The Queer Friendly Gods: Inanna and Ereshkigal

*UPG (unverified personal gnosis) heavy, will try to label it as it comes up*

My journey with Inanna began about six months ago when I had a dream in which a figure radiating a spectrum of colors around them came to me. The colors reminded me of a rainbow reflected in a pool, appearing in patterns resembling the leaves of a lotus flower.  In between that lucid state between passed-the-frell-out and semi-conscious, I asked "Who are you?"

She answered, "Inanna."

During the next month I researched when I could in between the endless cycle of sleep and work what ever I could get my hands on about this ancient sumerian goddess. And what I found completely took me a a back. 

(the following descriptions of her myth cycle come from The Descent of Ishtar: both the Sumerian and Akkadian Versions and it's translations of the original sources, as well as the retelling of the myths in Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Hymns and Stories from Sumer. I highly recommend both, especially source #2 since the folklorist Diane Wolkstein is one of the writers.)

Inanna is a goddess of the sky and a war goddess who empowers her own seat of worship and civilization by stealing the magical codes of civilization called the Mes from Enki. Her character is basically summed up in so many words: "The kingdom of heaven and earth is mine for the taking."

So she establishes her city and has everything a goddess could want, A virile husband,   two sons (I'm convinced in my own UPG she has way more children than this), and six other cities devoted to her in time. The glimmering evening star really is queen in every sense of the word. She is brash and vengeful to anyone who harms and challenges her. Once, she utterly RUINED a man who raped her. (it was so good to see no rape apologies in this sex goddess' mythos). 

After reading this interpretation of the myth of Huppulu tree from matrifocus.com (the domain has expired on it, otherwise I would link to it), I realized that it maybe her ascent to power came at a great cost.

(in the orignal myth of the tree, please note it's recorded that Inanna wanted it to grow so she could make her throne out of it, so the following is very UPG centered)

She cut down her beloved tree to turn it into her throne (an icon of fertility that is fitting, i.e. the queen of heaven sitting on a fine piece of wood representing the earth - oops, accidental sexual innuendo). This resonated with the message of The Giving Tree, and it was an angle and question I continued to ask through out my studies of her (still on going): What price does one pay to be queen?

I found in this myth the undertones of a woman who  abandoned much of what she might have valued about herself as a child to attain a bit of her own freedom and power among the retinue of the sumerian gods. In the Hupullu tree myth, Littu, Anzu, and a serpent plagued the tree and she could not harvest it until Gilgamesh drove them out. Anzu is a mythical monster bird that causes quite a bit of trouble for the Annunaki later on. Littu is a female demon of sorts that scholars speculate later became pre-Genesis Lilith and the serpent far as I know is just a serpent who is said "would not be charmed" (the satan serpent of Genesis, maybe?).

It was hard not to picture a young girl who had to sacrifice so much of who she was as a woman wandering on the banks of the Euphrates: a wild nature, a child like sense of freedom who perhaps naively assumed that power is the only end goal. This nature could be symbolized by the concept of the serpent as a little kid's animal friend and Littu perhaps as what the other Annunaki would have viewed as a "lesser" self and wouldn't have tolerated once she ascended the throne.

So I couldn't help but wonder, what happened to Littu and the serpent after they were cast out of her tree? Littu fled to "wild places" and the serpent was struck (struck dead? the poem's wording is uncertain). If you think of serpents as emblems of rebirth, you know that this serpent's fate is far from meeting it's end. To me, it seems as though these were pieces of her divine nature she bargained off and cast to the Underworld in order to become queen. 

Her iconography prior to her descent myth cycle is one of an incomplete, unrealized self. She cuts down the huppulu tree and sits on her throne in Erech, so in that moment, she is queen of heaven and earth.

But what about hell (hell in the dark, ghost ridden, drafting, mud logged underworld sense)? 

