Tag Archives: polytheism

For Love or Money?

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Maybe somewhere in-between? On a spectrum, perhaps?

I know nothing about Etsy. Honest, I swear. I am no expert on Etsy. High Spirits Divine has been open for just a smidge over 3 years, technically, although I really didn’t get working on it in earnest for about 6 months after I opened it. I am no “six figure” Etsy seller, not by a long shot.

I am, however, a self-taught expert on Etsy “experts.” I have spent hours and hours watching YouTube Etsy how-to content, for better and more often, for worse. There are some truly atrocious “coaches” out there, many of whom make me wonder if teaching on YouTube is a more lucrative business than Etsy itself.

Which it was, or at least in recent history it has been. In 2020 when everyone was stuck at home, there was a massive increase in the number of people shopping online, including Etsy. First, because there was no choice. You couldn’t shop out in the real world for a bit, and even when you could, many of us (myself included) were too paranoid to be in a crowded (more than two people I don’t know is crowded, lol) store. Second, the world was FAREEEEAAAAAKKKINNNNG out. Being stuck in the house and isolated was an ideal dream to me, but a lot of people didn’t take the isolation well at all. They needed a fix; a little something to make their lives better, even just momentarily. That rush, the dopamine hit, was what they needed, just to get through the day sometimes.

The Etsy shops that were already open were raking it in. Both the ones that pivoted to making cloth masks as well as the ones that didn’t. The “Etsy Gurus” that came out like a rash in 2020/2021 are the ones that saw that writing on the wall first: Teach people how the instant gratification of a convenient POD shop works and tell them they can be MILLIONAIRES. BOOM! Next thing you know, they’re selling outrageously overpriced lessons and “coaching,” and making their own millions hand-over-fist.

That’s not to say that all Etsy Coaches are like that. They are definitely not, any more than all Etsy sellers are like that. But from the outside, it can be damn difficult to tell one from the either in either category. Which is why I ask, “for love or money,” because it’s really hard for the average shopper to know the difference, and some of them don’t even care, 🫤much in the same way that some shoppers can’t tell really bad AI slop or Chinese dropshippers or again, don’t care. For that matter, there are sellers who don’t care either. Which sucks.

The sellers who create for love have a hobby, an art, a craft, that they’re really good at. They’ve given them as gifts, sold things at craft shows, and they’re ready for that next step. They love their craft, whatever that is…yarn work, painting, ceramics, jewelry, all of it, any of it. They come to the table with a product. They love making it, they’re good at it, and that’s what they want to show the public.

The sellers for money don’t care what they sell. They don’t care what it means or if it means anything at all. They want the easiest product available. You will find them the most in AI-accepting groups because they are inclined to use nothing but. The more automated their business, the better. They’ll use it to decide a niche that will sell, design a product that will sell, create the products that will sell, the pictures to sell the product that it’s made to sell, the entire listing for the product it made, and the advertising to get the business to the site, with as little actual effort on their own part as possible. They’ll often be found making over-done t-shirts with something “Mama” on it, with the latest cutesy trends…racoons, stripes, capybaras…whatever. They don’t care as long as it sells and they get a Porche or whatever.

I’m in the middle. I am definitely doing this for love, even though my products involve the use of AI as well as POD. I am a definite oddity out there, let me tell you. Which is why I noticed this so early on in my Etsy journey. It began to really get to me when I started looking for some sort of new Etsy community. Most of the communities that are accepting (or even promoting) AI and POD are for money, and most of the ones for handmade vendors who are doing Etsy for love are excessively anti-AI, as well as moderately anti-POD. I am also extremely control-oriented; I would never let any computer AI make decisions for me. They are tools. I make the decisions, not them, but I’ll use them for the menial work. Which is why I’m the odd woman out

When I realized that YouTube was only going to get me so far, I decided to select a coach. I had it down to a top five, one was definitely more for hand-made creations although the coaches themselves did POD, so they did have an understanding of and acceptance of that type of product creation. The others had clear-cut “plans” how to make six-figures a year…blah, blah, blah. Now, let me say that not all of them are scammers. There are many money-centered coaches who seem to me, at least, to have a serious interest in helping people to establish businesses on Etsy that theoretically will make money. The problem to me, is more about what it is they want you to do to get it. Don’t worry, I’ll get there. 😉

For my part, the decision at the time was exceptionally easy. I went with the coaches who had given me the MOST information for free on YouTube. Not the same nonsense over-and-over, and not straight out of the Etsy Sellers’ Handbook…although nothing that contradicted it, either. There was another important factor; they had already coached several different witchy sellers, and were in subcultures who are very comfortable with that as well as many I’m comfortable with myself. I knew they’d have some sort of idea of my customer base or my “niche” as they like to call it. Considering my desire to be all one person complete, this was a Gods-Send! In addition, they were the most sincere, the most empathetic, and at least performatively, the most considerate and friendly. These were my coaches. I signed up. I’ve never regretted that.

