I stay telling my clients that they don’t have to live in discomfort.
I’m so fucking #teamvirgo because I also stay being do as I say not as I do.
From 5 to 17 I lived in saddle oxfords and uniforms. By 18 I was buying my own clothing and shoes so that meant thrift stores, clothing shops and if I needed something new Payless. I knew I was uncomfortable but I knew that I could deal with it.
Today Wednesday gently lured me into a shop while I made soft wookie nosies under my breath to soothe my nerves.
They coaxed me into a pair of shoes that made me so comfortable that I literally took off running and jumping while the sales people laughed.
They then listened as I said I can’t afford, I have debt to pay, if I can’t buy it then I shouldn’t have it. I’m old enough to take care of myself and I got myself in the position of not being able to afford something I so obviously need so this is just something I live with until I can.
I’m in constant pain.
It ranges from a 2 to 7 with a daily median of 5. I was about a 5 in my current gear but when I put on those shoes it dropped to a 2, my posture changed, my hips allowed me a honest to god gait instead of a shuffle.
They held my hand and spoke to me in soft tones while I almost cried because I couldn’t get around myself.
They made a suggestion, a compromise, a way and so now I have shoes that fit, that can go into the garden and down a hill and into a dungeon too if I wanted.
And I have within my own body an understanding of what I so fiercely fight for other people to have on a daily basis.
I didn’t want to be comfortable because I didn’t want to maintain it. More to the point I didn’t want to lose it.
My existence has never been comfortable.
I told myself it could never be comfortable.
I keep getting shown that that is a lie.
A tape recorded so I wouldn’t push back or demand or dream or ask or hope or want.
So yeah
Okay
I’ll slip into these shoes and I’ll push back
I’ll demand
I’ll dream
I’ll ask
I’ll hope
I’ll want more.
Beloved,
Your humanity will cause you to look for the humanity in people who (aware or unaware) do not see you as human.
It’s a trap!
Through religion, mass media, weaponized desirability politics, the educational system, scarcity syndrome and the necessity of survival we were groomed.
Groomed to participate in perpetuating a system that profits from the labor of our creativity and magic but compensates or acknowledges us for none of it.
Groomed to consume prettily worded explainations and I’m sorry you’re hurt instead of full accountability in action.
Groomed to accept the least then give the most of our blood and spirit to mend something that was broken and never meant for us to begin with.
Because of this conditioning we have sympathized with their personal stories of struggles. We have compared them to our own without caculating the added taxes associated with being Black, being Brown, Being Trans, Being Queer.
We have given them allowances for things we wouldn’t even accept in ourselves.
It’s a hard cycle to break.
Your discomfort is natural.
Remember that you are severing chains that go back 400 years or more.
They will tell you that you are hardhearted that you want them to hurt because you hurt
that you ask too much of them too soon
that you have no compassion
Know that this is the language of addiction.
Know that there is a difference between compassion and enabling.
Beloved, You are not a monster because you refuse to ease them into equality.
Beloved,
It’s okay to cry as you wield your sword against your oppressors and their systems.
Beloved, Your humanity will cause you to look for the humanity in people who (aware or unaware) do not see you as human. Treat them the same. Walk with a compassion that centers you first. Walk in compassion but take no shit.
I’m feeling the passage of time as this current year rakes the last of her minutes down my spine.
She’s death
She’s all sweetness
She’s asking what I want to give her
She’s asking what I want her to take with her
Tonight I am giving her you.
You were all that I had ever known. For years I looked to you for guidance. You told me how to act, how to dress, how to be. You gave me order and boundaries. You dictated both the flow and rhythm of my life.
I didn’t know to hate you so by default I loved you.
I lifted you up
I fed you before I fed myself
I sought your validation
I sought my reflection in your eyes
I do not yet know who I am without you
But I know we can’t continue like this
You’re killing me
And I while I know it would be easier to let you kill me I resist!
My friends say that you are not as bad as I think you are. My elders sometimes even forget that you are there. In a fight those who are close to me will take your side and I think maybe I’m crazy.
Feeling this certain, this entitled to my self possession is so foreign that I am mistaking being insane for finally being in sane.
Without you this world is so huge and vast and unknown and terrifying and I’m changing into something I never thought possible and that frightens me.
Having full possession of this mouth, these legs, this mind, my spirit.
Having full responsibility for it too.
You keep calling me.
You keep being all hotline bling
You tell me that you don’t know who I am anymore like it is a bad thing and sometimes in the past I believed you.
