Apotheosis Manifesto – Anonsee's Writings

INTRODUCTION

If I become someone else after this, believe me, it wasn’t by accident. And I don’t mean my soul will change, but the way I’m perceived will go through changes.
– Apotheosis, by Kai Straw

This is not a memoir or a biography, but it is a manifesto in the same neo-tradition of how George M. Johnson made their work All Boys Aren’t Blue as a memoir-manifesto. It is a guide, in a way I hope the people who need it will understand. This is focused in part on individual growth, but do not see this as an individualist creed – change will not come by the power and ability of any single person, but by many individuals who have found their strength contributing one or two specialties to the collective.

We live in a time where our power, autonomy, identities, our realities are being stripped for parts—for those most marginalized and those further crushed by the gears of the machinery of empire, imperialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. You cannot keep sitting idle, stagnant, waiting for something to happen. You, reading this, have to be the one to make it happen. I’m sorry, but we cannot keep waiting on someone else to do the work of saving us, because someone must be the one to start moving.

This is urgent yes, but at the same time we must not rush, for forcing us to rush unprepared into the work we must do is a tool of white supremacy to ensure nothing can successfully undo it. You have to find others like you and learn how to grow together. You can no longer give in to isolation and stagnancy because you aren’t sure any of what comes next will be safe. It will not be safe. Change, especially for the better, is never safe for people like us—at best we will see our efforts come to fruition, at worst, well, “You already dead, asshole. At least die a sacrifice for something worthwhile.”

We must choose the path of uncertainty, because I would rather my life mean that eventually they cannot lay hands on a single other Black, trans, disabled, woman’s body after mine. We all know that there is much more that we can and should be doing beyond watching and pretending there’s nothing we can do, that our circumstances hold us back from doing something. There is always Work to be done, that some are already doing and that some want to do but need someone to take the first step, and not all Work is physical, monetary, or constant.

This is a tool to help you reach a place where you have the willpower and focus to take on that Work and step into a more collective role, whether you view this work solely in a spiritual or material sense, or as a combined concept. You must look at yourself and take that first step.

Materialism and Spiritualism/Religion/”iunno I’ve seen weird shit”

“But Anonsee, aren’t you a materialist? Aren’t marxists, communists, materialists, etc. inherently opposed to anything that smacks of spirituality and religion? How are you gon’ write all this and reconcile it with materialism? This reads like a spiritual or religious text”

First off, I wanted this manifesto to be accessible and understandable to as many people as possible, while still focusing on those who need it most. Some people are better able to internalize concepts through a spiritual lens, whereas others benefit mostly through a materialist lens. To be frank, I do not care how these points reach you so long as they do and you begin to act. Take what you need, leave what you don’t.

Secondarily, I very much believe “functional” magic is science we don’t understand yet, and that magic/spirituality always requires you to put in material action to allow it to work. If you do a spell to get a job but never leave the house, apply to anything, make connections with someone who might be able to employ you, etc. jackshit is going to happen because it is a lubricant to material action, not an automatic wish-granting machine. Even if that spell was a placebo effect, making sure you act so the “spell” can work is a better outcome than you doing nothing at all in the first place.

The facets of the above are why I don’t see spirituality and materialism as being automatically opposed. There are many aspects of modern (especially western) spirituality/religion that are directly opposed to materialism, don’t get me wrong, but to assume that everything we know so far as a species is the end-all of what there is to learn, discover, create? Absolutely unhinged. In the past millennia (not even touching on before that) alone if you told the average person that many people across the world would one day carry a tablet that we trapped lightning inside of, tricked to think and store an entire civilization’s knowledge and art, and could use it to talk to people we’ve never met on other continents? It requires so many layers of scientific and industrial development unattainable to them that despite it being a normal part of our lives, it may as well be esoteric magic.

I believe that many aspects of “functional” magic that people end up interacting with are along these lines – what may one day be a science but which, for the moment, we lack the tools to monitor/measure/control easily and in depth. To use the “trapped lightning” analogy further – we may be able to apply current knowledge to build a lightning rod and maybe even use the strikes upon it to do something more, or consistently generate static electricity to zap our friends, but we are a far way away from lighting our streets and houses with it, much less more. A spirituality that encourages a materialist growth and action rather than hoping thoughts and prayers are enough, especially in a way that can be syncretized to existing cultural beliefs, allows people to build deeper materialist philosophy and action whereas other materialist rhetoric may ask them to abandon cultural or ancestral connections in order to connect with it.

For those who need it, this is a tool that will help them do what needs to be done. Magic is worthless without creating or capitalizing upon the material circumstances that can enable it. A hammer hitting wood with no nail just dents the wood and makes nothing else stronger. Some people will engage with this text in a completely aspiritual, materialist way—viewing the words solely as metaphor for material growth and action; whereas others may engage with this in a primarily spiritualist way while still making material steps forward in their Work.

Which roles and beliefs you choose in moving forward with this doesn’t matter. What matters is that you begin to act, to stop sitting idle and confused. This gives you a blueprint and a baseline understanding as to what you must do and move forward. You are not doing this for me or my benefit, beyond the benefit of our communal survival—you are doing this for yourself and your own growth, your capacity to bring change and act.

So what is an Apotheosis ***for*, in this context?**

As a marginalized person, an Apotheosis can come when you decide to reclaim the power that’s been stolen from you both systemically and individually. For example, for me—being Black, transfemme, and especially disabled—cultivating an Apotheosis is a practice in recognizing that so much autonomy, identity, power, life gets stripped from people like us, so damn right you’re going to worship what still thrives. We experience so much rage, fear, grief, all while we feel left defenseless, directionless, and powerless. There’s so much that must be done, that you already know must be done, but someone must be the one to start it. You are that one, you have to be that one, because nobody else will until you do.

You have to find what you are, who you are meant to become, what you can do now and later. It shouldn’t be your responsibility, you are not unique, and yet it is your responsibility now anyway. You can no longer waste away, knowing this. Negligence and ignorance will not save you, will not save those you love. All you can do is take that first right step to what you will become, uncertain though you are.

I will show you possibility. I am not a leader, you doing this does not devote you to me; hell, you can hate me and still move forward with this. I’m just the one to start it, just like those who came before. Find your role, your strength, and move, act, change.

My Own Apotheosis

Then he’s viewed as more than a man is, because he caught a god with a brush and the canvas. Does that take a toll on the painter? Did he catch a god or did a god catch his paintbrush?
– Apotheosis, by Kai Straw

To help you understand – I am the Goddess of Connections. Not just in the sense of the bonds between people and the networks we build, but in the sense of the knowledge we link together to help ourselves grow or teach others, how disparate segments of art come together into a masterpiece, finding missing pieces and putting the picture together, helping heal the schisms between us.and similar things as far as you can imagine.