Here comes the part (UPG heavy) I resonate with wholly as a non-binary pagan searching for a way to reclaim their queer body: When Inanna goes to the underworld to console her sister Ereshkigal  after her husband's death, she is forced to appear before her naked, is subsequently killed, and hung on a hook, left to rot in the dark of hell.  Seems extreme, eh? The result of a jealous, broken sister's hate for her sibling who gets all the earth's love in the light of day? Yes, the dichotomy of unloved, underworld deity vs. beloved over world god is rather obvious, but what I took away from this is that a transformation took place. Dare I say it, a transition of sort was about to unfold,in order to make Inanna whole again from where she severed herself from the girl she used to be when her huppulu tree fell to make her throne.

In the underworld and spiritual journeys therein, one is at times taken apart, sometimes violently, and put back together again. It is usually a painful psychological process and I would not recommend it to someone who has any reservations/hesitations about it. Often we need this sort of trans-formative healing when we are broken, but I would feel irresponsible if I advised it as the only mode of healing, or one that should be taken lightly, when there are other methods for healing that are less emotionally risky or draining.

Inanna is left in the underworld to rot for a few days on her hook before her devoted servant enlists the help of Enki  to bring her body back to life. Ereshkigal ends up getting something she wants in the bargain and so Inannna returns, fully realized as queen of Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld - a trifecta of sorts I think was necessary in her role as fertility goddess. And none of that sweet mother goddess stuff here - she would spit you out and kill your mom just as soon as you cursed her name.

Long story short, she banishes her husband for claiming the throne in her brief absence (without searching for her) for a portion of the year. It is the most dysfunctional hieros gamos I have ever come across and it is the wonderful boot in the gut for Inanna to deliver to the world - a way of saying, yeah, I'm the mother frelling QUEEN.

So what does all this mean for a queer friendly space with Inanna and Ereshkigal?

- Ereshkigal is an annunaki of violent transformations, and for me, transitioning has been an earth shattering, painful experience (I know who I am, but stressing that to others and the human world around me has been a living hell). Ereshkigal has held the hook by which I have actually willingly let myself be strung on in order to let the old me die so a new, resilient body can rise. She is often a goddess who can help you initiate what you are unable to do for yourself alone.

It's my UPG that Ereshkigal knew  death was necessary for the cycles of heaven and the underworld to align.  The foundation for spiritual rebirth is possible through the sky herself dying and quickening again.

Inanna's aspects (the serpent and Littu) of the Huppulu tree were banished by a young woman not even fully aware of the struggle that ensues in descending into hell to reclaim the pieces of oneself -those things you leave behind for the sake of orbiting in "civilized"circles.

Praise be to Innanna, Queen of Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld
Praise be to Ereshkigal, primary Queen of the Underworld

May my transitive spirit be reborn beneath your sky and within your glorious, dark earth. 

Dying is hardwork

( just a preface, I am not actually dying, this is just a post concerning the spiritual ramifications and journey work I am undergoing as I transition fully into my genderqueer, non-binary self)

The spell bottle was a bust. I should have realized that trying to light a flame within a narrow neck bottle would prevent anything from burning since the passageway for oxygen to move into the base was way too small (no oxygen, no fire sprites, my friends). But the ritual was not a loss - it was one of those freakish failures that quickly turned into a scenario where the ecstatic side of my path took over. I suppose this is what happens when one of your gods is one of ecstatic madness - my body sorta just felt like it was on auto pilot once I realized the flame wasn't going to happen, and moved all efforts into focusing on burning the sigil I created and the herbs I  had chosen in my incense burner.

This is honestly one of the darkest rituals I have ever engaged in: one part spirit journey work, one part witchcraft, and one part that sort of felt like border line necromancy (nothing to do with actual dead bodies, just old ghost selves). The focus of the ritual quickly took form from originally being one of severance from an old self that was indecisive, weak, and refused to stand up for themselves, to an all out funeral pyre and bone collecting of sorts to set my spirit free.

Sometimes the work of witchcraft feels blood, dirty, and dark, but I realize now that is how it must be for a soldier just to carry on. I can no longer walk around, holding the old conception of myself like a bagged body I am denied from burying. I can't just keep shoving it in the closet and hoping that it won't bloat and rot and attract all the carrion birds that live in the back of my psyche.

So let's burn the witch (the old one) so their new body can rise.