I’d go back to you and we would start all over again.
But this is the last time.
As this current year rakes the last of her minutes down my spine.
I speak to her as if She is Death
I speak to her with all the sweetness I have left
She asks what I want to give her
She asks what I want her to take with her
And I hand you over
I give her every lie you dared to tell me
I give her every grief you have given me
I loosen your hand from around my throat
I will lay down with you no more
I will feed you no more
I will fear you no more
You are broken from my foundation
Your direction is removed from the compass of my heart
That Fam is a curse. It looks like love but don’t be fooled, that is a fucking throw.
This is a throw against People of Color taking a stand against appropriation, white supremacy and general caucasity. This is an empowerment to these MWGA asshats out here getting angry because we are saying stop.
This is a white man defending another white man who is doing some deep and real harmful appropriative shit This is a white man defending another white man who is using a problematic as fuck name This is a white man deciding that he knows what “real racism” looks like This is a white man deciding to engage in tokenism by using another Black person’s words against another Black person This is a white man getting so upset that a Black Femme born and raised in Deep South is upset about a Scottish born Canadian man doing conjure work with Harriet Tubman that he would throw against a child of Mama Moses in her own name This is a white man who deals with other white conjure men who are known abusers and harassers This is a white man protecting the money and power of other white men like him This is just another white man profiting off of magical systems created to survive people like him
So what do you do when a big name pagan who was once your hero throws at you and your kin?
Nothing. If you read this thing he just punched himself in the face. So I did nothing. For almost two weeks I did nothing
And then I got salty and made a new banner for my facebook page!
Fam,
These flag planting white witches selling a remix version of your blood magic back to you are coming from a deeply broken place. Just like we have our traumas they have their own. In order to survive and thrive they enacted the brutality of colonization on the entire world.
When I first learned about white intergenerational transmission of violence from the brilliant Meda DeWitt I was angry. I was angry because now I have to move with compassion.
They will tell you that demanding safe spaces for POCs, Trans, Queer people is silencing, attacking and shaming them.
They will tell you like they told me a Black Non-gender Binary, Fat, Femme that you are against diversity because you have the audacity to ask for your voice to be represented.
white people will tell you that you are against diversity because you do not include or center them!
They will tell you that you are divisive. They will tell you that you are the problem. They will call you aggressive and childish. They will throw at you and curse you.
But Lovely you are not the problem, You are a solution to it.
We as witches have the ability and responsibility to help create a new tower to replace the one that is falling. We can’t do this without ensuring that the foundation for this new system starts on even ground. If these columbusing ass white witches don’t get this, don’t see how they are fear motivated to control and own from the same places as fascists and racists the new tower will be as corrupted and crooked as the first one.
I’m out here with a warning because they are red flagging all over the fucking field. Stop appropriating and calling it appreciation Stop monetizing and capitalizing off of lessons they learned from their overworked Black Nanny or grossly underpaid Brown Housekeeper. Stop thinking that they can own the teachings of our lineage. Their arrogance, entitlement and privilege leads them to believe they were actually taught all of the magic. If by some off chance they were, this same arrogance, entitlement and privilege will turn it to poison in their veins.
They have not yet learned the lesson they have taught us at the end of a gun or a length of rope That everything can not be owned That you are a guest in this house
THAT IT IS ALL OF US OR NONE OF US
So Fam, if you want to do something do this: Change “Diversity Demon” to “Demons against Diversity” and speak this prayer dressed curse Orion wrote. Speak it well and speak it often. Light candles, sing it into the darkest night with the knowing that it will soon be true.
See you at Pantheacon I love you Let’s(continue to) fuck shit up
I see you as I see myself In this place of unutterable confusion
I feel you as I feel myself Teeth barred with an open and breaking heart
I hear you as I hear myself Screaming with an aching throat against those that actively silence your call for safety within your own spiritual communities
I write this to you As I write it to myself As I write this for myself
I am sorry.
I’m sorry that they told you that you are a drama llama, an instigator, a polarizer, a keyboard sjw, a liar, a trouble maker, foul and fleckless
I’m sorry that they told you that appropriation doesn’t exist
I’m sorry that they barred you entrance and access because you were not born with a biological womb
I’m sorry that your leaders and elders and heroes are dying before your eyes. Not felled by time or accident but rather to the tragedy of failure to extend the basic considerations due to every human being
When you tell them that they have hurt you they say you are holding witch-hunts. Yet they fundraise for Planned Parenthood, refuse to shop at Hobby Lobby, and hashtag me too.
