#digital mirrorbooking

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

What does it mean when they say "make it out in one piece"?

What if you're out, but you're not in one piece?

What if you can't remember being anything but shattered pieces?

What if every time you make it out, you have to pick them up?

What if you always play sculptor, artist, mosaic maker?

My life is nothing if not a gallery of stained glass.

[rwt-mystic-corner]

Samhain Spirit Supper

Tonight I set out a spread that's part offering for local nature spirits, part solace for the wandering spirits.

Apple slices, toast, pumpkin pie, and a cookie (the latter two courtesy of my qpp), charged with spices and honey (the latter especially for the nature spirits)...

Pomegranate juice and liquor for those spirits who imbibe...

And an improvised crystal grid to capture ambient energy and channel it into the food.

Selenite and quartz to channel and amplify it, mostly.

The raven statue is both a companion and a sentinel to make sure everyone behaves.

The seat setting has aquamarine for safe travels, rose quartz and peach agate for good will, sodalite for a restful stay, and yellow fluorite and ocean jasper to channel the energy.

As any good host knows how to set boundaries, I've also set up a separate grid of smoky quartz, black tourmaline, and obsidian to prevent any unwanted entry into my room. I added extra wards tonight, shielded and put the place incognito, and later tonight I'll be doing a focused meditation. I think this year it will be less of the usual psychopompic exploration and more focused on putting the past to bed. Coming to terms with what I've lost that I'm still carrying with me.

It's not the fanciest or the most formal, but then, neither am I, and I imagine if I was a passing spirits, I'd appreciate anything more than nothing.

[blackwinged-soul]

Little Kin Moments^tm I've experienced today:

- A friend and new roommate wanted to start watching The Ow| H|ouse! I haven't really watched it from the beginning since watching the end. I expected it to feel bittersweet, but it just made me feel warm and nostalgic and Like Visiting Home Again. I love my home. I love my sister. I love my niece. I love H|ootsifer. I smile-sighed "He's so underappreciated". (I know Ed|a loves him too.)

- My friend is already kinsidering Someone From The Source but doesn't know who in the system it's from or who in the canon it will be. I'm excited to potentially live with two sourcemates! (My sister is his kintype and my niece is his synpath.)

- I had plans to go to a movie tonight, and I thought I knew what outfit I wanted to wear, but I wound up choosing a long somewhat form-fitting dress and black fingerless opera gloves and had my hair straight down with a necklace that laid a small gem over my chest. It was bittersweet to realize it was Very Reminiscent of what I wore as h|ead of the Em|peror's Co\/en.

(I spent a long time in that role. Presenting myself that way. It wasn't very true to Who I Was, but it was who I thought I wanted to be. It was formative, even if I had to dismantle the part of me that identified myself that way. Unlike my role of Re\/erent Daug|hter as H|arrowhar|k, it wasn't so much... Me Being Me. Self-expression. Feeling Right. I mean, I felt I DESERVED it, well somewhat anyways, but as H|arrowhar|k there was a lot less doubt about My Role In My Society. Some level of fulfillment and status, but not nearly as much "rightness" or sincerity in it.)

- My Ra\/en synpath jumped out while watching B|ue Beet|e in the theatre??? No spoilers, but at a certain Triumphant Moment, I started smiling so much for him. Mostly just feeling, but something like "That's the J|aime I know and love."

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

...Well...

Nimona made me cry. Real actual tears.

(Spoilers. Spoilers, and emotions.)

I don't know how much I have the heart, clarity, or energy to tell about Why.

But that line... Two lines in that scene, actually.

(I can't rewatch it to transcribe the precise words because yt has that artificial slowdown on Firefox, I'm trying to capture this emotion, not wait an eternity for yt to load. So, may be paraphrasing, unsure of Exact Words.)

So, that part about... "Little kids. They grow up thinking they can become a hero if they kill something different."

And... "I don't know what's scarier. The fact that they want to run a sword through my heart... or the fact that, sometimes, I want to let them."

It's both personal reasons and topical. I think the personal reasons made me sensitive to the topical.

I grew up bullied and ostracized because I was different. To this day, I'm not entirely sure Why. Logically, I know it's all power dynamics, them not understanding, not wanting to understand. For some reason, people fear what they don't know. They fear what they can't put in a box. They fear those who disagree, who don't WANT to be put in the box.

I've never understood it. Maybe that's why, a month away from turning 31, these things still bring me to tears.

Maybe I don't actually have that fear because it's like Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, suffering made me human. Maybe I don't have that fear because there's something Weird in my brain chemistry, the same reason I'm not given to anxiety, the same reason I'm so eerily calm when the situation turns Genuinely Dire.

Maybe I just don't understand Them, either.

But what really breaks my heart, as an adult, is the fact that the elders TEACH this fear, this hatred, this ostracization. They teach children it's okay to be mean if you disagree. They teach children that The Others deserve to be hurt and broken and killed.

They teach children that what happened to Nex is okay.

This senseless fear and hatred hurts so many of us. Even if you weren't bullied as a kid, if your hair is too neon green, or if you wear pajama pants to Walmart, or if you love someone whose gender isn't perfectly heteronormative, they think you deserve to be executed.

For no other crime than being yourself.

I can bear my own suffering with grace and strength, but it SHATTERS me to see others so undeserving being criminalized and punished because people don't understand their choices, their actions, their way of love.

Transphobia. Homophobia. Skin color. Nationalism of all stripes. It's not just high school cliques, this stuff has real actual consequences that hurt real, living, breathing, dreaming people.

And then, when I realized, minutes before the reveal, that the little golden-haired girl in the flashback was probably Gloreth, I crumpled again. I desperately hoped I was wrong, but.... no.

