All My Dreams are Ripped Away from Me. Pt.2 And So It Begins.

• All My Dreams are Ripped Away from Me. Pt.2  And So It Begins.

And then there is nothing, all is hallowed and void. Yet within the darkness of this nothingness, that void, a spark flares briefly in the dark. In moments the spark flares again only brighter, then again it sparks brighter and brighter. As if a heartbeat of light begins to pulse out of darkness, the void begins to lighten up with this spark as bright as ten suns in a matter of moments that stretches within infinity. And it is good. 

Within the empty void that grows a pulsing heartbeat of light, energy begins to flow like etheric blood coursing through a body. The warmth of the light and etheric blood circulating in the void is cozy, and nurturing, and rages fiercely.  

As if brought back from the brink, my emptied husk breathes in a gasp of air straight into my hallowed soul. The pulsing and circulating light pulses as one in a magnificent moment of growth as Life begins to course through the veins with a brilliance of light that surges, courses, and burns brightly. I can feel the radiance of the etheric heartbeat, and blood seeps out through my skin that I think, initially, are the flames meant to destroy me. Instead as this wave of brilliance surges and rages through me, I get stronger and more present at the moment and more present in myself. I flex my renewed muscular self with this coursing brilliance, and I hear this loud crack and my earth prison disappears as the brilliance pushes and stretches outwards. I am free, and another unusual thing that picks up the moment that my prison breaks away; is that my vision returns to me even though I know that my eyes are still gone. Once I am finally able to see again, I notice that the chamber is enamored in a white golden shimmering light, causing the crystals of the walls and the sapphire pillars to refract brightly about the room. 

I see the woman standing there; she is a near mirror image of myself. In perfect and divine love though; along with a surprising feeling that I am feeling a hyper-focused rage; and a surge of divine fire, I assume a martial art stance for both offense and defense. It does not surprise me that as I rest in this position a sword of flames manifests in my hands, and I naturally switch to a Kendo offensive stance to reflect the attaining a sword.  

“So here you are at last! I was wondering how far it would take for ‘You’ to finally come out. You nearly were destroyed before you would finally come to the truth! It’s a pleasure to see you for who you are!” She exclaims as she looks directly at me. 

“You nearly destroyed me,” I say but notice that my voice is melodious and tickly rich in angelic chorus. My body hums and vibrates symphonies of harmony, over and undertones of triumph, holy battle cries, laments of defeat, and crescendos of returns. “I gave in because I knew that I was beaten, and you were right. But that doesn’t excuse tearing me apart to make this point! Has it not occurred to you that I needed to be asleep?” I sing in loud harmonies. every atom in this light body is in tune, and they sing with epic tales of the fight to come. 

“Of course… but you need to awaken now; its nearly time to shatter the illusions, and be what is needed!” She replies.  

“Then we know what must be done. We know what this moment is, you know the stakes and I can only guess!” I sing in notes of finality. The movement of the chorus changes, and without hesitation I charge at her with my sword in a power swing position. She dodges the sword and we start fighting relentlessly. Each blow we make is an explosion of light that shakes the chamber. The fight rages on for what seems to be hours and the two of us are evenly matched. But at one point she speeds behind me and shouts “Enough!” and Ki pushes me outside of the chamber. The doors slam shut on me as I am expelled from the journey, and I wake up back in the ritual circle. 

***

I feel the heaviness of my physical body as I slam back into myself. What an experience I have witnessed. But something is terribly wrong. I can’t see, and I feel hot, and I am so devoid of emotions that I am confused; not frightened or stressed out.  it takes an hour to be able to see colors and semi-crisp shapes again. When I feel ready to stand again, my wife helps me out of the chair and we speak to the priestess who led the ritual.

The first thing I notice is a slightly heightened situational awareness about me that is telling me that already half of the circle is already gone home for the night. The other half of the circle is a mix of thanking the priestess for another successful night and looking directly at me as I pass. 

When I walk up to the priestess, aided by the wife, the priestess asks what happened. I recount the event to the best of my knowledge. She takes a moment to let the tale sink in and when she speaks she criticizes me for going to the Underworld instead of the Lower-World like she told the circle to do. After another pause she asks if I am ok: I tell her that I can’t see all that well, and I feel hot. She explains that everyone in the circle has taken no more than ten minutes to do what was suggested; and that I had taken about an hour before I snapped out of it. She continues to explain that while I was under, the energies peaked far more than she’s felt before. They saw me begin to turn red and feel the heat radiate off of me. There have been several instances thereafter where they were tempted to pull me out of the trance, but they figure that it would be better if I come out on my own.

That night after we return home and head to bed, my eyesight comes back a little more. Before I become too tired for any more of this consciousness thing for the night, I examine my selenite wand. I understand what I saw is quite the ordeal that I went through, and the energies I faced peaked highly. And as I examine the wand I not only pay close attention to how it is cracked but also note how the energies are not flowing as freely and are darkened in a few areas. 

When I ask my wife about the wand and the journey I undertook, she mentions that the selenite crystal cracked while I was in the trance. I set the wand down on the nightstand and sigh with resignation. The wand had indeed died that night. I feel the tears for all I have gone through beginning to burn my eyes. but for how much I want to cry, I can’t. I simply go to bed.

It is October 2010, I am twenty-seven years old. 

I don’t know it at first, and it honestly doesn’t occur to me; but in that journey, I just watched myself be torn apart, and hallowed out before I accept the inevitability of the death of me, my end. I don’t know what to make of what happens afterward; for all that I’ve seen seems weird and farfetched. But what happened in that journey was a warning that I never heard, and outside the trance, it is an outcome I am too frightened of, and won’t see coming. For not long after this ritual journey, my life takes a turn I am warned of, but in the remain hubris I hold onto, I never see it coming. 

