Witches, Warlocks and other Narcissistic beings….Plus a poem.

“Viriditas”, wc, janekohut-bartels, 2000

–

 

ODE TO A COOPERS HAWK

 

Come to me.

Come to me,

Winged celestial beauty.

Come to me with your notched

Mermaid tail,

Your silken roll of feathers.

Fly down into my hollowed-out soul,

Fill me with your sun-warmed glory

Nestle in my arms

And bring the curve of the horizon

Embraced in your outstretched wings.

 

I need no white bearded prophet,

No mumbled prayer, no gospel song

No witchy woman, no charms or spells,

No hard church bench, no fast or

Festival to feel close to the Divine.

 

 

The glory of the universe,

Is embodied in your flight

As you tumble through heavens,

Ride the invisible thermals

Screech with joy at freedom

Fill your lungs with thin air

And play bumper car with an Eagle.

 

I, earthbound,

No hollowed bones to launch me,

Just tired soul to weigh down,

No soft plumage to feel the course

Of wind through glossy feathers

No hunting call to herald my presence.

 

Still my soul takes flight

The breeze lifts my spirit,

My eyes follow you,

And we will find that glory

Transcend a sullen earth,

Transcend a mean humanity

And soar together into the blue eye of God.

–

‘Ode To A Cooper’s Hawk’ is from “Pitcher of Moon” Poems of Gratitude and Blessings, to be published soon. 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2012-13 

 

Witches, Warlocks and Other Narcissistic Beings…

Recently  we were sitting around talking, a few women of an advanced  age and with lots of life experience.  We were talking about some experiences that didn’t sit well with us, generally of the religious or spiritual kind. 

Some felt battered by experiences earlier on in Christianity. One woman was a Jew and had left that faith.  One woman had considered herself a witch when she was younger and  was part of a well-known coven here.  She also left that after a decade, and we settled upon this discussion. 

Readers of this blog know that I have fled the religious fundamentalism of part of my family.  It has shown itself to be a punitive religion in the hands of people I now consider to be part of this narcissistic ball of wax.   Nothing good here, except a continuation of the power and control and contempt of the chief narcissist.  The apples don’t fall far from the tree, and there is comfort for them in this.  Ignorance and cruelty of minds, too.   I was looking for something a bit kinder, something that didn’t batter over the head.

The good news is I have found a spiritual ‘place’, not a religious place, in the writings of Caitlin Matthews, and especially her book “Celtic Devotional”, which is an approach to the spiritual through a combination of animistic spirituality of earlier times and from the Celtic  Christianity that developed out of this foundation. I have grown to understand this more, and it has become a great inspiration (or conduit) into my own nature and spiritual poetry.  A more recent beginning study of Shintoism has added to this. One must feel open and relaxed and welcomed in any spiritual study. I certainly didn’t find that in a Calvinist fundamental religion.  I felt what was intended: diminished and a particular battering.  But perhaps that is all one can expect from certain Bible wielders.

However, years ago, I did attend some Wicca meetings, travelling far out and returning in the black of night. It was weird.  Most of the witches and warlocks were garbed in strange costumes, like at some festival.  They frowned a lot.   And, they were not taking questions.

A few short years ago, my husband and I attended a Beltane festival.  We sent in our $120.00 and got our admittance vouchers by mail.  When we got there they had no record that we had applied.  This was not a great beginning, but was mostly just something to work out. It would get worse.

As we drove down the road, on our right we saw what appeared to be pale boulders.  It was a woman, probably over 500 pounds sitting naked in a field.  In a way, it was intriguing, not for her nakedness, but because just of the sheer mass of human flesh.  I hoped she was sitting on a blanket because later we found that red ants were prominent in these fields.  But this was also disturbing because it was clear she was on display.  It wasn’t her nakedness on display, it was the sheer mass of her.  But why?

The issues with this Beltane festival were to come.  I was a belly dancer and one who, along with a tribe of Urban/Rom dancers, was to dance that night. Although we have different forms of dance and very different costumes, I was excited to work with other bellydancers.  This was the positive part.

What wasn’t positive was the attitude of the Witches officiating.  There was a big area for the firepit  that night, and we were directed to walk this large circle and clean out any stones or pebbles so people would not injure their feet.  I was game, and talked with people by my side.  Immediately a witch (let me call her a bitch here) yelled at me to ‘be quiet’.  This was to be done in silence.  I thought about this and decided:  No.  It was a boring task, one I did not have to do, so I would get to know some of the other people there.  And people also felt that this witch was oppressive.  It got worse.