I gave grape offerings to Dark Rabbit and Bapho, who helped me gather the bones and kept me rooted in the world tree (so the spirit wouldn't fly off while watching their body burn)

I drank and made libational offerings with detox tea (I don't actually believe this stuff cleanses your liver, I use the herbal mixture it has to demarcate the beginning of trance work).

Herbal Mixture to be burned alongside sigil:

• -bark shavings off of my pine wand (which has a strong tie to Baphomet)
• -hawthorne berries (for their connection with the world of Faery)
• -cedar, as an evergreen, it's smell is quite sweet while pungent, and I chose it because it carries images of rebirth for me when I bend down to sniff it :)

I moved the which and it's sigil to my incense burner which I lit while scattering the herbs on top of it. Some of the ashes are now inside my coffee tin drum as I used it to add an extra fire proofing container to the scenario. The drum is now going to be known as "bone blessed" since it ritualistically carried my ashes. 

~~~~~~

Day after the ritual:  (heavy with symbolism and imagery that only makes sense in the context of spirit journey work)

When I woke up this morning I felt like shit. When I went to carry the ashes of {dead name}  back into the house to pour into the bottle I originally was going to use for the old spell bottle ritual, I realized that their spirit has splintered like dried wood beneath the bow master's hand, to be thrown out and delivered to the fire time and time again, until each splinter releases it's confined spirit to the body which needs it purified, free from indecision, fearand spiritual decrepitude that follows from the dis empowerment of their own voice, keeping them from rising up to say 

I am not cisgender. I began as the line in the sand which water quickens to create a whole universe of tributaries that cut through dunes when the deluge comes. I am not just one line any more, but a river. 

But that doesn't mean there was not an old body left washed up, old bones which a ghost kid clings to and walked within as an empty shell in the past.  That doesn't mean they don't need a proper cleaning and a burial urn to keep until the day when the new body their spirit inhabits can finally say, that the little girl and the astral sailor are now one and the same, in the same house which can now float down south without fear of words shooting like flaming arrows down upon them, arrows fletched with :
"you are not real"  - a match which sets the heart's home ablaze.

I ended up writing quite a bit in depth about the actual happenings of the journey work I participated during this ritual, but I realize the details are really only pertinent to me, and probably should be kept private. 

But the biggest thing I have learned is that this burning of the past self is necessary to reify the will. As queer and witch, the will to self define & the will to work my intent is integral to emotional and spiritual fulfillment. Without will, my identity cannot walk free. Without the will, I cannot journey into the hedge to work towards freeing myself. 

Without will, I would not have been reborn as Ecco, to love myself just as much as I believe others should love themselves. 

Self definition is everything. Self definition is magical.

This ritual had two aims:

1. to give me a platform to disengage with {dead name}, the part of me trapped by fear of what sacrifices are necessary to be my queer, non binary self. 

2. to set the call to embrace the new body, as self defined by the queer, non binary self. 

This ritual was a demarcation of the threshold through which new life is possible, a life of truth with the spirits, the gods, and myself. A life in which I refuse to beat myself up with my old bag of bones and doubts.

Thank you for reading,

Ecco

Gender-Queer Gods (gender queer friendly gods) pt. 3 HERA

*the following is my UPG in regards to Hera as guardian of queer safe space for me. These writings are not intended to speak for any tradition or path but my own*

I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that Hera, whom I previously had only understood as the queen of Olympus who fought against her husband's bastard children, would be a defender of my queer body. But I realized after sessions  of meditation and devotional journey work with a figure who appeared to me as Peacock Boy (a child who chooses the word boy, but identifies as everything and nothing at all) that she has children beyond those we only hear about in the myths.

While writing a devotional poem for Peacock Boy, I began to realize that there was a figure near his cavern where he would go to bathe and let the feathers from his skirt fall into a pool, wherein they transformed into hammer head sharks and swam in and out of the transparent nexus of him stationed in his torso. Here he would beckon me to join him, to let my own feathers and fur and skin fall away to be reborn in cthonic waters. It was during this journey work that I felt her, like a blade in the dark, watching from the cavern's entrance, and when I came to her naked, reconfigured and riotously alive, she smiled and said, FIDELITAS, the latin word for fidelity (I think she has done this since I am more acquainted with the sound of latin words rather than greek).

