Persephone Rising

Writer's Block: Fuzzy friend

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:04:17 GMT

If you could have any fictional creature from a book, film, or TV show as your pet, which one would you choose, and why?

Submitted By pyreo

View 2036 Answers

I know it sounds boring, but I'd like an intelligent dog like the one in Watchers. He was basically a regular Golden Retriever, but could speak by answering yes or no questions or by spelling out words on a Scrabble board. Failing that, I'd like a dog who could speak only at night. Otherwise it would probably talk too much about wanting treats (like the Martha in Martha Speaks) or it would tell everyone else my business.

In Between (a poem)

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:52:49 GMT

In Between

We walk between the worlds,
Witches, Shamans, Mystics, Seers,
And other things that can't exist,
...But do.

Some see ours as a fool's path.
Mysterious to others,
Forbidden and Romantic.

They don't understand.

They don't know how hard it is,
Walking two paths at once,
One step here,
One step there,

Parts of our soul
Belong to other times and lands.
We are more fractured than they are,
...And yet more whole.

Houdini-like,
We entertain their minds but briefly,
Our magic seems illusion to them,
Deception, slight of hand.

Drowning in a sea of double-vision,
We long to slip the ropes of this box.
We struggle and contort ourselves
To come up again for air.

We speak with gods and spirits.
Hermes, Orpheus, Persephone, Hekate
Lead us down into dark realms
...And back again.

We are rebirthed each day anew
Into this world of Man.

Coming from the theater of our mind's eye,
Our outer eyes must readjust
To the bright sunlight of this
Common, outer world.

We walk in the Between

Between light and shadow
Between the living and the dead
Between magical and material
Between poetry and reason
Between this world and all the others
That call to us.

If we stay too long in them,
We can't function in this one.
If we stay too long here,
We can't function there.

So we walk,
As best we can,
Between the worlds.

- Persephone

Human Perceptions of Multidimensional Reality

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:31:50 GMT

I found this picture to illustrate the idea of a multidimensional reality, then realized it also illustrates how different people view this reality through different lenses of perception & interpretation. The 3D chess game is played in 4 dimensions. Like our physical reality, it exists in 3 physical dimensions, plus time as the 4th dimension. At any point in time during a game, the pieces will be in different places. The players also think ahead to plan their moves & predict their opponent's moves, based on moves they or others have made in the past. We do the same thing in our physical world, predicting & acting based on prior events, using Time as our 4th dimension of perception.

Now consider these 2 characters & the way their perceptions of reality would vary. McCoy is the traditionalist who acts from his heart. Spock is the rationalist who acts from logic initially, but later becomes a mystic. Each character views reality through his own lenses of perception & interpretation. To McCoy right & wrong action is decided by a traditional moral code. To Spock it is decided by predicting the logical consequences of an action. In the real world, each of us shapes our view of reality based on the lenses of our perceptions & interpretations. We follow our emotions & reasoning, as well as various doctrines & belief systems we've come to accept as valid.

I have a logical mind, but also a slightly mystical way of viewing reality. I believe in many things that my society sees as delusional. I write about these things with this conflict in mind. When choosing my words, I add my expectation that part of my audience may be incredulous or skeptical, while part may be overly credulous & accepting. I hope to lead each side a little more toward a middle ground of open-minded analysis & reasoning. (There is no fun in being ridiculed by false skeptics and little fun in preaching to the converted.) I prefer to ignite a spark in people's minds to stir an inspirational fire of their own thoughts.

Physical, mundane reality is pretty obvious to most people. To doubt it would be not only delusional & foolish, but also potentially deadly. Any sane person knows they can't fly or turn into another creature. They also have to eat, pay bills, and interact responsibly with the rest of the people around them. Non-physical, paranormal reality is more ephemeral & elusive, but the experiences of many people have taught them that it is also real.

Living in mundane reality is in some ways like living on the middle plane of a 3D chess board. Everything that happens here is real & has consequences, yet there are also other forces beyond this plane that can affect us. Deities & spirits can influence us, even though they belong to other planes of reality. When we use prayer or magic, we affect forces on these other planes, which can then influence events in this one. Just because we can't normally see these other planes or the players that inhabit them, that doesn't mean they don't exist just as much as we do. They're outside our normal field of vision, but they're still part of the larger game being played.