Obviously the witches decided that they would not mingle with us mortals…and had their own roped off showers and bathrooms.  The other bathrooms were outhouses that hadn’t been cleaned in years.  They were unusable. Disgusting.  The smell would kill you.  These witches also saw fit that they would not eat with us attendees.  They segregated themselves off somewhere else.

It became rather laughable.  They might have organized this festival, but they were clearly lifting themselves above and beyond the rest of us…and there were about 200 people there.  There were programs, for lack of anything else to call them…where the witches would choose who would attend.  They stood outside  the large tents and IF you approached, and found not on their lists, you would be rejected.  It got to be a game and we had to make a decision whether to leave or not.  It just didn’t make any damn sense.  It was all an issue of power and control of these women, and it smacked of narcissism.  We guessed this was their time to feel powerful. Ugh.  And where did they get their authority???  It was damned oppressive and just ….well, silly.

However, we didn’t leave. It was a long 2 hour trip back to our home, and we decided that the evening would have to be better.  It was, but not because of any witchy presence.  The drummers, about 15, sat up on a hill over the fire pit and were marvelous.  Pipers, tambourines,  some Spanish sounding guitarists with a lot of amplification just made the music great.  The fire in the pit was huge…we dancers danced around the fire for quite a while, but it is hard to walk constantly and dance the belly dance moves we are taught. Plus, the fire was HOT!  But we stayed, enchanted by the musicians and the nicer Warlocks.  These men were not so pompous as the witches.  They were rather sweet, interested in our dance forms, our costumes (and with some of the dancers…their LACK of costumes….).  I danced for around 8 hours, falling easily into Hyper arousal Trance.  My husband finally had to lead me out of the trance and back to where we had pitched our tent.  He saw the signs. 

We slept in our opened up sleeping bags, under a night time sky with so many stars above that I couldn’t sleep.  No moon, but I hadn’t seen so many stars before.  City lights take their numbers away, dull their brilliance, but here they were filling the bowl of night above us.  It was something I will never forget.

During that night, we heard some screams and a lot of shouting from down in the valley.  In the morning we found out  one of the main witches had a meltdown and attacked another witch.  We decided it was time to leave.  The police had been called. Rather a sorry ending for this hallowed festival of Beltane.

Even though we were now over any interest in Wicca, and we knew this  Beltane celebration was a farce,We were still uplifted by the music and stars from the night before.  We had to pull something positive out of the hat.

Lady Nyo

 

 

“Slave Fire in the Belly” Part II

Oh, this is not going to be popular.

How can one hold to the scientific basis of Athene’s argument

and at the same time feel this:

“A woman is a helpless prisoner of her sexuality.”

But there it is. Is this an argument for Natural Order??

I don’t think so…but who knows. I just feel…or know somehow deep in my belly…or lower thereabouts…that most of us do recognize our desire to be acknowledged as deeply female…and do things, naturally without consciously thinking, or perhaps consciously doing so…

That we bend Heaven and Hell, to express that feminine nature…when we find a man opposite ourselves, who is strong and attractive enough and intelligent. We sent out ‘signals’…perhaps challenging them to ‘prove it to us’ that they ARE strong, will protect us from pitbulls and flying glass, etc. Perhaps we constantly test them…because we must have this security. This assurance that they really are worthy of our submission or service or whatever you call it.

Our power, as women….lies in part in our ability to seduce…to utilize our feminine power to impact with our beauty, wit and intelligence.

Lately I have been feeling this sentiment very strongly as a dancer.  I realized recently that I was not just learning bellydance for the pure ‘joy’ of sore muscles and a strained back, but because I realized these movements reached something very deep in me…something dark and primal and sexual.  It reached into a core of femininity that I hadn’t understood before.  It is not just for myself that I dance, but to express the essence of me.  I am a woman in full power when I dance.

And that power opens me sexually.  I am strong and totally female when I dance.

Also recently I wondered if it was ‘proper’ to dance with such ‘openness’…even to thinking of these objectives?  Well, belly dance is a dance of seduction, and we can call it ‘birth movements’ all we want, but in the beginning… and the end, it is all about our seductive feminine power.  The beauty of expressing the essential female.