She was challenging me to remain loyal to myself. And that is when I realized she is queen for a reason. She fights so virulently in the myths to maintain her house and it's power because she knows that she is wholly worth it. She is an overseer of goodness and abundance and as Zeus goes down as Ktesios throwing out his seed as he goes, she keeps him by the horns and throws him down when he goes against their agreement, calling him out on not keeping their relationship in truth and transparency.

It is my UPG that Hera and Zeus have come to have a polyamorous relationship. I don't know if it is after centuries of waking in monogamy or that they have never subscribed to monogamy all together & we as humans just tried to harness their relationship within more socially respectable standards of engagement in the past (Zeus' behavior certainly indicates he has never been monogamous, although he used to never be honest about it far as the myths are concerned,). Poly relationships require absolute truth, trust, and transparency to thrive, and Zeus, being the father of Hermes and son of Kronos that he is, often does not conform to those values, which is a source of great consternation for his Queen. So that is why I say she grabs him by the horns, and doesn't hesitate to hold him accountable. She is the keeper of family and the destroyer of those who would interfere with her loved ones, and those who would threaten to take away her agency and power as queen of the Theoi.

With that sort of history, its not surprising to see that I was surprised when she took the time to show me and point out quite firmly, that she exists outside of her husband as goddess of fertility, as a guardian of women, and as mother to multiple, beautiful beings beyond those mentioned in the myths. Zeus spreads his seed, and Hera, with a sweep of her hand, summons the children of the world out of Ge, to rise up to the brush of her feathers.  She calls the rejected, protects the unloved, while smites those who rise up to threaten her sacred palace.

When Zeus did not lie with Hera for sometime, she felt an urge, a need to create, with a sweep of a peacock feather which she handed to Hephaestus, her child, the queer psychopomp who leads the lost gender variant souls to their bodies, was born. Hephaestus made a key in the shape of a peacock boy, and so I must, with great honor and respect, honor the mother of Peacock Boy who has set me onto the path of self love.

Thank you Hera. Libations and offerings shall be given in honor of what your fecundity has encouraged in this world. We are the unborn family Zeus did not give to you, but you firmly took, summoned, and grew for yourself out of the myriad, ever changing tides of Earth.

The barley blows in the wind, you walk by, and Demeter threshes from your rain and feathers bodies that shine like gold.


As always, thank you for reading,
Ecco

Genderqueer & Genderqueer friendly Gods pt. 2: Setting the Landscape by Destroying the old Constructs

*as always, heavily fore-warned UPG is coming*

Before I get back into the meat of this series (which is the gods themselves), a bit more for introduction into why I think challenging the gender norms in our religious structures is so vital.

The gods bring new revelations, open new doors of understanding, when our perspective broadens and changes, and so I think it's time to let them speak beyond the essentialism of our old gender constructs, so that these bodies which do not obey or adhere existing within the gender binary might find spiritual acceptance, emotional release, and  feel the divine love the that gods pour out for  their followers.

Since gender is self defined I feel like the gods most certainly do self define in regards to their appearance to us as humans. I tend to gravitate in my thoughts more the idea that the gods are not necessarily bound to any one form, but chose more often to appear to us as human/animal/energy/light, etc in order to more effectively communicate with us, and so, just as we have that right to self definition, the gods in this manner ultimately do too.

In modern western culture, we have bought way too heavily into the idea that there was only two ways of moving about within our bodies, and so the old associations have stuck with the iconography and descriptions of deities which have moved down the ages through books and artwork to land at our spiritual door steps today.  In my experience, only thinking of a god in one way imprisons the range of experience we can have with the gods and the spirits. (i.e. gentle mother Goddess Ge as a descriptor could pre-clude their role as a destroyer and monster rearer if we only ever use one set of modifiers in  our thoughts and approaches to them).