When I started having trouble with acceptance I wasn’t mad at them or anyone, really. Everyone has the right to their opinion, and it’s the Coaches’ space, not mine. They could incubate whatever kind of community they liked. I’d already been dealing with the occasional snarky comment about POD after all. This was different, though. I was more than just a little uncomfortable. People who hate AI also hate the people who use it, and honestly are as rabid as Evangelical Christians trying to convert any non-believer, or MAGAts coming into a progressive thread just to bully. That is why I did a quick exit, hoping I could go back after it all blew over eventually.

I’ve apparently made some progress in therapy as at their last live I couldn’t hold a damn thing in, and I spoke up. I’m all good with my coaches now, not sure about the community, but at least I’m speaking up and I’m not lost atm. Its progress.

However, in between the occurrences, I started re-examining what coaches are out there in YouTube University, and I noticed the differences. I did find a few very earnest, sincere, and honest POD/AI Coaches. One in particular I’m still thinking about simply because I have no practical graphic arts education, and would like a professional eye to look at my designs. My coach doesn’t touch that; they help you sell what you’ve already designed, but don’t tell you what to do. Which is a good way to spot the difference between love and money; for the money coaches will gladly and without question tell you what to sell. Blow by blow, even. Its all part of their plan. So if that’s what you’re looking for, they’re perfect. 

Thing is, for me, I’m not normal. I’m doing this out of my own love for the Spirits, and doing this all at their direction. Not the products so much as the images, or at least that’s what most are particular about at the moment. Who knows what tomorrow will bring! AI is the way I can do that. Would I like to be a millionaire? Sure, who wouldn’t? Billionaire? Excessive, but I think about my friends and family, and the world at large and what I could do with that money…so yeah, I’d take it for sure. But I don’t expect it. I’d like to make a decent living off of it, enough to at least give us some comfort as we get older. Health care being what it is, and the government being what it is, we’re going to need money to take care of ourselves unless something changes drastically. Especially as my we both have physical restrictions and my husband is only working part time at the moment. Yeah, we kind of need some money.

Right now, I’m breaking even, and that’s a perfectly fine start for me in what’s essentially my second year in business. The rest will come with time. I’m not in that much of a hurry. Yet.

Well, I’m personally useless as an Etsy coach, and that’s fine with me. I don’t think I’d want the headache! However, I’m seriously thinking of reviewing the Etsy Coaches. That’s something I haven’t seen out there, and something I think the community at large could really use. I might have to do it without using their real names, some of them are…well, one in particular is a bit lawsuit-happy. Most of them are in the US, and everyone knows how we loooooooooooooove litigation~! 🙄

Its about time, I think, we talk about this.

No Country for Old Women

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I have always been, and seems I will always be the odd woman out. The extremely square peg. The redheaded stepchild. Finally, I can at least say I’m starting to get used to it.

I have always wanted to find the place where I could be my complete and whole self in public.

There’s no such place. Utopia, right? Some of us get that joke. Utopia is a word that originally meant “nowhere,” because it doesn’t exist, and never will.

I can be me here. I can’t call it a community, but I can absolutely say this is me. Complete and whole. Don’t like it? That’s fine. I don’t like everyone on earth either. Just don’t expect me to care, okay? Move along. It’s what I do, what polite adults do. It’s all I ask.

It took a long time, but I found the absolutely perfect Etsy coach for me, who came with a beautiful community of incredibly creative people from Etsy. Not a group of let’s make another “Mama Shirt” creators. She understood paganism, at least to an extent, and I felt appreciated and that I could fit in there but…

I use Generative AI. They hate Generative AI. So much for that community. Odd woman out. Again.

Obviously, I’m the problem. I’m the reason the evil data centers are needed and being thrust upon the public where they’re not wanted or needed. Also, I’m STEALING FROM ARTISTS. Right.

Fine. Let’s just go there.

First, I’m not the ONE creating a need for data centers. You could take ALL the generative art designers in the US, and together we wouldn’t be the cause. Generative AI has been used in art for at least 4 years now, and LLMs for longer. We were fine with the data storage we had. That’s not the problem.

You’re looking for someone human who you can attack and will react to you for you to vent on. A convenient scapegoat. The truth is a lot more complicated but, hey, maybe those FLOCK CAMERAS might have to do with it? Maybe all the data that the Federal Government is HOARDING about every American Citizen would have something to do with it? And come to it, I’m sure that all those Fortune 500 companies tracking our every move online (Meta, anyone?) have something to do with it?

But sure, blame me.

For this first count, let me now tell you what I’m incredibly proud of. I now have Local AI. LOCAL. As in, it’s completely housed on my own computer. NO DATA CENTER USE AT ALL. So, to be as mature and adult as I can be about this, shut up. That complaint is completely invalid.