It's not even the betrayal that hurt me. It was the reflection of all those children in the world who were told, "Yes, they deserve to be beaten because they're different."

We shouldn't be extinguishing compassion, and yet there are so many people in the world who will side with hatred and blind rage and fear and disgust and take the side of evil, because they understand fear. They don't understand gay love. And thus, gay love has to die.

Because they dared to be independent, to be unique, to be who they are: They all deserve to die alone.

So naturally, I broke again at the climax when he said, "I see you. And you are not alone."

That sentiment has never-- and probably WILL never-- be something I can submerge, make quiet, erase. How it saves lives. How it saved my life. How there are always people who are willing to see you, to be with you, to remind you that you are loved.

Even when everyone else in the world wants to sacrifice your life in the name of Their Ideals: You Are Loved.

That message is so goddamn fucking important.

And then... She was saved, and so she saved everyone else. That doesn't resonate with me emotionally, to the bullied little child deep in my core, but dear gods, does it speak to the power of compassion and what it can do to STAND UP AGAINST cruelty and bias!

So naturally, I cried again.

In closing, these quotes have better words than I right now:

"You think you're alone, Raven. But you're not." - Spellbound, a Teen Titans episode that made me cry twice for all the same reasons.

"Blind belief: are you afraid to see that our fathers were wrong?" - Evanescence. The song (Blind Belief) also calls to "Push through the pain, unbreak the system."

And as Delain wrote in a song called We Are the Others, inspired by the murder of a girl named Sophie whose death was caused by a beating inspired by her alternative fashion choices:

As simple as air in your lungs, as simple as words on your lips No one can take that away. No one should argue this! Now with our heads up high, we'll carry on, and carry out that we won't let them get us down, or wear us out, 'cuz we are not alone. We are the others, we are the cast-outs We're the outsiders, but you can't hide us! We are the others, black-eyed and battered You're not out there on your own! If you feel mistreated, torn and cheated: You are not alone! We are the others.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Mildly annoyed at my body.

Probably venting. Mostly complaining. Some medical talk.

I kinda want to get a second shift job, but I just got a raise and starting this month, I will be making really good money. Like, double minimum wage money. I don't think I'll be finding that wage anywhere else with no college degree and only 5 years of office experience...

I want to put more of my books on the shelves, the ones still boxed in the living room and the basement. Go through the comics I probably have no real attachment to, maybe offer them up somewhere. Put the books I keep thinking about that somehow didn't get their boxes marked "FAVE" and thus weren't put upstairs when I moved. They're in the basement. I KNOW I have more books by my favorite author. I've been wanting to reread the ones I haven't unpacked.

But I just ate. I can't go up and down the stairs, let alone carrying 2+ boxes and unpacking them. Not to mention, some of them are practically buried in others' boxes... I can't exert myself by moving them around, either. I might be able to reach the ones by the shoe rack, but I don't remember. I can't stand up and bend over to look.

For my stomach AND my back reasons. Ever since I had the neurology appointment, during which they twisted me in ways that made my mostly-fine back start hurting at a Level of 5/10 Again, and when I said it started hurting they kept twisting and asked if it still hurt. Yes! Fuck yes, it hurt WORSE!

And it still hasn't entirely calmed down. The pain now is worse than it was before the appointment. Even two weeks later (or is it three?). Even with lidocaine patches and muscle relaxers. They want me to start steroid shots. (And do physical therapy again, but I already spent most of my PTO built up this year on Sisu's vet appointment and my teeth. I need to build up more hours for things in April, a concert road trip and taking the day of the solar eclipse off because I absolutely REFUSE to miss the eclipse, when I live conveniently RIGHT in the path of totality! I can't take 4 hours off work every week because the PT only has appointments during my work schedule.)

I need to do at-home physical therapy exercises more often anyways, but I can't lay down (let alone lay on my side for 10 minutes) after eating, and by the time my stomach's done making me uncomfortably aware of the food I've eaten, I need to go to sleep.

And tomorrow, I want to watch some panels at an online convention and go grocery shopping and clean the pet cages and shower. Maybe sweep my room and do dishes. I'm still debating if I want to wake up at 10am for a panel on something I've often wondered about (thanks in large part to the name of a roller coaster at Cedar Point), but that will sacrifice about 4 hours of sleep.

Precious sleep. Which is ALWAYS a struggle working first shift. When I worked 3pm to 11pm, I slept for 9 hours every night, no problem. (I was constantly exhausted for Other reasons, but sleep wasn't the problem.) But working first shift? I have to fight my body tooth, nail, and pharmaceuticals to get it asleep before 11pm. Half the time it doesn't happen. The meds make me sleepy, but won't KEEP me asleep.

I take melatonin, L-theanine, herbal supplements (valerian and lemon balm and passionflower and lavender), magnesium citrate, and an anti-depressant and muscle relaxer, all in the desperate hopes that I MIGHT be able to sleep for 8 hours a night. (I struggle with delayed circadian disorder. It's not insomnia, because I can easily fall asleep and stay asleep if it's within my body's natural circadian rhythm. Sleeping about 1-3am, waking about 10:am to noon.)

It isn't the ADHD meds that keep me awake because, once again, due to my stomach being a Little Bitch^tm, I can only take them when I'm having Really Good Days with my stomach. Which is, at most, about 1 in 5 days. It's rare that I CAN take them 2x a week. Let alone every day.

At the core of it, if I didn't work 40 hours a week and didn't have to ride a bus for an hour each way to and from work and didn't have to wake up at 7am every day, I'd have more time and more sleep to endure and work around my stomach's issue with Being Active After Eating, and work around Needing to Sleep or I feel Dead On My Feet.