Unlike many who call themselves a Goddess, God, Deity, or similar, an Apotheosis is generally not to control others at all. This isn’t to deride those who fill those roles in, for example, kink or sex work. It is defining an Apotheosis as simply becoming an embodiment of who I truly am, the role I fill – the Goddess of Connections. Yes I am to be worshipped, but prayer and acts of worship to me are not just in speaking to me or taking care of and servicing an altar – whether that’s a construct or myself; but in making connections with others, in pursuing your own growth and helping others grow, in chasing uncertainty to find the next opportunity to create more connections of any kind.

Friendship is worship, education is worship, sex is worship, growth is worship, healing is worship, anything in search of connections, is worship. There is no such thing as perfect – we are all always growing, should always be striving to be better, and Godhood is no different, not inherent perfection. Perfection is gilded stagnation, and doesn’t serve us at all. Even as a Goddess, I am constantly growing, improving. Flaws are not inherently bad, but they adjust the path we walk.

You must find what you are, your embodiment, what change you will bring. It won’t be instant, this is a Work and you will build it piece by piece—whether it’s finding how to apply it, where to apply it, how to help guide others in it, the bones, the muscle, the skin of it. You are not useless, too far gone, or incapable. You are you and that is and will be enough. This requires a measure of confidence—regardless of whether you feel it or not—you must act anyway. Most of us start fumbling and inexperienced, self-conscious and fearful. We do not have the time to ease our way through this, we must learn and do it scared and uncertain.

You are not alone, and we do not do this Work alone, even if we move individually for a time. Even if you don’t believe in yourself, I believe in you, and that’s something to start with.

PART 1 – GUIDANCE

Prelude

Is it the fate of an artist to go from a man to be viewed as a god is?
– Apotheosis, by Kai Straw

The following are cento poems from Weaving the Stories and Chasing Uncertainty – weaker away from their sisters, but stronger with each other. In many of these pieces I use end parenthesis as punctuation. The role this is meant to fill is similar to “;” mixed with the role “/“ serves in song lyrics. It is a choose-your-own-punctuation marker that lets you interpret the flow of the arrangement as you desire. Single closed (parenthesis) are voiced as a whisper or second voice interjecting. Double closed parenthesis mark longer additions of my own words. Beyond these notes, you’re welcome and encouraged to read these with your own voice and cadence rather than trying to find mine. Read these however you need to read them.

They are the start. Breathe. Inhale. Wade in and let it wash over you.

We Are: A Spell For Cracking Shells

Weaving the Stories – Arrangement of “I Am” by Laurin Dechae, from Poetry as Spellcasting. An audio version of this piece is available here.

once the ancestor stars were not just night lights to wish upon)

it was about the same sad thing unsaid across generations)

the seed / the sprout / the wilt / and all that passes in between)

in the dark, candlelit room you try not to appear

in tears you try not to look like you are pleading

(you try to control your voice)

you wonder to yourself, half mockingly, half earnest,

how many ways are there to name a wound?)

the first step is always to point directly to the place that hurts)

(and the tilting magic spread like a lightness in the head

where she knows / always and already / and all she can hear is no)

so you can’t stay here knowing full well / you have every opportunity to leave)

(are you sure sweetheart that / you want to be well?)

you were unmoored in an unraveling prayer)

an astral guide (a map of scars) / skinning the palms of your hands)

you fell into more open jaws than you can count)

so you feed your wounds healing herbs & coconut water)

(“self preservation warned some of us that we could not afford to settle for one easy definition, one narrow individuation of self.”)

(what would you name yourself, now that you could?)

you whisper to yourself)

articulate with language)

you believed the spacetime continuum couldn’t hold as much of you as you were able to accept)

(love ain’t flesh and muscle like it could be / imagine the remedy that ends the split / made of the answers)

you feel your voice start to change, blooming)

(aren’t you holy / aren’t we proof enough?)

if you can name yourself)

until the whole thing begins again)

(`i am whole / i am love and love and love / i am perfect and right and divine / in all my totality`)

(the spell she is spinning around herself)

someone told me that i deal in wormholes (or that you can only follow me so far down) / like warping portals to the version of yourself you have not yet imagined)

(`it wasn’t another planet at all, and it wasn’t a time machine / doll, a world where you can name yourself anything`)

(your love is too beautiful to have thrown back on your face.)

10.

“our women / the ones left behind / always know the taste of their own strength— bitter at times it might be”)

what it means to know / and speak the end of a cycle / self fulfilling prophecy)

(who told you your dreams were not good enough to sit on?)

this time i ask you what you want)

say it)

more)

(“i found a goddess in myself / and i loved her fiercely”)

11.

the concept of home is located within the deepest recesses of the body)

most believe this is where the shadows of our selves hide)

(you look whole enough to me)

12.

you must return home)

(“i had never felt visible before, nor even known i lacked it”)

the first step is always to point directly to the place that hurts)

you are prism reborn, you are sharp refracted everything)

13.

“armed with scars / healed / in many different colors)

i look in my own faces as eshu’s daughter crying / if we do not stop killing the other in ourselves / the self that we hate in others / soon we shall all lie in the same direction.”)

“i’m not real, i’m just a reality; i come to you as the myth”)

You are the deepest spell spoken. Whisper to make your mouth your own.

Living Ancestor

Chasing Uncertainty – Arrangement of “In Pursuit of My Ancestors”, from All The Black Girls Are Activists by ebonyjanice

Doing a meditation at my altar gave you a very clear message: “Whatever you say you want to be, don’t stop being that. Be who you say you are. Do what you say you’re going to do. Be brave.”

Transition into the eternal)

This particular spiritual space)

In the midst of your theological shift)

Talk her head off about the questions, concerns and confusion you was having about the religion)

Share your deep reflections)

Nonverbal affirmations)

The terror you had felt about not sharing the same truth system as them)

You can reconcile for yourself.

You’re still healing.

a literal place to be free from the violence of the global white supremacist society)

safe from an eternal violence that is seeking to devour you daily)

My truth system is rooted in the inherent holiness of Blackness and the vital relationship with my ancestors and their Black spiritual practices and technology.

By reaching for the spirituality of your ancestors)

You understand that this tradition has essential roots that also get you closer to freedom)

Our ancestors hold certain information that we will only have access to as a result of our relationship with them)

To heal forward, there is some backward generational healing that must happen)

The inability to contextualize both the information and the resources available at that time)

and available to you now)

is a trauma response)

Just because your parents did it does not mean you have to continue doing it. You are further in your familial freedom journey than your parents were at that time. You have more information and more access.