When one is trying to consciously interact with these other planes, beings & paranormal forces, one sometimes finds belief affects one's ability to perceive them. Physical reality exists & is observable independently of our belief in it. Non-physical reality exists independently of belief, but our view of it is sometimes clouded by our beliefs.

Part of this problem comes from how we interpret our experiences. A person sees a shadow move or a door open apparently on it's own. They may interpret this experience as natural or paranormal. When there is an observable natural cause, it's reasonable to conclude the phenomenon is natural. When there is no observable cause, a person's preconceived views of reality will usually suggest a cause that is acceptable to them. Given a large number of seemingly inexplicable events and/or alternative interpretations by others of those events, a person may come to change their preconceived view of reality.

Another part of this problem comes from how these non-physical forces work. They don't follow rules of Newtonian physics. They're affected by thought & emotion in ways that physical matter isn't. Think of a loved one who has passed, and you're likely to draw their spirit to you. Pray to a deity, and you're likely to get their attention. Visualize an event in your future, and you may increase the chances of that event occurring. Visualize a shield surrounding & protecting you from negative forces, and you're likely to repel such forces. Belief can also affect what you perceive, because you might not perceive something that you aren't conditioned to perceive.

One sometimes has to suspend disbelief in order to test a paranormal experience effectively. One can also doubt paranormal reality, and in doing so, deny oneself the ability to fully experience & embrace it. ESP, ghosts & magic are all real, but only those who really believe in these things experience them as a regular part of their lives. Most of the time, this isn't because they're deluded, but rather because they've opened their senses to these things.

Humans have an uncanny ability to interpret reality only as they wish to interpret it. We mentally analyze everything we experience based on the paradigms we accept as real. This is probably why we have so many different religions & belief systems. Only an idiot would continue to believe in these belief systems without *some* evidence (objective or subjective) of them being real. It's also unlikely that only one group of people would see reality as it truly is, while everyone else is completely wrong. Like the 3 blind men with the elephant, we probably all view it through imperfect lenses of perception & interpretation. Thus we need to listen to everyone's experiences & interpretations with open & rational minds. Maybe eventually our species will put all these pieces together to finally see Reality as it really is.

- P.

On Being Otherkin & Lacking Evidence

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:36:05 GMT

I've been communicating with a guy on YouTube who sees himself as draconic otherkin & yet trolls other otherkin to point out the silliness & flaws in their statements. There are alot of silly, fluffy otherkin out there, and maybe I've been lucky not to have many dealings wtih them. I belong to a couple otherkin forums, but I don't frequent them. What I know of otherkin I mostly know from talking with them face to face.

This is a journal except from a few days ago. I was thinking of what to say to Drakomis, that guy on YouTube. It takes time & effort to make a video response, & the comments section on videos doesn't allow much room for an in-depth response, so I'm working out if I'll just write to him or make a video response.

1-17-10

....I'm probably otherkin, but I still don't know what kind. My boyfriend sees a cat & fae side in me, along with the serpent thing. I see fae & dragon in him. Maybe we were both aliens to this planet at one time too. It's hard to sort out fanciful imagination from old, repressed memories.

Some people say these things don't matter because we're human now. Yet, the past affects who we are now. If a person is abused as a child, it affects their relationships & ability to trust people. If a person has been tortured, betrayed or devastated in a past life, it affects them too. Even if one can't remember exactly what happened, all that we were, did & experienced is part of who we are now.

I was never abused in this life, but I was tortured in a past one. I've never had any trauma around water in this life, but I've drowned in a couple of past lives. I've experienced great fear, injustice & desolation in at least one past life. Maybe the injustice I suffered then makes me want justice for others in this life? Even since I was a little kid, I wanted justice for people who I felt were treated unfairly. Where does that kind of fire come from? Maybe having been many different kinds of people in different situations makes me more understanding of others now & makes me wants to understand their points of view? I've been the victim & the victimizer. I've taken what I wanted with little concern for those I took it from & I've had everything I had unfairly taken from me.

I think we (otherkin) become human so we can understand what it is to be human. Many otherkin may dislike humans because they were victimized by humans in their past lives. This may be especially true of wolf-therians, since wolves have been killed by humans throughout history. Others may look down on humans because they came from races that were technologically, physically or spiritually superior to humans. The disdain they held for the human race may be why they had to incarnate as human, to learn from the other side of the coin.