....though with the raise, maybe I'll be able to get my temps again, and once I get my license, have the budget to start paying for gas and parking downtown...? I figure that's another $200/month, at least, but even if I break even with what my cashflow is NOW, I'd get about 80 minutes of my life back every day. That actually sounds really nice...

But currently, as it stands, my schedule is perpetually packed and my body is perpetually fighting me on doing Anything Ever. =_= Not to mention, the ADHD making it really hard to overcome that executive dysfunction...

It's just frustrating, wanting to do So Much but needing 2 weeks to recover my social battery after being at a wedding for 5 hours. I can't catch up on sleep when my duplex neighbors are massive inconsiderate assholes who blast music every Saturday morning. I want to wake up a little early to hear a really interesting topic discussion tomorrow, but it comes at the cost of spending the entire next week exhausted from sleep deprivation.

Where's the Quality of Life when the amount of life you can live is so small, you can't fit a lot of Doing Things in it anyways?

Worst of all, I've been too exhausted to write, whether that's roleplaying or fic. I'm lucky if I can come up with 5 words for my Pokemon character to tag on a blog post. I can't come up with New Things Happening very often. I really desperately want to continue some Old RPs with Dove, but my brain is fried mush. It's burnt on the outside and just a gooey mess on the inside. I can't jog it enough to Imagine New Things.

I'm not exactly depressive. I'm having fun at the convention this weekend! I'm glad for the 5 words I can scrouge up on the Pokemon RP blog! I'm eating good food and stealing every minute of personal time I can get! I'm watching Teen Titans and ATLA with my roommates once a week! I only have minor complaints with my actual job duties! It's not All bad.

I'm just frustrated that working 40 hours a week is so fucking much to work around that it's a chore all its own to try fitting my life around it without sacrificing sleep health.

Fuck capitalism.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

I don’t know how to talk about why and how this impacted me so deeply...

But Paul (sp?) telling Nona, “You can’t take ‘loved’ away” brought tears to my eyes.

All the people I’ve lost. All the people who still mean so much to me. Everything we’ve been through, every bridge we’ve crossed, every river we’ve forded, every path that has ever taken us away from each other...

We’ll always have loved each other, and I feel more full of gratitude and promise and hope and life and love at that thought.

“You can’t take ‘loved’ away.”

No. No, you really can’t.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

I find myself single again, and I find myself thinking too many thoughts to figure out what they Mean for me.

This is less of a recording and more me trying to work out what I'm thinking and feeling. The best way to do that for me is by writing it down.

I've been mulling it over for hours. Almost 24 of them, in fact.

We were together a long time. It was 9 years and 7 months. I thought, shouldn't this hurt more? Shouldn't my whole world be rocked sideways? Shouldn't I feel a loss, a grief, a gaping void; shouldn't ten years of a relationship coming to an end give me at least five years of pain?

I had time to prepare, I think. There was awareness, and then there was concern, and then there was resignation. I think I resigned myself to this a long time ago. Maybe even before it was explicitly spoken, and I think having that time to prepare myself and come to terms with it immensely softened the blow.

I was able to talk with a couple of friends last night, and they helped me understand that it's okay to not have my heart rent to pieces over it.

But I'm still puzzling over why it both hurts, and doesn't.

I did cry. I cried before the news itself broke because I had a feeling long before it was discussed. I cried talking to my mother about it. I've cried long before it happened yesterday, because I knew something was different, something was wrong, but I didn't know how to approach it, to broach it, to voice my concerns, because they were all so frustratingly vague.

And truth be told, I was trying to cling to what was Good. We didn't get to see each other much; I didn't want to take precious time away from Enjoying Ourselves.

But I should have learned by now: My instincts are Good. Whether I want to be or not, I'm Aware of Other Peoples' Emotions. They affect me, I can read the feelings themselves, but I don't get any sort of telepathic confirmation or instinct for WHY people feel the way they do, I just Sense The Sensations. Some empaths get that explanation in tow. Lucky them.

I don't. I only know Why people feel what they feel around me when I've Asked about it. When they Talk about it.

It's so strange to think of myself as a wordsmith, and then look at the conversations that matter most, and look at how rarely I have them. My greatest strength is my words. Why don't I wield them?

Well, after thinking it over, setting aside the easy cop-out ("afraid of conflict", because I'm not), the fact that I didn't know how (there's no script for this), and the inability to separate what I'm feeling from myself versus what I'm feeling from someone else…

At the heart of it, I don't always KNOW what I'm feeling.

One of the things I've always related to NTT!Raven on was the inability to sort my feelings, to "feel my way through" them, to inspect them. I could introspect my reason and motivations and come up with a treasure trove of self-realizations, but to ask myself what I'm feeling emotionally is to dive into the ocean's depths and darkness with only a glowstick. I can't see much at all. I can only explore the smallest increments at a time, and will only ever have the briefest bit illuminated.

So over the past 36 or so hours, I've been wondering: Was love what I was feeling? Romantically inclined love, the stuff of storytales?

I think I was in love. I do now, yes.

And I think I liked it.

See, I had a tag specifically for My Significant Other. And I looked back through it today. Not all of the posts were S.O. exclusive; some of them WERE feelings I had for friends and my QPP and all the members of my found family, too.

But there were also posts weren't. Silly, delightful, mushy, sappy romantic dating-specific feelings that made me smile.

When my feelings are too strong, I can't put them to words. It's another paradox in my being such a self-aware writer. But I would see posts, and they would light up an array of fireworks in me, and I'd reblog them smiling like an idiot. Thinking, specifically, of him.

But here's the thing. I sensed the encroaching distance. The distance dulled my wits, dulled my feelings, sharpened my nerves.