When you say no more they say go home Yet they proudly walk the streets of places like San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago screaming for the rights of its citizens and the immigrants that seek to find shelter here.
When you demand that stories and traditions of your ancestors and culture come from a mouth that shares the same blood and skin as you they tell you tools that were crafted to survive them now belong to themWhen you say stop they say you are making a big deal of nothing
While they post on their Facebook walls that Trump and his fanatics are detestable, inhumane, deplorable and diseased they cannot hear their mirrored voices telling you that you are wrong, selfish, a shit stirrer and overly sensitive.
they will tell you to shut up when you speak up they will tell you how you are oppressing them and silencing them when you say get Harriet Tubman out of your mouth get Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte out of your mouth put down your rattle and your feathers, leave the sun to us, Miley Cyrus is not a spirit animal
Some of them will fight their families at the dinner table this holiday season, snap pictures of MAGA hats in airports with side eye emojis posted under them and then they will complain of too many social justice classes at the gathering this year they will lament about no more woman born women spaces they will say we need to focus on our commonalities and leave our differences at the door because they just want to Make Witchcraft Great Again.
they are gaslighting you because they want to Make Witchcraft Great Again!
they want to profit from your pain, they want to take your medicine wash it white resell it to you in a sanitized “civilized” version that they are comfortable with they want to control you and the narrative so badly that they will use the words of your neck pressed and sunken kindred against you they want to be the heroes of every journey they want easy enlightenment purchased at Chad’s homemade sweat hut the weekend after that wild trip on ayahuasca at Becky’s house
they are terrified they’re terrified because they do not want the ethical responsibility of being a Witch and cis Witch and het Witch and white
The people trying to make you afraid are cowards
they do not want to create change or even the field because here in these spaces they get to be Lords & Ladies to be important and popular and let’s face it most of them never were in school
Most of them were bullied and silenced and picked on Most of them were the odd one out, the weird ones that don’t know that they didn’t escape childhood intact
But here they get to have eyeliner and the illusionary power that comes with it
This is where it ends for them.
But not for us…
We don’t have that privilege We don’t have that illusion It can feel like a curse but Dearly Beloved you are so blessed
You are being lied to You are not unreasonable You are not wrong You are so deeply beautiful Your magic is so deeply beautiful
Your witchcraft is rooted in resistance Your witchcraft is rooted in being both male and female and all that flows between Your witchcraft is rooted in liberation
Your witchcraft comes with seasoning sweetie and we all know how the desire for spice started a bunch of fucking wars
You know how to dance during death You know how to create life when there is no hope of survival You have everyday magic of mothers turning $0.25 into $25 You have the everyday magic of getting out of bed and doing what needs to be done because you cannot afford to do differently You have the everyday magic of resilience passed on to you through generations of Mighty Dead Fam you is Avatar
Remember this
No matter how much they try to tell you that this backlash new it is not It is however, now untenable We have to decide whether we are going to go the way of the motherfucking elves or not
Because, let’s face it. They’re going to die. Unless they are willing to face the mirror that we are holding simply by existing their magic will die.
If you are a snowflake may winter come soon for the crops they have attempted to harvest from your blood and bones will not be enough to sustain them If they have wrought tears from you may each one be a drop in a flood that will drown them If they have turned your heart to stone may the breaking pieces snap back together and spark a fire that will burn their house down
You were never “Charmed” but bawse bitch thou art BLESSED
And may you and those who stand with you be all that is left.
There is a bunch of shit going on outside of my window right now.
My name is in the mouth of some racist ass pagans right now.
They are so angry.
Because I said everything ain’t for you white boy
Because I’m part of a group of people who aren’t here for it or here for supporting the voices of appropriators and abusers within our community.
One of these people at the heart of it reached out to express…concern? Concern about how I’m being spoken about but I told them I’m a Fat Black Queer in the United States this is the norm.
Like seriously y’all this is just Wednesday.
Like so many Wednesdays before.
There’s a bunch of shit going on outside my window right now and I’m not afraid of the insinuated and actual threats. I’m not arrogant or stupid enough to not take precautions but I’m not afraid.
There’s a bunch of shit going on outside my window right now and I’m laying here in a beautiful cloud of pleasure, love and decadence legit wondering…
Damn is this how Beyonce feels?
Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation, I slay
Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation
You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation
Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper
Girl, I hear some thunder
Golly, look at that water, boy, oh lord
Oh lord indeed
and I roll back into my beautiful cloud of pleasure, love and decadence.
I’m a sado-masochist with a thing for aversion therapy but even I wasn’t ready for this.
I didn’t grow up here.
I hadn’t cultivated the specific boundaries necessary to navigate the tunnels above and underground.
I don’t know if it’s my fatness or my blackness or some combination but people will stand rather than sit next to me.
I can sense their revulsion.
I can see them cut their eyes over at me. Hear them sigh in disgust as they walk past.
And me
folding myself so far into the glass, forcing my thighs together, every muscle taunt and trembling as I try to make myself as small as possible.
It’s impossible to pretend that I don’t see, don’t hear, don’t feel the paradoxical pain of being rendered both invisible and yet so horribly visible.
It’s dehumanizing.
It’s humiliating (which is not a personal kink I engage in btw).
It’s infuriating, especially when my final destination was often a stage where I would be taking my clothes off infront of 50 to a few hundred screaming people who look just like the ones treating me as if my fat black body is a contagious inconvenience.
I had to block it out.
I started reading in transit. It was in a particularly problematic self help book that I found my solution. In The Satanic Witch LaVey said something akin to your power lies in publicly being the most of what others expect. I’m saying it wrong but if people were treating me like I was repulsive I had to be so unrepently.
I did a complete 180. Instead of investing in my normal femme armoring I was lucky if I washed my face before I left the house.
I no longer apologized when someone sat next to me.
I went full honey badger and honey badger don’t give a shit.
One time after a particularly special week that had worn me out in several non consensal ways I threw a snood over my hair and slipped my painter’s frock over a black dress. I was makeup free but several parces removed from fresh faced and I fell asleep
I know my mouth was open
I could feel it
I snored
When I woke up some guy, some hot guy was staring at me but since Our Lady of the Blessed Honey Badger walked strongly with me that day I gave my best sneer and stumbled off the train.
As I stood at the gate searching my boobs for my card Mr Stares sauntered by and gives me the once over up and down appraisal.
I was ready
I had trained for this moment. But before the edge of my lip can curl over my left canine he says
without sarcasm
“Have a good day beautiful” He winks and heads up the escalator
Obviously we went to the same church
Something in that interaction shifted me. Not in a oh cute person thinks I’m cute and validated me. Thank you man saver way!
In a way it gave me space to see how silly I was being and how traumatized I had become from my past experinces of living in this body.
How I had let other people inform me on how I should feel in my body.
How this translated into how I let people even people I loved treat me in terrible ways.
I laugh cried about it for a week
I nearly restarted my live journal again
I did a lot of self love and boundary work.
The boundary work was important because even though people didn’t want to sit next to me they loved looooooved to touch my hair. I started keeping extra in my bag to toss at them. They were not amused.
It hasn’t been all hellfire though.
Once a holy man from another place took my hands in his and prophecised for me while his attendant translated his words into my ear
Once I met a woman who was escaping an abusive relationship. We had the same birthday. It was our birthday that day. I took her home that night and helped get her back to her mother.
Once I had a whole car to myself so I sang and danced around ran up and down the asiles and did everything I always wanted to do in there.
And once
This queer kid, this sweet kid with big brown eyes looked at me. You can tell they love their mother that their grandmother gave them that last slice of pie at every holiday dinner. You can tell that these women we brown and round and they see something of them in me in the 15 seconds it took me to push my way past all those bodies that didn’t want to touch me.
They look at me, their hand grazing mine. “Excuse me. You can have my seat”
“I’m fine”
I smile
They insist
I decline
And then they say it
It is always unexpectedly quiet in that moment. Like when the record cuts out at a party or that pause before something
significant
They say
So sincerely
“Sit. Please. You shouldn’t be standing. If you fall you’ll hurt the baby”
As I look at them over this wide expanse of flesh I am suddenly 12 and a strange old man has his hand on the core of me and is saying “ Damn girl When is the baby due?”
I am standing there and then, here and now 300 pounds with grown flashes of scarlet anger and a child’s flood of tears riding on a held breath.
I exhale
I exhale and I let my belly just swell to full
I put my hand compassionately on this part of myself that everyone sometimes myself included just hates and I do my best waddle walk to that fucking seat because standing on Bart or Muni at rush hour is sweaty monkey balls!
I take a seat
I take up space
I get to be here
I get to ride