It's easy to say a person's past life memories are only imaginary, because we can't prove they're real. Yet, we can't really know either way in most cases. If two or more people claim past life memories that seem to confirm details of each other's past life memories, this is evidence for their memories being at least partly true. If someone claims memories of a life we know to be a creation of fiction, this is evidence that their "memory" is probably false. Most of the time, though, we can never know for sure which "memories" are imaginary and which are real.

Take the idea of dragons as an example. We have no physical evidence (none I believe to be credible) that dragons have ever existed on this planet. Yet we have myths & legends from all over the world of dragons & dragon-like beings. Where do these come from? One theory for the Asian dragon is that it was an imaginary combination of animals that had symbolic significance for people - a lion's head, eagle's wings, snake's tail. One explanation is that primitive man found dinosaur remains & imagined the creature they came from as a dragon. One explanation for the world-wide of appeal of dragon & serpent myths is that they trace their origin to an ancient creation myth from our shared past. I believe this explanation is true. Yet, when one looks back at our most ancient & universal myths, it's easy to wonder if they were based on some kind of real events or beings. Were there really "giants in the Earth" in those days, as the Bible claims? Or were there only stories of giants brought down to us by our ancestors?

We know that most of humanity's past has left little physical trace of ever having happened, while some evidence we didn't expect has been found. Troy was thought by many to be purely mythical until Heinrich Schliemann found its remains in Turkey. An evolutionary link between aquatic and land animals is still thought by many to be imaginary. Yet we have the coelacanth as living evidence of this evolutionary transition.

Based on the remains of prehistoric birds & dinosaurs, we know its possible for a large flying reptile to exist. Yet, we don't have evidence such creatures existed alongside humans, nor that they would fit the normal image of mythical European or Asian dragons. "Evidence" for dragons is basically limited to our myths & legends & the artwork created to illustrate these.

Still, people who claim to be dragon-kin usually imagine themselves as a European-type dragon, rather than a pterodactyl. Why do they hold to these common mythical images so strongly? Why do they believe these images & feelings are based on a real past?

I've dreamt once or twice of being a dragon-being that could change into human form, yet I don't believe I'm dragon-kin. I've dreamt of shifting into wolf, bat & bird form many times, yet I don't believe I'm a wolf-,bat- or bird-therian. I may have a big-cat association in my otherkin side, yet I don't have memories of being a cat, nor do I collect cat images.

How do each of us who claim to be otherkin decide we are one thing & not something else? I want to understand this strange phenomenon & see how well it stands up to rational scrutiny. Yet I don't want people who feel they have a non-human aspect to their soul to feel so afraid of ridicule that they won't share their experiences, thoughts & feelings. I want to understand them.

Secondly, I want them to understand themselves, to test their assumptions & develop a clearer view of who they really are. If their illogical ramblings or emotional rants (on YouTube) make otherkin look silly or delusional, that concerns me less. I don't expect society to take otherkin seriously anytime soon. I don't have hopes that the otherkin subculture is capable of presenting a rational-sounding front to the general public at this time. I think the vampire subculture does have some chance to do this however.

- P

Depression - Disected

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:25:54 GMT

Depression rears its ugly head again. I wake up in the middle of the night, feeling sick to my stomach. I decide to disect my emotional state.

It's part situational and part chemical. My situation in life is likely to make me feel depressed, but my biochemical imbalance tips me into it and makes me unable to to handle the issues that make me depressed in the first place. An emotional downward spiral ensues until I get depressed enough that I try anything to bring me out of it.

I haven't been taking St. John's Wort, because I was feeling ok. But when I don't take it, my emotional state is more easily tipped over the edge. If I'm happy in my life, I don't need it. But when I have issues that are likely to upset me, I do need to take St. John's Wort.

Prayer helps. Being fed helps. Chemical mood elevators help. When depression hits me, I need everything I can use to get me out of it.

I hate this chemical imbalance condition, because it weakens my ability to deal with problems in my life and makes me feel like I want to kill myself when I really don't want to do that .

I hope that in my next life I won't have this problem, but I suspect I probably will. I think I had anger and unease when I was a Native American man. That is often how depression shows in males. I think I had depression when I was a woman in the 1880's. Maybe my vampirism inclines me to depression, but I also know it runs in my family. I've inherited it through my mother and her mother.

