Finding the Goddess Within...

Women have more freedom now than ever in history because of the sexual and spiritual awakenings of the ‘60s and ‘70s. We are taking that freedom and forging our own paths. Some are becoming political leaders and CEO’s; breaking through the glass ceiling and stepping into roles routinely held by men. While other women take a different approach, taking a cue from our fore mothers and devoting themselves to their families. Either path is perfectly valid; for one is no less courageous than the other. These two types of women may be on separate paths and may have distinctly different life goals, but they still have much in common. Many women even fulfill both these roles and many more. All women, no matter their path, race, culture or creed share a common thread, their sexuality.

Despite all of our advances we are just recently empowering sexuality for women. Women are still fighting the battle that a sexualized woman is a negative thing. However, many women are taking up the charge and claiming their sexuality as their own. One of the many ways this is being done is by the Burlesque community. We Burlesque Ladies are taking the art of stripping a step back in time and putting a futuristic spin on it. Speaking for my peers and I, performing burlesque has opened a whole new aspect of confidence and happiness. By embracing my sexuality and revealing my skin, I have revealed a hidden layer within myself. I have found the Goddess within. Every night when I step on to the stage I leave behind my mortal shell with all of its flaws and become the Goddess. I am Aphrodite. I am Bast. I am the Goddess and so is every woman.

Shaman fire fleshing for the first time.

My Gypsy traveling days have began again for the Summer. Festival season was launched by Burner Boot Camp a Fundraising event for Dragon's Gaze Fire Troupe. This event raises money for things like Fire Performer Insurance, New performing equipment and Portable Sound Equipment. You know things that fire gypsies need to be fire gypsies.

It was a damp weekend and we ended up sleeping in the basement of the main house at Serenity Pass instead of camping out. Air mattress to air mattress we had a slumber party as we sat around drinking homemade hooch after a long day of poi and staff spinning in the drizzling rain.

It was a nice relaxing way to start the Festival Season. Spending the day practicing, honing and learning new techniques to my craft. I have gotten to a point where I am comfortable enough with poi that I have decided to pick up and play with staff. I am no where near a perfect poi spinner but when I get stuck or grumpy with a poi move I switch to staff. Coming back to the poi later has helped me and my learning has significantly progressed in both skill levels.

This weekend was all about beginnings and the workshops were for entry level lessons for those wanting to get a taste for the flame. I even managed to get my dispersal down for fire breathing now I need to work on my aim . I did shoot some video this weekend so I will be putting together a teaser clip of the workshops so you can see for yourself what it was like.

Afterwards we all climbed in the packed vehicles and scattered to the four directions back to the daily grind but we will always have the fire and mischief with us.

I worked a New Modeling gig today it went well despite getting off to a rough start. I was 10 mins late because I couldn’t find the building. I hate being late. In an industry where people are notoriously flakey, being late is an even bigger no no. Sure you may only be a couple of mins late but you are going up against the preconceived notion because of the last person who no called no showed. So when you are late they immediately wonder if you are coming or not. Ah, Showbiz oh how I love you!

I have an article of the Newest Issue of Mystik Way Magazine that can be read HERE. It is about dance and spirituality.

I have turned down yet another opportunity to do burlesque. I miss the stage but I am not ready yet. My love got corrupted by politics and money and it became work. My muse still wants to play in other areas anytime I mention the “B” word my muse runs in the opposite direction. I can only guess that I am still grieving. When I love, I love hard, I love with my whole soul. And my soul got crushed. I am sure people are tired of hearing me bitch and moan about burlesque. Oh well...

I have written a short story a retelling of an ancient myth. I wrote all four pages of it in one gigantic burst. I am not sure what I want to do with it. Post it to my blog or submit it to be published. If I post it to my blog then that is considered self publishing and some of the more traditional publishing avenues won’t touch it after that. However, I hate writing something and not having it seen, it just seems like such a waste.