I think, in my own anxiety, when things went dark and silent, when he went dark on me, I feared what it meant.

And, truthfully, I feared to lose him.

I can say with absolute certainty that the fact that he'll still be in my life, even if it's just as a friend (albeit a very good one), was an immense relief to me. I was worried the pulling away meant he'd break Everything off. That I had somehow become unbearable.

But no, just the romance. I don't think I'll be bitter, or angry. Wistful, maybe. Sometimes even mournful. Because this was the first time I've ever felt, with any degree of certainty, that I loved someone romantically.

(Besides, you know, fictional characters. But even then, I only toy with ideas and the occasional fantasy and mostly just channel my feelings through other people in the stories.)

With him, it was all me, my own feelings, me acting on them. And I do think it was all genuine, certainly so from my end.

And I did like being in a relationship. I liked being That Person to someone else. I loved being That Person for him.

I was happy to make extra effort to make him feel loved, valued, to put the Significant in Significant Other. I wanted to. I stretched my limits, tried new things, stepped out of my comfort zone because he made me want to. I enjoyed that, too.

But I also don't feel any sort of desperation, or even desire, to replace it. I don't want my life to be Married With Kids. For as long as I can remember, when I looked to adulthood, I saw myself living happily alone, or after seeing Teen Titans, living in a home surrounded by friends.

(Funny to be living that dream at long, long last, at age 30…)

But still, Something Hurt.

I worried, was I sad to be losing him as a partner, or to be losing the sense of love?

I think it's both, now. Feeling Loved on that level had left a long time ago. I guess maybe I was just holding onto hope that a spark would reignite. Because I did like it.

I was waiting. I was hoping. But time marched on, and that hope faded farther and farther into the horizon.

I don't know how to stop hoping, really. I can't let myself. I hold tight to the smallest modicum of faith, and while I remain a realist, weighing evidence of what will happen and what is the most likely outcome, I still privately think "Maybe… Maybe."

Until I'm faced with the fact that it is, indeed, over.

Like I was yesterday. Like I am now.

And I don't know what to do with myself. I'm not amidst a wreckage. I'm not floating, lost at sea. I'm not smoldering amidst ashes or beating myself into a pulp over it.

(Maybe, if it had happened six years ago, I would be. I would have blamed myself into oblivion. But we had a good talk over it. I had ample time to prepare, to read the signs, to come to terms with it. I know now that it's not anybody's fault if feelings fade, it just… happens sometimes.)

I'm just… resigned.

I think a friend was right yesterday, that mourning may come later.

Like I said, I don't have desperate hopes and dreams and desires for a romantic relationship.

But it was nice while it lasted.

And if it ever happens again, I wouldn't mind. But by all the gods, is anyone else going to have to work Hard to hold up to how that felt with him.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

So here's a random aspect of Azarath that has literally been niggling at me for YEARS.

Specifically about Azar. Basically a minor/background character in all cases except the one where she's raising Raven and the one where she's taking out Trigon.

But I..... have done inordinate amounts of thinking about Azar, let's put it that way. (*laughs in Great Understatement and also in Nexus*)

So the great mystery about her has always been... Which Azar is it, exactly, that's speaking in Terror of Trigon? WHICH ONE IS IT?!

The two main points of consideration are:

An Azar, third Azar, granddaughter of the founder of Azarath, gave Raven the rings, Raven says she can "still feel her" spirit in them (heavily implied it's this Azar specifically in the rings based on context of discussing that the woman who raised her had given her those rings before she died), and iirc they use those same rings to channel an Azar, presumably the same one whose spirit is present and known to Raven.

The ORIGINAL Azar, the foundress herself, who speaks to Trigon as if she's known him for centuries, talking about staying one step ahead of him and following him through dimensions, and iirc said something about Since His Inception... which happened at the time of Azarath's creation by Azar the First.

So I'm going to go through why this always confused me, but spoiler alert: I finally found peace in this decade-long debate with myself by settling on all three of them being the same person reincarnated through three consecutive generations. Or at least aspects of the same person.

In Tales of the New Teen Titans #2, Raven explicitly tells everyone that the Azar who raised her was the granddaughter of the original Azar. She mentions the most recent two living for multiple centuries each (dyscalculia prevents me from remembering the exact numbers, and which one had which lifespan, but they were quite literally Centuries.)

There is, however, definite mention of them having died. People usually only do that once.

((Raven didn't get that memo.))

If you ask me, the extent of the average Azarathean life span is still up for debate. Somehow it's true in canon both that Juris "was one of [Azarath's] originals", AND that they used the secrets of dimensional travel to form Azarath a thousand years ago. So implicitly the guy's a thousand years old??? But if that's the case, why are their head spiritual and bureaucratic leaders dying after a handful of centuries?

ESPECIALLY when it's heavily implied that Azarath's existence relied on them! I still can't rationalize how it came to mind, but someone asks something to the effect of, "Wouldn't Azar dying destroy Azarath?" And Raven's response is, "There were many who studied at her side." Implying, to me, that if these people HADN'T been there, it WOULD have been destroyed! (And also that it took "many" people to replace the power of one Azar, which is just... Whew.)

But why would average everyday Azarathean citizens have a longer lifespan than the 200/300 / presumably also 400 years allotted to THE PERSON WHO ALLOWS THE PLACE TO EXIST???

It just doesn't make sense!

Unless that essential person isn't really gone.

I don't think the NTT duo had the story straight on Azarath, unfortunately. I am definitely thinking harder about this than they did.

I'm not saying this is what I think they intended.