Depression is a chemical imbalance that makes it easy for me to be tipped into a downward emotional spiral.

I don't like prescription antidepressants, because they have chemically-induced psychological side-effects, like feeling numb and disinterested in sex. St. John's Wort doesn't have such side-effects, so it's a better choice for me. It only makes me more more sensitive to sunlight and alcohol. I've tried using it and not using it to see if it weakens my psychic abilities, but it doesn't seem to weaken them as much as depression does.

My mind is just clear enough now to let me dissect and analyse my own psychological state.

1.) My situational state creates my emotions.

2.) My emotions are created biologically by chemicals that affect my brain.

3.) My genetics make me over-produce the biochemicals that create depression.

4.) This imbalance of depression biochemicals sends me into a downward psychological spiral that weakens my ability to deal with the problems that created my depression in the first place.

5.) Other people don't understand the cause of this weakness, so they tend to blame it on laziness or being irresponsible. Even though they should know that depression is a biochemical problem, they see it as a moral failing or lack of willpower.

6.) I use prayer, sleep, journalling, aromatherapy, St. John's Wort, chocolate, prana, magic, and whatever I can use to pull me back out of my depression, but they all take time to work and I still get tipped back into it easily.

The Vampire's Christmas, by Michelle Belanger

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 08:37:40 GMT

Michelle Belanger (sethanikeem) wrote,
@ 2009-12-24 19:56:00

The Vampire's Christmas
This started as a joke version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." It is shamelessly inspired by an installment of the comic For Better or for Worse I read about week ago. I kept playing around with the first line and now there's a whole story to share:

Twas the night before Christmas, and along Bourbon Street,
The vampire was searching for someone to eat.
The shops were all quiet, having closed for the night,
But the vampire was restless and hoped for a bite.

The partying crowds had all cleared away,
Heading home to prepare for tomorrow's big day.
The streets were now empty and nobody stirred.
The vampire walked, whistling, but nobody heard.

He stopped for a moment in the pale streetlamp's glow
And the only thing sparkling were the lights and fake snow.
When off in the distance, a strange sound was heard.
The vampire froze, listening, and breathed not a word.

He thought he heard weeping, but he could not be sure.
So he ran toward the sound. He took off in a blur.
Far away in an alley, a girl sat and cried,
Huddled close to her mother, who clearly had died.

The vampire stepped softly, staying out of the light.
In silence he pondered the poor child's plight.
The track marks were clear on the mother's thin arm,
In a fit of despair, she had done herself harm.

As he watched from the shadows, he felt mounting rage.
The child was a bare five or six years of age.
"I might not be Christian," he thought in his head,
"But today's not the day to mourn someone who's dead."

He paused but a second before he stepped near.
The little girl jumped and looked up in fear.
"I know what this seems like," he said with a smile.
"But ruining your Christmas is just not my style."

He bent to the child and held out his hand.
"This once, you can trust me. I'll help if I can."
The look in his eyes made the child feel bold.
She soon clutched his fingers, so pale and so cold.

They walked through the streets toward old Jackson Square.
He thought he could leave her in the church that stood there.
At Saint Louis Cathedral where they held midnight mass,
The light flooded warmly through scenes of stained glass.

The vampire's steps faltered the closer he got.
He felt his skin prickle and sting and grow hot.
A cross in the window shone forth with the light,
And it took all his courage to not flee from the sight.

"You see those big doors there?" he asked, cringing away.
"There's safety within and a place you can stay."
The little girl seized him, unmoving as stone.
She wept and she wondered, "Must I walk in alone?"

Reluctant to face what he knew did him harm,
He nevertheless took the small girl by the arm.
He moved slowly forward, though each step was a strain,
And he struggled to hide from the girl all his pain.

At the top of the steps, he reached out for the door,
With his flesh nearly singing and his fingers so sore.
As he pulled the door open, they were both bathed in light
And the sounds of the hymns flooded out in the night.

They stood in the threshold, the vampire and child,
His face a rictus, hers sweet and mild.
The priest at the altar stopped short in his prayer.
He could hardly believe who he saw standing there.

Years ago, as a boy, he had seen such a fright,
Wandering the French Quarter alone in the night.
He had been drawn by the sound of a poor woman's screams
And the face of the vampire had since haunted his dreams.