I really enjoyed the vending from the last couple of weeks. That just feels like what I am supposed to be doing. It makes me miss EWB. I loved running the store, counselling people and helping them shop. When I do go back to performing it will take a secondary position in my life. While I enjoy writing it may too take a secondary position. Why you ask? Well these are things I do because I love and I have learned the hard way that by trying to keep a rough over your head doing things you love changes why you do them. That when they become work and you start to resent them. Modeling is work, House of Cyanide Curios is work, writing and dancing I do that because I enjoy it, period. I lost focus of that, mainly because I was listening and trying to please everyone else. Hopefully I have learned my lesson THIS time. I really don’t want to have to repeat this lesson again. I know I am like the girl who never quits talking about her ex. It been a year and I am still whining.

C’est la vie,

La Femme Crève-cœur

I am going to start doing the daily life diaries again but I am making no promises for how long I will keep it up. Simply because I will never keep then if I do. However, I have several writing projects with due dates coming up and by writing out my daily life it helps grease the words for my Muse and helps me stay better organized as well. This year is for focusing on my craft and resale business and my writing. I do sorely miss performing but I feel drawn in other directions at the moment. My modeling is taking off more so now than ever and the vending business House Of Cyanide Curios is doing well. It is pleasurable interesting work. It feeds my addiction of shopping and making things while helping to  keep a roof over my head. While I miss the stage I believe it is dancing in general that I yearn for. If possible I will try to find a class I can take that may scratch my itch as it were. Part of my problem is I have massive  lIfe A.D.D. at the moment. I don’t want to commit to anything. I want to come in enjoy a class and if next week a gig or an opportunity opens up I want to be able to take it and not be committed to a rehearsal. I am also itching for the open road. I want to travel so bad I don’t care if I have to sleep on floors and live out of gas stations. That actually sounds like heaven to me right now *smiles* I want to be free and light. I am slowly selling thru my material possessions as I no longer want to be bogged down by them. The Gypsy Life is calling and I will answer it’s call. I am releasing so much stuff material and immaterial. My soul just wants to soar and it can only do that if it has nothing weighing it down.  I am leaving myself open to the universe I want to be the feather floating on its winds.

Sometimes you don’t choose your Gods they Choose You...

I should preface this with a little background information about myself. I have always been a rebel without a cause and of course become even much more so of rebel when given a cause. When everyone is turning right I must go left usually the reason is arbitrary at best. The more someone pushes me to go with the herd the more I will fight them and I do enjoy a good fight. It may simply be my Cat-ness (see Bast How I met My Mother.)

Many moons ago when I was a young gothling, a wanna be Baby Bat. I had just graduated from highschool and was living on my own and attending the local community college. As one social outcast can only find another. I soon found what was affectionately called Freaks Corner. A section of the cafeteria where all of us misfits hung out in between classes or even during classes, some of us didn’t even attend school there anymore. It was here in Freaks Corner where I graduated from a research Pagan to a practicing Pagan. Freaks Corner was my Mecca, it was everything I always fantasized about in the French Revolution cafes, where writers like Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas met till the wee hours of the morning drinking and debating right there in modern Suburbia. It was HERE that I met my first real Pagans people who knew about the things I was just learning about and not some faceless screen name half a world way via an internet connect but flesh and blood people. And some of the very worst kind of Pagans I could have fallen with. I learned much during my time there everything except what I was taking classes on. In between LARPing Vampire the Masquerade and playing Magic the Gathering was discussions on Nietzsche, Satanism and Anarchy. This is also where I met my first Unofficial Teacher.

I say unofficial because she refused to teach me. She had taken many a student under her wing but always refused my requests. Finally, she told me that she only teaches those who are not naturally gifted. That she was the “Special Ed” teacher. I never fully accepted this flattering refusal and figured that there was another reason she would never tell me. As one who was never easily deterred I learned much from her by simply watching and observing. In this group of people were those who dabbled in things they shouldn’t. Soon theirs eyes started to gleam with a sheen that is a characteristic often associated with movie villains. Everyone in the group started to go off their hinges a bit and the rumors ran rampant. There was talk of demon summoning and animal sacrifice none of which I was a part of nor saw. I shrugged most of it off as vicious gossip and did my best to not get involved.