Now, as far as stealing from artists, I’m about to offend every artist on the internet. I know I am. But this is the absolute truth. There is not a single artist who has had their art stolen who has any art I would ever use in my products. There’s a world of reasons for that. Some of it is just rank amateur in my eyes. Some of it is a style choice, I don’t want to work with anything “cutesy,” or “Chibi,” or “Manga” or “Comic Book” looking. Not one spirit has expressed any interest in being depicted in those ways. Sorry, not sorry. They are, quite literally, my bosses.

Even in a situation where I might truly appreciate an artist’s style, what are the odds I will see the Spirit the same way? How many artists do you know who like to be instructed in every facet of a piece of art? Hair color, ethnicity, pose, facial expression, clothing choice, background…I am, again because of my bosses, VERY particular. Finding a piece of art online that I can just use as is? It’s really, really fucking hard. I’ve tried.

Here’s Anput. She was generated off of Anubis believe it or not. On the back of the journal, you can see the other items I generated. Even her buddy there on the cover was generated by me. All individually, then pieced together as a collage.

I’ve found a few, and I’ve used them. But when I started to stretch into the lesser-known entities, like Qebhet, for example, it wasn’t even a question of finding something I agreed with. I couldn’t find anything. Hell, I couldn’t even find a complete set of Canopic Jars and I felt those were EXTREMELY important for Anput’s images. It had to be right. That took me quite literally about 18 iterations to get that piece of art which is just one component in the overall piece.

Three different pieces made up this card back. One of them I bought, 2 I generated.

ALSO, if you were an artist, and you could put your art on a t-shirt yourself, why would you sell your art cheaper to someone else for them to do it? Its far more supportive of human artists to want them to make everything they can off of their art. I would gladly help anyone who wanted to go POD with their art, honestly. I want them to get out there and make a living off of it, and I find too many artists don’t have the business sense to do it.

I’m going long again, but just figure that I don’t write often, I write long 🤣

Here’s what my moral law is as far as art goes. I stick to the dead. I do not work with any art style that is recent. I personally like the 75 year standard used for copyrights and so on. The average age. Older types of art as well as art styles that were used for marketing or in such large quantities by so many people giving lots and lots of possible combinations, but most of the art I work with is, well Ancient Egyptian. Ancient Greek. Merovingian. Medieval Christian. Renaissance. The newest I think i have ever touched would be the Art Deco/Art Nouveau/Art Informel, etc., the heyday of which is about 100 years. I also NEVER USE AN ARTIST’S NAME. Never. I stick with styles, schools, movements, ages. That’s it.

Let’s face it, for the Entities I’m working with, the ancient forms of art work better anyway. Anubis looked better in Egypt, although I have to say I ran some patterns with Hekate in Egypt, and they were fire. We’ll see…Merovingian has given me some interesting results as well.

There’s a lot of fun to be had by combining styles and adding in different art terms. Throwing the term “dark” onto anything, or “gothic,” can change an entire look. Gives me that creativity that everyone assumes is missing from AI. Come on, Goth Nouveau? SO BANGING! Esoteric and Occult change the entire vibe of a piece. Goth Esoteric Les Fauves Art…would make a human artist’s head spin, but the AI keeps up with me and my vision.

I don’t just generate a piece and throw it on a product, either. When I started this adventure, I was using the Etsy guidelines; if it wasn’t your own art, it had to have at least two to three other pieces in it to make it your own. I started collaging. And I still do. That canopic jar? That was only one piece of about five I created or found for that Anput image. With the patterns I generate, I can put them on all sorts of different products and reuse the heck outta them so that the generation is anything but wasted. Not just that, either. I pull those apart and use as clip art in other pieces.

My current favorite Dionysus image, pilfered from my own pattern.

I am very frugal in all ways! 😊

The truth is, I’m a writer not a physical artist. Words are what I’m stronger with, and this is a format that is made for me. The better you can describe, the better the art. I can actually bring what I see to life and share it with you. I’m sorry, but to me that is art, although there are far too many people out there who have way too much hate for me for it. That’s my life.

I do not use the “art” word in public much. Too many people are biased against me to begin with. I will say designer, the ultimate compromise, much like I would say I was a “crafter” in my jewelry-making days. People hated me for that, too. I didn’t do anything but string beads, I wasn’t an artist…yeah, I’ve heard all this bullshit before.

If I wasn’t slowly losing my hands, I’d probably still be doing the jewelry. I had plans…I was going to do a LOT of crafting for my shop. If I can get a dx and the proper treatment, maybe I can still get some of it done. Currently, I have a melted knuckle, and other digits that feel like they’re going in the same direction. Its either RA or Sjogren’s, and I have way more markers for Sjogren’s, so that’s a little scary. It takes on average about 6 years for an actual diagnosis with that one; I don’t have that kind of time. I don’t mind the osteoarthritis, in my family that’s predictable. I’ve known I had the swan’s neck deformation when I was in my thirties.

