Introductions and beginning-places
I didn't really expect to be starting a blog. I was trying to write a book. Weirdly enough, it's a lot easier for me to wrangle page layouts and heading styles in print than it is for me to get a blog running. But when I asked how to go about working out and sharing my myths on the Around Grandfather Fire Podcast, the hosts quite reasonably called me out on this being a faster and more accessible way to share it, a sentiment which my gods resoundingly agreed with. I'm still doing the book. I love the idea of doing a book, and having a physical object I can hold that represents this work, but now I also have this.
So, that explains how I ended up with a blog. But how did I end up with this whole project/experience/belief-system in the first place? That's a longer story that's probably deserves a long explanation, but the short of it is (at the risk of sounding cliche) that it found me. Growing up in the high desert of the southwest US (on unceded Pueblo people land), the world always seemed alive to me, full of people and influences who were other than human. Animism came naturally to me, and was something I always found myself returning to when I thought deeply about the world.
It's no surprise, then, that when I discovered the living and vibrant practice of modern polytheism, it made sense to me just as much. A world full of spirits is a world full of gods, and I wanted to meet as many as I could. Finding out about them turned out to be easy, but forming lasting relationships turned out to be harder. I found myself in very fruitful relationships with a succession of deities (Hail Cernunnos, and Lugh, and Dionysos), but I didn't feel called to devotion in the way I'd seen from other practitioners. In the back of my mind, I knew it wasn't the same, because throughout those explanations, I'd been having experiences with an un-named liminal being, who I thought might be one of those gods in another guise, until that one informed me to, essentially, stop trying to put them in other boxes, or they'd be done with me. Divination confirmed this, in a variety of befuddling ways, and left me knowing I had to try something new.
That one accepted the title Dancer-Between, and their work in my life has born the sort of fruit I always hoped for from a devotional relationship. They led me to deeper connections with the other spirits around me, helped me in working out ecstatic ritual techniques that worked for me, and inspired rituals that spoke to others as well. Through them, I began to meet other associated deities and stories,and began to understand them all as a group, related-by-choice and interested in sharing more and helping me to explore.
I believe that deities are tied to cultures, and values. I believe that the cultures and values of other pantheons are valuable and worth developing; I believe in pluralism. But I also believe that these gods embody the values, and the possible culture that speaks most to me, one of vibrant color, boundary-breaking relationships, and unapologetic self-expression. I know enough about it that I'm driven to share, and less about it than I want to, and so here I am on this journey. I hope you'll join me.