Now that same monster stood unchanged by the years
With a girl in his clutches and her face streaked with tears.
The fiend stared at the priest with his eyes glowing red.
Then he pushed the girl forward in an instant and fled.

His good deed accomplished, through the dark streets he ran,
And he tried to ignore the harsh burns on his hand.
His courage had cost him. The thirst raged like a storm.
And he thought to himself, "Hope the mother's still warm."

Merry Winter Holiday, everyone!

--M

From Michelle Belanger's Live Journal
http://sethanikeem.livejournal.com/

More Otherkin Musings

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:28:35 GMT

I didn't want this journal to be just personal musings. I wanted it to be something worth sharing, Yet, I haven't done anything with it in 2 months, so I might as well post something. I know the "Summer Peaches" poem isn't good, but it has personal meaning for me and I wanted to capture it somewhere. I made up a good playlist of Real Vampire videos at YouTube and uploaded 2 of my own. I don't have a microphone, so they're just text with music. Also, they have misspellings I want to correct later.

About a month ago, I had a strange dream of being a non-corporeal being that could turn into a snake. A few days ago, I ran across a page about an ancient Greek goddess, non-corporeal and serpentine, named Ananke. She's a primal creator diety, embodying Necessity and bondage. One of her children is a god of Darkness and the air/mist/waters of beneath the earth. I noticed the similarity between the name Ananke and Annunaki, but I couldn't find much on the Internet about serpentine Annunaki except reptillian agenda conspiracy garbage.

Aaagh! It's so hard to find reliable information about ancient civilizations and beliefs on the Internet. The Annunaki were a group of Sumarian dieties. The name means either Heaven and Earth or from Heaven to Earth. *This does not mean they were space aliens.* An was the god of Heaven. Ki was the goddess of Earth. So the name Annunaki may just mean the children of An and Ki. There are a great many similarities between myths of the Annunaki and the myth of the Watcher Angels. But Sumerian mythology is older than Hebrew mythology, so the Watcher Angels myth is probably a variation on the older ones. The primal serpent creation myth is one of the very oldest, so the creation myth of Khronos and Ananke may be a later version of a Mesopotamian primal serpent myth.

Long ago, I dreamt of someone telling me about Lamia, as if she were a sort of immortal spirit being and a sort of muse to Keats and Yeats. A voice in my dream said "She was one of the original 13 witches of the world. Two of the others were An-ka and An-can-ka(?)". I thought the 1st name might Ankh-ka and the 2nd might be something like Ankh-con-ka? But the 2nd could have also been Ananka or An-ankh-ka.

Lamia was a Lybian sea goddess before she was ever a child-eating, man-eating monster. She was the patron of seer priestesses, as Python was to the early oracles at Delphi. If she were an actual spirit being, perhaps she inspired the poets Keats and Yeats, much as she inspired her ancient priestesses?

And what of other serpentine spirit beings? What if they actually existed as non-corporeal beings long before humanity became civilized? Maybe they were the spirits of springs, rivers and underground waters? Maybe they were the inspirers of early seers and poets? Maybe they were seen as deities in some places and as faeries or demons in others? Maybe they became nagas and related water spirits in various mythologies. I like the idea of having been one of those non-corporeal serpentine beings before I became human. They weren't reptillian, either. Their energy form was just serpentine in shape.

An article about the oldest serpent cults:
http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/worlds-oldest-ritual-discovered-serpent-worship/weird-science

My dream of a month ago:

I'm with a man as I enter another world, and underworld of caverns, roots and water. We go through a tunnel to get here, then go even further below to a place of origin, a place that has nothing to do with the human world. It's like a faery realm, but it's watery and subteranian.

We're in this one cave-room. We seem to be a couple. There's something here that's dangerous, but also part of our origins. There's a TV set, but I don't recall why it's significant. There's something venomous here, but it's also like our child. It's a non-human thing, genderless and maybe mindless. It becomes a thin, white, gas-like plume of toxin. In order to protect the world from this venom, someone has to stay here with it, let it infect them, and become venomous him/herself. I say I will stay here with it for a while, but my lover/husband must promise to come back to switch places with me later.

I become a water snake, red with yellow and black bands, a venomous snake. I lie inside a twisted, gray log to await my love's return. This room is all underwater now.

Another "woman" appears who's an amphibian. She has the form of a red frog or salamander. I think she wants to steal my lover from me. I think now that I'm stuck here as a snake, she'll become a woman and become his lover.