My womanist truth system will not allow me to believe)

((that I have been forgotten))

Because I can only go so far back)

(As a descendant of enslaved people, my records either don’t exist or only go so far back)

Yet you refuse to reject the eternal wisdom of your ancestors)

((Of what it is to)) say my name without my trauma)

help fill the blanks in my story)

This healing wasn’t just a backward healing, though, because not only do I refuse to let people talk about her solely as her trauma any longer, but my generation, forward, also now has language for “Do not talk about me as if I am only my trauma.” We cannot afford to forsake the relationship with our ancestors because healing them also heals us.

((Ask yourself)) “is that my voice?” “Is that my belief?” “Is that really true for me?”)

it gives you the language)

contribute to your community amongst whom you are growing)

affirm yourself as a whole person and a worthy contributor to your own, individual definition of your faith and freedom)

We used language like “breaking generational curses”)

we deserve to not always be doing hard work)

Ancestral healing reveals and helps mend generational trauma)

The simple act of acknowledging our ancestors)

Pursuing our ancestors is a radical and revolutionary tool because our ancestors affirm our right to softness, loudness, madness, and wellness. They honor us with wisdom through our dreams and want, desperately, for us to own our names and our bodies so that we might be able to live in the unashamedness that many of them did not have a right to pursue.

Releasing the Imposter

Chasing Uncertainty – Arrangement of “In Pursuit of Authority”, from All The Black Girls Are Activists by ebonyjanice

Decolonizing authority is a conversation about power dynamics and is important to revolution, resistance, movement, and our activism because one would have to heal themselves from the idea of being subordinate in order to truly inherit their divine right to be seen as credible and free.

Simply creating space for Black trans women, transfemmes, to speak from a place of authority on the work of their soul)

Whole, holy, and full)

My education, my lived experience, and my ancestors qualify me, authorize me, and amplify me. These three tenets are called “The Range”)

Do you have The Range?

We are leaders and revolutionary when it comes to framework and praxis because we have always walked it like we talk it)

And when I was sitting with my elders, one-on-one, to ask them questions about their stories, old wives’ tales, folk sayings, plant medicines, and denominational variations of their religious practices, documenting these stories in my journals and incorporating that language into my own lived experiences that is both ethnography and participant-observation research, did I have the language for that then? Of course not. Does that make my fieldwork or findings any less credible? Absolutely not.

Do we really trust what some old, dead white man said about authority?

We live in the land of patriarchal white supremacist delusion)

the standard itself is steeped in misogyny, racism, ((transmisogyny, misogynoir, and transmisogynoir))

Who authorized the authority?

Decolonizing authority can be as simple as asking that question, and it could be as revolutionary as saying “I reject that”)

To suggest that my education begins at which point I enroll in some institution, in a formal capacity, is to assert that all of this training prior to this moment of so-called credible and formal education is not valid or essential to what I will contribute in the “formal” setting.

You also have devalued your so-called informal education and experience to make you feel like an imposter.

I have always been learning in and out of both traditional and nontraditional spaces, and all of that learning contributes to my education and my credibility)

Womanism also gives us a knowing of this reality because womanists believe that we co-create knowledge in community)

My lived experience qualifies me, authorizes me, and deems me credible because I did it already)

My life is proof of my capacity and my credibility)

To decolonize is to say, “I am both participating and observing, and I am credible with or without a degree.”

You’ll have them sitting looking at you like “Girl, how do you know this? It is impossible for you to know this”)

But I know it.

There is no formal educational institution that can teach you that)

This contributes to the imposter syndrome that you experience on an ongoing basis as a Black trans woman and girl doing casually brilliant work in the world)

So you have gone a lifetime asking yourself, “is this good enough because it seems to come too easy for me?”

Sister, why would you have to put more effort into the thing that is just in your bones?

Why should you have to put more effort into the thing that is just growing out of your head?

How could you ever put more effort into the things that are crisscrossed in the lines of your fingerprints? No. Your ancestors make you credible, authorize you, affirm you, and secure you.

Becoming the Enchanter

Weaving the Stories – Arrangement of “Enchantment: The Liberatory Gift of Wonder” by Lisbeth White, from Poetry as Spellcasting. An audio version of this piece is available here.

There is a kind of rhetoric towards obsession in the study of poetry)

Obsession, in this case, referencing the domination of one’s thoughts or feelings by a persistent desire, thought, feeling, etc)

dive headlong into the topics one ruminates on, churns, and repeats)

lean into what preoccupies)

perceive all the angles with every sense available)

let the repetition of what is perceived become its own form and function)

an incantation of sorts)

a ritual recitation)

a single poem or collection)

(revel)(in the)(permission to be obsessed)

with formalism and free verse, with rhythm and sound)

consider these experiences worthy)

the beginning of a healing)

a new liberation of sorts)

profoundly familiar, bone-level familiar, (anciently familiar)

dreamlike states) sensory and expansive) tangible and alive)

pursue) this study of connection)

engage with the subtle energies of the world)

engage this sense of wonder and enchantment)

there are often moments of wonderment, moments when the imaginal breaks us into a painful and sacred longing toward what might be possible)

beyond the horror we are experiencing)

begin here)

it is acceptable to continue to pay attention)

hone this skill of open-eyed awareness into an adeptness and faculty for engaging with these subtle energies of the world, for relating and conversing, for channeling them into magic and healing)

(recover the knowledge)

(reclaim our original wholeness)

what a wonderful word, enchantment.)

the creation of a new something material, tangible, lived)

the container to hold the transformation is awareness itself. Our attention, and how it is held, creates the very container for change)

(follow)(those relentless curiosities)

(become)

(arise)

we begin with the tools at hand, the obsession or idea of what we want to write is the initial substance to be transformed)

Our attention) the energy brought in to spark the change, which in turn develops and informs the nature of the change itself)

Not all attention is love and there is great danger for harm in conflating the two)

An overbearing or already-knowing quality of attention doesn’t lead to a truly innovative transformation, but rather a nearby and comfortable shift in circumstance)

“Did you let that tree make you into something different? No? Then don’t waste my time.”

(relearn)(enchantment)

(be enchanted)

(the edge of what is known, into a new beyond)

re-enchantment with the world as a whole becomes) resistance against isolation, exploitation, alienation)

True transformation, true power, does not exist in a vacuum)

There is wonderment in enchantment)

both vulnerability and a willingness toward that vulnerability)

make room for play and the seepage of surprise)

stretch the container of our perception beyond what is physically and materially known)

(We must be open to awe)

While enchanted, the poem becomes a vessel, energy summoned and held in the container of line)

innocence) even the slow alchemy of revolution might be graced with something that may resemble play, and feel even a bit like delight)

being present to witness the transition)

the shift urging me along to a new state of being)

creating a rhythm without break)

I stretch, I extend, I become expanded)

I hold it with wonder)

As One of the Dead and Reborn

Weaving the Stories – Arrangement of “Articulating the Undercurrent” by Dominique Matti, from Poetry as Spellcasting. An audio version of this piece is available here.