In fact, it's probably not. Any time an Azarathean mentions death or dying, they refer to it as "ascending to another plane of existence"-- or "joining Azar", supposedly implying In An Afterlife With Her. So the textual evidence reads like they believe souls leave the physical world and enter a separate world, an afterlife, and gather with their leader.

(Gee, Azar, how come your gods let you have TWO leaderships? /ref)

So that then opens up the question of Which Azar is Leading Them?

Not only in the afterlife, but in their posthumous defeat of Trigon!

I used to assume the Azar defeating Trigon was the one who raised Raven. Lilith "channels" an Azar, and I always supposed it was Lilith's connection to Raven, which would have been especially strong after doing a dang seance to contact Raven, that allowed her to open up to Azar.

(I mean, I guess now that I'm laying out my assumptions, a woman who was powerful enough to keep a place Not Being Destroyed simply by Being Alive is probably powerful enough that she could possess whoever she wanted. But it seemed a bit like she was asking permission?)

Anyways, as summarized above, the flaw in this logic is what Azar says to Trigon. I'm currently on a tiny phone and have no spoons to go hunting down the panels, but I distinctly remember the Azar that shows up in Terror of Trigon talking about them having a looooong history. Chasing him through the dimensions, and I'm pretty sure she says something like, "for centuries", or maybe it's "millennia". Again, dyscalculia, number words are Hard. But the third Azar, Raven's mentor, only lived for... I think 200 years, according to TotNTT 2?

Honestly Terror of Trigon kind of talks like there was only ONE Azar ever. I don't think there's ever any distinction between them except in TotNTT.

Hell, I've recently been wondering, when Raven cries out to Azar as an exclamation or expletive or prayer, which one is she asking for? The original who led the Azaratheans (the most likely to be deified in this way, if you consider that the founders of a cult are usually the ones who get deified), or is she praying to the one she knew personally?

But then: When Raven said Azar was an "almost-goddess", it reads like she was talking about the one that raised her. Azar III clearly had a lot of power and a lot of religious sway over the people. She was, canonically, their High Priestess.

I like both the idea of this spiritual connection being to the original Azar AND the sentimental connection of being prayers to the woman who raised her, "the only person who treated [her] like [she] was something special."

So WHICH IS IT?

But damn it, I'm sick of trying to puzzle this out when neither feels like "the one true pure canon".

So essentially, I did... Extensive Thinking. I, uhh... let's say I looked into my heart and interrogated the "vibes" I get. And the thing is, I can't see much narrative or emotional function in them being completely different people. It just complicates things.

So they died. Hella canon. Probably an important part of Raven's backstory, losing That One Person. But what if, when one Azar died, her soul stayed to guide the Azaratheans further?

This explains why their name is apparently their title, and they don't have, say, Azar Samara and Azar Karina.

There's absolutely no evidence that the Azaratheans believe in reincarnation, in fact it's a bit of evidence to the contrary. But their souls ARE able to return to interact with the living world. This is hella canon. This is how they defeated Trigon.

(And how Phantasm v.2 happened, but that's a mess I'm not ready to untangle right now.)

Plus: Anyone who's ever read my in-depth rambles about Azarath knows I like to draw from real world anthropology and worldviews to fill in the blanks. There are multiple cultures in our real world that believe (or, believed) that ancestors can reincarnate in the bodies of their descendants. Now, I've never done a dive into these cultures specifically, but Azarath's most obvious real-world influences seem to be cultures whose worldviews include reincarnation.

So why not reincarnation within the family?

I've been writing this for an hour and I'm running out of steam, but this is the only solution I like to a canonical quandary that has bothered me for years.

At the very least, the multiple iterations, multiple bodies, might be different aspects of Azar's soul. Fragmentary reincarnation is another form real-world worldviews include, whether you want to talk about ancient practices or the modern hodge-podge spirituality in certain communities I'm in.

So yeah. I finally feel more at peace with The Great Azar Iteration Paradox.

And with Azarath on the brain, peace is pretty essential.

*Raven voice* Thank Azar.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Behold, my Cauldron of Candy! (And glowstick bracelets. I know I would've been THRILLED to get free glow sticks for Halloween as a kid.)

I'm going to spend a couple hours doing good old-fashioned Trick-or-Treat handouts tomorrow before I witch it up!

Then it's going to be a spirit supper, meditation and refreshing the protections on this place, and intermittent Halloween party shenanigans over on the Pokeblog.

So I may not be around much tomorrow! I did take off work early and I'm going in late the next day, since observing Samhain is literally of religious significance to me, but I have plans! Many plans!

[rwt-mystic-corner]

Does anyone know how to use essential oils to cleanse and protect a room?

tl;dr I need a cleansing and a shield in my room and I don’t have any other tools to use.

I don’t need a list of which ones to use, or how to charge them. I understand that part, quite well in fact! I already have some very nice sage oil.

I’ve just never used essential oils to cleanse a space before.

Any tips, methods, suggestions, resources, links, or otherwise practical information would be greatly appreciated!

It got a little long, so backstory and specific reasons to do this are going below the cut.

Long story short, I was put in a Terrible Situation by my family and had to move into the first place I could afford in 20 days or less. That place turned out to be a room rented from someone I’ve never met. And she is.... quite Christian. I don’t say this to be disparaging to Christians, but because historically, statistically, Christians don’t like it when you practice witchcraft in their house. I literally don’t have anywhere else I can go, so just in case she’d kick me out for it, I’m keeping myself “in the broom closet”, keeping the witchy stuff on the down-low.

So I’ve been trying to figure out how to: 1.) Cleanse the fuck out of this room, because I can FEEL the heaviness of multiple decades of emotions in the room and I’m sure this place has never been cleansed in its life. 2.) PROTECT the fuck out of the room, because this time of year, spirits follow me everywhere, and there’s a graveyard two blocks away. Also, I’m an empath and I need a shield up around this room so I can block others’ energies from reaching me when I’m trying to relax.