At this time, none of us are human. Even he is formless, though masculine and seemingly dark. A father-deity rules this realm. I feel sad for losing my lover/husband. I know he won't forget me. I believe he'll come back to me. But I'll be alone here, while he and she are together in the world above. I'm jealous of her. I see her as my rival. I think she took advantage of my sacrifice to get him for herself. They go back to the world above together, while I'm stuck here as a snake.

Entries describing Ananke:

http://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Ananke.html

ANANKE (or Anance) was the Protogenos (primeval goddess) of inevitability, compulsion and necessity. She emerged self-formed at the very beginning of time--an incorporeal, serpentine being whose outstretched arms encompassed the breadth of the universe. From the time she first appeared Ananke was entwined in the serpentine coils of her mate, the time-god Khronos. Together they surrounded the primal egg of solid matter in their constricting coils and split it into its constituent parts (earth, heaven and sea) and so brought about the creation of the ordered universe.

http://goddessesandmythology.blogspot.com/2008/01/ananke.html

Ananke (or Anance) is a Greek Goddess of inevitability, compulsion and necessity. She is also one of the Protogenoi "primeval gods" that are the basic components of the universe which were emerged at creation.

Her parents are Gaig (Goddess of earth) and Hydros (God of water). Her mate is Khronos, God of time. Their children are Khaos, Aither and Erebos. They were the three "airs". The middle air is Goddess Khaos, a colourless mist which enveloped the mortal world. The lower air is God Erebos, the mists of darkness, which enveloped the dark places beneath the earth and the realm of the dead. The upper air is God Aither, the mist of light, home of the gods of heaven. It enveloped the mountain peaks, clouds, stars, sun and moon. The stars themselves were said to be formed from the concentrated fires of Aither. Their child is also Phanes, the primal generator of life.

An entry describing Erebos:

http://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Erebos.html

EREBOS (or Erebus) was the Protogenos (primeval god) of darkness, consort of Nyx (Night), whose dark mists enveloped the edges of the world, and filled the deep hollows of the earth. His wife Nyx drew these mists across the heavens to bring night to the world, while his daughter Hemera scattered them bringing day : one blocking out the light of Aither (shining, blue heaven) and the other revealing it. The bright upper air (aither) was regarded as the source of day in the ancient cosmogonies rather than the sun.

- P.

Summer Peaches - a poem

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:28:10 GMT

Summer Peaches

Walking in a garden,
At the end of summer.
The sky is gray,
But the air is still warm.

A friend stands beneath
A tree in the corner.
It is a peach tree,
Ripe with fruit.

Sweet, summer peaches,
Big and ripe,
They'll fall to rot,
If we don't eat them.

"The birds are eating
The peaches", he says.
"They peck at them,
Leaving bite-like wounds."

Their scent is fragrant.
Their skin is soft.
The bite marks reveal
flesh white and red.

Red at the center,
Near the pit,
Brilliant ruby,
Bright as blood.

We could eat these peaches,
sharing them together,
Taste their sweet flesh
and dripping, sweet juice.

These are the last
Ripe fruits of summer.
We could eat them,
but we don't.

We look, but
Don't touch them.
We smell their fragrance,
But don't taste their flesh.

Their juices will not
Drip down our hands
In streams of nectar,
To be licked off.

The birds will eat them.
They'll fall to rot.
There will be new fruit
to savor...next summer.

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:37:18 GMT

Painting: "Persephone", by Linda Joyce Franks.
Poem: "Kore"by Thalia Took.

I am the Dark with the Light. I am the Winter within the Spring....

I am the dark core within the brightness, the single seed of winter hidden in summer's warmth, that one tiny shard, icy and sharp, kept close against the heart.
I think I have always been this way, though my mother does not see it --even as a girl I hid it from her, and played in the sunshine with the other maidens....
...From the dark ground burst the dark King, who snatched me up and stole me away to his grave Realm, deep within the earth. Was I surprised? Only a little. Did I scream, cry, rage over the injustice of it? Hardly. I know Fate when I see Her.
I also knew that my mother would weep for me. Let her.
And in the deep cold of my bones, I knew it was inevitable that she find me.
I knew this, and I knew she would never hear me, were I to tell her my desires. It has always been this way. We are simply too unalike, my mother, her hair shining like summer, her mind all flowers and seeds and warmth....
...Six seeds of the blood-red pomegranate, and I am Queen.
Let my mother rail against that! She knows the Law full well, as do I.
My mother called me Kore, Maiden, Girl, but my name is first Persephone, Destroyer of
Light. For I am both my mother's daughter and my mother's mother, after all; and the
shadows are my true home.

