to hoard it for ourselves and lazily think that God will take care of those in need because He’s God, when WE are the vessels He’s wanted to work through. We have been brainwashed into thinking that talking and thinking is the same as action. We have been brainwashed to ignoring our fellow man under the assumption that other people will do it so we’re not needed.

James 2:14-17 says: “14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can such a faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

Also, just because somebody calls themselves a Christian, doesn’t make them a Christian. Even the demons believe in God and Jesus... and SHUDDER in fear! A Christian is someone who proves his faith by his actions, by helping other people and providing for them as Jesus had done as He gave food to the multitude as he chatted with His disciples.

Also, remember the Pharisees? They were the wealthiest people in Israel and were considering, in that time, to have the favor of God because of their wealth (though they got their wealth through corrupt means). One of Jesus’s chief accusations against the Pharisees was in not doing good on the Sabbath, and in placing their own laws and traditions of men above serving and providing for their own people with the wealth that they had been blessed with. What was Jesus’s entire ministry? Healing the sick, bringing sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, raising the dead, feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty.... HELPING PEOPLE.

So if Jesus was like that with the Pharisees, what would He think of US, who sit around eating and drinking and going on vacations like Kings and Queens, but ignore our fellow human beings who are waiting on God to provide for them, but can’t, because He’s waiting for US to notice? If all that Jesus was doing in His ministry was helping people and providing for their needs, then why aren’t WE doing the same thing? Just seems contradictory to me.

Also, one more thing: It GALLS me to see my fellow Christians say “Go in peace; keep warm and well-fed,” to those who are in need of help but ignore the Spirit’s urging for them to help, only for them (the Christians) to whine and blame God when they’re the ones in need and nothing happens. And God’s like, “Why should I help you when you failed to do the same for your brethren?”

Proverbs 21:13 says: “Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered.”

Matthew 25:40 tells us that whatever we do to even the least of our brethren, we do to the Father and His Son — for good or for ill. Also, what we don’t do will be taken into account as well. So beware!

If you wish God to show mercy and come to your aid when you’re in serious need, then do the same for your brethren who suffer around you every day and are waiting for you to be God’s instrument and vessel through which provision and even healing can be given. God works through His people; if his people can’t be bothered to become the conductor through which light and healing can be administered, then God cannot move. For He has elected to work only through His people in order to bring light into this dark and cold and miserable world. If Jesus had not moved to help those in need, there would’ve been no miracles, and there definitely would NOT have been the cross. If the disciples had not done the things they did to help those in need, there would’ve been no miracles, and Christianity would not have been spread, and there would’ve been no Book of Acts.

Hint: It’s called ACTS for a reason. It wasn’t called the Book of Plans, or the Book of Blessing or Encouragement, or the Book of Talking. It was called the Book of ACTS, because the Disciples took action and saw the needs of those around them and saw to those needs. THEN they told the Gospel. Same with what Jesus did.

I don’t mean to preach, but this has been ruffling my feathers for years. But we NEED to step forward and be like Christ. You want to know why the world HATES us Christians in the Western world? It’s because we’re hypocrites; we say one thing and do another. We say we believe, but we don’t. We say that we love God and follow Him, yet we don’t follow what He commanded us to do. Jesus said, “I do the will of my Father, the One who sent Me.” and his entire ministry was helping people and providing for their needs. So why aren’t we doing it? The world hates us because they know that the Bible says this, but we don’t do it. We say we believe and is what we should do, but at the same time, we assume God will do it or tell someone else to do it, when we are in a position and have the resources to do it. And the recipient remains hungry, cold, and still in poverty. 

Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 

Brothers, if we are doing nothing, we are allowing EVIL to TRIUMPH! How can this be? Satan wants us to do nothing. Us sitting on our haunches gives him the legal right and authority to move. The Spirit can only move and good can only triumph when we step up and DO something for the good of others — even if it’s at our own expense and we are required to sacrifice something. Was not the Assembly in the Apostles’ time praised because of their sacrifice and their willingness to help others, even at the cost of their own lives? Those during the Middle Ages were willing to help heal those who had the Plague and often died themselves as a result. Tell me... are YOU willing to make such a sacrifice? Even if it’s not your life, what about your finances, your reputation, your pride, your job, your relationships with your family and/or friends, etc? Even if the government outlawed such attempts, would you not do it?

