As far back as I can remember into my childhood, I wanted to live a life free from regrets. Now that I am in my 40’s I have a rather large number of them, but I also do not feel like I let myself down. When I said “free from regrets”, what I really meant was “wouldn’t go back to change it if I could.” Accumulating regrets is a natural part of living, and although I do regret how things turned out now and again, I respect and understand all my choices that led up to those things. I can’t think of a single one where I look back and genuinely wish I had made another choice.
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One of the community agreements of Between the Veils is accountability. When the closing ceremony of The Gathering Paths 2022 included aspects that were predictably triggering for those with Christian religious trauma, I expected BTV to adhere to its principles of accountability. Instead, here I am six months later, explaining how an otherwise amazing event was spoiled by hypocrisy and lack of integrity.
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This past weekend a box was found in the back shed at my partner’s parent’s home. This box, thought long gone, had been missing since a move twenty years ago, and it contained almost all my magical tools and altar supplies at the time. I would have been homeless at the time if not for my chosen family. What belongings I kept went into the garage, apparently except for this one box, turning it into a personal time capsule of my magical practice at the age of 23.
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I realized that I had moved on from my childhood trauma, but I never went back to validate and heal who I was at the time. Essentially, I treated that me exactly the way they had been taught to expect the world to treat them – with utter and complete abandonment. No more. ALL of me deserves validation and healing, and so I am making the dedication on this full moon to accept and nurture the younger me.
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Deluding yourself, lying to yourself, might seem bad, but it can feel amazingly good. It allows us to have hope and feel good about bad situations, helps to cushion the psyche against ongoing trauma and abuse, and helps us keep equilibrium in difficult situations.
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Gatekeeping gender terms is patently harmful, because it also erases and denies the gender experiences of people the gatekeepers feel do not “qualify”. Gender transcends the sex and the sex traits a person is born with, and so too must gender terms.
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I must apologize that things have been so quiet around here lately, and even quieter over at The Balancing Path on Patheos Pagan. Part of that is due to the tasks involved in moving The Balancing Path to this site, but there are many reasons for lack of posts, including my health.
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How the concept of “don’t speak ill of the dead” is typically utilized is fraught with dismissal and erasure. Every time someone problematic dies, it is nearly inevitable to hear statements of “don’t speak ill of the dead,” but who does that idea serve? What benefit does it have? Certainly, if we want to learn from the past and honor those who have been harmed by people now deceased, we must speak honestly of the dead, even if being honest means speaking ill.
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I am in a weird place emotionally right now, and in many ways I am struggling. I am wrestling with the demons of old trauma response as I try to find joy, hope, and brevity in my life. Like any time I struggle with trauma response, it is ugly, painful, messy, and difficult. There is no one answer to the problem of finding joy and alleviating the trauma, especially right now.
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I am a very strong proponent of Accountability Culture. Accountability is key to personal and community growth, healing and reconciliation, and achieving peaceful intersectional inclusion. Accountability Culture is to Cancel Culture, what Call-In Culture is to Call-Out Culture, in that it holds people responsible for their words and actions, while also providing the opportunity for growth, change, and reconciliation before bringing down the hammer of ultimate judgement and banishment on those who refuse to be accountable.
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