My life took a turn as it does and I was pulled away from the group I would not run into any of them until years later. I had just come out of the Broom Closet to my then husband and was looking for those of like mind that I could share my beliefs with. When I ran into the old group from Freaks Corner who had graduated to taking up space in a local coffee house. Upon running into my old mentor this time I was drawn into the web like that of a fly to a spider. She had a habit of holding court and at a friend's place around the corner where she would proceed to channel and let herself be ridden by the spirits of her choice, much to the awe and amusement to those in her audience. At the time the things I experienced in that room was extremely convincing and scary. The things I took part of in my own ignorance. Looking back now I do wonder how much of it was real and how much of it was a great manipulation, an answer I shall never know.

It was during such a session that the name of Set was brought up. She had stated that someone in the group had caught his attention and that he would be watching them. At which point my eye was drawn upward and what did I see. It was like a great ripping of the fabric of reality someone one had pulled way the ceiling and was peering in. With big eyes and a cheshire grin staring right at me. Having already been thoroughly attached to Bast at this time she warmly said that no harm would come to me. He simply wanted to get to know me better.

Now understand I am NOT an Egyptian reconstructionist and never was. I did not know who Set was at the time and didn’t really know the Egyptian Pantheon. I was still searching and that was simply not a direction my quest had gone. While I am thankful for those who research and preserve the Egyptian traditions it was simply never anything that worked for me.

That moment of meeting Set was fall of 2005. 2006 was my year of Hell. Set was literally invoked into my life and he literally destroyed everything that was not needed. For those that read Tarot it was like getting the Death card and the Tower card in the same reading. I was completely stripped bare of everything that I had built up from before that time and had to completely start from scratch. I lost my home, my business, divorced my husband, became seriously ill. He was a sand storm that came into my life and ripped me down to my bones. His only response to my pleas of mercy was. I like my children strong you will survive or perish. Anything else matters not.

I have learned that Set is the Epitome of Tough Love. Sink or Swim. I do not regret that time. I learned so much in such a short time. While the learning process was painful one does not forget those lesson because the pain has etched them into your memory. And the rewards of survival the rewards of succeeding after such tribulations ARE GREAT. My reward was ROCKY.

My God comes to me at night. He whispers in my ear, “Come you must tell my side of the story”. He sit besides me on my beat up cat fur covered couch in a suit cut to fit like a glove. Dark royal blue with a soft slate gray pinstripe, a crisp white shirt underneath with the collar open at his throat. His carrot orange red hair is swept off his face as his finely woven dreadlocks fall to his waist. He smiles at me with a big toothy grin chewing on a cigar gold rings flash on his fingers. Its a cross between corporate exec with old school gangster. Just enough, thug as they say to know he doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty if he has to. “Write my story he says, Tell my side.” So I do.

This last year has been one of contemplation for me. I have a done a lot of Soul work and searching. In some ways I have more questions than answers, but I have found some answers to some very hard questions. I have always been a very blunt and honest individual. I repeatedly warn people to not ask my opinion because they will get it and they may not like what I have to say. I have a habit of putting people in their place and they tend to not like it very much. I try to curve this behavior because it is very troublesome but sometimes I just can't help myself. I call a spade a spade, this is why I am a Bitch. I know I am Bitch I have known this for years. I have come to terms with it.

Many times I have beat myself up over it. Asking why I didn’t just keep my mouth shut? Why couldn’t I just keep my head down? Why can’t I toe the line like everyone else? I have looked at these aspects of myself as flaws especially since I have lost many, many a friendship over it. This year I have come to terms and have embraced my Inner Bitch and Now I let my Bitch flag fly with pride.

I still warn people that this is who I am. This is an intrinsic part of my personality and if I could change it then I wouldn’t be me. Sure I would love to have diplomatic skills and a very strong verbal filter and believe me I have gotten better over the years. However as I become closer to people and began to accept them for who they are and believe they do the same for me. I lose my filter, I no longer have the edit button. Here in lies the problem some people get very upset when that happens and I am left dumbfounded because I was simply just being myself.