Christianity, our Faith, is all about SACRIFICE — a concept that is strange and foreign to today’s generation of believers. Many of them haven’t even read James or much of the Bible to begin with. They just sit back and listen to the preacher preach. Their faith isn’t reality for them.

And let us not forget Paul’s Epistles and those written by John, as well as the Old Testament — ALL of them talk about how to HELP people and SACRIFICE and PROVIDE for the poor, the widows, and the orphans. (Paul commends the Philippians for their going above and beyond the call of duty in their offerings and SACRIFICING so that other churches can be blessed and so the Gospel can grow.) They even go as far as to say that the summing up of the faith, according to James, is to look after the poor, widows, and the orphans. God clearly says multiple times in Scripture that He will bless those who hear the cries of the poor, the widows, and the orphans, and will punish severely those who close their ears and eyes towards them. I mean, that’s heavy stuff. Even going so far as to say that He will make the offender’s wife and children become widows and orphans if we ignore the cries of those in need and continue indulging ourselves. The Father HATES those who do nothing for those in need, because God intentionally placed them there to test our faith and so that we can be a light for the world.

“The poor you will always have with you” (Matthew 26:11). 

Always... meaning that there’ll never come a time until Jesus returns when there’ll cease to be any poor, needy, widows and/or orphans. Why? Because every generation of FOLLOWERS need to have the opportunity to become Lights of God. Without them, it would be impossible for us to be able to prove that our faith is the real deal and there’d be no anvil to hammer us into refined gold.

Okay, I need to stop before I get ahead of myself. lol XD

Think about it. Pray about it. But more than anything, be a DOER of the Word, and NOT a HEARER only. Go Home and Read Your Bible! Thanks!

Shalom and Agape, Brothers and Sisters, and to those who aren’t a part of the Assembly who have read this artlcle. I hope that this has been a blessing to you all and has been of some encouragement or conviction. Love you guys. ^_^

[erikthedead]

entry #3

Jordon Peterson just encouraged me to write more, so here we are again. Sat on my bed with my little laptop, letting the streams of consciousness manifest into the tippy tapping of the keyboard, a noise I really like. I normally can’t stand little noises like that. Clocks ticking for example, drives me crazy. The beeping of a low battery fire alarm is even worse. Fascinating, I know.

The concept of family has been knocking around my head lately, I always find it strangely coincidental when the themes within my own mind are outwardly validated by what is going on externally around me. When I’m thinking about something and then the subject happens to present itself to me in some form, through a TV show or a film or a podcast or a real-life event. I went with my grandad to visit his daughter (my auntie), and her two teenage sons to have a Sunday Roast together today. It was good to see them because my family has always been small and fragmented. It feels positively ritualistic for us to gather together like that even briefly. Then later on in the night a podcast pops up in my YouTube subscriptions of Jordan Peterson and his daughter talking with Russell Brand about family. Also, coincidentally, Brand and Peterson have written the books that I’m currently reading. Both of them are great men. Brand was an inspiration for me due to his journey from addiction to recovery. He actually first got clean in my hometown of Bury Saint Edmunds by the same organisation that my mum and nan worked with to kick heroin. Another strange coincidence. Or maybe it really is just a small world with a very few central themes that transcend through time and space for humanity, hence I see them everywhere. The very heavy, important themes that surround the meaning of existence: Love, life, death, sacrifice, devotion, duality, surrender, forgiveness, hatred, progression, conflict, values, ethics, symbolism, truth, illusion, punishment, good and evil. All sounds very religious actually. Which isn’t much of a surprise if the purpose of religion is to reconcile with these themes which we all deal with in life. Religion never clicked with me; it still doesn’t. I consider myself an extreme atheist and sceptic, to the point where I jive heavily with the vibes of LaVeyan Satanism. I read the satanic bible when I was about 14, but I can’t recollect if it was before or after my mum died. I just remember how it was the first book that truly resonated with me and gave me the courage to stand up for myself in the face of tyranny, which at that time were bullies at school, some of those bullies were teachers. This is a little post I recently submitted to the r/satanism, the online Satanist forum on Reddit:

