Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

180 from Convention

If it wasn't enough that I'm part of a dying breed of witch on the verge of extinction (MUD PIT, IRON TEETH CANNIBALISTIC CRONES UNITE! <- living and operating out of a hut on fowl legs is completely optional!) I'm also painfully solitary to the point of unwelcoming; I work alone, learn alone, experience alone and sit on my secrets like a golden hoard, hissing at anyone who gets too close, asks too many questions or attempts to follow by partially obscured example.

(There's a reason why bone crunching, entrail reading fairytale hags don't have Facebook fan clubs. Then again, this bone crunching, entrail reading fairytale hag isn't even on Facebook, so that's pure speculation on my part on the sisterhood of anti-social crones.)

Even on the faceless, nameless internet I stick out like a sore thumb. (COULD IT BE THE CAPS? THE DOUBLE NARRATIVE? THE INABILITY TO REIGN IN JOKES THAT ONLY MAKE SENSE TO ME?) No matter how hard I try to be the inconspicuous wallflower pretending to be completely engrossed in studying wallpaper patterns in a social situation (forums, communities, mailing lists) I can't help but feel like I'm exuding the giveaway scent of "anomaly".

I'm simple, unsophisticated. My instinct is primitive and animal-like. I work with what I have - what's given to me - and spend my days high and schizophrenically connecting dots to find the repeating patterns hiding in my daily life. My hands are soiled from blood and earth and urine and death, my fingers are scared with white lines of accidental offerings. (TYPICAL ACCIDENT PRONE ARIES; EITHER BRUISED ON THE LIMBS OR BLEEDING FROM THE HANDS.)

I'm a witch, but I'm not pagan. I worship, I pray, I ask for intervention, for understanding, for results, but when I wring my hands and kneel in agony or ecstasy, I bow my head and beseech my subconscious. I'm Divine yet human, God but mortal. I laugh inexplicably, I cry inexplicably; my emotions crash through me like ceremony, like ritual. Everything - all that I am, all that I want, all that I will become, all that I'm capable of - comes from me.

The more I meet witches and pagans and magicians and conjurers and eavesdrop on preexisting conversations (or spectacularly crash them, more often than not killing the topic or thread with several caps locked words) the more I feel myself shrinking back with a silent "oh"; alienation and ostracization comes easy when you're naturally paranoid and living in a world that (seemingly) is a 180 from convention, even by witchcraft/occult standards.

I'm not saying that I'm solely unique in my beliefs and actions. There are other witches who aren't pagans, there are other workers who believe in Nature but not "Gaia", there are other people who don't worship gods and goddesses but identify them as aspects or archetypes of self (to be venerated and absorbed). I just feel that I inadvertently tick a few more of the "LOL, WTF?" boxes than the average "witch", inevitably shuffling me into a descriptively gray limbo (i.e., "ARROGANT", "CHILD-LIKE" and "SIMPLE").

I suppose what I'm trying to say - BADLY, VERY, VERY BADLY (<- headache from not drinking enough water and also still skirting the fringes of "sick") - is that I don't feel I have a lot of common ground with what are, ostensibly, my peers. When someone poses a question encouraging interaction I get stupidly excited and spend several days arranging and rearranging mental lists and by the time I've scribbled a rough outline of what I want to say, of what I want to contribute, the conversation's evolved to "...BUT OF COURSE ANYONE WHO DOES XXX IS FOOLISH OR NAIVE OR PLAYING A VERY DANGEROUS GAME NOT FULLY UNDERSTANDING THE CONSEQUENCES."

The problem is, my hyperactive contributions always seem to fall under the categories above - "foolish", "naive" and "playing a very dangerous game not fully understanding the consequences." And when the overwhelming majority is already against you before you even have a chance to launch into your demonstration it creates an awkwardly introspective (and ultimately silent) atmosphere - at least for the person who's not playing the game by the standard rules.

When someone recently asked what the "horned god" meant to others I found myself blindly groping behind myself to find a fissure in the wall to disappear in. (Thankfully I'm an unseen, unheard presence on the mailing list, so my lack of involvement wasn't even noticed.) Horned god? Fuck, how do I explain THAT one? (It's me; I'm the horned god(dess), ovaries instead of testes. I'm the fertility goat, the sacrificial ram, the divine lactating cow who suckles gods and kings.)

(YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN? I CAN'T EVEN DO AN EASY, ACCEPTABLE WITCH/OCCULT/PAGAN CONCEPT RIGHT. I EVEN MESS UP SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS "THE HORNED GOD".)

It's shit like this that makes me feel like I'll forever be some sort of retarded pariah amongst my peers, even if I'm a retarded pariah LOLing to myself like some crazy ass bag lady. (OH, UNIVERSE, YOU DO HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR, AND AS LONG AS WE'RE LAUGHING TOGETHER I GUESS IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER IF NO ONE ELSE GETS THE JOKE.)

One of my strengths and weaknesses (due to being autistic) is my instinctual ability to act and then think. I've always said I hated thinking, it infringes on action, on doing. But every once in awhile I find myself with my chin resting on the knuckles of my fist wondering:

If I sincerely, genuinely don't enjoy or favor contact, companionship and interaction why do I join forums, lists and communities? And in the rare instances when I find someone who doesn't immediately make my skin crawl in irritation, why can't I keep it together enough to form some semblance of a relationship? Why join or listen to conversations when, at best, they'll make me laugh at the ridiculousness of it all and, at worst, they'll frustrate and infuriate me (reminding me why I don't talk or speak or interact with others in the first place)? Why am I doing this? Inspiration? Motivation? The need to feel surging emotions? Why am I writing this? How does this help? What do I ultimately take away from all of these experiences?

(Why are you reading me?)