*** 

4. All My Dreams are Ripped Away from Me. Pt 1. Hallowing Moon.

• All My Dreams are Ripped Away from Me. Pt 1. Hallowing Moon.

I have not drawn in my traditional fashion in years, but I begin to work a picture in my final days in California. The whisper of the moon fades from my mind and I fall truly energetically asleep. In this sleep and in this dream, I begin to believe that I know what Wicca is all about, and know what it is to be a Shaman: even with little experience and knowledge and not much practice in recent times. But now is the day I move away from California I leave my bridges smoldering and charred, and as I leave on that final day: I rip up my deep roots so that I can move, deepen my depression due to severe root shock, and file the personality of myself away deep in the corners of my mind to make room for what may come; and again lose the key. 

The root shock completely shakes who I know myself to be, and sets off a bad case of Borderline Personality Disorder. I don’t know who I am, but now in a new location, I am silent about my feelings, nor do I truly know what I am feeling. Because I have so much of myself locked away and buried, I don’t know how even to be myself. I am frightened, I am lost, I want to cry, but with my wife being the only reason I am there; I do my best to resolve myself to build a new life as the man she needs. But who I am is screaming at me in my mind as I move farther and farther from my own truths. I live under the roof of my mother in-law’s house and it is clear that she is the matriarch of the home. And she is verbally abusive to match her manipulative. There isn’t a day that goes by where I am verbally assaulted or called out for some reason other than being there. 

I jump for joy when I get a new job the first month that I am in Eugene, but it isn’t long before the law of the home is set. Now that I have a decent paying job, I am seen as the breadwinner for my wife; which doesn’t bother me, it’s the excessive “training” that my mother-in-law puts me through because according to her, the only way I can have a decent understanding of financial responsibility is by relinquishing ALL control to her. So she demands I hand over my debit card, which to keep harmony and stop this woman from yelling at me consistently, I do. In the mean-time since my wife and I are living with this woman, it is made extra clear that she despises people who are overweight, completely ignoring that her own daughter is morbidly obese. Of all the arguing that this woman and I get into, I look at myself, a three hundred pound man and think to myself that what she is dictating works in my favor, so I begin to exercise daily. 

My job is working at a small Goodwill Boutique shop as pretty much every position there. I run the treadmill twice a day, hold an exercise routine in the computer room twice a day, since my job requires a lot of stairs and running around, and due to a very strict diet, in six months I lost over one hundred and thirty pounds. The icing on the cake in this situation is that because of the excessive arguing that goes on in this house, I view all my exercising and even once a day four mile walks as a way to get the fuck out of that house. 

However, it doesn’t take long for the mother-in-law to begin to realize that something is wrong, and begins whispering to my wife that I am cheating on her every time I go out for a ‘walk.’ eventually, as we continue to look for a larger household to accommodate for the large family we are, my mother-in-law is driving me around town and begins probing into my personal life by asking what I think of her daughter, how often am I having sex with her daughter, when can she be expecting grandchildren. To be absolutely honest, because of the home life and suspecting that everything I tell my wife in confidence is being used against me, and the hostile nature of that household, I barely think of sex, I am less than attracted to my wife, and even if we had sex, I cannot shake this extreme feeling of guilt and being dirty each time. 

Yet for all that is going on around me in my life, and six months later, I manage to finally finish that picture I started.

***

Only six months into this Oregon Adventure, we break the lease of the home we are in to move to the countryside. As we are packing and cleaning, the woman has an announcement to make to my wife, and all of a sudden I am outed as a gay man married to my wife just days before Halloween. Even though I am outed as a gay man, and now the woman expects me to leave to find the next dick I run into, I look at her and remind her that I have made a vow. I will do everything in my power to uphold that vow. She looks dubiously at me. But I am firm in my convictions; even though I am beginning to ask myself what the fuck I am doing in my head. 

Meanwhile, as all of this is happening, my wife and I are active members of the local spiritual circle. We attend voodoo Friday events, we frequent the shops to visit with friends and gather recent gossip. After the wife and I along with the mother-in-law find the house in the countryside, we join in on the latest spiritual community event. A Darkmoon Ritual. 

***

As the It is a Dark Moon night and the spiritual circle is hosting a ritual with the intent to reclaim an aspect of our personal power. This ritual excites me as I am curious to see what I would find, and what I will see along the way. Besides, having been through some Shamanic journeys before; this adventure will be a piece of cake. On the night of; I come equipped with a Selenite Healing Wand, and I essentially drag the spirit Totem of my youth with me. The ritual begins: we are to go to the lower worlds, pass three gates where we pay our way, and in the final chamber we find what we have been looking for. 

I delve into the journey; call my Totem guide from my childhood, and the wand has turned into a lantern to light my way. Also, a black figure appears behind me to also guide my way. He leads me to a cliff face. There are a large granite gate and archway with the words Know Thyself inscribed at the top, and to the side of the arch is a gnarly gargoyle guarding the door. The creature holds out a stone bowl asking for the first offering. I look around, the spirit animal shakes his head, and the black figure is motionless and silent. “I offer my eyes. As with them, I have missed too many things, and I continue not to see.” and place representations of my own eyes into the bowl. The doors swing wide open and my offering is accepted: my party and I enter the cliff. 