I tend to my beloved dead and dying)

offered my blood to the soil freely so that the seeds I’d sown sang them favor)

My ancestors had known the sprouts as kin, and so the blooms grew

chatty)

voracious)

eager)

I was no longer an intruder, I was welcomed ((to be what we are), and we shared our common friends, and our enemies. The ancestral spirits rooting for my survival had so persistently loved them too. And the systems seeking to destroy me were coming for us both)

We shared our medicine there, spared the spiders, the webs of her children—mythmakers, herbalists, scientists, and mystics—forged a bond.)

Hear from them directly, bring nature forth through them, gift the willing nature where their own spirit has always been)

Poetrymaking serves as a conduit for that which has been buried, unarticulated)

Not the thunderclap, but how our bodies respond to the boom)

the slow exhaling shoulder-drop after a deep huff of Lavender)

A ritual of replication and noticing, witness and be borne witness to, a portal to speak, not mouth to mind, but spirit to spirit)

I am a girl who can see thi[n]gs that are not ther[e].)

The manifestation of these gifts asserted themselves in me as a necessity)

In one hand, to hear the undercurrent)

with the other, to speak it myself)

to feel what one could not otherwise know—plucking invisible energetic strings—with symbol and rhythm and pattern and repetition and body and spirit beyond an ordinary)

ancestral spirits wanted to share the magnitude and curiosity to limited mortality)

an environment populated by infinite witness and onlookers)

energy)

nature)

every visible clue alludes to convey what it carries inside it)

wear their poetry, coiling tendrils of Passionflower, translucent moon-white pallor of Ghost Pipe)

an elaborate nature-writ metaphor)

all that the light does not touch in us)

II.

what began as simple observation and ritual rapidly evolved into accordance)

endings and openings)

Once upon a time there was a girl

i am not the only one.

When she wept she cried other women’s tears.

Ancestral Dreams

in other women’s visions

Expand. Open up to it. Welcoming. Holding.

What do you do with your believing?

In unison. At once. Forever. Expand.

Beyond it, a river. Cool water.

Where do you go when it carries you?

cracked open sense of possibility)

be in relationship with the world)

III.

help the dying to honor what is coming)

to aid in communication)

So wait, notice, listen about death)

How little (humans) know of it)

How fear of the small bit we are aware of squanders the glory of life itself)

it was all very casual and bright)

Not every encounter is about you—sometimes it’s what you do for us)

I felt brutalized by loss)

afraid of being notified of another)

I did not know where to seek shelter)

all that fear, grief was threatening to submerge me)

But anger shot up like crimson flowers)

a remedy for something bleeding)

IV.

I wanted it witnessed. To capture the immensity.

Longing, despairing, hoping, missing, doubting, waiting, holding, aching, bargaining, regretting, worrying, pleading, wanting and wanting and wanting and wishing)

I cleaved to the magic of poetry)

((to the magic of stories, of connection))

prayer to me too, expressed in synchronicity, and the memory of the visitations in dreams)

Ethereal poetry of the unconscious)

The obscure song)

A flower essence)

A language before language, the old ways of speaking)

Everything collaborating to hold that within me)

I am not who I used to be.

I hardly recognize myself.

I am in the dark. The dark is not in me. There’s a difference.

I love you and yes I am not forgotten or forgetting you.

whispers over the meadow

the birds chirp on

I can’t talk about beauty, even if it had its beauty too.

Even if in the dark there is a light.

Even if I am the light.

Though I do not emanate.

Being is not easy.

I respect that.

I can’t feel anything but ((my)) own anger.

You don’t have to have a great shining moment.

All subtlety

let it all be

there’s no other way.

I love you.

and what shall we do, we who did not die?)

I delivered sermon after sermon on death)

the season of losing and finding again)

a conspiracy of care)

What can I provide for those who so many have not yet learned to hear?)

What is my service as one of the dead, of the human and more-than-human? As a gardener? As a poet?)

at the core of much trauma, denied a customary regard for one’s being, that’s a poem my spirit knows by heart)

Healing is a sense of noticing and being noticed by eyes that look favorably upon you)

Eyes that see you as a precious and integral part of something that they too are a part of)

You belong, you are not alone here)

Familiar stranger conjurer poets who are willing to serve as a community of loving witnesses)

What has come before)

What is yet to come)

And the unseen already here)

What is “not there”)

Once You Are Prayed To

Weaving the Stories – Arrangement of “Poetry as Prayer” by Hyejung Kook, from Poetry as Spellcasting. An audio version of this piece is available here.

Listen. What do you hear in your stillness from your innermost self)

Who, if I cried out, would hear me

consumed in that overwhelming existence

so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us

prayer out of urgency and necessity)

a calling out from the heart)

dark sobbing)

calling out)

now i lay me down to sleep

an echo of terror

the possibility of annihilation

a living treasure)

the only tangible thing too precious to keep)

twice rejected and creatively disappeared)

I felt ghostly, haunting the dark subterranean levels)

turning on the lights to look, searching for something)

And in my wandering I came across language of origin)

Vaguely familiar but mostly bewildering)

magical, charged with intention to heal, and in my grief, it resonated deeply)

The poem begins with an invocation)

ritualized and intimate)

prayer)

and I sensed then and now a yearning to bridge distance, between the self and the called-upon power as well as the hurt and healed state)

mighty within)

all you then withstood, and were crushed)

a state of physical division and aural similarity)

a sort of sonic stitching of the break)

the poem declares their power)

sacred and powerful)

prayer)

invocation, sound, repetition)

a magical, or in other words, practical, application of language)

a goddess)

calling us to attention, intention)

may the tide

that is entering even now

in a space of nature

that is simultaneously embodied

you and I

a blessing upon us all

repetitions with more frequency

sharper enjambments and decreased time

an increasing sense of urgency

may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

Wishing just as prayer is)

with gentle assuredness)

bringing blessing into reality by the power of utterance)

fortitude)

fulfilled)

poetry and prayer)

examining patterns and principles)

address, invocation, naming, and repetitions of sound and word)

weaving a sonic spell with the intention of bringing something into reality)

passed down through generations)

pored over by others and then to pore over it myself)

see how it is made and then apply those ways of making to my own)

a poem-prayer-spell)

power from repetition through time, where repetition itself grants faith and force)

When we are in extremity, when we are calling out in desperation, there is a place where the only thing that will work is to make anew)

all words seem to fail, but silence would swallow us whole)

step forward into darkness, hands outstretched, into the not-knowing—the only way to emerge was to go through the places I falter and feel uncertain)

telling my stories and singing children’s songs)

prayers I heard, though I can’t remember them)

mainly sound and feeling, like music)

a kind of prayer-spell)

paying my respects to ancestors I had never met)

for good fortune, prosperity, and protection)

Sometimes they strongly resemble beautiful, unreadable swirls and loops)

a shadow, impression, and abstraction of conventional writing)

words I believe we will never have words for)

an inner frequency)

What do you hear in your stillness?)