How do you know?

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:56:51 GMT

The following is a question I asked to a couple of my vampire/otherkin elists, followed by what I thought was the best response.

People ask others and ask themselves how do they know they're a vampire or otherkin? Even though it's a question we probably all get sick of hearing, it's a valid one that deserves thoughtful consideration. It might be easy to say one just "knows" or that the universe just kept hitting me over the head with this enough times that I had to accept it, but these responses still beg the question, "But how do you know it's true?"

Most of us understand that our minds can be tricked into believing something. We call it an illusion if someone or something else misleads us, a delusion if we mislead ourselves. Most of us also know we have to suspend our disbelief sometimes, either to practice magic or psionics effectively or just to keep from feeling crazy. Continually doubting oneself can be very tiring.

Still, the question keeps coming back. How do you really know something is real? Do you have external, verifiable, objective evidence? How do you know it's not a delusion or just coincidence? With psychic vampirism there are often physical signs that the person or people around one can exhibit. There's observable evidence if other people around you act tired or uncomfortable. Even when it comes to the subjective feelings of hunger or feeding, vampires express enough similar sensations that we can be pretty sure we're not just crazy.

It's harder for otherkin, especially if one doesn't seem to fit into a common kin-type or have common "symptoms" of being otherkin. Even with the subjective impressions of people who are psychic or sensitive to subtle energy, how can we know their impressions are real? If someone else senses that we're not normal, how do we know we're not projecting that impression? If they sense an animal spirit or non-human appendages, how do we know we're not projecting those too?

Basically, how do we know we're not just deluding oursleves?

- Persephone

From S. Rune Emerson:

Well, the tradition in House Rosa goes like this: an Otherkin can be
identified by three major things-

1. They have strange hungers, strange needs, and strange
vulnerabilities, often so extreme that they're completely non-human or
abnormal.

2. They have strange abilities, powers, and talents, beyond normal
capability, which they were essentially born with and/or grew into
naturally, rather than having learned them somewhere.

3. They have strange memories, overly vivid dreams, past life recall,
and so on, that they came into on their own, and did not need others
to confirm. These experiences confirm themselves in reality, often
witnessed by others, like when someone knows a language or remembers
how to do something that is utterly outside their capability. Usually
this is on an intuitive level.

Then, of course, there is the outside confirmation from those
qualified to know - witches, psychics, and the like often pick up on
this oddity, although depending on the paradigm of the beholder, they
may interpret it as something different than it truly is. This is why
it's best not to rely on people for confirmation.

Could we just be 'projecting' this? Not unless we know what to send,
and have an innate sense of how to do so, which begs the question of
how we might know such a thing. Many people feel out their 'Kin-self
like the blind men with the elephant- feels like this, but it's not.

And indeed, many of us make mistakes when judging our 'Kin-side, since
we rely upon others for that information. The stories are meant to
inspire, just as one's personal gnosis is intended to inspire.
Inspiration is not explanation.

In the end, remember the three kinds of gnosis -

UPG - Unverified Personal Gnosis, the kind of epiphany or discovery one
has about what I call the "woogy." This is not proof. Following this
sort of thing as if it were truth, even if it does turn out to be
correct, is a sign of madness.

PCPG - Peer-Corroborated Personal Gnosis, the kind of epiphany that
several people agree upon as defining reality. One guy smells cookies
on his boyfriend, and another girl finds that she has a cookie smell,
and they both identify as angel-kin through UPG. So, they all three
decide that all angels must smell like cookies. *sighs*

RCPG - Reality-Confirmed Personal Gnosis, the kind of epiphany that
starts as UPG or PCPG, but then is confirmed in a very clear and
upfront fashion by natural events and uninvolved persons. Like, if
someone followed the scent of brimstone, and found someone who
identifies as demon-kin, but they'd never been aware of the person,
either at all or as Otherkin. This of course assumes that the person
isn't carrying around sulfur or eating bad eggs all over the place.
*laughs*....