The next chamber is a desolate frozen wasteland, and the floor is a frozen glacial lake that houses scores upon scores of warriors: frozen both at peace and at war beneath the frozen water. The wind howls past my ears, yet I am not cold nor am I tossed about in the wind. The totem guide seems nervous and his pace is creeping along. The black figure glides ahead of us, and the lantern has lit up to guide me in its light. Time is meaningless here, and after what seems to be an eternity we reach the other gate and archway. It is the exact same sight as before when we entered the cliff side. The gargoyle asks for my offering. Again I look at the animal guide who no longer faces me but faces the ground and shakes his head, the black figure only points at the offering bowl and is otherwise still. I ponder what I can offer. “I offer my heart. My love is one I do not love anymore the way I thought, and my love of life is as frozen as this lake. I don’t want this cold feeling anymore. I’d rather not feel. The Gargoyle accepts the offering and the doors swing open. We enter into the next chamber. 

This next chamber is pitch dark. There is absolutely no light to this chamber that the senses can’t distinguish up from down. Even the light from the lantern; which illuminates where my footsteps are, can’t help relieve my equilibrium as the ground is just as black and void. The only things that are illuminated are my companions and me: and nothing more. How I can still see the black figure who guides me is still a mystery. Time is absolutely meaningless, the direction is pointless. All there is empty space all around. Countless moments later we reach the next gate; which my lantern lights up. Even though heavily cast in shadows; the details of this gate are the exact same. The gargoyle to the side holding a bowl asking for my final offering, and I ponder for a moment. Again I look around to my companions. The animal guide won’t look at me or shake his head, the black figure is pointing at the bowl, and my lantern flickers. I wonder what I can give for a while. My eyes and my heart are the two most important things to me in my life, and I’ve already offered them up: what else do I have that’s left? “I offer up all that is me. Take the entirety of my being. Take it; for I am tired of it, and only causes pain to those who are the closest to me. I don’t want to cause more pain, not take anymore. Take it please.” There is an uneasy pause as I wait to see if the gargoyle accepts my offering, and eventually, the doors swing open. The gargoyle and the black figure vanish, leaving the animal guide and me to venture into the next chamber alone. 

The final chamber is of pure beauty. The walls have crystals in them, and there are pure Sapphire crystals pillars standing tall and holding up this chamber in front of a single step up to a ritual pool illuminated by an unknown light source. Within the light though is a swirling mist of light that dances above the water of the pool. This is it. That swirling mist of light is my strength and my power! I take a step forward towards the light; and many things happen all at once: My lantern shatters and extinguishes, the totem animal guide is kicked out of the chamber, and the doors slam shut thereafter. The ground rises to encase me up to my neck, and I can’t move – I am trapped staring at the item of my desire and left reflecting on my now loneliness.

Laughter comes from the shadows: a mature woman’s voice. She cackles and laughs as she steps out of the shadows and comes into view. “You think that the Source is your strength, you have no idea what you reach for child? You have completely missed the point of this chamber, to grasp for what you are not ready to hold. You are an arrogant, haughty, and fool of a child! Yet here you are in my grasp. You have already given yourself away because you hurt others instead of standing up and taking responsibility! At the beginning of all of this, you hurt the one person who means the most to you; and you have ignored her repeatedly! Why now should I let you go? You’ve given up.” 

She takes a step closer and I get a better view of her. She looks familiar to me, yet I can’t place where I have seen her. 

“Take a good long look…” she says. “because I believe that at the start of this little adventure, you gave up your eyes. Well; you won’t be needing them now anyway.” The last thing my eyes see is a blast of white orange flame come from her palms, and I see nothing more: instead, I feel my eyes liquify and evaporate in that momentary burst of flame. My eyes are gone. It occurs to me as my face is seared and scorched; that I may potentially die in this journey – what does this mean for the body in the physical realm? The notion fills me with such sorrow, and shame. I did this to myself. “Well now, such sadness that surges through you. Whether you know it or not, and I’m guessing that you are painfully aware of it now; you did this to yourself. What did you think was going to happen? It hurts, I know, let me take away your pain.” She shoots her hand into the mound of earth that traps me, and I feel her hand quickly dive into my chest, and rip out my heart. “But you offered your heart away anyway. You don’t want to feel for all the pain you caused. It’s alright, now you don’t have to feel a thing.” 

I can’t see yet through perception senses I see her eat my heart small bites at a time. There is a squishing noise followed by some chewing, and eventually a swallow of satisfaction with a small gasp for air: she finished eating it. Slowly all feelings flee from me. My situation swings from one that I can emotionally feel; which is of terror, and shifts to intellectual understanding. And I know that I am doing to die. She is taking my offerings, the last thing I offered up was the whole of my being. She will take this next: and then I am done. “I see you understand what is next; cold emotionless yet full and feeling but empty, relying on the intelligence of the mind, sightless yet able to see clearly here and now. You offered yourself up. All that it is to be you, offered up and away. You know not what you have done, and what you forfeit. You can not see the road ahead of you even though it was spelled out for you. You truly are lost, which is more the pity – and such a waste.” I tip my head back in acceptance of what comes, I hear her take a step back in front of me, and suddenly the same heat blast that melted my eyes hits me again: and burns my face and head. I am finished, and I accept that I did this to myself. 

I close the lids to what was my eyes and become at peace as my life hallows out. 

* * * 

3. The Blood of a Cursed Dreamer Will Flow.

• The Blood of a Cursed Dreamer Will Flow. 

I live in a house that is energetically and spiritually active as this is how my family is: we are souls who are attuned to the ebbs and flows of the energy of life, and our environment. Through genealogy the family I come from on this plane of being, we have ties to aristocracy and nobility generations ago in my ancestry; and magic courses through our veins. If we listen closely enough, we can hear the subtle pulse of that magic, as long as we are not caught up in the trivialities of our lives. 