‘Growing up in the Christian country of England, we had to sing hymns and take part in attempted brainwashing in our public schools from an early age. Not only that but teachers usually had 'good vs evil' (authority = good) philosophy that this culture has instilled into us that really is not that helpful on its own. I was SO frustrated with the whole system and the people in it. There were some bullies too, and I was always told to 'be the bigger man' by never retaliating. I was about ready to do something extreme to get myself expelled. Then I got hold of this book when I was about 14, read it all in one sitting, and it was so comforting to me to read Anton spin everything I had known on its head, and he was the first person who ever told me to smite those who have infringed upon me, not turn the other cheek. And it worked. I never took shit lying down from bullies or teachers after processing the book mentally. After that, when they dished it to me, I threw it back at them, and many times I would win. I won by getting through school and passing my exams despite hating the environment I was in.’

I don’t really want to read the book again, because I may have outgrown the deliberate edgy nature of it, and I have so many new books to read, but I will always keep it close to me as a symbol and reminder of what I took from it. It was a really important step for me towards self-love and self-respect, as well as being able to discriminate between the people that deserve my love and those who deserve my wrath, or even better, those I should take no consideration for at all. If I have to sum it up, the philosophy of satanism encourages you to challenge God’s authority, not just submit to it because ‘that’s just the way it is and has always been.’ Through doing that, we become our own gods, which is a far more appealing position to be in than the sinner damned to suffer for eternity, for me anyway. Satan himself is the good guy in the story if you really think about it. The advances we have made culturally, legally and socially are mostly thanks to those brave enough to challenge the status que and authority. The first couple waves of feminism, LGBT rights, protection of the sanctity of childhood, better care for the sick and disabled are a few crucial movements. And without discrediting the brave soldiers who fought in the world wars, because what they went through really was hell on earth, the Armageddon, it’s an example of what happens when people are encouraged to follow their false gods. It is still mind boggling to me how the world nearly ended in all out nuclear warfare only recently. Well, I say ended, but we’ve all seen Jurassic Park… ‘Life finds a way.’ That dark fetishization of destruction within me I have mentioned before still sort of wants that to happen. Or even better, the whole planet being obliterated into pieces by something hurtling through the abyss directly into us. Not just a small asteroid that disrupts the atmosphere like the one that killed the dinosaurs off, I mean something BIG that gives life no chance of recovery. Perhaps the reason for this ultra-mega-death wish is because the alternative is so cruel and unappealing. The sun will burn out and everything will slowly wilt away. I just want us to go out with a bang, you know? Again, it is just me trying to control fate and death. I’m sure any astrophysicist would be able to ruin my Earth killing fantasy by informing me that it’s not even possible because of gravity and all that other magical shit that’s beyond me. That’s if I ever bad the balls to even talk about these terrible things out loud.

[just-gay-thingz]

So I decided to write a text about homophobia at midnight and i decided to publish it here. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the notes or reblog it :) 

also im in no way homophobic. im gay myself and those are jsut the way i think about this topic.

I’m sorry for eventual grammar mistakes or spelling errors. English isnt my first language

Homophobia

There are a lot of people out there who are homophobic. Their reasons are it’s not normal or not natural, the bible says its wrong or just because they don’t like it when people don’t condone to the heteronormativity of society.

