Yes there is a place
where someone
loves you both
before and after
they learn what
you are.
Neil Hilborn, The Future
Knowing myself has been dangerous territory, or so I had been told, learned, internalized, and hidden.
When I stepped into the first ritual circle, it didn’t matter who I was. Yet, it did.
I mattered.
I mattered, beyond my name, my bank account, my skills, my history.
I was not yet a teacher or even a student. I was a person, showing up for magick and community and people who held hands. While some of these people I would never meet again, I remember them. I remember them the way you remember relatives you only see at funerals or in photo albums.
They are a part of me.
I know them, somehow. They matter, still.
(I wonder if they remember me too.)
The Complexity of Knowing
There is a certain trance structure or story that looks something like this:
With each step into the unknown, you let something go.
With each movement into the deep, you drop a mask.
With each moment or breath, you become lighter and seen. Just as you are.
I understand I do not enter circles or memories without armor. Some of it well-worn and well-earned. Some of it hand-crafted by lineage and repetition. Some of it magnetized to attract all of the lessons I still need to learn. The ones I can’t quite complete.
Some of this armor, some of these masks are protective. Some are just scared.
Some of them grant me entry into spaces that require my serenity.
Some of them keep me far away from those who might want to touch my skin in a way I desperately need to be touched.
While all of this and none of this is completely true, the layers that follow the shape of my knowing are layers that offer distance. (That I pronounce ‘safety.’)
And it’s complicated. Because they are a part of me, because they grew from parts of me that needed them desperately. They belong to my story, to my heart, to the vulnerable places that delight to be seen. To be granted protection, the kind I should have been offered before.
But the distance does not confer belonging. Only acceptance. Allowance. Entry.
Belonging requires something of nakedness. Something of skin that shares the sunlight and risks the burn. Something of finding the places that know how to offer shade—willingly and without any need to be thanked.
There are places that will want you no matter who you have been and who you will be.
And they will recognize you by the armor you left at the door.
And the lightness of your shoulders when you can breathe fully. Even loudly.
They will know you by the way you shake a little during the first greeting.
Hi.
Hello. We’ve been waiting to love you.
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Wanna make some magick with me?
July 27 & 28: Pearl Pentacle - with Irisanya, Riyana & Stephen - Vallejo, CA
August 3 & 4: Iron Pentacle - with Irisanya & AManita - Santa Rosa, CA
Wanna hear some interviews I’ve done recently? You can listen to all of them here.
***
Thank you for reading. I hope your week reminds you of the places you belong.
In love and magick,
Irisanya