Goddesses such as Artemis and Athena were defined as virgins in ancient Greece. I must preface that I am still a student of ancient greek religion and culture and thus cannot claim that I speak with any authority on this issue, but from what I have read in Sorita D'este's Artemis: Virgin Goddess of the Sun and Moon, virginity was a status of childhood and a definer for a female who was not married, and fell under Artemis' protection. Once a female was passed on in marriage, she fell into Hera's domain. These two categories ultimately limited a woman's freedom and agency (let me emphasize the categories as social constructs are restrictive, not the goddesses themselves). From what I understand, there was no agency granted for women throughout most of their lives, though I think I have read Sparta might be the exception to this. Ultimately the ideal only applied to wealthy women, which the in the minds of people at that time the images of the goddesses definitely fall under the territory of the ideal.

I have taken you down this discussion of social ideologies in regards to gender and religion to point out that as a modern student of the Theoi and the spirits, I have had to take the concept of virginity, wad it up in a nice tight ball, and place it in my gender blender so that I understand what the hell all of this paraphrasing is getting at: in the ancient greek mindset, asking Zeus to let you remain a virgin (marriage free) was the only way to get agency and power for oneself. And obviously, such a privilege could only be granted to his daughters.  And so the goddesses in modern times I now know are just as wild, unbreakable, unchained as they ever were. I think now we are the better for understanding this, for we are learning new ways to take apart gender norms, and know these goddesses would have damn well taken it for themselves had almighty Zeus said no. I think that is why they still resonate with us so strongly as goddesses of empowerment.

But to circle back to the original point, gender norms and social constructs regarding them affect how we view the gods and so it is important to give deities a spiritual mindset and a place that allows them to speak for themselves, while allowing those of us do not fit in a nice cookie cutter either/or dichotomy, to worship, thrive, and feel just as loved as everyone else.. But I have often found, that when you do let the gods speak for themselves to you through prayer and journey work, they often completely destroy everything you thought you knew about them, while reinforcing their core spirit (i.e. Hera's value of loyalty) more than ever before.

And so before we begin with the first god I would like to discuss in how they have helped me feel safe in my genderqueer body, I want to take a minute to shout out how excited I am at the idea of reading (hopefully soon, when I get the money set aside) P. Sufenas Virius Lupus' book on the transgender and gender variant gods e has come to know (from what I have been reading on eirs blog, these gods are only a few years old <3).  All-Soul, All-Body, All-Power: A Trans Mythology is available for sale at create space. I am very excited at the idea of  the landscape of polytheism broadening as trans people and people outside the gender binary discuss how their worship and relationship with the gods works.

 I know for me personally, when you break down the language around you and how it codifies you in a gender not of your choosing, freedom becomes so sweet, and after hearing my friends call me "they" and Ecco repeatedly, I know that I am now clean to come to the gods in my true, whole self (I am still broken from dysphoria, but I am certain in my own identity).  I think that is why the publication of books on transgender and gender variant deities like the Tetrad are so valuable.

I hope the non-binary pagans can come out of the wood works with rapacity and intensity as the century goes on.

Our gods are here, they are often queer, and we are not fucking going anywhere.

And I actually do promise, the next round in this series will actually cover Hera. I finally made it through the bulk of notes on gender identity and how identity politics in religion can cause problems, so now that the foundation is set, the gods may be honored on the altars which rest upon it.

Thank you, as always, for taking the time to read,
Ecco

Honoring my household spirit, Dark Rabbit

In a churning of serpentine, raven dark locks which float around her body, her hair crisscrosses into a sacred veil which wraps around her with tangles as tendrils arcing out to fill us through touch with the love of the land (the hills and meadows bless us through her). When she parts her hair to let it fall down her back, her body is a puzzle of rotating keys which spin in segments along her torso, that various arrangements might unearth the future of our needs.

She guards the local underworlds where the souls of those in this city have become severed from their body due to trauma. In crypts in the Great Below they are bound and guarded until their bodies are ready for their return.

Her steed is a midnight black rabbit which carries her through the brush. She scoops up acorn secrets along the way so that Ge's hatchlings might receive the mystery of their moment's need.  She is the rabbit, as the rabbit is her.