(I can and already have erected a personal shield, but it was hastily raised, and the Awareness of all the stuff that soaked into this room is distracting and a little overwhelming.)

Luckily I was at a fair this weekend and found someone selling homemade sage essential oils, which felt vibrantly Alive and Active to me, so I brought some home to use.

Except... I’ve never used oils for anything other than aromatherapy and ritual baths before.

How do you use an essential oil to cleanse a room, and how do you use them for shielding?

I imagine it involves applying it to windowsills and thresholds. But does anyone have any recommendations on HOW to apply it? Shapes to use? Amount to apply? Words or chants or mantras for protection?

And yes, I have asked Google, and got a bunch of suggestions for which kinds of oils to use (nifty, but not what I need), and how to use them for other things (yes, I know how aromatherapy works, thank you). NONE of the pages told me HOW to use an essential oil for protection!

[rwt-mystic-corner]

Oh!

I just realized!

I have roommates now!

Roommates that are my FRIENDS and I TRUST!!!

For the very FIRST time in my life, the people I live with are people I want to allow in my space.

When I (finally) get my wards set up over the place and especially my room, and not just a quick-and-dirty shielding job: I’m going to have to program in Ward Exceptions so they’re not Bound and Blockaded the moment they cross the threshold.

Particularly because the system roommate has some headmates that are Sensitive to Magic and I’d hate to overwhelm them...

And PARTICULARLY-particularly because I already gave them permission to walk through my room if they want to visit the balcony, which is Only Accessible Through My Room.

But for my other roommate’s sake, too-- they go in to visit the chins and birds. c: And if either of them ever wants to borrow a book, it’d be nice for them to be able to just Drop In without feeling the Get Out vibes I’ve always added.

...I might wait to do that until they’re here, actually, that’ll be in about 3 months but I’ve only physically been in the same space as them Once and I think it’ll be easier to get a read on them, and thus how to “program” the wards to “ignore” them, with them here.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

I started like... mildly crying 20 minutes ago and I haven’t stopped.

It’s equal parts Good Feelings and Bad Feelings! But it’s a lot of feelings.

tl;dr helping a friend made me emotional, my stomach tormented me last night so I’m especially fragile, I’m insanely excited for QPP Moving Day TOMORROW!, and then I heard a leader in the org say “I celebrate the person sitting in your seat” and a bunch of other really loving, gentle, appreciative things and I realized how badly I NEED TO HEAR THAT, and how, for the longest time, I just didn’t.

Mild emetophobia warning for discussion of Feeling Bad, and emotional warning for what might amount to... childhood emotional neglect? Is that a thing?

I don’t know if I can ramble, my emotions are kinda threadbare right now. So, bullet points.

- I stayed up late last night to talk to a friend having a crisis. Staying up late alone wouldn’t have been a problem at all, I was happy to “make time” for sia! But

- RIGHT as I was falling asleep, my stomach hit me with Overwhelmingly Sick Feeling that escalated RAPIDLY, convinced me I was going to Be S*ck for 2-3 hours straight, and I was trying to fight the phobia down, I really was, but I couldn’t. I wound up laying there huddling and shivering, frantic for Literally Hours, until it finally decided to just feel sore instead, and I finally got to sleep.

( ^ That part is probably my own fault. I got Chipotle for dinner because I wanted to Do Things instead of cook yesterday, and Chipotle usually goes well. But then I ate the whole bowl AND the whole (small) bag of ships. Which I KNOW I shouldn’t do, my stomach can barely handle a SMALL meal! But I THOUGHT I was still hungry? And I felt fine, mostly just sleepy, Right Up Until 1-2 AM. And then it all hit me HARD.)

But even when it finally calmed down, emotionally I was in pieces. It Didn’t Actually Happen, but gods I really thought it was going to that whole time.

So between recovering from The Struggle Against Phobia Panic and not sleeping much, I’ve spent all day feeling low-energy and tired and wrung out.

So I’ve got this Emotional Torment right up alongside the “WILD INSANE EXCITEMENT AHHHH” because my QPP is moving in here TOMORROW, and I can’t believe it’s finally going to be REAL? We’re going to be here? Together? In this place that’s our own? We can see each other and hug each other and play games or watch movies together whenever our schedule allows? I can tell them goodnight in person?

I have so many starry-eyed feelings about this, I just. Fuck, man, it’s going to be life-changing.

And then I listened to a recording from a couple years ago. One of the leaders in the organization, probably one of my very favorite people to hear speaking, gave one of her heart-wrenchingly encouraging speeches. Encouragement wrenches MY heart, anyways. In a good way, but also in the way that makes me realize how starved I am for that kind of... just, love.

“I celebrate the person sitting in your seat.”

I’m just going to copy the relevant bits of the message I sent to my mentor and elaborate a little bit, because... I don’t have the energy to reword it, frankly.

I started crying a little at the part where she said "I celebrate the person sitting in your seat"...but I also think there's some underlying wounds that she speaks to. That part specifically made me feel so overwhelmingly loved and appreciated and part of the reason I started crying is because I don't feel that way very often. But I want to. I think everyone wants that, probably.

And I'm almost envious of her. I want so, so badly to learn how to edify and uplift and love on people the way she does.

It's especially hard because my love language is words of affirmation and I want to be able to give those words to people, but that's one of the times my throat just doesn't work and I struggle to get the words out. They're important and deeply felt, and for me big emotions are the hardest feelings to put words to. But I desperately WANT to. I want people to know I care.