This is different.

But I can still create and whether you like it or not, that’s what I’m doing.

At the end, I realize that I will lose potential business because of my decisions. I am alright with that. My Gods and Spirits are happy with me, and I know I will be cared for by them. At the end of the day, it’s Their approval that matters. Yours would be a bonus.

Curious?

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You’re in excellent company if so. I know I am. Always have been.

Curiouser and Curiouser

I think I talked about this before, but in case you missed it 😁, I gave up on the “Children’s Library” in 3rd grade. I remember the day, although not the date, as if it was some sort of ritual. It was quiet, so quiet, and felt like walking into a church, especially after the chaos and bright colors of the children’s library which our library hid in the basement.

Because I do have a “touch” of OCD, I stared for a minute, looking at the plaques with the Dewey Decimal System codes on each bookcase, and decided to start where one always ought, at the beginning. I headed to the 000.00 section and began.

Things have changed quite a bit since then, but almost 50 years ago now (YIKES!) the 000.00 section began with the “unexplained.” Now, they’ve shoved computers in there as well, and who knows what else. In my day, though, I found ghosts, vampires, folk magic, witchcraft, and so much more. The Unexplained was right near to religion, psychology, and mythology, and it’s a miracle I ever made it out of that aisle, but I do remember making it all the way to history, which if I remember right was somewhere around 500-600. Again, though, its been many, many years so I could be incredibly wrong. I buy more than I borrow these days, so I don’t even really know what kind of changes have happened in all that time.

Also, we have a very disappointing library. It looks like a cathedral, a HUGE cathedral, but it was as though they paid for the building and didn’t have money for the books. After we got our own internet service, I didn’t hang out there nearly as long as I’d done at the library where I grew up. Sad, but true. 😢

Curiosity, I tell you, guided my every step.

When I started https://highspiritsdivine.etsy.com,  I hit up ChatGPT because I had no idea what to call the Email Most people seem to use some variation of V.I.P.., I hate that. It just bugs me. Second, it doesn’t remotely fit the brand I’m trying so hard to stick to. The AI gave me four or five options, as I recall, and one of them was Curiosi. I knew, immediately, that this was the one. Because Curiosity, I realized, is the one character trait we all have in common.

By all, I mean all. When you look at everything that loosely gets thrown into that umbrella of “Pagan,” (which really just means not a Christian, or worse, not educated. It was basically an insult, like calling someone a hick.) it’s a huge mishmash of not-quite-related paths. There are some that seem very Christian based, or at least Abrahamic such as Ceremonial, Enochian, and even Christian witchcraft and most branches of ethic folk magic. At the other end of the spectrum, yet still within the Christian mythology, you’ve got Gnostics, and Satanists from Atheistic Satanists to Theistic Satanists. Then there’s Polytheists in both Hard and Soft forms, meaning some see Gods as different entities, and some see the Gods as different faces of some bigger deity that’s imperceptible by humans unless we break it down into smaller bite-sized chunks. And that’s not all because there are witches of every single stripe from Atheistic to Theistic, Voudou to Earth Magic. Applachian Granny magic to Hoodoo. Manifesting to longer recipe-based spellwork. Enochian and Sorcerers summoning entities to perform services. Chaos magicians who…well, do whatever they like.

HOW do we lump us all in together? We all have some things in common, but none have all things in common. It’s not like other religious beliefs where you’ll have different denominations, and they all have at least the major deities in common. We’ve got bupkis, nada, zilch. Sometimes it even seems like we have no common ground at all. 

But we’ve got curiosity.

If we didn’t all have this in common, every single one of us would still be participating in the religion and religious practices of our parents, grandparents, going back generations. I never would have picked up a book in the “Unexplained” section of the library, let alone “Drawing Down the Moon,” by Margot Adler, which was my gateway into paganism. I’d have accepted the Greek Myths in the context that they were given to me; stories from ancient people who didn’t understand anything and used mythology to explain the world around them. I certainly would never have even entertained the idea of casting a spell, even in a Christian context.

I remember Mary Trump said, although I don’t remember where, that her uncle (the president) had absolutely no intellectual curiosity. That was the first time I’d heard anything of the sort, and it seemed something incredibly terrible and, well, boring. After contemplation though, I realize this is one of the biggest differences between myself and “the squares.” Many humans are completely satisfied learning the bare minimum in school, watching reality television, working at the same job or whatever job they can find in something of a zombie state, eating the same food all their lives.