 Let’s start of with the argument, that homosexuality is not normal or natural. Homosexuality is common in in over 1.500 species and homosexual animals are very important in their communities. For example, if a straight couple isn’t able to take care of their child anymore because let’s say they died. No other straight couple will be able to take care of that child because they are to busy caring for their own children. This is where the gay animals come in. As it is not possible for them to get their own children, they are able to take in the orphaned child and take care of it. When it comes to homophobia though, it only exists in one species. In the Homosapiens. Humans have been oppressing homosexual people for hundreds of years. In most countries “conversion therapy” is still legal. “Conversion therapy” is when you send homosexual people, mostly teens who were sent by their parents, to camps where people, so called “therapists” even though they are many things but a therapist, torture them into being straight. Some methods for that are: making them watch straight porn, hit them/make them feel pain while they have to watch gay porn, so that they will associate that kind of porn with the trauma in the future. Another method is to give them medicine that makes them feel aroused (e.g. Viagra) and force them into having sex with someone from the opposite gender. They also try to pray away the gay, which I think gets explained by itself.

You often hear homophobic people say, “the bible says Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve” or “the bible says homosexuality is wrong” or “Homosexuality is a sin and you will go to hell for it.”. But I don’t think those people always act as it is written in the bible, because if you can’t just take one part of the bible and ignore the rest. As Jesus said: “the one without sin throw the first stone”. I don’t think those people even commit to the ten commandments. They probably already used “Jesus fu****g Christ” or “Jesus no” or other slurs including the name of God, when the second commandment is “you should not miss use the name of God”. Another example would be “You should keep the day of God holy” but I’m pretty sure not all of those Christians who use the bible as an excuse for homophobia go to church every Sunday or do nothing all Sunday long. “You should honor your mother and father” is another one of the commandments but I don’t think none of those people spent their whole live without ever speaking ill of their parents. The sixth commandment says “You should not break your marriage” but still 50% of the marriages end in divorce. Only about 77% of the world population are not Christian and obviously not all of them are married but it’s still unlikely that all those divorces are all from non-Christian people. “You shall not lie” or “You shall not steal” are commandments too and I don’t think there is a person out there who has never lied or stole something even if it was just a pen from a classmate or something like that. “You shall not desire someone else’s wife” but people still cheat and just because you are Christian doesn’t automatically make you a faithful person. “You shall not desire someone else’s stuff” but people still are jealous of others for having a better phone/car/house/etc. You have to remember those statements are only the ten commandments but if you say homosexuality is wrong because it is written in the bible. Then this means you support everything in the bible. This means you support that Babies are getting killed and women are getting raped. "See, the day of the Lord is coming — a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger. . . . I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty. . . . Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated." (Isaiah 13:9–16 NIV). This means you think it’s okay, that daughters are burned as an acceptable sacrifice for God, "And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: 'If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.' . . . When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! . . . After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed." (Judges 11:30–39 NIV). This means you share everything you have with the people who don’t have that much, Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same. Luke 3:11 NIV. As you can see Christians often just pick the verses of the bible if they help them back up an inappropriate or offensive argument.

Good responses to homophobic sayings by Christians:

“Its Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve”-“It’s Homosapiens not Heterosapiens”

For the Bisexuals: If they tell you to just pick a side, tell them, Its Adam AND Eve not Adam OR Eve

“You will turn my children gay”-“No, I don’t think so. I Mean your Heterosexuality didn’t make me straight either”

Feel free to add your own statement in the comments.

 So I think that was enough with the Christians. Let’s get to Heteronormativity!

We all grow up thinking we are straight because society tells us there isn’t something else. That’s because of the almost nonexistent representation of LGBTQ+ people in the media and because it’s “normal” for a man and a woman to be together. It’s “normal” for a child to have a mum or dad. But if you don’t stick to these stereotypes, people will see you as a rebel and we always get told rebels aren’t good people and that we should always listen to our parents. But sometimes rebels are just what we need. Sometimes we just need to see that it’s okay to be different. That it’s okay for a boy to dress feminine. That it’s okay for someone to not want have sex. That it’s okay for someone to not feel comfortable with their Cis gender. That it’s okay for girls to like girls or for boys to like boys. And nobody should be able to tell you otherwise

  hope you enjoyed reading this and im sorry if it was shit, these are just my late night thoughts