Who Bones is...

... a girl, usually. Like when it's convenient, which is most of the time. That means I often present as a woman. But my core is ambiguous, or maybe androgynous. If I need a label, the best one is genderqueer. Let's go with that.

... fragile, but not weak. I'm a survivor, despite being overly sensitive to the moods of my loved ones and fluctuations in my environment.

~

I'm also Eala Magee.

~

The nickname, Bones, actually came from something completely... what's the word?... irrelevant to anything meaningful. Inconsequential. A few years later, Archer and Hela gave the name meaning for me.

How I first acquired the nickname: The Army, you may be aware, is overly fond of alpha-numeric labeling systems. While I was overseas, I headed a two-person team that was labeled "B1". B-one. Get it? Yeah.
That year, needed a screen name for a website (OKcupid, if you must know), I used "humanbones" on a whim. Because I was a human intelligence collector called Bones.

Ok, so that was in 2007.
In 2011, I started dating Archer. Not so terribly long into our relationship, we were bickering about something via text (highly NOT recommended as a strategy for constructive argument, by the way), and I asked him (I hope I'm remembering this correctly) why he cared about whatever it was. He responded "because I love you down to my bones."
It was the first "I love you" of our relationship.

He had already taken to calling me Bones because of my screen name on OKcupid (we met via that website). After his "down to my bones" statement, it became a thing. I started using "Bones" elsewhere, just because it made me think of him and smile.

Later, well... I already wrote a whole post about Hela's influence on me. No sense in re-inventing the wheel. Or re-writing the blog. Whichever.  And the connection with my nickname... well, I had to get stripped down to my bones, psychologically, in order to 'fix' myself. More on why that's connected with Hela, here.


These days, I'm ... well, I'm tempted to say I'm a different person, but that doesn't quite ring true. I'm sure it seems that way from the outside, but on the inside I'm the same person I've always been. Only, without the false front I used to have. Without all the fear. Now, the inside matches the outside.

~

So, what does that outside look like? A painter, a writer, student, an aspiring psychologist and anthropologist, a pagan working with Hela, Odin, Sretya, Epona, and - unexpectedly - Bast. I talk to my dogs and my cat, who make me happy; they respond one way or another, for better or worse. I have only been without horses twice in my life - this is one of those times, and it makes me sad. I'm without a motorcycle, too, which also makes me sad. But I'm also a lover: anam cara to Archer, and girlfriend to Doc, and those things make me happy. Music makes me happy too.

These things have always been there, at least in potential; now others can see them too.

I don't know this guy.

I just found this video on youtube.

He's not a great dancer,

but he's better than many

and he looks like he's having fun.

I had fun watching him.

Maybe you will too.

[This moment of reflection has been brought to you by my upcoming first blogoversary, which will be 18 January. Blog party? Maybe. Let me get through finals first.]

self-renewal and repurposing my home

I've been quiet of late, I know.
I'm reordering my life. I'm focusing more on my relationships - with my child, with myself, with my gods, and with my loves - and I'm reorganizing my house, so that it will be more of a sanctuary - for my child, myself, my gods, and my loves. That's what I've always sought in a home; that's what I will create, here, for the first time in my life. A sanctuary, gestalt.

~

Odin seems to have taken up permanent residence on my altar. I think I need to make him an altar of his own, so I can retain the general-usefulness of the one current altar in my house. I'm not sure, yet, where I'll put it. Probably in my bedroom somewhere. But I need my altar for other work.

~

Yesterday I spent a large-ish chunk of time contemplating ways to make my home stronger, less malleable to the expectations of others. Hmm, I suppose that requires some explanation.

Here's the thing: I wouldn't have thought of this if it hadn't happened. I'm still not totally sure it isn't coincidental, but the more I think about it, the more my doubt fades. It just doesn't make sense any other way.

Every night, my dogs sleep soundly from the time I go to sleep (or earlier), until I wake up in the morning, and I wake them up by opening my bedroom door. Frequently, me opening my door only wakes up Bella, the younger of the two dogs. I have to intentionally rouse Roxy, my old lady dog, to get her up for her morning potty break. And every day, my child sleeps until at least 8am, if not 9am. I am always the first one awake in my house. On the rare occasions that I oversleep, the dogs stay quiet, waiting for me and snoozing, while Child plays quietly in their room. If I oversleep, it's because (I'm exhausted, and) the house is quiet enough that I can. In the mornings, as I get close to waking, I sleep very lightly indeed.

Every time that Archer spends the night, something happens to disturb our sleep. The dogs have a coughing fit (I'm lookin at you, Bella, with the one ticklish hair caught in your throat), or they've eaten something that disagreed with them (oh Roxy the Ravenous) and are loudly vomiting all over my carpet (really, you couldn't at least aim for the tile?). Or Child wakes up at the crack of dawn, and knocks on my door because "it's morning, Mama!" W.T.F. household. Why you gotta be like that? And why do you only do this shit when Archer is... here? Oh....