I just can’t. When I got a new text book, I’d thumb through it excitedly and get mad when I’d get the syllabus and it wouldn’t cover some of the more interesting sections. So I’d read them anyway. I have one of my mom’s textbooks from college, I bought it used on Ebay (its not the same copy, she’s still got hers) because it explained the Anglo-Saxon wergild system, and their culture, better than some of the more modern books on the subject. When I opened an English textbook to read Samuel Coleridge Taylor’s poems after I’d seen a movie, I got stuck on the first poem, Beowulf, and started reading the book there.

I wish curiosity were contagious. This would be a far better world if more people had it in larger doses!

This is the glue between us. The books, the tomes, the online discussions on every forum going back to the AOL chatroom days forward. We all have a vital curiosity that drives us. Our paths wander and meander through different practices as we discover new information, meet new people, exchange techniques and theories. We grow in so many different directions, but at the same time, we all grow.

My curiosity is insatiable. I have said over and over again the day I stop learning is the day I start dying.

 

 

It’s Wonderful

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Nothing’s Written in Stone

One of my favorite benefits to not following a written doctrine is that I get to “rewrite” my beliefs to my heart’s content. No one tells me what to believe, nothing at all is written in stone. I can bend, flex, shrug things off, and turn completely around as much as I like. I don’t normally do the complete 180 degrees, but I often go off at right angles.

My most complicated question for myself is what do I call myself. Not many people care, I think, and I don’t know why I do. Christians have it pretty easy with this. The denomination of the church you attend has a name, the church has a name. There are neat and tidy labels for everything.

With my just a “touch” of OCD, I do love labels. Too much. I guess in some way I crave them. I imagine the other factor in that it is damn hard to find a community if you don’t have a label. In order to agree on something, it’s sort of necessary to define it.

Granted, everyone seems to be okay with the myriad of terms that we all grab at to use daily. Pagan, neo-pagan, Wiccan, witch are all sort of used interchangeably. I wonder frequently if the people using these terms actually understand them. I mean, I knew a couple who proudly claimed to be “Wiccan” but had never heard of Aradia, which I would have considered mandatory reading upon a time. I guess I’m old! 😁

The long form of what I call myself, to those who actually ask, is “hard-polytheistic, poly-pantheonic Spiritist.” Even then I lose half the people I’m talking to. Few people seem to know the difference between “Spiritist” and “Spiritualist,” and lemme tell ya there is a pretty big difference there. However, even people who constantly practice Spiritism actually know what it is, or that it’s what they do. It’s what they’ve learned, and that’s what they practice, it’s just that simple.

Okay, it’s not actually that simple, but we’re not going down that particular rabbit hole today, if you don’t mind. If you really want to know and are just dying of curiosity, feel free to drop me a message or comment here, and I’ll get around to it!

I’m not even going to discuss the people who would tell me, vehemently, that you can’t work with Deities from different Pantheons. This is my belief system and I can do whatever I feel I am supposed to do, and it’s between myself and the Entities I Work with. You can do the same. I might think your beliefs are ridiculous, and you might think mine are. I won’t pick on you if you don’t pick on me. However, if you really feel pressed to tell me what I’m doing “wrong” be aware I’ll do the same for you. Also, thanks to therapy, I have learned how to use tools such as the “block button” efficiently and with great pleasure!

To review, I used to embrace the title of “Omnist.” It seemed to embrace everything all at once, which I loved. I still do, but it seems as though someone has organized some sort of religious grouping–church, coven, grove, temple, whatever–and named it Omnist. That wouldn’t bother me at all, except they seem to have dug up the old “ALL GODS ARE ONE GOD” thing, which is exactly opposite my own views. Once you’ve interacted with a Spirit of any kind, you get a feel for them, and they are all different. Extremely different, in some cases.

Whether or not I’m communicating directly with Gods or with their representatives or messengers isn’t quite clear to me yet but, they’re still different. With their own personalities, and methods of getting messages through to my very think mortal head. I just can’t get down with soft-polytheism.

As much as I want to belong to the right label, I equally don’t want to belong to the wrong label. So Omnism is officially out. For me, at any rate. Individual results will, as always, vary.

It didn’t take as long to find my very own personal term, one that I’ve never heard from anyone else, but is so incredibly simple that I think it’s moderately brilliant. Or not. Whichever, lol. As far as I know I’m the first, especially as there are so few people who actually know what Spiritism is, and that the majority of practitioners of Spiritism are Catholic (much as most of those who practice Voodoo are). They don’t really travel in “pagan” circles very often.

I know absolutely embrace the label of “poly-Spiritist.” Many, many spirits. Since my core belief gets down to one principle, that being that all Gods, Demons, Angels, Demi-gods, Daimons, Ancestors, Disincarnate Human Spirits, Fae, Orishas, Lwa, etc., are all Spirits, just different types of Spirits, I think it fits me pretty damn well.

