On Worshipping Gods People Believe Are Dead

On Worshipping Gods People Believe Are Dead

It’s winter, which means it is negative seventeen degrees outside, which means I’m on the rooftop burning incense again, prayer keeping my lips from freezing off. I hear Her tell me to go back inside before the cold makes me die up there, but I tell Her that She is fire enough- the sketch of a lion on a scrap of paper in front of me, the epithets scrawled in blue ink on my forearm where my long sleeves can hide them. Accidentally saying oh gods in class and pretending I just really love Rick Riordan. She finds me in my dreams and tells me She will be here when it is safe for me to worship Her but I shrug Her worries off, I am Her lion cub, I am young and still soft but I was built to survive. Remind Her the Gods- not just my Gods but the rest as well- are always calling out. This is resurrection by worship and my mother’s church does not feel holy. I call myself devotee, I call Her patron. Somewhere, a girl is learning to put claws on, the burden of life as a battle. Somewhere, Sekhmet is teaching them how to properly slash and stab, how to win a fight, and how to forget. Somewhere, a girl is learning how to love enough to hold her family together. Somewhere, Hethert is teaching her that it isn’t her job to keep wood from splintering. Somewhere, Serket is teaching her to be the stress on the beam if she has to be. To survive. Somewhere, Bast is teaching a woman how to love her strange, wonderful daughter. Right here, I light the candles with a lighter I stole from my father’s desk. I use my body to shelter the flame from the wind.

Homelessness and Polytheism

So, as of today I'm living out of hotels and my car. I'm still out a job. My altar setup is in storage, I have no home to sprinkle with water and fill with the scent of cedar. No stove to cook on, no fridge, my couch is in storage, my BOOK COLLECTION. It's.... I should be panicking more than I am. I don't know why I'm not. Part of the worst of it, for me, is the lack of sacred space. I don't have a home to connect my gods to. I'd see Nuska in the glow of my bedside lamp, Gibil in my oven that doubled as a kiln. I would greet Nanna when I saw him as I drove into the parking lot, and the nearby park had a stream where I'd done rites for Dumuzid and Geshtinanna. Gula had a votive statue on my altar, and I always had some sort of offering laid out for my personal gods. I had Nisaba's written cuneiform name (since she is the written word) in the most important place in my living room. But it's not like I'm going to roll over and quit. These are my gods. I am their servant. Even when I'm an uprooted disaster of a human being with little to offer, I can still offer a cup of water and a few words of heartfelt praise. This new chapter is going to be tough. I'm going to meet it with everything I've got, and I pray that my gods see and approve of my efforts. I have promises to keep, and I'll meet my potential even if I have to claw my way up. My gods, my goddesses, I think I relate more to Enheduanna now than I ever have. If all I have to offer is a cup of water and my own words, then that's what I'll do.

Silim! I'm so happy to have found your blog, and even moreso to see I'm not the only Meso polytheist here in America. Reading over everything has made me feel a lot more connected with my own beliefs as well as this little community, so thanks for existing!

You’re definitely not the only one! I’m doing my best to let other people know we’re here, I was convinced I was on my own too. Stay awesome out there, anon. I’m glad I could help.

Her name is hidden in the words spoken and the history lost to time She manifests in the writer’s ink and the count of the years Her body is the pen and the page and all the tools of the scribe Dua Seshat Dua Netjeret ink Sd-nTr.t

Somebody once told me

That a haiku is not real poetry.

I felt a coil of scales unfurl in my stomach,

fangs unlatch from my throat

As blood pooled on my tongue

And claws itched in frail human hands.

My laughter Is the three-page magnum opus

Full of brief ink-stained kisses

And a twelve-point Times New Roman coup.

I do declare.

Signed-

One blue blooded pen

Gushing visceral spurts of

Silver-tongued delight.

I think tonight I want to tell you a story.

It's not exactly an unusual story, it's just one that has stuck with me. I'm sure this site is full of closet stories, underdog stories, social justice and bully victim stories. I'm not even sure where to start, with this, since it hits all four of those and more.

I come from a small town in the southwestern United States, where the most interesting thing to do is either drink or comment on the weekly flood of stench from the beef packing plant. Nobody moves in, and slightly more than "nobody" moves away. The schools are small, and I later figured out that they're on the national shitlist of places to get an education. It doesn't surprise me too much. The teachers were good and tried their best, but. It still doesn't surprise me.

