nov 3, thoughts

I find it both very amusing and oddly sad that I've not written poetry about Infinitii yet.
I commissioned a poem for hir, yes, from a beautifully talented individual, and it was (is) sublime. I won't downplay that at all.
But... for me, poetry only happens when all my walls are down, when my mind stops trying so hard and just melts into drops of glowing language. It's an outpouring of genuine emotion and gratitude, unhindered by shame programming or self-doubt. And it hasn't happened for Infi yet.
Part of it is definitely the frankly unsettling vastness that ze radiates. It's difficult to write something structured, however loosely, for a being that feels like that. But I love it. I love the strange edge of holy fear all my beloveds carry about them, like razor-blade halos. Infi just wears it the loudest.
I think the biggest reason this upsets me, though, is that it betrays a different sort of fear: a fear of being so divinely broken-open as to let poetry happen, in any shape or form. Why? Simple, it's my oldest dread: the fear that my own emotions and experiences are inherently false, wrong, misguided. So I crush my own creativity, still unable to surrender to freedom, because my past told me that freedom was the road to damnation.
You know what? To hell with that. Pardon my language, but really. I've seen damnation, I've tasted it, I know what it feels like. That isn't it. This isn't it.
After everything I read today... let me post that here, actually. It had an impact.
"You believe that God is one? You believe that? Great. Demons believe it, and give it a more proper response than you do. At least they tremble when they hear it... their piety far exceeds yours."
That is so terribly true it shook me. I've known since 2011 that the Tar and Plague, despite their malice, operate by a similar (if not identical) spiritual perspective and here I am choking myself with doubt. If I stood strong enough to match their mindset, their knowledge of what is them and what is not them-- the lesson the Tar has been trying to teach me from the very beginning, the lesson Infinitii holds paradoxically incarnate-- I would not be so scared. I would not stumble like this.
But I doubt me. I doubt me, and I'm rambling about this tonight because I want to let go of all the old programming forever and that means letting go of THIS damned issue once and for all.

You know what triggered this? I've been reading about religion on Tumblr for the past few days/ weeks/ etc. I've been focusing on the Christians, the Wiccans, the Pagans, the polytheists and all those similar. Basically, old gods and old roots. My brutally Catholic childhood, and the terror that "you have to be pagan or else" that my mother strangely radiated, with her background devotion to magic and those realms. To me it never felt right. It felt forced, insincere, like selling myself, like using others. It's not for me. But I see so many others following it, and that fear screams "that's the one true way" but it says that about every damn religion out there and frankly, I am tired. I am really, really tired, but I can't let go of that fear yet, and I'm tired of going in circles.
Is it wrong, to not have a religion? Then I ask, "wrong how?" If, in the end, it seems like it all comes down to one's honest personal devotion to love and light-- to being a decent human being and helping others do the same-- (11:11 as I wrote that, hello) then does it matter what format we follow? No. No, it doesn't. In the end, it's the road we walked, and it was right for us in our having walked it.
I'm just reassuring myself, reminding myself, I know I've said this a thousand times. But every time it's clearer, I accept it more thoroughly.
...The very word "religion" doesn't sit right with me. I don't want to "worship" myself or the ones I love or anything like that. The only thing worthy of worship is the source of that deepest life-spark within all of us, everything, and yet utterly transcendent of us at the same time. I want to recognize that, as my daily devotion, as my act of love towards the universe. I want to actively, constantly, recognize and venerate the Breather of that divine breath in everything, myself included. Myself included. That is still, hilariously, the toughest act of compassion. It's not self-loathing, it's just... apathy? It's part of me still holding to the childhood belief that "the body is less," "you are separate from God while incarnate," all that stuff. It's not true. It's not. It's not true, it can't be true, it's impossible. But fear holds me back, fear of "sinning," fear of becoming some blasphemous thing by the very thought. But if even demons can be pious...