Another difference between my own practice and others is the lack of worship. I don’t worship any Entity. I respect them, I love them, I cooperate with them, I give them “offerings,” and treats of various kinds, but it’s not in a spirit of worship. It’s rather in a spirit of love. I do these things because I want to, not because they’re demanded of me or because there’s some sort of pre-ordained ritual I must partake in because of the date or moon phase or what-have-you. We Work together. I can’t call it a friendship exactly, because they are not like me in many, many ways. But there’s no kneeling in this House. They’re my guides, my teachers, my family, my Guardians.

I am still a Witch, and always have been, always will be regardless of religious observations. Call it as you will, I practice magic or magick, whichever. I don’t often feel it necessary to perform much for myself or my family. There’s not much I have the need for in my own life. My husband and I have been married for more than 20 years, so I’ve no need of love spells. We have enough of what we need in this world, so I’ve no need of money work. I find myself with talent, time, and knowledge, but not a lot to do. This is why I’ve started my Social Justice Witchcraft. Unlike many, I am fortunate enough to have the time to Work for the larger world. For my friends, for those who are currently threatened in this social climate, for people not even here yet. That’s a different rabbit-hole, though. I’ll likely write about that sooner or later.

I am well and truly content in my life. If the phrase “by their fruits you shall know them” has any truth to it at all, I feel I must be doing something right. Which is why I say it’s wonderful. If the day comes that I have to fake Christianity in order to live, I could do that, but I’ll never abandon my Spirits. They are the wonderful that makes my whole life wonderful.

Side Step

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Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…

I just did the math. I met my BFE (Best Friend EVER) 17 years ago. Its gone too goddamn fast. I can’t believe how long we’ve been together now, and at the same time it seems like we’ve known each other forever. Weird how that works, isn’t it?

I remember when I met her. I had moved the store from one side of the theater to the other which had given me a lot more room. It was still a ridiculously small storefront, but it was what I could afford, and it worked. Jewelry is, after all, pretty small.

I’d already been invaded by the first round of leeches. I’ve had problems with leeches all my life, so this was no different. Its only recently that I’ve been able to figure this problem out, and Bestie has been a major part of understanding why I keep getting into that cycle.

It took finding someone who knows how to be a best friend for me to be able to compare and understand who isn’t a friend, to start on that path.

The leeches in this part of my life we’ve been referring to as the “Evil Three.” Not as much for anonymity as because it seems people we never want to see again have a strange way of showing up after we say their names out loud. Call it superstition, call it evocation magic, but it happens an awful lot. Its been nearly 20 years since they’ve been relevant, let alone evil, but we’ll roll with this for now.

The players here are Evil A, Evil J, and Evil M. M wasn’t as evil as the other two; he was as much a victim as I was, however he had a helluva anger issue, and lost all concepts of rationality when he’d get angry. He was also hopelessly (and stupidly) in love with Evil A, so he had a tendency to take her causes a bit too much to heart. To this day, I feel sorry for him.

I met Bestie when she came with Evil J to the store for the downtown business Halloween trick-or-treating. It was more of a social function than anything else, and Evil J was dressing as a witch. Bestie was ostensibly there to help her with her costume which was a witch complete with prosthetic nose.

A nose that Bestie and I realized she didn’t even need. It wasn’t much bigger than her own, frankly.

Now, when I started this store, and for that matter when I moved into this house some ten years later, I thought of myself as at least nominally Wiccan. I’d started drifting into polytheism by virtue of having run into a couple of Deities already, but I still thought in a Wiccan framework. When I set up my “Spooky Room” at the house here, I had four small altars for each of the Quarters, and the main altar in the middle so I could face whatever way I’d needed. Verrrrrrrrrrrrrry Wiccan-ish.

Bestie came in with this energy I was immediately drawn to. She has this bright red hair, a little girl voice that doesn’t match her physique but really matches her child like nature and joy, and she was wearing layers of beaded necklaces. I was so curious, intrigued, and drawn in. I always am curious about people who are different, so I suppose that isn’t all that odd for me. I didn’t want her to think she was some sort of freak show, so I was trying to let her release whatever information about herself she wanted to in a pace she was comfortable with.

That wasn’t easy!

As I remember it though, we took to each other immediately. Talking at a hundred words a minute or more. She was the first Voodoo practitioner I’d ever met, at least to my own knowledge. Curious doesn’t really even begin to explain it. Given I’ve had a hyper-fixation on religious beliefs and magickal practices as long as I can remember, to say I was obsessed is a polite term.

Thankfully, she seems to have felt the same way, and she came back. A lot.

But things happened, as they always do for me. The Evil Three became more and more controlling, more and more manipulative. They also showed up at the store more and more. It became harder and harder for me to get business in as they were generally always there, and it started to look like a hangout.

They weren’t the only ones, either. There was a handful of teenagers, or I should say successions of teenagers who did the same thing. I didn’t mind as much Friday nights as the town had a car show every Friday night so having people in and around the store wasn’t so very odd. But Evil A, in particular, began acting like she owned the place.