Perhaps we aren’t so helpless after all. Perhaps we are more powerful than we imagine. Perhaps with our seductive abilities, hell the essence of our femininity…we make prisoners of men.

Lady Nyo

OBEDIENCE

You,
scowl deeply,
I,
continue to
dance around
aware
of annoying.

La, La,
silly, silly
woman,
whirling
around
a dervish,
arms touching
your territory
mindful
of grimace.
pushing the
boundaries
of your nature.

Oh! such
a witless tease,
provoking
your anger
I continue
my revolving.

Enough!
You growl,
forcing
me still
within
the corral
of your arms
and

slyly I smile

wanting
my orbit
dissolved
into your own.

janekohutbartels
Copyrighted, 2008

What is Submission?

We had some discussion a while back about submission, but it wasn’t completed. Because of further private discussion I am raising it again, thought it will make some groan. Tant pis.

Friends (and some enemies) know that I have struggled to come to a place with this issue. A year ago I started some research/discovery, and was caught up in so many harrowing issues. I either fought it/denied it/tried to manipulate it/disown it…sometimes all at the same time. I just couldn’t get a handle on it.

Part of the problem I believe was I came to the ‘subject’ late in life. I’m no spring chicken. I also have had to be very dominant in my life before. Some know that because of some particular work I carried a gun. That will impact your ideas about yourself, even if you have no idea of submission. Coming upon this issue of submission, I really struggled…still do. My husband was of no help at all. He was hoping any D/s issue would fly by and I would come to my senses. Well, I didn’t…..and once that became obvious to him, he started to get interested…in part of being a dominant. But there was a lag of almost two years and I went through a lot. I admit I have resentment towards him today because instead of partnering with me in this investigation…he ignored it. He’s interested now because he knows that this issue is sticking around, and underneath it all, he’s a very traditional man, with some real dominancy in him. Before I thought he was just stubborn. Now I know its purpose.

He’s a man….and he’s not broken.

I have come to the conclusion that submission can take many forms…not just the stuff we see and read about. I have to be careful, because I am reading the Gor books from the first onwards. There are some very seductive parts of Norman’s philosophy that make me double up..and not with laughter. There is this issue of submission and submission that is slavery, and some of it hits my gut hard. Perhaps it’s the overpowering presence of a strong male with power and control at his command. I don’t know, but I do know that we live in a real world, and men just aren’t like Norman’s sexy characters.

(And..sex has so much to do with it. I was thinking last night how wonderful that our genitals basically never wear out. Maybe our desire for our particular partners does, but our apparatus keeps going like the energizer bunny. At all ages…in fact..as I grow older, the sexual interests and desires reveal themselves to have different levels and a zest for adventure. That’s the good news. I was told so by a Dom I respect this is true. He’s in his 60’s and doesn’t seem to have any flagging yet.)

However…..I have noticed a change in my behavior for a while now. Before, faced with a dominant man, I would get mouthy and challenge him. I seemed to ‘have’ to reestablish my own power in light of what was in front of me. Now? Well, perhaps it’s a more ‘natural’ thing….

but if a man is truly powerful…I am amazed and I find myself reacting in a much different way. I feel more feminine. I feel that I don’t have to challenge him. And if I get to know him a bit….I assume that he will ‘protect’ me. Don’t ask me from what….pitbulls, flying glass, but that he just will.

A lot of men rail against feminism and the women’s movement for changing women from more traditional behaviors and in the doing..changing men. Confusing them. I think this is too shallow an answer to what shifted, happened, changed, between men and women over the last few decades. Economics and social pressures happened…women worked and had to for survival…and that of their families. Divorce, etc. All sorts of social changes happened.

John Norman talks about something called Natural Order…I’m not going to open a discussion here about that today, but perhaps if there is interest later…ok. (I find that there are numerous Goreans reading this site, though they rarely show their faces, but my stats show they are coming from Gorean sites or whatever…)

A lot of people in D/s blame women for being bossy, but from where I sit…men are just too lazy. Many like the fact that they don’t have to put forth any effort to ‘head the household’. I see this in many cultures, not only my own. They are broken men.

So, what is submission to you? I am getting a better idea what it is to me….but damn if it still isn’t so sexual.

I guess I just can’t get my hands out of my crotch.

Lady Nyo