There has to be a reason. Archer and I have been together almost two years - the longevity of this issue makes me really think it's not a coincidence, any more. Maybe it was at first, but not after so long. It has become... habitual. And why is that? It could be that Child and my dogs feel a change in the household when Archer is here. It could be. But... that doesn't feel like it's a strong enough variable to be independent. Their energy is unfocused, reactive but not driven. Archer's energy, on the other hand, is Driven. He is powerful, whether he means to be or not. His expectations have a way of coming true.

So I think that my house needs to be given a purpose. It needs direction of its own, and the energy to resist the expectations of anybody who isn't Me. It's My house, dammit. As I contemplated how to do this, Sretya seemed to come back out of the mists. Of course - homes are her thing. In hindsight, that's probably why she didn't want to be involved in my recent spellwork that opened the door for Odin coming into my life. It was to help something that was outside my home, and outside my household. Duh.

Anyway, that's why I need the only altar I have, back. Odin is here, so with his and Sretya's approval, I'll include him in the ritual, In fact, with the approval of all three, I'll include Hela, Odin, and Sretya, each for their own reasons. But, Sretya is the power behind this upcoming work. Hela and Odin are there for me, in their ways, but Sretya is there for the home. The altar will need to reflect that. And Odin needs his own. Maybe Hela does too - I'll ask.

Once I complete this work, I'll get back to working on learning the tarot and the 78 days project, and re-learning the runes.

I'll keep you posted.

s is for Sretya

A little over a year ago, I began a new spiritual path with the goddess Sretya. I didn't know much about her at the time. I still don't feel as though I know enough. There's precious little information available online, and less in texts which are available in English, and on amazon. She's one who has been relegated to the dreaded repeating paragraph, much-copied but never cited:

"DOLYA, SRETYA, SRECHA

(doh-lya | sret-yah | srech-ah) goddess of good fortune and luck, bringer of joy and happyness, assistant of the household and welfare goddess Makosh. Sryashta is represented as a gold-curled maiden, who, just like Makosh, often spins golden yarn. Inside it she weaves people's fate or better - the good parts of their fate. Often Sryashta travells around the world and can appear before everybody - once as a girl, once as a boy. She would request a small favour, ask this or that and, if the man is good, helpful and respectful, she gives him good luck. If the man is peppery, unobliging or say bad words for gods, Sryashta turns her face off him and happiness hever comes to such person. Dolya is the East-Slavic variant of South-Slavic Sryashta."

That's one of the more robust versions, which I found here. 

More commonly, this is the precise paragraph I found: 

"Sreća (English: happiness, luck, also spelled Sretya, pronounced "srech-ah") is a Serbian goddess of fate.

She spins the thread of life, as an assistant to the great Goddess Makosh. Her role is the same as the Slavic Goddess Dolya, bringing luck to those Makosh smiles upon, except that she was also responsible for protecting the flocks and fields of farmers. Her name is also seen as Sreca, Sretja, and Sretya."

Yep, good ol' Wikipedia. At least that one cited its source... which didn't have any additional information, nor did it give any indication of its source(s). 

Le sigh.

At times, she seems to be conflated with a Domovoi...

Note where this blogger said Sretya (Dolya) lives. 

"Dolya (pronounced DOLE-yah) is the Slavic Goddess of luck. She is said to live behind the stove in the family home. When she is happy, she appears as a beautiful young maiden and bestows good luck on all the inhabitants of the house." 

To compare: 

"Domovoi

The protector of the house. Every home had its own domovoe who dwelled behind the oven and who might abandon the house if he was not properly honored. The Domovois protected not only the human inhabitants of the house but their herds and household animals as well."

I have to wonder, after seeing these, if Sretya wasn't confused with Domovoi in both where she lived (behind the stove seems like a very unlikely place for such a mobile and happy goddess) and in her domain - note the barely-paraphrased wording describing her protection of farmers' production as repeated in the Domovoi description. 

~

Each of these, trying vainly to be a primary source, fails to cite their sources in any capacity. I'm not even necessarily looking for academic citations, just something  to indicate their legitimacy; even "my grandma told me so" would work. 

~

So here's a little of my own UPG/semi-educated guesses: 

Sretya is life - the nurturing side of fate. She is warm as a sunny day, but though endlessly kind, she does not suffer fools. Her mercy is in leaving, which she will do with a smile on her face, pity in her heart, and a song on her lips. 

She's difficult for me to work with, primarily due to my difficulties with negative thoughts. She's there, smiling at me, but I have trouble letting go of those things which keep me from being happy, and thereby keep me from fully embracing life. Obviously, it's worth the work for me to keep trying. 

I haven't yet found any literature referencing any sort of animal connections with her, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if she were fond of otters, dogs, or songbirds.