lately...

...life's been so normal it's almost sad. i've had no big "aHA!" moments, no quirky little events which trigger larger thoughts, no major upheavals inspiring me to burn heaven to the ground once again. just...life.

it's actually kinda funny. i've been working with the avenging vulture goddess energy, walking in the shadows of kali and lilith for so long that a large part of me wonders if i'm not caught in a rut and should be whipping out my sickle, covering my body in war paint, and attack with vicious love anything remotely resembling stagnation in my life.

another part of me wonders if i haven't grown so accustomed to the death goddess energy that i'm not slightly addicted to the savage pruning that happens every time i burn heaven to the ground. what's wrong with dormancy? of letting lie fallow to rejuvenate, insulate, germinate...? winter is fast on autumn's heels, and everything goes to ground this time of year to hibernate. if i'm not mistaken, pruning at this time of year usually leads to the death of the plant, yes?

yet i'm still looking for things to hack off at the root with my sickle. i'm still looking for old ways to challenge, for destructive habits to gouge out. a part of me feels i'm failing, because i'm not finding much and my life is quiet.

the death goddess in me is kinda dismayed because there's nothing left to prune.

it's funny, if you think about it. there she is in me, sickle in hand, dreadlocks stiff on the ends with dried blood, bone bracelets and anklets rattling, thrumming in herself as the drums of war sound deep and fierce...and the battlefield's long since been emptied.

all that's left is green grass and the whispers of the fallen, with a lone flagpole bearing a white flag waving tiredly under the halfhearted winter sun.

and yet there's another part of me, a little more visceral, which i feel in that place behind my heart, and in my solar plexus, and just above my womb. it's more driving than any instinct, as if it's older than instinct. as if it invented instinct.

it's the need, the desire, the drive to create. it's almost savage, that wild and visceral feeling of the primal source. it's not as comforting as demeter the milksop who wept for her daughter night and day. it's more demeter the powerful, demeter the terrible, demeter the almighty who could withdraw her hand from the earth so nothing would grow...until the father of the gods himself had to come as supplicant at her feet. she would never let on that she needed to create as much as he needed her to create...but once she did stretch forth her hand again, it fed something within her that no one --not even her daughter persephone-- could touch.

that's how this is.

i was positively moved last night, undeniably. i literally jumped up, ran to my room, and took down the box containing the afghan i began crocheting last winter (which i never finished because *m* bought me the wool i was using, and i didn't even want to think about him). i took it up once more. and then i was moved again, and took out my dragon and da vinci tarot cards to work. i crave winter squash and vegetable soups. i crave my mexican culture, want to hear its music and sing its language. i sit at my computer and pound out paragraphs and paragraphs of the Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. i'm channeling reiki again.

it's pouring out of me almost as if i can't control it, like it has a will of its own and had grown impatient with me waiting for a time when the laundry's all done and the apartment's clean, when the dishes are put away, my bed is made, the marketing and article writing's done, the phone calls are over, the cat's been petted, i'm not driving someone somewhere... i made the realization not a week ago that i will never have the "extra" time to set aside for creating, for writing and crocheting, and i resigned myself to it.

it seems the whirlwind creatrix goddess within has other plans, and will not allow me to resign myself to leaving my creativity behind to die.

and so...i surrender. i am its conduit, and don't give a damn whether it's publishable, or beautiful, or marketable, or even reasonable. i'm not feeding publishers, or admirers, or buyers, or even the little logical voice inside my head. it's feeding something deeper, more ancient, and closer to my true Self. i'll let the avenger vulture goddess hibernate this winter, while the cozy warmth of my winter cave --stocked with stores for the long cold-- feeds the other goddess within.

so mote it be.