Which is exactly where I am and what I am caught up in. And no, I am not listening to the ebbs and flows of energy and magic in my veins. Or rather, being caught up in the fact that I had a few successful shamanic journeys years before, and run with a little knowledge from my fiancé’s books, I fancy myself as a master and know it all: standing tall and standing proud. 

Yet we are lost in our lives. Because of my engagement, moving into my grandparents old apartment, and beginning to withdraw from the family as I include my future in law family into my life. My sister and I grow distant from each other even though we are the best of friends. We both begin to travel down our respective paths that lead us farther and farther from each other. The same is with my mother and I, unfortunately, as I continue to listen to my fiancé, and her mother. My mother sees my fiancé as a little girl tightly wound up in her own mother’s apron strings and shows no signs of personal growth of her own. But my mom says nothing. 

In the months and weeks that follow mere months before the wedding, I make many trips with my fiance and her mom to scope out a proper place to have the wedding ceremony. It isn’t long before the venue is located and chosen in a small town in the central valley of California – Ione. More precisely there is an old hotel standing there that has existed in one form or another since civil war era, and it is said to be haunted. 

A few months before the wedding the fiance and I take a trip to Ione to scope out this place. the whole way there I listen to stories of her childhood trips there where she would see things, feel things. I am honestly intrigued. When we get there we take a tour of the place and split up. I feel like there is a presence following me and watching me almost instantly after the fiance and I split up to investigate. As I go out and view the first floor balcony for the room she and I will stay that night, I feel the presence directly behind me. I whip around with a hand extended and visualize a shield forming outwards from my palm into a circular shield. It all happens so fast. I hear a child’s scream in my mind and when I lower my shield I envision a young girl running deeper into the building. But then I started feeling like an oppressive force is converging upon me. I double over in pain as my gut lights up within me. when I look forward I can see in my mind’s eye a civil war soldier directly in front of me with a rifle pointed at my gut. We both stand there staring at eachother while talking in my mind. He accuses me of threatening his family. I appologise excessively for the preception as I was acting on instinct and impulse, I truly didn’t mean to startle his little girl. After a while the soldier lowers his rifle, allowing for me to breathe a bit easier. The soldier then tells me in my mind that he is aware of who I am, and why I have come, but tells me that it will not work. He warns me never to return after the ceremony on pain of fulfilling his threats to shoot me. Before he leaves me he curses my name, curses the wedding to fail, and curses the ground near or around the building to become poison to me should I ever choose to return. With that said, the soldier turns away from me and vanishes. 

I stand there shaking inside and out for a moment. I was just cursed by a civil war soldier. But I stoic up and begin telling myself that curses are not real, and I meet back up with my fiancé. After an hour more we leave. When Ione is nicely in the distance however, I glance back at the disappearing town, and am frightened again by feeling the gaze of the soldier firmly upon me. When the town sinks and dissaperars into the horizon, the gaze is gone, and I breathe again. I tell my fiance about the experience, but leave out the part where the soldier curses the wedding to fail, and we continue our drive to Arroyo Grande. 

*** 

Then the week finally comes where I am married. I am wrapped up in my own trivialities and lost in a game of manipulation now, and swiftly loosing control of what it means to be myself. Before I leave for work one day; I am as happy as I can be, yet in an instant I become moody, and lethargic. I lay down to bed for a quick nap in the middle of the day: which is unusual for me unless there is something wrong, but the moment my head hits the pillow for sleep; my mind travels on a journey for the first time in years. 

In this adventure I am at a former place of work enjoying the company of friends for a joyous occasion, but the celebration is cut short as a dark mass manifests in the middle of the building. The dark figure solidifies into a demon and begins slaughtering my friends before my eyes. I run – but he blocks the entrances and prevents me from running. I am scared, and horrified; and snap back from the journey and run to my fiance and tell her what just happened. She noticed that my eyes have changed from hazel to black/red. Shocked as if stuck by a semi-truck, yet feeling that I need to resolve this journey I center myself and head back to the bed to finish the adventure. Again the instant my head hits the pillow I am back in the journey. This time though the building is empty of life and I look on in horror as all my friends are dismembered everywhere. The demon is not in the building, but I hear him calling for me outside. I am defenseless, and weaponless. I hear a sizzle from a staircase leading up to the street to the north east just in time to see the handle of a katana materialize in front of my eyes. I pick up the blade and quickly marvel at the black blade. But there is not time to think, I run outside to meet this demon who slaughtered my friends, and I will make him pay with his life. I confront him as he rips the last of my friends in half, and taunts me. Terrified to the point of petrification, I stand my ground until he makes his first move. Dodging his opening move, and since it’s been a few years since Iv’e fought with a blade, I am a bit clumsy at first – but I am quick to remember how to fight with the memories of Kendo and Jujitsu. The battle rages for days it seems, him ripping into my flesh, and me; slowly hacking away at his extremities. Eventually a couple days later, he is in pieces and beheaded upon the ground. I make a final stab upon the ground, piercing his still beating exposed heart, and finally kill him. Once the heart is dead, I pull the katana out of the dead organ and I stand there both crying over my first kill, and exhilarated that I’ve killed my first enemy.  

I remember looking down at my hands and noting that they are covered in dried, and freshly dripping blood: both mine, and his. I close my eyes, and I am back in bed: only an hour has passed since I returned to the journey. 