I honor her along with other household gods and spirits on Agaithos Daimon, a hellenic ritual you can read more about here.

Spell Bottle - a concept still to be tried. But here's the tentative formula

Here is an idea for a spell I haven't executed, but I look forward to trying. I will post any thoughts or details that need to be curtailed for safety and/or practical reasons if anything sticks out in the execution of the project. Probably it would be best to preface that if you plan on using this idea, be sure to place the bottle when setting the wick on fire in a large, fire proof container in case the glass breaks from the heat (I have had that happen to me before with candles, so really, better safe than sorry, darlings)

1. Create a paper wick out while praying/chanting/raising energy/meditating (what ever method works best for you to execute your magic). Write on the wick your intent. Use sigils, sentences, verse, whatever works best for you. Make sure it is long enough to be lit and carry the flame all the way down to the bottom of the bottle of the bottle.

2. Grind up and charge herbs of your choosing which will work with your overall intent. I personally connect to the herb's energy (aka "spirit") and use smell texture, taste (be careful and read up on potentially toxic herbs before handling, please) to guide my choice.  Only use enough herbs to cover the bottom of the bottle in a small layer. My concern is that if you put too much in the bottle, the flame will become over blown to the point it becomes dangerous to handle.  I also plan on putting wood shavings in the mixture to help  the herbs burn through, because I have had difficulty lately with my concoctions burning only halfway burning through, and when that happens, I usually end up staring at the incense burner like "IDK, MAN, DID IT WORK?" (teehee, it's always hilarious, I assure you).

3. While it burns, I plan on asking the spirits to open the ways so that fumes from the herbs will lead me into that place in the spirit world which will reveal which path/what is neccessary/what insight is needed to let the spell do it's work (in you, outside of you, and through you).

4. Where ever they lead me, I will write down the key images and messages that are made apparent there. I think these will be the keys to the spell's unwinding and release into the physical and spiritual body.

5. Always thank the spirits and gods and leave appropriate offerings. This is not a bribe, this is simply gratitude that they were kind enough to be with you in your journey and workings today.  And even if they do not come, you honoring them for inspiring your work.

6. Be open to a lack of the god's and/or spirits interest in your aims and workings. If disinterest seems to be the case, you will have to use your will as the main mechanism which drives your intent through. Do not despair, your own agency is a star peaking through this cloudy night.
And I promise, sometimes, it is more than enough.



*this is an untried spell, but I'm writing it as a ritual outline for when I do execute it. If you do use anything in this post, exercise caution and common sense. Keep a fire extinguisher handy when dealing with fire. SAFETY IS VERY IMPORTANT.*

The Genderqueer Gods (or those which generate a spiritual safe space for me) & combating gender norms in religious structures

*all spiritual experiences contained below should be forewarned as being of my own UPG and are not intended to override or speak with authority on anyone's traditions other than my own personal path*

This was an post of sorts that I thought would only be one little essay, but since, after a lengthy introduction and a discussion of how social constructs put blinders on us when we approach the gods, I realize that now it will probably be a series of sorts on the subject.

The gods you can expect to hear about in the future are:

• Hera
• Innana & Ereshkigal
• Loki
• Thor - which was a surprise to me, as the Snorri myths are pretty rife with inflated, overblown masculinity, but I will explain in due time. 
• Artemis
• Freya
• Dionysus
• and last but certainly not least, dearest, darling Baphomet - a deity who is the most responsible for helping me reclaim my omnigender/genderqueer identity.

As a devotional polytheist and witch who honors the both the greek and the norse gods, it can be challenge to let the gods speak through myth while also striving to remember that they are cloaked in human trappings in these tales. I think that is why it is of vital importance that I give them opportunities in ritual and journey work to speak on themselves in a way that is independent of the icons they were cornered into in the past.

As a witch more specifically, I think that if I am going to ask for aid from deities and spirits alike, I better damn well know who they are and have a relationship based on respect, not just an approach that is a "one-stop-capitalistic-god shop" that only invokes them in magic circles when it suits me, and ignoring them the rest of the time. Witchcraft is spiritual empowerment for me, but I will not misuse the names of the gods and the spirits by not taking the time to get to know them, both through research and UPG.