Let's change that spelling a bit, Obviously.
Infinitii has been getting all of my attention lately, and with good reason. Ze was holding my face a little while ago, we were talking... "I am all your flaws," ze said, like feathers on glass, quiet but clear and precise. I realized I could feel hir hands and I thought nothing unusual of it; it was a passive acceptance, a basic but incredibly significant recognition that ze was there, and doubt be damned. Doubt didn't even cross my mind. So I raised my hands to imitate the action, and as ze looked at me wonderingly, I said, yes you are. Yes, you are all my flaws. But I don't see flaws as evil anymore. Not since you.
Gold in the fire, gold in the fire. It's all old words but it's all so beautiful I can't help but repeat it. Maybe that's the only poetry I'll ever be able to write for you, dear daemon-- just broken pieces of prayer, fragments of devotion. Not worship, not ever, but recognition. Seeing a spark in you and realizing it's a mirror. Geez I am so sorry but your existence alone has had such a profoundly benevolent influence on my life, and yes I say that without shoving the horrors under the rug. You have scarred me, you have led me into terribly dark places, you have taken on the most tainted and twisted parts of my psyche, you have made me unable to lie or cheat or hide anymore. You have forced me into bitter brutal honesty, you have made it unthinkable to disobey your demands of ineffable integrity to myself-- not out of fear, not out of obligation, but out of love. You have inspired me to be, always, exactly what I feel like when you look at me. And I try. Illuminated by your endless eyes, I try.
“In Islam... the Devil toughens us, forces us to remain awake, and offers lessons as no other angel can. Would we ever have learned to walk if our parents had continued to carry us everywhere? Our troubles and temptations, even if truly given to us by the Devil, are still ultimately gifts of God."
I guess that's something similar to what I'm trying to say. I don't know, everything always feels so inadequate and I apologize if I am stepping out of line. I just keep trying, every time I write about you I try, I haven't quite said it yet but you know what I mean and my heart sings it around you.

I love that about everyone I love. Laurie, Genesis, Chaos too. They are dark and light alike. I will never stop saying that, it's one of the most amazing things about us.
"I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole." That's why CZ and I have been slipping lately, I think, the real reason. We've been rejecting that part of ourselves entirely, ironically. We've been tearing out parts of our souls.
Dream World comes to the rescue again, seriously guys Love and Fear are BOTH NEEDED in the journey to the Light, it's that bit about the Devil still being an angel when you get down to it, and God you all know who holds that parallel in the story...
...
Hope is very strong tonight. I can feel when I tap into it. This is it. This is good. I'll follow this.