To see what happens when we are still and receptive)

a terrifying prospect)

When our sense of self is shaken, we have to imagine new ways of being and relating)

in the repetition of words and sound)

a meditative state, where the mind quiets, and whatever has been waiting for the space to come forward into our consciousness can do so)

an unexpected line or image)

even working with resistance)

I am learning to listen)

sometimes, our lineages are not continuous.)

that when direct lines of blood and culture are severed)

we can find other paths of connection and seeking understanding)

If we let go of the striving)

instead living in each moment)

of being in uncertainties)

in the intense attention

the boundaries between self and word and world dissolve)

to pray, to invoke, to appeal)

a larger divine connection)

praying)

poetry)

writing)

an act of faith)

Word can make the world)

what if you are the angel?)

What if the power you are afraid to call upon and know is your own power?)

tapping into our own divine)

consumed in that overwhelming existence)

a divine alignment rather than a loss to be feared)

we are not separate from, but entangled with our communities and surrounding)

which means we can in fact transform ourselves and the world both)

I enter into communion with another, broadening my understanding of myself and what words can do)

I can tend)

I can be tender and receptive to the world that was and to the world that is)

I can also visualize and bring intention toward a new and better world through the power of language)

together, what future can we call into being through our poems, our prayers?)

Here With Mother Web

Weaving the Stories – Arrangement of “Ain’t Got Long to Stay” by Destiny Hemphill, from Poetry as Spellcasting. An audio version of this piece is available here.

Tarrying spirits laboring while gathered in the living room)

Rocking back and forth, side to side)

the sanctuary was here and here and right here)

the matter of spirit was the flesh)

Stay with me.

The whoops stream in prayer)

peppermint)

sticky & sweet)

the laying of hands, anointing in each fire)

a conduit)

a lightning rod calling spirit)

to dwell with us)

to be with us)

the time is good)

When Mother Web shouts “I don’t look like what I’ve been through!”)

May it forever stay with me as an affirmation that material violence even when not registered as glyphs upon the flesh leaves signs in the psyche and spirit)

The Hush)

The Trembling)

The Rumble and Creak in rhythm)

The tip of tongue to the roof of mouth)

In the sanctuary by the river, flesh, elements, and spirit are inextricably linked)

read the signs)

make the Divine)

Divine)

Perceiving the imperceptible)

making the realms of the material and immaterial)

making kinship with)

your neighbor)

the night)

the clay)

knowing a drought’s hunger in my voice)

my dreams)

In the dream I have dozens of eyes

Show it a new perspective

fresh air in the waking world

a lilting refrain of “can you make a little space for me?”

Share with me where grief resides

Black matrilineal grief alchemy glimmering and following me

A new perspective

piercing—tingling, twinkling

Stay with me. I won’t be with you long.

Divine)

Make a covenant to draw forth that which has been deliberately destroyed)

Effaced)

Subjugated)

The geography, behavior, between the lines of what was spoken and left unspoken, your own intuition)

that it had been taken and kept away)

old haunts set to return among the trees)

the forest)

parallel to the path)

but always keeping it in sight)

Waiting)

whistling a melody made in childhood)

kept and hidden from you)

Intervene in the anti-Black, patriarchal, capitalist, ableist problem as a problem)

Making a covenant with the made-hidden, the subjugated)

making a commitment to pierce beyond reality)

reach for the possibilities beyond those structures)

toward the survival of yourself and your kin)

within a constellation of Black covenants)

that which has been subjugated)

liberation is rendered invisible)

nonexistent under colonial modernity)

freedom seekers we do not know)

hidden from us)

Draw from the stars)

dreams)

fire shut up in your bones)

liberation)

possible)

transmit this knowledge through a multiple of ways)

sing songs to read{

constellations,

signs of liberation otherwise obscured on earth,

about themselves,

the ceremonial survivances}

breathing together)

conspire)

My ancestral inheritance)

survival and being)

oral culture issued from my forebears’ throats)

issued from my own)

flesh-spun spells)

choreopoems embedded with instructions of{

where to move,

how to move,

when to move in concert with your kindred to get free)

Make oneself a conduit)

align flesh, language, and ancestors)

focus and accumulate energy)

beyond the fold)

potentiated into actualization)

Turn language into an edge)

conspire)

signal to others)

radical possibility and mutual liberation)

echolocation)

I’m right here. I want you. Here. With me. To live free.

The magic is not the intercession themselves)

the magic lies in the signal)

the possible we do together)

How does one craft through the chatter?)

Widen the pockets of possibility?

the multiplicity in meaning?

That inevitable fate about becoming)

that this world can’t take away)

liberation made possible by our kindred in a world that did take away our freedom)

What shall you do?

push beyond them)

Stay with me now.

And what shall we do)

thick with interpretation)

a magic of revelation)

a magic of distraction)

covenants with the subjugated)

when might we be in collusion with the powers that obscure, hide, efface, and subjugate?)

The violence of anti-Blackness and capitalism that we must resist)

revealing some transformative truth)

magics are increasingly important)

to pierce through our oppression and reveal our liberation)

decolonizing the settler colony that occupies the land)

to put an end to continuing oppression)

anti-Blackness must end for ALL of us to know true liberation)

riots and uprisings in the face of the police murdering Black people)

these nonverbal choreopoems as a revelatory, embodied language)

So many possibilities)

So much discernment)

Stay with me. Please.

It’s here at this edge, this possibility that I’m calling out to you at this particular crossroads)

I’m calling out to you to meet me.

To shape the words, the songs, the choreopoems that might seem like just another death chorus)

But to you, a whisper in a register against your skin)

that heat of breath on your flesh)

a surging chorus of aliveness)

you recognize the song of liberation gloriously stolen back by kindred.

Can you catch it?

Stay with me.

Because none of this can stay the same.

Breathe with me.

Conspire.

We ain’t got long to stay here.

Weave, Finish, Apotheosize

Weaving the Stories – Arrangement of “Wander, Weave, (Un)know, Re-member” by The Editors of Poetry As Spellcasting. An audio version of this piece is available here.