While I can filter it is very difficult for me, it simply is just not in my nature. It like keeping a sports car in first gear. My only solution is that I have become much more insular. It is easier for me to filter if I am doing for shorter period of times and if I am not as emotionally close to the person. I then spend the bulk of my time with people who wholly and completely accept me for me. Then I can be like a sports car driving the open road untethered and free.

What does this mean? Well if you want the kind of friend that will tell you, that yes those jeans make you look fat than I am your girl. And if you can accept this aspect about me and Love for who I truly am with my flaws proudly on display then I will be you undying loyal friend to the end of time. This is who I am, this is what I am. I cannot change this aspect of myself no more than I can change my height or my sexual orientation. Believe me I have tried.

So when someone ends their friendship with me, over me being a Bitch that tells me that they never accepted me for who I truly am. Yes, I am Bitch and my friends don’t love me despite of it. The love me because of it. When no one else will give them an honest answer they come to me, because they know I will no matter how ugly the truth may be.

I never realized until recently that other people are not like that. I knew I was different but it never occurred to me HOW different. The concept of being anything OTHER than completely and utterly honest is Foreign to me. You don’t have to be a mind reader to know what I am thinking it is plain for all the world to see. FYI I SUCK AT POKER In the reverse I can usually tell what other people are thinking. Not in the Sookie Stackhouse kind of way more like the Diana Troy kinda way.

It is damn near impossible to hide anything from me. While I realize that because of this I make people very, very uncomfortable. It forces them to deal with deep seated issues that they may not be ready to work thru. I was told that I wield the truth as weapon. True, I can and have, however the truth can only be used as a weapon against deceit. Whether this deceit is internal delusion or external illusion.

This is who I am. Buyer beware! I am a Bitch and I am proud!

The following below is from a Tarot Website as the message was pretty Eye opening I am deciding to save it.

The Personal Tarot Cards

of

Sugar Cyanide

July 5, 19**

Your Personal Tarot Cards are listed below. Scroll down to read a brief description of each card. Click on the thumbnails to view larger images of the cards. It is important to remember that this is not a Tarot Spread. The selection of these cards is based upon your name and birth date. With the exception of the growth cards, your personal cards do not change. Cards that appear more than once in your personal set indicate that the influences they represent are a very powerful force in your life. 

Your Power Cards

Your Desire Cards

Your Core Cards

Your Growth Cards

Your Lucky Cards

Your Power Cards

represent strengths you were born with.

The Hierophant

The Magus

The Hierophant represents the protector of a culture’s heritage and traditions. His purpose is to defend and teach the established ways and beliefs a group embraces. He is inherently conventional and a true believer in the power of the group. He loves the structure of the group and its values. It is the task of The Hierophant to bring new members into the group—to prepare the uninitiated to take their rightful place in his culture. In this sense he is very much like a teacher or a priest. He also acts as the repository of his group’s history. The Hierophant is certainly not one to buck proper authority. However, he is staunch and worthy defender of the tried and true. He represents the positive aspects of conformity.

When The Emperor is among your personal cards, the influence of The Hierophant may be increased. Having The Fool or The Lovers in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Hierophant.

The Magus is the physical embodiment of decisive action based upon knowledge and aimed squarely at specific goals. While firmly set in the material world, he none-the-less has a powerful spiritual connection as well. His knowledge, wisdom and skill are all encompassing. He is complete. His power as a creator is unmatched on our earthly plane. He is self-aware and unafraid to act. His enormous strength gives him the freedom to act as he chooses. However, responsibility comes with that freedom. Because he is not bound to the restraints of others he must choose how to act. The question that always lies before him is should he act morally, or forsake ethics for personal gain.

When The Chariot is among your personal cards, the influence of The Magus may be increased. Having The Empress or Hanged Man in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Magus.

Your Desire Cards

focus on your ambitions and dreams.