The day of the wedding, we return to the haunted building. I am shaking like a leaf in the wind. Not only am I nervous, but I remember the soldier’s curses upon me and the ground I walk upon. I feel the pulse of the energy to the place, but sense the soldier watching from a distance: I cant’t sense the little girl which is probably for the best. I meet the Shaman who is officiating the event, and at one point he pulls me aside to complement me on getting married, and that he doesn’t usually perform events for white folks in the Sacramento valley: as he is Native American, but as a minor side note that I think ties into what I was warned about; the officiant mentions that the ceremony and the event didn’t feel right. But the night proceeded onwards, without a hitch even though two members of our respective members of our family have to leave due to personal issues. 

The reception small and I can sense the tension between my family and my now mother in-law, but neither side of the family comment or say anything. This event is for my wife and I; and now I have more than a stirring feeling in the back of my mind… the feeling is nagging at me that I am betraying myself. Again, I ignore the feeling as my wife and I enjoy the kind words both sides say about us, and as we eat cake: and dance. 

The night ends with opening gifts then retiring for the night. My wife and I go upstairs for the night: we figure that it would be an amazing experience to do some Ghost Hunting in the room. I pull out my camera phone, and snap a few pictures. One particular picture stands out from all of them. Normally with taking pictures you would see orbs or insects or small discolorations of some kind in the photo: all of the pictures are crystal clear and void of all distortions. Except for one. The picture is of a corner of the room across from where I stand; you can see the bed clearly in the picture with my wife sitting on the bed, and there was a mirror on the adjacent wall. The picture is again crystal clear with the exception of my wife’s face which is heavily distorted and unrecognizable; which is odd because the mirror behind her; which she is in too, is distortion free. There are multiple pictures of this corner, but this one shot is the only one that shows anything. 

Only a few short months later; both my wife and I loose our jobs. But in between the wedding and the beginning of the new year and a recent idea of moving to Oregon so my mother in-law can be closer to her son in law begins to come up. My wife and I discuss the idea, and both agree, and we are invited to join: the only catch is that I keep this a secret from my family. I don’t like the idea, but agree with it; once again in the name of love and keeping harmony in my new family. Before we lose our jobs we both are financially stable, yet overspend ourselves frequently and the topic of money is a hot topic to us. I cant handle one of our arguments so one night I leave the house for a walk. I walk a mile outside of town on a clear full moon night and pleaded to the Goddess of the Moon for life to change. I begged for a new beginning where I will flourish. I beg for an instance and a situation where I can regain an ounce of control in my life. Loosing hope in my prayers, I turn on my heels to return home. It is right as I am a few steps on the way home that the answer comes as a whisper to me in my mind: “As you wish.”  

The year I lose my job is 2010, and I am twenty-six years old. 

*** 

2. Hibernation Aftermath.

• Hibernation Aftermath.
  

I put all this nonsense of being anything other than a straight hetero adolescent boy out of my mind, even though it doesn’t work like that, I place it all on hold without my knowing. After a time, I forget that I all the things that make me unique that are not status quo. I forget that I am anything resembling the possibility that I like men as much as I like women. I forget, and banish the thought, that I myself am a woman. All these things that make up my own uniqueness are locked in a deep dark corner of my mind, and I lose the key. 

One notable quirk about me is that even for being a social butterfly at times, or a little shit of a kid, or protective of my family; I am also skittish. As time passes, I begin to withdraw from the world in several ways: I become less of a social butterfly and begin seeking out solitude as often as I can. In this solitude, I can lose myself in the art that I begin to covet as frequently as I can.  

There are a couple points where I begin to feel depressed in a harsh way in regards to myself, and most of all when I pay attention to having women as partners. It gets bad enough that one day as my new girlfriend and an ex quarrel for the rights to have my attention, I simply stop functioning and slump into another depression spell where the only thoughts I have are “I do not deserve them, I do not even deserve myself.” Eventually, after the recess bell tolls, it takes both girls to snap me out of my spell. I instantly get up and move away from them and head to my next class without saying another word. 

However, as much as I feel horrible on the outside as I project to be, on the inside in order to keep my strength up, it feels like somehow I am gutting and feeding off myself in order to continue a farce. 

My time with my mentor, who encouraged me at one point to start coming out, I tell him about my choice to put it all out of my head as a flight of fancy. I noticed a hint of disappointment in his face, but he loves me still. Over time even my relationship with my mentor begins to fade away into the background. I am no longer in my teens, I am in my twenties and I have college and work that takes much of my attention rather than facing my mentor and a deep down and not so easily pegged shame. I do still hang around his house occasionally because I am working in Halcyon at the time, but anything relating to his mentorship is strained or held back to a greater degree. 

There is a concept out there that I need to know at the time, but don’t learn till much later in life, the shadow self. In attempts to remain a straight hetero male, I become a serial monogamous lad and bounce from one relationship or another. 

It is in one of these such chases that end in rejection that I am hit hard. I stop my chasing for a moment and begin to lick my wounds, but I am feeling hurt and heartbroken. At this low point I begin to contemplate crossing several ethical and moral lines just to have sex with a woman, but never follow through on any of these things. Instead, I begin to go down another depression spell that makes me cry inside and out with the feelings of inadequacies, and severe loneliness. One day as I once again mull in my head the copious amounts of loneliness, and beginning to ask myself if I am indeed worthy of any form of happiness; I begin to feel a stirring in me. I am twenty-five years old at this time. I first interpret this feeling as I am beginning to come out of the closet as a woman, being bi again. But as I look at the world around me, I recognize that I am seeing air Sylphs, and Faeries in the flowers and I can hear the Eucalyptus trees talking, and the earth talking to me and trying to soothe me. I am on my way to work this day; a beautiful sunny morning in Halcyon, and I am beginning to wake up again. I feel like I am going mad. I begin talking to the spirits I run across as I bike on this beautiful morning to work, and for a few weeks afterward I feel like I am going mad still for talking to voices that aren’t there. I’m pretty sure that people who talk to voices are crazy. 