As a queer bodied person coming more firmly into their own body, I must make time to ask the gods who I have worked with previously how they transcend the cis/het and misogynistic narratives they were packaged into in the past and how they challenge these structures in their divine works.

I will never be the polytheist who thinks the gods only want blind obedience. I think understanding is the key for a strong reciprocal relationship, and so this post sets a foundation of trans and genderqueer positivity & safe sacred spaces that I need to help dispel dysphoria and fear in my spiritual life.

The gods are not defined by human notions and stories alone - what these reflect more than anything, is our limited understanding of them and our own societal values. I think often times the gods come to us within certain constructs and under certain themes since that is how they will communicate more effectively within our own culture. But if we do not recognize and challenge how constructs such as gender and institutions of sexism shape how we work with those values, we have cut ourselves off from the fullness in experiencing deity, and often times,  given power to systems of oppression (against others and ourselves).

I want to give my gods the space to voice acceptance for the queer body. Trans/queer/intersex people deserve to know that they are loved by the deities they love and honor. And so this post is a chance to explore through writing the ways that love has been made apparent to me.

Gods and People are plurality. 

Ge is many faced, held by the sun, holding the moon, in the science of perfect love. And we, the non binary, are coming out of their sacred caverns, blooming like manifold petals from the quantum lotus. And I will learn from the theologies, both old and new, and from many schools of magical thought,  and  where this cave spills out upon, as daimons in body and heart,  we will spill out across Ge's 21st century. 

We are kicking down the temples to build up new ones -

doric pedestals in which the transgressive body takes a stand to say

We are sacred, too. Our bodies are hallowed by the dawn, too

Innana's children, Ereskigal's spooks, we come in many forms. 

And we are not letting the old paradigms swallow us whole EVER again. 

Up next in the series: more on social constructs, and an introduction to Hera's non-binary safe space. :)
Thank you for reading,
Ecco

Devotions and Affirmations: Restructuring the Spiritual Landscape while coming out as gender-queer

**everything in this post is from my own UPG (unverified personal gnosis) and is not intended to be a statement on any religious path other than my own. **

If you've perused my blog at all for older posts, or happen to have met me and discussed my practices in person, you will probably see that during my kindergarten years with paganism I have jumped from witch (starting out with Wiccan, goddess movement oriented viewpoints) to polytheistic worship with slight recon bents, mixed with a general pantheistic leaning that I now realize was more animistic than anything really.  In short my theology is a hot mess.

In my practice, I have cast circles, called the quarters, worked with the Fae and the Vaettir (land spirits), strove to pour libations in keeping with the Hellenismos tradition of honoring the Theoi, and journeyed into the Otherworld to figure out where the Vaettir of my homeland are leading me.

I have followed Odin to the well of Mimir to see if what I have forgotten that would fill my soul with the abundance of remembering who I am. The Raven flies and caws above, and so I wandered with the All Father as his one eye scanned the void's leylines my mortal eyes could not see.

On simmering summer nights with their bloated moons, I invoked Hecate and heard her dogs hallow the night, announcing her path on the roads between worlds as she moved through the dark.

Perhaps brashly, but without regret, I devoted myself to Artemis after a year of studying paganism and witchcraft, and without hesitation, She who is Queen of the Wild, in her voice which is like an avalanche and the breaking of a twig on the forest floor all at once, said, "Bow."

The Fae have driven me mad for the span of a few days when I made the romantic's mistake of wanting to live in their realm for but a moment. Dark Rabbit (a house spirit) was waiting for me when I came back to my body days later, holding it out like a coat for me to slip back into. You may have seen me at work during this time, walking down the street, but inside, I was shrouded in a fog of Fae hex. When I wore my own skin again, I realized how everyone else dressed it, painted it, and denoted it with lace. I realized, after wandering in Faerie and meeting my child self I lost years ago, that my own body was my home no more.

I, the most sexually lack luster person you have ever met, encountered Inanna, the goddess of sex and Queen of Heaven, in a dream, and after she returned me to my second born body once I completed the arc of her descent, I have been her servant ever since.