Now, I made several of my own mistakes in all of this, and I’m sure to get into those sooner or later. Some of that was that I was too sympathetic to Evil M. As I said, we’ll get there.

Evil J was the particular problem at this juncture though.

First off, I realized how little she actually knew. She’d been in a coven, I hadn’t. I wanted to have Wicca 101 classes at night once a week when we were closed. As I hadn’t been in an actual coven, I was a little insecure teaching that part of the religion. I could teach from a sole practitioner perspective, but the coven she’d attended had been Gardnerian. I wanted that input for the class. So I asked her if she’d like to teach the class with me.

The suggestion I made is that I would handle the spell work portion, if she’d handle the ritual portion. We could alternate weeks, and I’d jump in for the solitary work if she wasn’t comfortable with it.

We started off the first lesson with her presentation. I really ought to have discussed more with her before hand, I really ought to have…

Because immediately she got into spell work. She didn’t know the difference between spells and rituals. I don’t even think, in retrospect, that she understood the Wiccan holidays enough to describe them, let alone teach about them.

It was disappointing, to say the least.

Evil J almost immediately, as she saw Bestie and I bonding, started bitching. There was always something wrong about Bestie. It got old, fast. And as much as they were supposed to be best friends at the time, she was constantly putting her down. That is, unless she was bragging about her. If anyone at all said something about Bestie being smart, or cool, or impressed with her in anyway, suddenly Bestie was J’s friend. It was odd.

It didn’t take long for her to start shoving Bestie off, either. She didn’t drive, so she was dependent on the train. Her (at the time) boyfriend would pick her up from the train station. If she wanted to stay later or she missed her train, she would ask for J to take her home. Now J lived to the east of the store, Bestie lived one town farther to the east, about 10 minutes or so.

But it was too far for her. Every single time Bestie wanted to stay and asked if J would take her home, J would say yes, and then J would, without Bestie hearing, ask me to either persuade her to take the train or ask for someone else to take her home. After telling Bestie she would drive her home.

Sometimes I would just wait with Bestie at the train station, making jokes about it being such a “horrible neighborhood” that I didn’t want her to risk being there by herself. Eventually though, I started just driving her home. It was faster than the train, and we didn’t have to stand around at the station waiting, which made it even faster for her. It didn’t seem to take more than a few minutes for me to drive her either, so even though I was a good 45 minutes to the west of there, it wasn’t problematic for me at all.

And it gave us a chance to talk. Alone.

That explains how we got closer and closer. Considering the kind of people we both are, it also explains how we started exchanging information about religion and spellwork. Because of course we did. This also explains how I started to understand Voodoo.

It wasn’t long before we parted ways with the Evil Three. Maybe I’ll get into that some day, maybe not. There’s not a lot there I care about anymore, except for the lessons I learned.

Bestie quit her job and became my “work wife” not long after we saw the Evil Three depart. We spent more than eight hours a day together, six days a week, and never once tired of each other. In all our years, we’ve had one break down (I’ll get into that, for sure…) and I got mad at her exactly once, but it wasn’t even her fault then. I think she got mad at me once, too, so we’re even. In seventeen years. That’s not a bad run.

At some point between her being there sometimes and being there all the time, Bestie met a Babalawo at a local flea market where he had a booth. For those unaware, this is a type of priest through Ifa or Santeria. That’s how the Side Step happened.

Throughout this all, I’m wresting with what I’ve learned. Because someone so burnt by Christianity, who threw it out whole cloth, is going to have issues with Voodoo. Especially someone with one foot already in polytheism who hasn’t completely deconstructed Christianity yet.

Voodoo has a veneer of Christianity over it to this day. Some people have started trying to “restore” it to its original pre-slavery context, making it into some sort of African Polytheism, but that’s not the tradition practiced by most. For the rest of the world, they’re Catholics who happen to venerate the Lwa.

Then, Bestie ends up taking me in to see her Babalawo, who found my ruling Orisha. I had to start smashing square pegs into octagon shaped holes. It wasn’t easy. An awful lot didn’t get straightened out until I began to understand both the history of Christianity better, and the concept of Omnism.

Funny how our paths will seem so straight and predictable for years and years until we just get curious and find that weird path off to the side of the main path and we end up on a completely different, and even less trodden path.

Free to Worship or Not

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My years in Christianity weren’t exactly a waste, for all that they were debilitating to my psyche, I did learn quite a bit. Some of that was definitely painful and hard to extract from my brain later in life, some of it was life-changing and highly influential on my future spiritual and magical life.