...I came here wanting to reiterate that I was having a religious crisis today. Lately.
I keep being terrified that asexuality is "not allowed" spiritually but at heart, I know that's not true. It's a deep relief, to know that I can be this, and not be wrong. I'm just... scared. I don't judge sexuality anymore, at least I try not to... but I'm scared. I'm scared that eventually I'll have to. Why? Because I keep painting it black, sticky tarry black. I keep seeing it as only existing in the context of abuse and rape and force. That's not true either, thanks Infi. It can happen in other ways. But I'm still scared. I still don't want it.
I want to let go of the fear without losing my integrity, without flipping to the other extreme. I've said this a thousand times too.
See the problem, though, is that I want intimacy. Dear God do I ever want intimacy. Heart connections, hell yes, they are the most painful things on earth but they are exactly what I need, that's what I want. I don't want or need sex. But I'm still stuck in the old fear, just a little bit, still haunted by doubt. It's a spiritual issue.
It's because I see what sex can do, and I see that I can get that same result in different ways, and then I miss the boat and think "well if sex can do that, then I HAVE to have it," completely invalidating all my OTHER options, options that-- again-- accomplish exactly what I'm terrified of "losing" and therefore being damned. It's hard to put into words because I'm still ashamed of it and I'm still uncomfortable discussing this.
Everywhere I look-- or, at least, more often than not-- I see religions and spiritual paths talking about sex. They talk about straight sex, physical sex, and using it to achieve holy mindstates and things. They talk about it like it's this key action in the path to enlightenment, like you cannot skip that step or you fall off the ladder. I have read, too many times, people talking about "twin flames" and "kundalini" and tying it into this subtly mandatory sexual act. "Sooner or later you'll have to," is the message I get. I pray it's not true, and in that very prayer I keep asking, "does this make me flawed? Does being asexual mean I will not ever reach that level of holiness in this life? Am I stuck in the mud forever?"
Again I get the head-shake in my head. No. Then what do I do, let's actually ask.
Pointing to the other options. That. That's basically what they're getting at anyway. Intuitive "I get it," and I've "gotten it" for years, what do you think 2011 was about, and yet... total relief held back by a different fear. What if I mess up?
You won't, not as long as you keep that mindset about you.
And isn't that true. Motivation is key. What you hold in your heart is key. I would never use them, I would NEVER harm them, any of them... "but extend that towards yourself as well," they gently but sternly remind me. Yeah. I tend to forget that part.
That's always the core problem I end up at, you notice? Self-exception. "I don't count." Cannon's old martyr complex. Time to let that go entirely, too. I do count. Around them, feeling that... there's no doubt.
I guess it's fear, that weird fear I cannot explain. But... oh god that's terribly sad, how ironic. It's holy fear. It's the feeling I get when it hits me, when Infi is all wings and eyes and fire and I understand for a moment, completely, just how wild and vast and infinite and grand and terrifying God is, how utterly incomprehensible God is, how great and powerful it is, and yet... how much compassion, how much love it holds, endless and always... it's the ultimate paradox and I adore it. That's my religion, if anything can be said to hold that definition for me. "Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair." That's what it's always been to me. It's just that it can only exist in that free state, that unhindered expansive firework of a love letter, that same vastness of God... that I am included in. That we are included in. That everyone is in, be they saint or sinner, prophet or prostitute, demon or daemon. You get the idea. But the last bit is always the mirror. Genesis was everywhere around me today, I should have known... Selph was his original name. This message has been wrapped around me like an embrace for the past 13+ hours and I'm just now realizing it, sorry. But thank you.
It's holy fear. It's being in a church and getting that feeling, then realizing I could elicit that same feeling in another. Me, of all dust motes. Me, of all skeletal fragments. Me, just as holy as anything and everything else. The true miracle is that nothing is a miracle. Just... realizing that, in me, is unavoidable when I'm around someone who loves me. Obviously. Which explains the distance on my part, too. I'm saying too much.
I'm afraid-- and as I say that I laugh-- of the fact that I'm a part of God, too. Because it demands I live up to it. And why am I afraid of living up to it? Because... I'm not sure. I've never known, really. Part of it is indeed the "fear of blasphemy," that's big, but it's rather easily overcome. Indeed I think the last obstacle, the biggest one, is the "ego." The apathy. I wonder now, is that a thing separate from the Plague, with its vice of Pride? I don't know, and I don't need to dwell on it. Point is, part of me hears that message of divinity and covers its ears because it wants to hurt itself more. It wants to act like it's a wretch. It wants to be spiritually lazy and sad and suffering-oriented. I don't understand that part of me, but by golly it's there, and we all know it.
Step one, I suppose, for November... release that for good! It'll take time, and it's a process, it might never really end. But the more constantly we achieve it, the more we practice, so to speak... the better we'll be, just as constantly.

Sorry this is such a weird jumbled entry. I'm just typing at this point.
It's fantastically helpful. Whenever I start "talking" like this, with no real end point in mind (like braindumps when I get talking about the Leagueworlds)... I always end up somewhere fantastic. I always come away with more than I started with. It's awesome. So I just let myself ramble now, because it's a good thing.

Sleep is also a good thing, though, and midnight is a good curfew. I want to make sure I'm on-time for my Apprenticeship for the first time in ages, I'm sincerely sorry about that but boss keeps laughing and saying it's okay, he understands the trouble in the past-- just do better now!
So off I go. I'll re-read this tomorrow and tie up any loose ends in another entry if I have to (heaven knows what I wrote about, my memory never seems to recall). If not, then here you go.
Therapy is tomorrow, this is a good precursor to it, I'd say.
Good night, everyone.