Freyja blessed a little dagger pendant for me, one that I need because now, for the first time, after fully inhabiting my queer body instead of suppressing it's wants (to be the flat chested, skirt twirling, two different earring toting devil child), I feel like I'm behind enemy lines when I walk out my own front door, and I will probably have to ask for her shapeshifting cloak to flee more than once.
As she cries riding in searching for her love, I cry searching for myself.

While at a writer's conference, Apollo came to me in the night, pouring his holy light into my head, refueling the Blarney' Stone kiss as he played the blues long into the night, with the neon green veined marble floor beneath him flickering as the ink flowed from my pen sweeter than wine.

One of Odin's sacrifices turned shield maiden led me to a nest where she bid me to roost on a spotted egg, which she later broke over my head. I am still reeling in the after birth.

Sorry if I drip yolk on you, my friend.

Innana let me sit beneath the Huppulu tree to write verse in her honor. Anzu molted on me, and I'm still not sure if his ruffled feathers smudged the ink to the point that the words came out right. (you can read that collection of devotional poetry here)

Artemis pulled me through Selene, the Fae Mirror Goddess through which their world manifests in ours (my UPG, not intended to overwrite any one else's beliefs). I still feel like I have a foot in both worlds, and her bow is taught, ready to strike me down should the fever of any one world burn my brain out.

Dionysus led me straight to the Maenad circle where they rebuild him out of his old parts each year. He said they can rebuild me too.

In short, this is a devotional post in honor of all the ways the gods, the vaettir, and the good neighbors have influenced my life in the time since I formally began my path a few years ago. If you had asked me ten years ago where I pictured myself now, I never would have imagined that I would be a journey work oriented, ecstatic witch, whose rituals and magic leads them into the Realms of Spirit & Faerie, and  onto the Page as poet and story weaver.

But up until now, much of my time has been spent experimenting, researching, and investigating the traditions of the past and present to better understand the way before me. I felt a yearning, a spiritual bleeding of sorts when I left my craft for more devotional work (although I believe very strongly now that was a necessary part of my growth) and a similar loss when I realized I needed to focus more on witchcraft to help shape my own mind-body poetics and metaphysical landscapes in a way that resonated with me more truly than the traditions I tried to mimic verbatim.

Now, I realize I am more secure in my foundational understanding of where I stand in relation to the gods, the vaettir, the fair folk, and myself as a a witch. I think this has been shaped largely in part by my conscious recognition that I fall under the umbrella of gender queer. The body is the seat of  power and for years, when I pushed down the need to analyze and reconfigure it's meaning in relation to the world, I was squelching the reclaiming of my own identity, which is the will's power.

From Aleister Crowley to the mainstream neo-pagan Wiccan teachings of today, the will has been acknowledged as the seat of the witch's power. And I refused  for years to look at myself in Mimir's reflective pool, and so my will was denied a house in which it could do it's own work.

It's in this head space that I realize it was unnecessary to abandon my more devotional practices, those rooted in recon teachings of honoring the gods in the manner their own cultures recognized as the best way to worship them.  In fact, now more than ever, it is vital to my spiritual work. I must be in harmony with myself at all levels as I transition into Ecco - in sync with the gods, the spirits, and the craft - if I am to walk in truth.

And so I have re-lit the altars of the Theoi, the Aesir, and Vanir, spruced up my craft altar with it's shelf for Inanna, and reconfigured my devotional layout to the first god-love of my soul, Artemis. I am keeping the cycle of reciprocity on going between the Good Neighbors and this house.

I have looked to the recon calendars of Hellenismos and the Asatru traditions to honor the gods , and promise to keep their hearth fires burning through out the year. A new liturgical calendar now rests on my wall so that I might always take note of their holy days, and continue to set new days aside throughout the year to recognize their work in this world.

Writing this blog post reaffirms to me the love, wisdom, and change they have brought to me, and so, it is with great pride and affection, that I now strive to give back proactively to them.

This post is my commitment to keep the fires burning in these sacred spaces so that the gods might inhabit and be recognized in my household.

Hail the Theoi. 

Hail the Aesir.

Hail the Vanir. 

Hail Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Hell.

Hail Artemis, Queen of the Wilderness.

Blessings to the Vaettir and Fair Folk. 

Thank you for reading,
Ecco