About a month later, I receive word that the girl I was seeing all those years ago is returning to the central coast area, and excitedly, I meet that childhood friend again after over a decade. I first met this girl back in my elementary school days, and remember the heartfelt moment when I said goodbye to her after our seventh-grade year. I remember loving her then, and as she returns to my life, I don’t see nor care that she’s grown up; I see my childhood love again – and I glom onto her with all my might. I am afraid of coming out in any sense of the word. Hell, I have grown up too, but I acknowledge that I am a bit screwed in my head because I am lacking somewhere. By doing this I ignore the fact that I’m waking up in all respects again. I don’t care that I have a feeling in the back of my mind that I am betraying who I am. I run to my love, and propose marriage within a month. 

We are engaged for a long while where we are sorting ourselves out with each other. I finally get my wish and have many a sexual encounter with her. 

She is a studying Wiccan. The idea is a curious one to me, so I also study the material lightly so that I can understand her perspectives. I don’t agree with these ideas so much, but I run with the ones that I do comprehend. I am inspired to use some of my trade skills in woodworking and sketch art to craft a wooden bound Book of Shadows, a lectern, and a small desk for this new craft that has been introduced to my life. 

It is a sad point in my engagement that my fiancé would listen more to her mother’s wishes over trying to create a life with me, but under the excuse of love and being who she wanted me to be, I went along with being cast aside in my choice of engagement rings, wedding rings, and our marriage. I am a small suburb person and a small religious community person. My sights are community oriented as that is where I draw my strength. Yet under the excuse of love, I was told that my small community base support is unacceptable for the mother’s daughter. Again, I go along with it and began burning bridges with my own family along the way. 

Now I live in a house with a friendly ghost in it, and my fiancé and I move into the mother-in-law suite as we needed the room. My Grandparents are dead now. I watch as my grandfather weakly draws his final breath, but somehow, I gave him last rites without knowing what else to do for him. My grandmother dies a couple years later, and she visits me in my dreams on the day she passes to say goodbye; but that she would help me through my trials. I think nothing of it at the time except that my grandmother and Matriarch is dead. My Fiancé and I move into the apartment to tend to my grandmother’s aging cat. The cat is my grandmother’s familiar, but he rejects my fiancé and me when we moved in. He does pass away soon after we moved in believing that he was being pushed out by my fiancé and me, that and that we have gotten a dog not long after we move in. 

* * * 

1. Lee Alan Bumpus

A Mental Kiss of a Thirsty Mind’s Life Journey. 

1. 1. Lee Alan Bumpus. 

My name is Lee Alan Bumpus, born and raised in a small town in central coast California: a place called Arroyo Grande, two miles away from Pismo Beach, and the ocean. I am a unique child. I begin drawing early on in my younger years. At one time when children begin to start drawing stick figures representing their families, I do not know how to do this… the idea of it escapes me. My sister comes in and walks me through how to draw stick people, but when I learn this, I do not stop drawing. I draw anything and everything that comes to mind – as I am able to draw them. I also begin to teach myself certain drawing methods at an early age. One of the first things that I do when I am learning to draw at that time is to be able to sight copy a picture. My favorite sight copy from that early on in my life is a scene from the show Babylon 5 of a Mimbari monastery, as well as the face of one of my favorite characters. Being able to teach myself, the universe and beyond is my limit. 

At the same time, I am little shit of a child. I can convince people to self-harm, like I do with my brother as I convince him to cut open his hand using a brand-new butter knife. I can convince others around me to stay with me using a raw and undisciplined psychological manipulation tactics. In a weird way I am curious about the limits of pain as in an instance where a friend of mine was convinced to get up and talk with a teacher for a trivial reason, I set a pencil upon his desk chair and I held it up; waiting for him to sit down – which he did. 

But even for being a little shit, or being an aspiring artist, I am protective of my friends. There is a bully who was terrorizing the school yard with a wallet chain as he whips the kids with it. The school yard is terrified of him. I step in when he beats one of my friends. The kid tries to whip me but cannot as I catch the chain in mid swing and yank it out of his hands. He will not terrorize my friends again.  

But more often than not, I am that kid who is more likely seen away from the crowds staring up into the skies and dreaming. I watch on as I see little specks of light in the daylight sky dance around me, and as I stand watching the skies, I am completely content to fully immerse myself in strong winds as the wisk around and through me. From a young age, I am able to see and hear things that are not of this world, be able to hear songs in the wind, speak to trees like they are my best friends in the whole world, and talk to guardian spirits of an area. 

I am the third born of three kids, my mother and father are still together; and more interestingly I also live with my grandparents under the same roof. What’s also interesting about this house is the fact that it was built in the early 1900’s and moved twice before it rests where it is. The home is also understandably haunted.  

When I sleep at night, I hear footsteps walking up and down the hallway when no one is up. I hear the sounds of rodents scratching in the walls. And occasionally when I am not expecting it, I see the reflection of strange people in the windows against the black of night. One night as I sleep, I wake up to the sound of my door opening. I watch as the door opens and a black cloud slowly creeps into the room. In terror I hide under the covers for a moment. When I look out from under the covers to where the mist is, there is nothing and the door is closed. Another time I am ill and trying to sleep. In between awake and asleep I drift but can see myself as if hovering over my bed; looking down at my body. I see myself shivering because I am cold, but there is also a woman in white sitting next to the head of the bed, just watching me as I struggle. The vision doesn’t last long and I fade to sleep. 