The Chariot

The Empress

The Chariot is the representation of Victory and the personality traits required to attain victory. The Chariot indicates self-awareness and control. Courage—the ability to overcome fear and confront the unknown head on--is a primary ingredient of any victorious campaign and is denoted by the Chariot. So too is force of will. Often success is as much the product of will power and a refusal to surrender as it is anything else. The Chariot also represents the healthy personality of someone who believes in themselves; someone who can take control of the situation and bring events to a positive end. His successes come in competition with others.

When The Magus is among your personal cards, the influence of The Chariot may be increased. Having The Hanged Man or The Tower in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Chariot.

The Empress is “The Earth Mother” of the Tarot. She embodies all that is nurturing, clean and wholesome. Her powers resonate from her drive to create and care for life on a grand scale. She is in tune with Nature’s rhythm and realizes that life’s most pleasurable moments often stem from the simplest things. She is not afraid to enjoy herself--to let loose—to the point of being lavish. Abundance and luxury are important to her. The Empress is completely comfortable with her femininity and her sexuality. She is sensual, earthy, generous, and likes the good life. Still, her driving force is a need to create and nurture, and fulfilling this need overrides everything else.

When The Lover or The Star are among your personal cards, the influence of The Empress may be increased. Having the Emperor or Death in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Empress.

Your Lucky Cards

represent elements that favor you.

Strength

The Fool

Strength denotes an inner power, mastery of will and development of inner might. Through mastering one’s emotions and learning from both success and failure the person Strength represents has reached a place where they are influential without applying physical force, able to weather the roughest of storms, and not likely to abandon the less fortunate. Strength also denotes a large capacity for forgiveness and compassion. Strength is not as much about winning as it is about overcoming hardship, and using well crafted persuasion to ease others to your side.

When The Hanged Man is among your personal cards, the influence of Strength may be increased. Having The Chariot in your personal cards may diminish the influence of Strength.

This card represents the dreamer in you, the idealist, the mystic. The Fool desires to do great things, but is often unaware of just how difficult great things are to do. He must always be very careful of the choices he makes, and remember knowledge is his ally. The Fool often symbolizes a new beginning, unrestrained optimism, and curiosity that hasn’t been dulled by time. While The Fool may well indicate a lack of experience or grasp of the pitfalls along the path he is taking, it is equally true that his lack of experience leads him to believe all things are possible, which brings even impossible goals within his grasp.

When The Hanged Man or The Star are among your personal cards, the influence of The Fool may be increased. Having The Devil in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Fool.

Your Growth Cards

represent influences you will need to take advantage of over the next year to weave your way through life optimally.

The Lovers

The Fool

The Lovers indicates both the most powerful of unions and the most of challenging conflicts humans must face. On one side The Lover’s embodies love and union on a cosmic scale—a love so strong, so inherently good that it actually makes the lovers better, more than they really are. All of the elements are there for the perfect union. The Lovers represent all powerful unions in general, and the elements that create/sustain them. The problem The Lovers face is temptation and the decision to act morally or abandon their ethics to take advantage of other opportunities that would be defined as transgressions.

The Lovers' influence is increased when The Empress is among your personal cards. Having The Hierophant or The Hermit in your personal cards may diminish the influence of the Lovers.

This card represents the dreamer in you, the idealist, the mystic. The Fool desires to do great things, but is often unaware of just how difficult great things are to do. He must always be very careful of the choices he makes, and remember knowledge is his ally. The Fool often symbolizes a new beginning, unrestrained optimism, and curiosity that hasn’t been dulled by time. While The Fool may well indicate a lack of experience or grasp of the pitfalls along the path he is taking, it is equally true that his lack of experience leads him to believe all things are possible, which brings even impossible goals within his grasp.

When The Hanged Man or The Star are among your personal cards, the influence of The Fool may be increased. Having The Devil in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Fool.

Your Core Cards

represent your most basic traits--all that you are begins with the influences associated with these cards.