But I want to learn how to give people those affirmations more often. And I don't think I don't do it at all, because last night a friend was going through a crisis and she called me and we talked for like an hour, and afterwards she said it helped so much, and today another friend...sent me a message saying they're having a hard time and could they please have some comfort, so obviously I'm making SOME kind of impact in peoples' lives. They must feel safe and loved if they come to me for help like that. But I forget that really easily.

This is probably one of those things that's going to come with practice, but do you have any tips for how to help people feel loved and appreciated? I'm not sure exactly HOW to practice telling people "I love you" and "I appreciate you". I haven't had many good examples of that being communicated in my life, so when I try to think of HOW to do it, I kinda just draw a blank.

Is it like that method you have about practicing feeling joy, where you notice the things that make you feel that way, and make notes of it, and then kind of take that and extend that to others? Or is this one of those things where you have to ask people point-blank, "What makes you feel loved and appreciated?" How do you shine that light and warmth on people?

All I want in life is to leave a positive mark on this world, and I think that's a pretty important way to do that.

But what I didn’t tell my mentor is, I spent ten minutes while I was trying to compose this message to feel my way through the pain that GL’s message brought up.

With the love I felt from it came the deep-aching realization that the reason it felt So Amazingly Impactful to me is because I don’t GET THAT much.

I so, so very RARELY am told “Thank you”, or “You made a difference”, or “I’m proud of you”.

That last one, I’m so desperate to hear that when my stepmother (OF ALL PEOPLE!) was drunk at my sister’s wedding reception and told me “I’m so proud of you”, I legitimately felt my eyes going wide and starry, and I tried to stop myself, but I couldn’t resist fishing deeper. “Really? For what?” (She didn’t have any specifications to that, unfortunately. “Just the person you are.” That’s news to me. It felt a little empty tbh.)

Like... I want to specify that my mother DOES tell me she’s proud of me, she encourages me, she compliments me, she gives me heartfelt praise and I can tell she really means it. But her and my mentor are probably my only source of that. I didn’t have those heartfelt conversations with her until I was about 19 years old. I wonder if maybe she didn’t know how to give me those shreds of affirmation, the same way I struggle to give them to people now?

Growing up, I essentially NEVER heard any kind of praise or thanks. The one and only thing people usually praised me for was “You’re so smart”, but even that was usually the backhanded-compliment prefix to a following “But if only you were better at being smart!” (Gifted kid complex, anyone?)

I used to write in my diary when I was in elementary school that “nobody loves me”. I wasn’t being melodramatic or exaggerating, that was genuinely what it felt like sometimes. I felt unappreciated and unloved. I would be told “Love you!” before bed and that was about it. I still drank up those 2-to-3 word statements and cried the one time my stepmother didn’t tell me that. But I was starved of any genuine praise rooted in sincere appreciation or pride or joy.

Maybe I got a “You did so well!” after doing a solo piece in a choir concert, or giving a speech at a school function. But when I stopped performing on a stage around age 12, I stopped getting even that.

That was when I started sharing my stories. When I started posting my fanfictions, I was so incredibly over-the-moon ELATED whenever someone posted a nice comment that I responded to Every Single Individual One with a private message giving them my heartfelt thanks. And if they were anonymous, I responded in the story’s next chapter.

And the thing that hurts so much about this NOW is... I desperately, really, truly, needfully Want to Tell People I Love and Appreciate Them. But I don’t have any examples. I don’t know how. I wasn’t taught the language of positivity growing up, and I wasn’t shown how to be vulnerable enough to be sincerely grateful and happy for someone.

I don’t want to make people feel unloved or unappreciated the way I felt growing up. I don’t EVER want someone to think I take their love for granted. I never, ever EVER want to make people think they’re unworthy or failures or even just “nothing special”. Especially the people I love.

One of my biggest “angst” points when I was a kid relentlessly controlling my emotions was lamenting that the people around me felt unloved. I thought that was my own fault. I didn’t realize that’s something you’re taught, just like sewing and cooking and writing. I thought I was broken somehow, that I had permanently removed my own ability to feel and show love.

That wasn’t the case. That wasn’t EVER the case. I never stopped being compassionate; I never stopped holding my friends very near and dear to my heart. I never (well, almost never) became cruel. I always had love, it just felt trapped inside me. I didn’t know how to release it.

I still don’t. And that makes me sad because the people in my life, even the random people I talk to on the street, deserve to feel loved and deserve to know they’re appreciated and important and deserve that genuine connection. They deserve encouragement and praise.

And the people I love most... My boyfriend, my friends, my mother? I so, so desperately mourn for the fact that I can’t bear my whole heart. I don’t know how to share the immense well of love with them when it’s locked up.

I wish I knew how to tell people, “I love and appreciate you.”

I’m trying to learn, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. Does it matter? Does it make a difference? Do people know I love them?

(Don’t try to eliminate all emotion from yourself for 10+ years, kids. It makes you insecure about what you show, what you CAN show, and it makes it harder to connect with the hearts around you.)

There was more, it is a deep wound, but I’m running out of steam... I might be all cried out now. I’m not sure.

Anyways, I’m going to go catch up on Broken Youth because I don’t know what to do with these emotions and maybe that’ll make me cry more and get it out.

[rwt-mystic-corner]

I have no idea where my mirror book is so I'm recording today's ritual here.

- Limited tools and time, energy, and space due to living in the broom closet in someone else's house. Had to do this before sundown due to electrical problems leaving me without a light half the time, and I don't have candles. : P

- Mixed sage oil with some of my own spit for cleansing/warding double action, and applied it to the little broom carved out of purple pastel fluorite.

- Physically used the broom to sweep away negative energy, decades of buildup in here, going around getting every nook and cranny. Brushing it out the window.