I was bookish, white in a Hispanic town, timid, and had all the mass of a particularly useless paperweight. I didn't hit puberty until we moved away, either, so I had several years of locker room talk and kiss-and-tell bragging to sit through, utterly confused by the pictures of half naked boyfriends and dick pics shoved in my face like I was supposed to give them a Yelp rating. I didn't have friends, really, but I did have books. The only thing I had over my bullies was better grades, so I clung to that and tried to turn the insults into badges of honor.

This was when AR testing was big. You had to fill out tests to prove you read books, and reading books earned you points. Most people read the bare minimum necessary, some people didn't. I devoured the library like it was a homemade brownie and didn't come up for air until I had to. I got actual complaints about the number of points I was earning. The teachers said I'd filled my quota, I could stop anytime, but honestly? I forgot to take the tests 30% of the time.

There was a leaderboard that listed the people with the most reading points. I knew my name was on there, and yeah I was a little proud, but mostly I was more concerned about surviving PE. After a certain amount of school assemblies though, even oblivious people pick up on patterns. I was neck-and-neck with another girl. For the sake of the narrative, let's call her Emma. I didn't pay her much mind, beyond maybe a little competitive streak.

I still recognized her when she came up to me at lunch and invited me to sit with her group.

Keep in mind, I was the stereotype. I was that one sheep booted from the herd and heckled by wolves on a daily basis. I honestly was shocked, and then for the rest of lunch I was shaking, but I sat with them and alternated between stilted mumbling or shivering silence. Thus began a beautiful friendship.

And, over the years of inside jokes and emotional support, thus began an utterly doomed crush.

Her religious and cultural background aside, I never actually planned to act on it. It never actually struck me that it was a crush until my last year in that town. Any gay stuff I'd ever been exposed to was either as a rare comedy stereotype, or in my dad's philosophy tapes. Romance wasn't really in the picture for me. Sex was some sort of strange cryptid sorcery that drove humanity mad, my parents seemed to have made a match based on attractiveness and professional standing. It's just part of being an adult, getting married, right? That's what you do, sort of a natural progression towards being a successful person. Girls date boys and make out in cornfields, get pregnant before they can get higher education, and they all live drunkenly ever after in ugly little houses. Nowhere in that picture did it account for blushing, emotional bonding, and finding someone beautifully entrancing without heavy cleavage or wide hips and a need to see their underwear.

I did get hit with the evils of hormones after we moved away, and that was enlightening. I did, eventually, email her. After I figured myself out, why I'd never seen boys as potential dates and that my type is apparently "pretty eyes and a waist dip". To make things more mortifying, I came out to her TWICE. The first time, I was confessing my doomed crush and she politely told me I would find a lovely girlfriend someday. The second time was years later, by which time I think she'd forgotten and it came up in conversation. It was terrible both times, except for the part where she accepted me no matter what.

I've been watching TED talks and various videos on coming out, because this is what I do when bored. I know my stance on the subject. I've run into several of the common fears, the strange language, rejections, the "tell your stepbrothers she's just a friend". I'm never telling my mom unless I get engaged. My dad knows, and doesn't really believe me because I don't ogle boobs on a regular basis. My stepmom knows, and seems fine with letting sleeping dragons lie so long as I don't mention the Gay Lifestyle near her kids. I'm not out to the rest of my family because I want their respect, I want my cousins to come to me if they need me, and I feel like they won't if they know.

So I sit in my car and read about gay people getting lynched in the next county over, and draw comparisons between the locks on my gay closet and my pagan "broom closet". I don't wear religious symbols. I don't wear rainbows. I job hunt and read the fine print on every application to be sure they legally can't fire me for being me, and I keep my mouth shut with a smile. I go to church with my mom in the morning, and I go to pagan meetings the same afternoon, and when I get home I light incense for the Dingir in an apartment that I share with my girlfriend, where I see confederate flag bumper stickers parked outside.

I live dangerously. Pepper spray can't really protect you from someone deciding not to allow the renewal of your apartment lease, unfortunately, but it's still nice to feel the weight of it in my purse.