The Hanged Man

The Empress

The Hanged Man is the most enigmatic card of the Tarot. Even Tarot giants like Waite, Crowley and Levi had trouble deciphering The Hanged Man’s true meaning. Generally The Hanged Man is thought to represent the value of surrender and selfless acts. The Hanged Man embodies the notion that sometimes to lose is to win. Unlike the aggressive Chariot, The Hanged Man creates his fate through inaction and accepts his fortune passively, without resistance. He does not struggle to control the path his life takes, but rather allows events to sweep him where they will, even if he is called upon to sacrifice himself. He is so at ease with the Fate the Universe chose for him that even hanging upside down from a tree does not ruffle him.

When The High Priestess or Strength is among your personal cards, the influence of The Hanged Man may be increased. Having The Magus or Chariot in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Hanged Man.

The Empress is “The Earth Mother” of the Tarot. She embodies all that is nurturing, clean and wholesome. Her powers resonate from her drive to create and care for life on a grand scale. She is in tune with Nature’s rhythm and realizes that life’s most pleasurable moments often stem from the simplest things. She is not afraid to enjoy herself--to let loose—to the point of being lavish. Abundance and luxury are important to her. The Empress is completely comfortable with her femininity and her sexuality. She is sensual, earthy, generous, and likes the good life. Still, her driving force is a need to create and nurture, and fulfilling this need overrides everything else.

When The Lover or The Star are among your personal cards, the influence of The Empress may be increased. Having the Emperor or Death in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Empres

I wish I could have a mental tape recorded when I am figure modeling. I write whole article, blog post and even books in my head. However by the time I get home sometimes I have lost not only the train of thought but the whole subject about which I wanted to write.

Other times there is so much I want to say I am not sure where to begin. This is much more so with Witchy subject matter. So much has been written and said and yet so little with any real depth at a basic clean language.

Sometimes I watch vlog or read blog about "famous" Pagan authors and how wonderful they are and when I read their books I am looking for what is so wonderful about it? All of the books seem to be written with "Filler" words that say pretty and wonderful things but have NO Substance. Part of me wants to write scathing book reviews alas if I wish to be what I have set forth to become these very same authors could be my peers (some of them already are as there is quite a large writing community in St. Louis).

I have also thinking about the Law of Attraction and victimhood. I have never been one to subscribe to the "victim" personality and am becoming even less of a fan because of the Law of Attraction. I may have been hurt by others people actions but I take accountability for my actions that put me in the place to be hurt. I am no one's Victim for I am the creator of my own life. This is a really deep and heavy concept, but when you take responsibility for your actions, though hard, as can be extremely difficult, you realize that life is what you make it. So If you are unhappy with your life, then stop making it so. So Simple, yet very difficult. Like running a marathon, very simply just put one foot in front of the other, yet 26 and some change, miles later you know exactly how far you have come.

Another thing I have been thinking about is the voices in your head. If you listen closely you will be able to identify different parts of yourself and their voices. The Ego, the Id, Fear, Confidence, etc. Once you know which voice is which you can start to analyze what they are saying and why they are saying it. Once you truly understand the motivations behind these voices, behind Fear, Self Hate etc you can realize the patterns that you are in and IF they are unhealthy start to break them and IF the are healthy start understand why you do the things you do. You will start to ask yourself Why? and then you will find the answers.

Innocence and the loss of it has also been in my mind lately. Not the cliche of ones sexual innocence. Innocence, in that the world is mostly good. Innocence in the sense of a child not knowing true pain or hardship. I know that I had innocence at one time but I am not entirely sure when I lost it. I know at a very young age having a profound mistrust in Adults and deliberately telling them what I thought they wanted to hear. Knowing that I could not trust them with “whatever” truth it was at the time. I also remember trying my hardest to be invisible to adults, this being carried on to high school where the Dean of Students told my Mom that I must be a good child because he never had any interaction with me, I went to a small school less than 600 kids in the whole school. I still Mistrust and hide from Authority Figures.

These are just some of the deep thoughts that have been in my head recently. I am mulling them around and I sure I will expand on them. Making them into articles or Blog posts on their own at some point as of right now they are still percolating in my brain. What are you thoughts on these subjects?