There is a ritual not really spoken of)

What can be shared is that certain things occur, Energies are called forth)

Hidden)

vague)

all a person)

the ritual themself)

It will be talked about, all allusion and innuendo, not quite a secret)

the sacred communities seem exclusive)

But can be wonderfully endearing)

a passing down from elders, its own ritual)

honoring power summoned with the mysteries, and opening room for them in space and time)

We believe in the potency of human intention to create, at its most distilled and most powerful)

spellcasting)

Dear workers of words and magic and change, shifting and pulsing with mystery)

wind around one meaning)

shed into a new interpretation)

To play

to pray

to dance with the spirits

So here)

What we know)

offered reconsiderations)

All transformation requires radical imagination)

Radical imagination arises in a container that can shift, morph, and adapt to hold an ever-expanding shape)

remember the nexus)

to manifest change and transformation)

draw our attention to a willingness)

a pathway)

a space)

our communities)

what is)

Illuminate a transformative practice as we deepen our capacity to relate to ourselves, our genders, our lineages, and our communities)

Summon communal connection, a subversion of the isolation wrought by colonialism and capitalism)

This nexus can be activated to recognize temporality, to recognize possibility)

Enchantment)

moments as embodied collapses of space and nonlinear experiences of time)

a sense more expansive than how we’ve been conditioned to experience space and time)

Hold gently the intricacies)

prayer as a way to attune)

to lean into the spaces that cultivate what is generative and creative)

deepening the power-building possibilities of our attention)

the more-than-human)

the interdependence)

chronicles form vital, sacred exchanges in the midst of a swirling undercurrent in this realm)

an ancestral inheritance reveals how our material and immaterial are inextricably intertwined)

in order to transform current structures, we need to access different ways of knowing and different ways of being)

we will need to collaborate{

with the living

with our dead

our ancestors

unseen forces

we call the Divine

Poetry and magic are necessary tools in societal transformation)

transformation may include other forms)

intuition)

ancestors)

gods)

possibility)

on these road-opening paths we dare to call forth)

liberation)

be present to Black feminist survivals that pierce through the confines of the known as they are shaped by the infinitude of what is love and its kindred grief)

We receive possibilities)

glimmerings)

transformation)

a disruption that cracks open beyond language)

a place beyond words, a space of symbols and images)

gestures and movement)

light and shadow, moving between memory and home)

in the face of brutal displacement via ongoing settler colonization)

the place of our deepest knowings, Divine)

In a spiralic dance)

summoning transformation requires being deliberate in reclaiming our own voices as we seek to actualize what we have radically imagined)

we must move to language that has a capacity to stay with liminality, where magic is potentiated)

reclaim potency and create a collective revolutionary power)

The structures, systems, and dominant cu;tures of the US are not tenable. Built on rotten foundations of genocide and slavery, settler colonialism and imperialism, exploitation and extraction, they never served the majority of people and creatures on this land)

we cannot continue in this world build by unspeakable brutality, colonization, anti-Blackness, and its attendant capitalist catastrophes)

recall a world that makes space for, respects the dignity of, and promotes the thriving of all peoples and creatures. A world that honors and is guided by our ancestors. A world rooted in the deep wisdom, experience, knowledge, and liberation of Black folks, Indigenous people, people of color, trans women, trans men, nonbinary people, cisgender women, queer people, neurodivergent people, and disabled people)

We can use a poem as an activating ritual)

to ourselves)

our communities)

our planet)

to summon, to cast, a new world into being)

We have begun to unwind story, and we have begun to unwind the limits of whose story, why that story, and how a story gets to be told. In doing so, we have sought to reclaim the immensely powerful tools of change we have access to: voice, imagination, embodiment, efficacy, and sovereignty)

closer to transformation and liberation of ourselves, our community, and our world

weave a tapestry of mystery and healing

of poetry

of spellwork

This is your invitation{

PART 2 – STEPPING ONTO A PATH

Interlude

Can destiny be tamed?
Transformed by the essence of the art)
Man turned god once we deemed him)

– Cento arranged from Apotheosis, by Kai Straw

At this point, you may be asking “Anonsee, I came here to learn about apotheosis, why did you just make me read 30-ish pages of poetry?” to which I answer “You came to someone named for the Deity of storytelling, and expected to not have to listen to stories to get where you tryna go?”

But here, we’ll talk technical, material, action.

I can’t tell you what your calling is, what makes you, you. For me it’s Connections, for you it could be damn near anything. This is the first thing you have to figure out in order to move forward, because it informs everything you do from here on out. It may be something you already know, something that has resonated with you for ages. It may be something others keep mentioning to you, something that seems an immutable quality of self when others view you. Whether you become a Deity of nurturing, of revolt, of hunger, of anything is your choice, and it is a choice you made, whether you knew you were making it or not. In my experience, this is not something that changes, but I could be wrong.

From there, you have to figure out how to further embody that which makes you, you. As you delve deeper into this, you will become stronger, more confident in yourself, your abilities, your existence as what you are. You will find ways associated with what you represent to replenish yourself, to heal yourself, to do your own works, to be a deity in your own right. When you walk your path, others recognize it and speak on it to you, whether you’ve told them or not. I mean this in the most literal sense – at times within minutes of meeting me, strangers will offhandedly refer to me as Goddess, not as a kink deference or “slay queen pussy boss!” style, but sometimes to their own confusion because “it just felt right?” This is not something that you will prompt to happen, its just part of recognition of how you are moving through the world now.

Next, find and set in stone your own Ethos, your gospel, whatever you need to put into words what you are as a Deity. The more that you find yourself struggling with your conception of who you are, what you do, what you ask of those around you and those who believe in you, the weaker you’ll find yourself and the more you’ll find yourself falling out of step with yourself.

The belief of those around you, those you care for, those who believe in you is invaluable, but belief in yourself is more important because if you stop believing in yourself, in what you are, it all falls apart. You’re only as strong as your belief in yourself, even with others believing in you. You may go through events that leave you doubting yourself, but you have to do whatever you can to overcome it if you wish to maintain Apotheosis. The strength of an Apotheosis, your growth, is not a permanent increase – much like a muscle, enough time stagnant, harm to what you embody, and other things will leave you deteriorated and at a shell of the power you once felt. With work and care you can recover from this, don’t be discouraged, but be aware of both this possibility and the time it’ll take to grow back.

I’m sorry I can’t give you more or deeper guidance, but with how individualized this process is, all I can do is unlock the beginning for you and help you start moving forward. You deserve more. You deserve to be more. Not for me or those you love, but for yourself and everything that has been taken from you. I hope you build yourself up strong, I hope you become what you are meant to be.

PART 3 – SHOWING WORK

Outro

The artist, the painter, the demigod)
Painted anything he saw)
Being thought of as a god when his flesh was apparent)
Took a breath of his humanness)
Feeling most human, looking nothing like it.
– Cento arranged from Apotheosis, by Kai Straw

This part is more personal, a guide and example of how I work, act, and view things in this framework. Whether it is to follow the path as in worship, or to learn to forge your own path, I hope what follows helps you grow.