- Praying for my matron goddess to help me clear it out, expunge it. (Leaning heavily on her because my physical energy levels were still low, despite today being the day of the year my spiritual energy is strongest.)

- Used a pigeon primary feather as a brush and energy conduit, and applied sage/spit combo to door frames and window sills.

- Didn't feel like enough was getting past the buildup, feather only transferring delicate threads (nowhere near as powerful as feathers from my old familiar), so I used my fingers to apply it and sort of "slather" energies on there.

- Sprinkled remains of the mixture on the floor and dusted it over a broom (regular plastic one because I meant to physically clean it too), swept the floor with it to cleanse the energies that had seeped into the floor and block it from coming up from the lower level.

- Took the blue+purple fluorite pentacle and held it in both hands and then the real work began. Meditating. Took the pentacle and made out its shape in my mind. Projected the shape over the room, a three dimensional sphere with the symbol of protection emblazoned through it.

- Cast the seal out as well, to prevent negativity and malicious entities from wandering in here tonight, hiding my room from view, blocking and protecting and making it impossible to enter without my consent. Partnered my goddess's energy with mine and washed that energy across the whole room until every wall was "glittering", then protected the ceiling, then the floor.

- Didn't stop until my hands started burning instead of the pleasant electric tingle, and my energy pathways felt raw and ran dry.

- Finally, sprinkled some dried meadowsweet across the windowsills as a more permanent physical protection against unwanted visitors.

It took a lot out of me, but now my whole body is pleasantly sleepy and "singing" with leftover energy. Whew! I'm so out of practice, but I did it. Samhain cleansing accomplished.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

...holy shit.

I just realized, this is the first time I've consistently slept on a bed, an actual mattress on a raised bed frame, since I was 12. (The lady I'm renting the room from provided a bed. The mattress sucks because I'm a side sleeper, so the firm top creates pressure points at my hips and shoulders, but that's besides the point.)

For more than a decade, I always slept on the floor (well, on cushions or a mattress on the floor) by choice. (Except for that one year I spent living with my mother, with raised railings at the foot and walls to keep me from falling. Age 19+20.)

It used to be safer that way. I'd often wake from dreams or meditation so suddenly and with so much fear that I could flail myself off a bed and fall.

But that doesn't happen much anymore, certainly not on a weekly basis. I'm sleeping on a bed and though I've had a couple of mild nightmares, I didn't jolt up and aside, or kick myself around, or wake from meditation with a violent start. Sure, I've had blood pressure drops when I stood that made me stumble a couple times, but I didn't hit the floor.

I couldn't tell you how or why, but I think that's a sign that SOMETHING is healing?

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

"You can't ever get the full data on souls."

That's one of those lines that I could feel engraving itself into my memory.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

I actually made myself laugh.

It's partially with giddy delight because of remembering a Huge Victory I slowly won via casual war of attrition, and also just. Mindscape delights. I Love the Nexus.

(And it's Nexus-flavored so I'm putting a cut because I don't know how many followers actually care to read me vaguely alluding to mindscape shenanigans from when I was like 16?)

But I wondered: What if *I* had talked like that to the "emoticlones" I saw in my visions when I was like 14-18 years old.

Called a conference.

I thought of that tumblr post with the advice when making a decision, to have all the different opinions speak in your head like a conference. And, importantly, the dad going, "I am not having a good time at the conference."

I laughed because I just realized: that's the most mundane way to explain what happened in my "conferences", because one part straight-up murdered another part once.

I wish I was exaggerating. Probably a good thing we, uhh... "integrated".

(It was ALWAYS facets. DID friend explained the difference between fusing and integration once. It didn't really stick. But I don't know if system terms apply because I'm not convinced I'm a system anyways, I don't even feel like I qualify for "median", because they were never Separate People for me, always just kinda......... Manifesting Different Aspects of the Same One Person. And also, they're All Basically Me Now, I don't HAVE so much ambivalence as to "call a conference" because they all pretty much go the same way...)

......I really should detail that more sometime, actually.

Because they really Were almost like separate forces of nature over my mental realm back then. But now they're kinda like... a braid? A rope? Tying together and all strengthening each other? Different threads of different colors, but generally all weaving the same holistic picture?

DID friend once asked me, "Can you hear separate voices?" And that's the weird thing. I could, but they were still MY voice. Like... distilled or colored or filtered somehow, but Still My Voice? Not like someone else's separate voice?

(...I don't think I ever heard what Holly's voice would be...... hrmm. And if I ever did, it was briefly. I don't think I mourn her anymore... but I think I'm suddenly mourning what may have happened if there wasn't so much outright internal violence going on... What would she have been like? What, exactly, in me died with her?)

I'm already running out of steam but I really do need to Think about How Much That Has Changed sometime. Because I still use RWT as a moniker, it's an acronym for the Three Aspects that always manifested to me.

But they're nowhere near as separate as they once were.

It used to be confusing. At the very beginning of the... assimilation?, I thought it was a trick, I was paranoid about it, I worried letting my guard down would lead to disaster. But it didn't. I'm stronger than ever. (Shadow work is heavy as hell, but the relief when you come out stronger is IMMENSE.)

I think self-trust has something to do with it, too... The past five or seven years, I've learned how to trust myself in ways I never knew possible. I've changed.

And I grew to... if not always "love", then at least ACCEPT the parts of me I used to shy away from, lock down, hide away and wish to dispose of.

But She's every bit as much a part of me as the other two, isn't she?

Anyway, I had a Really Rough Time yesterday (stomach got... Really bad), so I don't have the energy to write one of my collegiate-length essays like I did when I was 16. But hopefully a SAT Long Answer qualifying essay will suffice instead. ;P