Sniffles, snuffles and a turning point

Last night I composed a very long post. Then it got lost somewhere in the e-bowels of my computer. So my carefully crafted wisdom is lost for ever.

Which is possibly just as well. I was struggling to articulate my own take on sexuality and desire and this is something with which I am still struggling. I do not feel like retracing the argument tonight but will return to it very shortly - and return again and again as I delve into my own being. The fact that several hours of work evaporated (and I still do not know how, as i saved regularly.) I will therefore take as a sign that I need to sit with my thoughts for at least another day and return refreshed,

Andy, the Somerset pagan left a comment to my last post wondering whether I am ok. I am. There has been a lot happening, however, and it is all taking time to settle.

At the weekend we had an initiation ceremony to mark the end of the first year of the second intake of the priest/ess of Danu training. The wheel has now nearly turned twice since I started working in an organised way as a teacher over here in Hungary. At Samhain another group of trainees will start and then the people who initiated on Saturday will begin their second year.

It was very exhausting and as soon as I got home i felt ill - sore throat, catarrh, slight fever - all the symptoms of a cold. I am still feeling tired but not nearly as unwell as I did on Monday.

I am not, however, too surprised at the physical manifestations because over the last couple of weeks I have been feeling very shaky. I will not repeat what I said in earlier posts - those who are interested can see them for themselves. What became clear at the weekend, however, was that I needed to make a further commitment and to this end I asked that a ceremony be devised in which I can formally dedicate myself to the service of Inanna. I have no idea, and want none in advance, what this will entail - I have left it entirely in the hands of the priest/esses. What I have said is that I see my service to Inanna as being in the area of sexual healing. I do not know what form this will ultimately take - and when I sit and look at it with my rational mind in gear I am, quite frankly terrified. I am only too aware of the degree of healing that I need for myself. But that is the path that appears to be opening up for me - to assist others to search and see how and where shame manifests in their lives and how to forgive others and, more importantly, themselves for the wounds they bear.

What is clear to me now is that I must move forward. I fear that I will be attacked by others who may disapprove of what I do. This fear is highly realistic - which is why I have put the quote by Harvey Fierstein where it will act as a constant reminder to me that I cannot allow the opinions and beliefs of others to dictate my life. I have doing that for far too long.

I hope to be able soon to post the articles on Inanna, shame and sexuality that have been published over here. My website should very soon be online and I will post them there. along with other longer pieces as I write them. It has been strange to be published in a language I do not yet understand, but to be published at all is good. Even when I get no feedback. It is now eighteen months after the first article appeared and I received my first spontaneous piece of feedback only a few weeks ago. But that feedback was received at a time when I was ready to believe it.

So, in conclusion, I feel really good. I am sure that there will be further challenges along the road but am confident that I will be able to meet them. On this blog and elsewhere I will dare to speak my truth and thus exorcise the demon of shame who has ruled my life for so long. To learn, finally, to be me and not the dead scripts I used to relentlessly perform.