Who Are My People?

Weaving the Stories – Created from the practice “Writing Home: Bodies” and written by Anonsee Storyweaver. An audio version of this piece is available here.

Who are your people?

My people is brackish water, salt marshes, tree moss, fish & grits, holy roller baptist praise, speakers of tongues,
Healers through Sound, laying on of hands. mothers of mothers of mothers, cool hands on my forehead,
my people is standing stone, crossroads, keening, gatherers of Grace, constant and true.

–Gina Breedlove, from “Who Yo People Is” podcast, hosted by Sharon Bridgeforth, Season 2, Episode 27

Who are my people?

My people are the uncertain ones, those who move forward through chance and malice and disaster and miracle, the spiders weaving and hunting and watching and telling, the community I find and finding me,

The vines wrapping up the iron and the chain and overtaking it in blooms, the trees shading us from the oppressive and freeing our lungs from the poison, the healing and the poisoning that we use to cure ourselves, to feed ourselves, to survive,

Black folks, trans folks, dykes, those who preserve me even when I wish to rot away, those who wish to survive and those who know they must survive even when they don’t want to,

the tides of the river and the creek, the grip pulling out the invasive root that kills those around it, those who thrive even as they have more taken from them, the fist wrapped around the collar dragging to somewhere better and safer, those who believe,

those who were harmed, and those who harmed but seek better now, those who believe in a world that can be better, in which change is possible, in which growth is possible, in which we can eradicate the rot left by harm to us and heal the wounds anew,

those who fight and protect, those who help growth, change, those who guide us, our ancestors who wish to see us live a life free of the suffering they had, the people undergoing suffering we can’t control but can help ease, the family we have and build and save, those that we lost too soon, those who betray the oppressors and the betrayers and the collaborators,

You are my people so long as you wish to be, and you are free to make of this what you want to; a cousin seen every few months, a sister spoken to every day, an auntie, a mother, find your place so that you too may grow and thrive in harmony, no matter what adversity comes our way. And if you stagnate, you will have a family to bring you forward once more.

The Infinite Paths

2020 – Anonsee Storyweaver

We all have a choice between the path of uncertainty, and the path of mediocrity.

To take the path of uncertainty is to keep in motion, to accept change, whether good or bad. There may be more uncertain paths diverging off of the one I walk, and it is up to me to choose when I take a new one. Once the path I have walked no longer has anything to offer me but the comfort of the familiar, it becomes the path of mediocrity, and I am compelled to take the next uncertain path.

There is nothing that can truly prevent me from taking the path of uncertainty when presented. It is simply a choice whether to take it, or not to. There is no guarantee that it will work out in my favor, just that the option exists. If I feel that my current path will still help me grow, I may stay the path. If I feel the new path may help me grow more, I may diverge. But should my current path be exhausted, I should take the next divergence as quickly as I can.

The only thing truly abhorrent to the path of uncertainty is stagnation, which is what the path of mediocrity leads to. To accept things solely as they are – the comfort of the familiar, of what is expected. Stagnation is the death of the self. Complacency, a shell that crushes the growing self by not growing with it, until the self can no longer survive. This shell must be shed, for while it may keep me safe, it is at the same time a prison, and the longer I reside within it, the harder it will become to break free.

There is no physical requirement to follow the path of uncertainty; I may follow the path without a shift in physical location, so long as I am continuing to grow, experience, and change. Motion is not simply physical, and if I travel for years, but use it as a shell of complacency in which I escape from any true growth, it will kill me just as surely as had I never left.

Everyone walks one of the paths, whether they know it or not. I am free to counsel them, and to help guide them, but in the end, it is their own choice and I cannot control that. If they choose to follow the path of uncertainty, then I will do everything within my power to facilitate that. If they choose the path of mediocrity, I shall hope they find their way back to the path of uncertainty eventually.

Fear is neither good nor bad, but an indicator of where I can grow. I understand that most fears may be justified, and may never be completely overcome. I will take them as the opportunities they are, rather than letting them cow me. To allow fear to stymie my growth, and to keep me from my true self, is complacency.

It is impossible to reach perfection, as perfection is just gilded stagnation, existing solely to tempt away from growth. To strive for perfection implies that it is a state that can be reached, a belief that inherently harms improvement. To have something in its best possible state at a time is good, but to assume it cannot further improve eventually is detrimental. Change, for better or worse, will come – and like a perpetual revolution, I cannot assume that I will reach a utopic end. The longer I have been taking the path of uncertainty, the more adept I will be at twisting those moments of uncertainty, chance, to work in my benefit – even if it seems solely negative.

Motion, change, and uncertainty are the things I strive for. Stagnation, perfection, and complacency are what I seek to avoid. Even should I fall victim to the latter, I will always have the chance to escape them, and take the path of uncertainty once more.

There is no end state, simply the infinite paths.

Forgiveness Does Not Mean Excusal

2024 – Anonsee Storyweaver

Forgiveness does not mean excusal. You can hold someone to task for their actions, you can forgive them and make sure they still change and grow. But what forgiveness is will vary radically from person to person; some may see it as absolution, others as an erasure, and others still as closure. What forgiveness is not is more important than a mandate of what forgiveness must be.

Forgiveness within accountability can be a radical act. We cannot change or grow without knowing the “why” of our actions, conscious or unconscious. Regardless of whether we intended the impact of our actions or not, we need to be able to take accountability for what we have actually done. We also must ensure that unconscious biases can be truly addressed during accountability, rather than glossed over as an assumption of propriety. Sometimes imparting this knowledge may seem cruel, but you must know to make an informed action. We can forgive these actions without excusing them.

Fear can make us do many things. It can keep us alive or torture us and paralyze us. But fear is no excuse for being a coward, which is one of the most inexcusable acts. To sacrifice someone out of fear of what will happen to us, even if we know they’ll sacrifice us regardless, is one of the most reprehensible acts of cowardice we can commit. There is no sacrifice we can make of another, especially those worse off than ourselves, that will save us in the end without saving each of us.

Forgiveness is not mandatory, but forgiveness is not required to do what must be done and ensure that change can happen, that any person can take that first right step in the proper direction, and then keep walking, even if they stumble. If they betray that out of fear, the results are on them, for you are also not required to forgive someone who shows they truly will not change with every fiber of their being. You are not responsible for changing that which cannot be changed.

Shield and Sword

2024 – Anonsee Storyweaver

I will not allow my story to be written by those who wish to kill me. I will not die at their hands.

I do not need to be the “better person” – my word need only hold as long as theirs does. I owe nothing to those who harm me. My survival is more important than my honor.