First and foremost, the Bible became one of my hyperfixations. Well before I knew what that was, I had begun reading books about “The Book.” You’ll hear zealous Christians constantly push reading the Bible, over and over again. Memorizing verses, reading obscure books out of it, and of course, believing the interpretation of whatever guru-type-pastor is in vogue today. If you’re the type that doesn’t passively read, if you’re the type of person who thinks and analyzes while reading as I am, this is a sure-fire way to read yourself back out of Christianity. Because that’s exactly what happened.

I’m not just fixated on Christianity, I’m fixated on religion, and on mythology as well. When I started analyzing the Flood, for example, and realized that comparative religion and mythology had many similar tales, the passive reader might expect that is because the story is true. An active reader? I realized that yes, there were many similar stories. And I realized several were older than the earliest written Judaic text mentioning the story. So logic would have the older story as the more likely original.

Ummmm…

If you’re wondering, this is still something I’m absolutely obsessed with, although I find it rotates regularly with other fixations now. As an adult, I don’t have quite as much time to devote to these studies of mine. I’ve added into the mix cults and what I’d call para-religions. I feel a kinship with people who have escaped cults, likely because of all they have in common with the Evangelical/Charismatic religion I’m a refugee of.

Oddly, as its something I had to wrestle with, I also felt the presence of a god for the first time.

You can imagine, I’m sure, this was a real bear to merge together. I threw out Christianity whole; baby and bathwater altogether. But at the same time, I had experiences that could not easily be dismissed.

In the tradition I was raised in, there were three positions taken by the acolytes. The crucifer who carried the cross, and then the others who each held a torch on either side of the cross and just behind for the procession and recession. What I began to understand quickly is that the person who is the crucifer is the focus of attention and energy from the congregation. And in ECUSA, as in other traditions, there’s a reverence that’s given as the procession passes. If you’re even remotely sensitive (at the time I was very closed off energetically, its really amazing anything got thru at all, that will tell you how much I’m talking about here), you can’t help but feel that energy. You’re a funnel, taking all that energy, and its going through you to its destination.

And yes, that destination is a Deity. Ironically, most Christians don’t have any idea of this at all.

I did, and I do. It gave me a great deal of difficulty as I threw the entire belief system out, and wrestled with all the condemnation that came with that belief system. I embraced several different versions of paganism one, after the other, and every single time had to wrestle with where “God” and “Christianity” fit into my life.

Santeria and Voodoo were the worst. Those born into those religions have no compunction at all about blending African spirits with the Christian God, Church, and all its trappings. They don’t even blink. It hurt me so horribly, I can’t even explain it. Its like trying to use an overnight bag when you’re going to be away from home for a month. It just didn’t fit.

Here, at this place in the story, is where my hyperfixation comes in handy.

There are a lot of gods actually written of in the Bible, most of which are buried under layers of culture and mythology. Two are closer to the surface than most; Elohim who is actually a pantheon of gods under a primary god named El (Get it??? Beth-El??? After you’ve seen it once, El is everywhere in the Bible…I love tying things together like that!), and of course Yahweh. Thing is, both these gods were Canaanite gods. Remember the Canaanites? The ones the Hebrews were instructed time and time again to steer clear of? Those same Canaanites is exactly where their primary god came from, a mix of El and Yahweh. Turns out the Hebrews very likely were Canaanites who split off and claimed this God as the god of their tribe.

El and Yahweh have little else in common, frankly. El is the wise, old, white-haired gentle father god, and Yahweh is the vindictive, cruel god of storms, lightning and punishment.

This is the moment I became an Omnist. I see it so clearly now that its ridiculous. There are indeed two different gods of the Bible, or at least there are two primary and active gods in our world today. There’s Yahweh, the god of Evangelicals and Conservatives who instructs hatred of the fellow man, cruelty, and war; and El, the god of peace, love, and understanding who we learn of through the Christ of the New Testament.

Now, saying that either of those gods are gods doesn’t mean that I am called to them, or have any need to worship them. I can recognize that they exist along side my own Spirits because two things (or more) can actually be true at the same time. I don’t need El or Yahweh, and they don’t need me. I belong elsewhere. That doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you that you don’t belong with one or both of them. That’s your business not mine, and I’d no sooner try to tell you who to worship than I would tell you who to have sex with or not, for that matter.

I am now free. Free to work with Spirits who are under the reign of Christ or El (I’ll keep away from Yahweh as much as I can, but thanks anyway) such as those Spirits of Voodoo or Ifa that I love, and not have to give up my pagan ways. I can follow new pagan and magical directions as my own Soul guides me because I do get instruction directly from my Spirits; and who am I to say that my Brigid is your Brigid? Perhaps she’s different, and then has different requests and needs?

That’s a whole other can of worms though. I’d best stop here or I’ll never stop tonight!

This blog post was written after I’d begun my evening “medication” (medical marijuana) please forgive any awkward phrasing or grammar, I will go back over it when I’m in a more sober state of mind. Expect editing!