I am raised a Buddhist. The temple that I grew up in follows the Jodu Shin Shu ways and I learned philosophy and honor early in my life as well as a deep appreciation for philosophy, an admiration for the beauty of the world around me and the world that is me. Alongside the teachings that the temple offers to me, my mother is a practicing Tibetan Buddhist who offers the philosophical side of Buddhism whereas the temple offers a more dogmatic side. 

One day the whole younger Sunday school goes on a field trip to a local Christian church for exposure to other ways of life. The church is beautiful. At one time I have to go to the bathroom so I go to the urinal. There I run into some of the Christian Sunday school boys who ask if I was with the Buddhist group. Because I am, I am then ridiculed for not believing in their lord and savior Jesus Christ. This is something that I have not experienced before: ridicule, and dehumanizing prejudice based upon differences of belief and faith. 

I find on that day, and deem from that day that any and all forms of Christianity is meaningless, pointless, especially if all they can do is belittle and unfairly judge those who have no quarrel with them. They are elitist and toxic: and that’s what my seven-year-old mind decides due to the pain I suffered. 

But I do not walk into my vocal and blind dislike and distrust of all things Christian blindly. I ask my mom if all Christians are like that or if there is anything redeeming in that group. My mom, bless her heart does her best to calm me, and for a time it works. The next Sunday I talk with the Sensei of the temple about what has happened. But I begin to become suspicious of the temple when I begin to hear the exact same kinds of words and usages from him as I did from the Christian church a week ago. 

I choose to let it go because maybe I am reading too far into things.  

A bit of time passes and all is going well. My ability to draw begins to flourish a bit more in school as well as at home. I keep seeing spirits at home, hearing them sing when I’m out and about; especially in parks or eucalyptus groves. At temple I am plucking away as normal: playing with the other kids, climbing trees, climbing the cliffs just beside the parking lot, and exploring the retreat area in the woods behind the temple. Then one day during Halloween when I was fourteen, the Sensei delivers a sermon and a moral story that really grates on me. The weekdays that follow I choose to leave the temple because I realize that Jodu Shin Shu is just as dogmatic as the Christian church that I still despise.

That summer the family takes a trip to AZ to visit my uncle. Since I left the temple, I drift spiritually like a leaf in the wind; but looking in onto various different paths; Theosophy, Christianity even though I despise it passionately, Judaism, Baha’i, Wicca, Shinto, and Satanism. My favorite study of research aside from Buddhism as my mother practiced it; is Shinto. It is the idea that everything in the natural world has a spirit that inspires me. But aside from that, nothing truly inspires me otherwise. Until I visit my uncle’s house in AZ, that I discover a book on Celtic Shamanism one day. 

I am fourteen years old at this time. I read the book on shamanism once all the way through, and on the second read, I notice that the meditations required isn’t a large leap from Buddhist meditation techniques. I set out one day at a friend’s house to begin working on the practices. But the book says that I need to use a drum to elicit a trance like state… and I do not have one, so not wanting to ask mom, or teach myself how to make something, I use nothing. The art of shamanic journeys and journeying… miffs me some, and it takes months to finally lucidly leave the body through the astral planes for the first time.  

Again, the main difference between how a Shaman typically journeys and how I begin to practice the art of journeys: is I learned to journey without a drum first. I’ve never heard the sound of a Shaman’s drum before, and without it, I wonder if it is truly needed. But if thousands of generations of Shamans use drums; there must be something to it… but in my situation, I resort to learn to journey without it. After the months it takes to even leave my body, not using a drum and leaving the body becomes easier and easier. 

Once the art of the journey, or at least leaving the body gets easier, I start working on the exercises to help me understand what it is to be one with the plants, the trees, and the realm that I was in. Next exercise I work on, I go through an exercise to find animal totems guide who may help me as I progress. The vision takes me to a landscape with a single log cabin in a clearing with forest all around it. I feel safe here, a sanctuary. I ask if there are any animals what are willing to work with me, and almost instantly a small cat finds me and begins talking to me. The exercises I go through next helps me learn of this sanctuary space, and I begin going through some practices that have me be one with the landscape of the realm, with this cat spirit guide as a teacher. 

As I explore the area, the cabin in front of me is old, and I can hear whispers in the wind. I listen to the voices, and find them soothing and familiar. As my guide tells me; it is the cabin is one which my ancestors have used before. I merged my consciousness with the cabin and felt every square inch of the space as easily as I felt every fiber and grain of wood that this place is built upon. The wood feels ancient like I suspect, and I notice that the cabin has a distinct personality to it… and as I am one with the structure, the cabin begins to show signs of life again. The air becomes crisper and clearer, and the overall mood lifts from derelict to lively and relaxed. This relaxes me and I feel more content and one with the cabin and the forest outside.

With sorrow, because I feel such peace in this place, eventually I separate from the cabin and return to my form. The totem animal gives me a run down as to what I have learned, and I return to my family and finish the journey. 

* * * 

Not long after my first experience in the amazing Sanctuary space I was in, I begin to explain these experiences to a friend of mine; explaining what I was doing and what I have seen so far. My friend is intrigued by the tale, and we talk about it. The experience, to me, was profound and awareness & consciousness expanding where I begin to understand that the universe is far bigger than I know. In fact, what I experienced showed me exactly how much I don’t know and that I have much to learn. 

It comes as a surprise that I noticed him strain his imagination in order to give me the benefit of the doubt at times. But on a whim, I figure that if I show him what I have experienced, that he would have a better time imagining. But this sharing will have to wait; I have plans for the week, and as my friend and I have sleep overs practically every weekend; the topic is on hold for a time. 