[continued from another post]

...The difference between knowledge and belief is crucial - knowing
something means that you've experienced it, that you have confirmation
of it from your reality, and that it doesn't require you to exist.

[snip]

Belief is essentially an opinion, and people's emotions and opinions
change based on their experiences.

Perhaps you would say that their experiences are also contrived,
conjured up phantasms created by belief or fear or other impulses, but
if this is so, then you do not exist or I do not. I have experienced
you, just as you have experienced me. Either you are an illusion, or
I am, or your model is faulty.

Because you cannot say that all knowledge is a lie, and then turn
around and express that something is truth....

-Rune

Nagas

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:08:59 GMT

I've been thinking lately that the kind of otherkin I might be is a naga. The term comes from Hindu mythology, meaning a spirit (sometimes seen as a deity) who is associated with and guards springs, rivers, subterranean waters and such. They can take the form of snakes, humans or snake-human hybrids. They seem to have been water elementals originally, but then became either minor deities or just spirit beings that inhabit that particular body of water. The following is my interpretation of how they may have developed.

When the universe formed from the Big Bang, it spiraled outward in a serpentine form. Later, when plant and animal life began to develop on our own planet, our DNA also took a dual serpent form, the double helix. Later still, when the first shamans tried to envision what created our world and all the life-forms on it, they often envisioned a great, dark, Primal Sea from which sprang a Primal Serpent. This Primal Serpent then either created all Life out of itself or created a male consort, mated with it, and created all life from this union.

Our ancient ancestors probably didn't know about the Big Bang, atomic theory, or DNA, so how did they get so close in their descriptions of these things? Some people suggest aliens told them, but I prefer to think spirits beings that we often label as deities told them in their dreams, meditations and astral travels. I also think spirit beings have existed far longer than our physical world has, and that when our world was formed, many of them decided to come here and hang out. Many of them were and are what we might call elementals, spirits that resided in fire, water, earth, air or whatever. I think nagas were a type of water elemental that decided to associate with springs, rivers, lakes, seas, subterranean waters and etc. I think they decided to take a serpentine form either in imitation of the Cosmic Spiral / Primal Serpent or because the form of a snake suited their fluid, changable nature.

Humans would then find springs and rivers and wonder what sort of divine being could have created this wonderful fresh water. Since there were often snakes nearby, they envisioned the spirits of these waters must be serpentine as well. They could have just as easily envisioned some other animal or humanoid form for the spirits protecting these sacred waters, but they almost universally saw them as serpentine. Why? Maybe because the elemental spirits associated with such waters really were serpentine. As people worshiped such spirits as deities, they then became deities. When they were seen as helpful to humans, they became helpful deities. When they were seen as vengeful or tricksters, they became vengeful or trickster deities.

Such serpentine water-spirits have been thought to exist all over the world, from the Middle East and Asia to Europe and the Americas. Their natures and behavior in myth and legend are often similar, as well. In India and parts of Asia they're called nagas or nagini (a female naga). In other lands, they have other names. The Greek lamia can be seen as a type of naga, as can the Basque lamiak and the Slavic rusalka. They're water-spirits who are usually feminine and serpentine. Sometimes they help people. Sometimes they seduce and drown unwary men. They're usually attractive, with stunning eyes. But they can also be ugly and fearsome.

Some links about Nagas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C4%81ga
http://www.khandro.net/mysterious_naga.htm
http://www.jh-author.com/nagas.htm
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sumer_anunnaki/reptiles/reptiles15.htm
http://www.jh-author.com/nagas.htm
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Naga-(mythology)
http://www.nagasden.com/facts.html

My Introduction

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:35:14 GMT

I'm a 44 year old lab technician with a B.S. in Microbiology.

I'm also a psi-vampiric otherkin who dabbles in witchcraft.

If these things seem contradictory to you, you probably have some assumptions that I'd like to help undo. I'm not crazy. I'm a rational and often skeptical person. What most people don't seem to understand about logic and the scientific method, however, is that sometimes the assumptions we start out thinking are correct, are wrong. Just saying that something is true, without testing one's assumptions or supporting them with facts and reason is not being either rational or scientific. Be willing to challenge your assumptions. Be open to other points of view. Test every theory you encounter. Then you'll be a rational, logical person.

I'll explain more of who and what I am later, but for now this is my introduction.