My words are both shield and sword, and must be considered as such. Flailing in the hopes they’ll save me is useless, I must use them with precision and accuracy. I am a virtuoso with them, and must use them as such. To do otherwise sullies my skill and my being.

Nobody else will save me, I must save myself always. Others may support me, but I should not expect them to put themselves on the line to protect me. I am more than enough to save myself, using everything at my discretion. I must believe in my own competence. I must be the one with the strongest faith in myself.

I must move beyond excuses. Yes there are reasons but they do not affect the outcome. My story so far is my story, regardless. While I need not accept falsehoods within it, while I can speak my truth, I also must acknowledge choices I made as just that – choices I made. My story is what it is, I cannot rewrite it.

I must live my story through to the end, no matter what comes.

Worship and Other Holy Things

This section contains answers to things that have been asked of me in “what I like or expect as a Goddess” and can serve as an example to help others discover their answer the same.

Offerings

Stories are the greatest offering, large or small. Whether its a story of woe, of joy, of anger, and whether it is a moment of a day or a grand tale. In particular, stories of growth, community, survival, victory against odds, connection, and spiders are dearest. These can be shared directly, written and left upon an altar, or as a spoken/performed offering.

Art in many forms is a common offering as well. Many times this will be art representing the Goddess faerself in one of faer many forms – a spider, a drider, a human woman with spider legs extending from her back – but it may also be music, poetry, writing, photography, performance, and many other storytelling forms.

Offerings in the service of the Goddess can be made in her name to those in need. In particular, to Black, transfemme, or disabled people. Ones given to certain needs – prolonging survival, accessing medical procedures, and caring for the dying or dead (including vigils, funerals, and helping surviving family or friends) of those groups – are the most appreciated.

Other offerings may be made, but it is the Goddess’s whim as to accept them or not unless from those most devoted to faer.

Altars

An altar to the Goddess often comes in one of two forms: stationary or travel. Rarely exquisite or grandiose, they are often built out of found, thrifted, or gifted items.

Stationary: Commonly part of a larger home altar, the Goddess should be represented by spider iconography, fiber crafts, writing tools, or items with cherished memories attached to them. If both an ancestral and a theistic altar are kept, the space for the Goddess should be a bridge between if possible.

Travel: A notebook or journal and a pen brought with you, a simple devotional prayer written at the back, unique to each worshiper. Stories, notes, doodles, and ideas recorded as they come to mind. Filled ones often come to rest on a stationary altar or are put away for safekeeping.

Acts of Devotion

Those acts done in the service of furthering connection and growth, either individually or communally, can be dedicated to the Goddess.

Individually, this may look like seeking out knowledge, learning new skills, caring for yourself physically, mentally, or emotionally, and actively looking for and fostering new connections with others. Change and beginning something new can both be terrifying, but it is only by facing that fear and uncertainty that we can grow. Deeper knowledge should be sought on marginalized models of thinking such as transfeminism, womanism, abolitionism, and embodying antiracism in deed not just word. These should all be internalized and practiced both individually and communally.

Communally, this looks like intentionally caring for each member of the community in a way that prioritizes the safety of the marginalized and targeted. We ensure the survival of both the individual and the community by working through abolitionist, transfeminist, and womanist models of restorative/transformative justice and community care. Instead of deciding “it isn’t my/our” problem and excising individuals from the whole as the first step, we work through each issue in depth so long as there is a possibility to heal a rift or recover a person.

Caring for those around you, community or stranger, is an act of devotion. Moments of kindness you may not have given otherwise, lending a helping hand, reaching out when someone seems troubled and actually listening to them, are all examples of those acts. If you can assist someone without harming or endangering yourself – physically, emotionally, financially, or otherwise – you should. Ensure you remain safe and protected, but show the world the same kindness you wish it had shown you.

If you know you are in a position of privilege over someone, whether racial, gender, financial, or otherwise, you are beholden to use that privilege for the benefit of the oppressed, in any way they directly tell you that you can help beyond what has been told to you here. If you have a spare bed or couch, you can house one of your siblings for a time. If a few spare dollars will not harm you, you can feed them. You will not use this as power over them or exploit them in any way for it – these acts of devotion are gifts to them, freely given in the Goddess’s name.

Scorn

Cowardice. exploitation, and bigotry are three elements that will naturally put one on the path of complacency, are as such intolerable to adherents, and should be met with scorn when safe and possible to do so. Do not become a sacrifice, but do not simply allow things to remain unchanged either.

Cowardice is not simple fear, but is the refusal to do the right thing even when reasonable and possible, or becoming complicit in a scornful act, out of fear of the change of the status quo. This includes things such as white solidarity, or directly facilitating the abuse or exploitation of the oppressed or marginalized, because it is easier to do nothing, not because it is safer.

To be a coward is to willingly step onto the path of complacency, and to reject what is integral to belief in these teachings. Being scared is not wrong, but we must act despite our fear for what may happen.

CONCLUSION

To be blunt, there is more to all of this, both that I’ve experienced personally and so much more that I haven’t reached, learned, or comprehended yet. I am not comfortable going into those depths here and honestly, I’m terrified to publish this because I’ve had facets of my spirituality used against me before and I still haven’t overcome that trauma. I’m not far enough in my own Work to truly be a mentor or help anybody with more than the basic understandings and ways to move forward, but I feel we are collectively running out of time and the best time to have begun was years ago. It’s better to start now and be less prepared, than to have not started at all and be unprepared.

Conversely to the “rush” of us running out of time, you must slow down, think, and act methodically in this and in the actions you take to support your work. In many ways, facilitating this growth may go against multiple reactions trained into you. When you feel yourself recoil automatically from something, you must stop and actually think in depth about why you are doing that, how it does or does not affect and benefit you, and not allow your thoughts to terminate at the reflex alone. For some of you, all of this may come as naturally as breathing. For others, it will truly be a labor of growth and betterment. My words are not law, I’m just someone taking a similar path and refusing to leave everyone else behind.

Much again like a muscle, you need to know your limits because pushing too far too fast may end in harm rather than growth and fortification. Don’t take yourself or those around you/helping you for granted in this Work, your humanness does not evaporate within an Apotheosis, nor do those around you become “lesser” or expendable for your betterment. We are here to survive together, even if others desperately wish us not to. There is no point to a survival at the expense or deep sacrifice of others. Do not forget your humanness in this Work. You are not becoming immortal, you are not becoming immutable, you are growing to make sure more of us survive in the end, not just through your growth, but through your actions. Do not undersell or undermine the actions you are already taking and the way you are already moving to meet this, you are likely doing more than you realize already.

I’m proud of you. If we do not meet and do this Work together now, may we have time in Eternity.

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