Interestingly, around the same time I spend some time with a High Priestess friend of my mother’s who was talking about an energy healing technique called Reiki, and in the summer, we visit a national park that is magical to me. I am attuned to Reiki One on the beach of the park. As a follow-up, this friend also teaches my Mother, my Sister, and I how to perform self-care which may lead to understanding how to treat others; and how to give this Reiki to animals and pets. 

I give Reiki to my cat as often as I can; same with my mother – since I know that she has bad shoulders and she plays the piano. Mainly I give my mom Reiki so I could hear her play, but firstly I do it because she is in pain and I love my mother. 

Eventually my friend and I get back together and continue discussing what I had experienced; and one night we go out and sit in an Eucalyptus Grove and try to journey. Even at ten pm the nights aren’t that cold in the summer leading to autumn seasons. We sit in the fallen underbrush for a bit meditating in the light breeze of the night, and enjoying the silence. I am not sure what my friend experienced if anything other than silence, but I didn’t journey this night. As it turns out a rustling in the leaves upon the ground comes out of nowhere, and it sounds human. I open my eyes for only a brief moment, but see nothing. It is beginning to get colder for me; but I close my eyes again in hopes to journey, but the footsteps start up again, and came closer to us. This time my friend whispers loudly to me asking if I can hear that. Fear creeps up on me and I am becoming afraid, and said yes; but I am determined to either journey or at least stick out this interruption. I close my eyes again and try to meditate one last time but the moment I close my eyes, the footsteps got closer to me till it’s less than a foot away from me. I hit my limit and I am frightened; I was freaked out and I knew that my friend is too. I shoot up out of the lotus position I sit in, shout “run” and we run as far away from the Grove as we can. 

After that night I cannot journey again because I am freaked me out badly. My friend and I barely speak of that night again. But as time progresses, I draw inspiration for other aspects of my spiritual and magical craft. I am inspired by an anime called Dragon Ball Z, in the way that the way to fight with Ki was taught to a newcomer to this art. I try to replicate this art in the best way I could in this physical realm. From forming Ki balls from my energy center at the solar plexus, to holding it in my hands and shifting it around in my hands, and playing ball with it. I try my hands at levitation, and shooting energy balls. 

The best method I learn to project a blast of my energy: again, using a DBZ method, at the beach I stand at the edge of the water, or preferably in the ocean and attune my aura to shoot a Kamehameha Wave – a single stream of focused energy to the deep sea towards the horizon. But I learn in a big hurry that this technique is to be used when I am in troubled times, as a single blast with this wave energetically drains me to the point of collapse. But if I focus all my angst and rage into the blast, I feel lighter and more agile physically once I come around. And sometimes it takes a whole night if not a whole day to recover fully. 

But not long after I learn of the ‘Kamehameha Wave’ I begin to energetically become dormant. I lose interest in Shamanism, yet covet what little I have learned in a few month’s period. My Energy Craft begins to lose my interest as I move from spirituality and craft work to school, and peer perspectives as to the opposite sex. I have no interest in the opposite sex aside from intimately understanding women as if I am one of them. But I am curious about men, even though I am born one, I know nothing about what it is to be a man; and the way my friends are girl crazy is extremely repulsive and repugnant. 

Within a year, I begin to come out as both a woman, and as a low sex driven bisexual gal. There are nights where I would spend the night at a friend’s house, or my mentor’s house, or just at home where I have a duffel bag full of spare women’s clothing, and in the wee hours of the morning I would dress up as a woman because I feel comfortable in them over the clothes of a boy, and I would sneak out and wander as this nebulous young girl that I see myself as. to be honest and fair with myself, even though I am in puberty, the notion of sex never enters my mind. while I am in the clothing and persona of this woman that I see myself as, there is a sense of peace that calms me greatly.

I begin to tell my friends that I am gay… even though that doesn’t fit. I tell my friends first that I do desire the companionship of a man as equally as I seek the companionship of a woman. my school yard friends are quite supportive of my courage to come out. this gives me the courage to come out to my mom – as gay, again, even though its not a good fir for who I really am, it still makes more sense than coming out as a bi young lady with the body of a young man. So eventually I get around to telling my mother that I am gay. The experience doesn’t go as well as I think, and as a result I walk back into the closet. My mom doesn’t convince me to do this, but instead of coming out in a space where I wouldn’t be understood or accepted – as I perceive it, nor will I feel a degree of safety, I choose to hide who I am, and forget about it all: being a young lady, being Bi, being anything other than a straight hetero male. 

As for my Shamanism and Energetics… that’s not normal in the eyes of the society I’m from… so I forget that too

I am fifteen years old at this time. 

* * * 

A Mental Kiss for a Thirsty Mind’s Life Journey.

Introduction.

As much as I didn’t like to do so, I stopped writing on the blog Lore Of This Fae Black Shaman because I started getting severe writer’s block, and at one point, I am unable to keep straight the series of events that happened. However, after the pause, I begin looking at other aspects of the series of events that the previous blog didn’t even mention that I figure that I need to include.

Writing this blog is the suggestion of several people to get my story out there, friends and family need to know who I am, and what trials I have gone through. Perhaps what I  write may be of some help to those who undergo similar circumstances in their own life, and if they do, and read this blog, may they divine inspiration and an ability to nurture and develop their own voices so they too may speak out about their own experiences.

As for me, this story that I write is the Lore of my own story, but also details that I do have a thirst in this life that inspires me to keep adventuring, keep journeying. I do face a little bit of a Peter Pan Syndrome of my own when it comes to these adventures I tread, but when it comes to that syndrome, I am reminded of a quote that Robin William gives at the end of Hook: “To live, To live is the greatest adventure.

Here is my adventure: my Mental Kiss for a Thirsty Mind.