Black magic

I have seen black magic.
You have, too, if you know the signs,
The dark marks of a modern cursing
Born in loathsome mutters across the airwaves.

For you see, the black magic that poisons us is not transacted with
Chicken blood or
Eye of newt.

No, the incantations of black magic today
Tell us that we are ugly
That the shape of our bodies is wrong
That we eat, drink, sleep, dress, and play
Wrong.

It drains our pockets and our hearts
In the pursuit of an unattainable lie.
It promises glory with one more lipstick
A two-in-one mascara
A stream-lined car
And rock-hard abs.

The belly is meant to be soft,
Home to vitals and bowels,
Breath and blood and digestion,
A place of comfort and warmth,
The womb.
Black magic casts it with shame and demands that it and all other soft and warm and lovely things be sacrificed
upon an altar of stone and steel.

This is the black magic of our times,
The incantations that coax and coerce and cajole and convince
That we are not divine.
We are not already in the image of God or Goddess.
It isn't okay to be a little overgrown, a little lush, a little wild and untamed.
Black magic says that.

Speaking of Christ

I've spoken a lot about Mother, about Eve, about feminism, and a little bit about gays and Paganism.  I haven't spoken much about Christ, though, unless it's to rant about something being un-Christlike.  (I see some irony there.)

I started this post before Christmas, and the holidays and birth (Yay, new niece!) and sickness and stress got in the way of finishing it.  Also, I've just had a hard time thinking about it.  I've become very disconnected in my spirituality the past several months, partially as a factor of growing pains during my expansion, but also because I stopped doing regularly a lot of the things that made me feel connected.  As much as I talked and thought about simply expanding my Mormonism with Paganism rather than replacing, I made a good subconscious run at replacing and ran straight into a wall.  There wasn't enough Christ in my Pagan exploration, and it left me feeling drained.  Today, I feel that I have--at least--put a cork in the bottom of my spiritual bucket.  For the first time in a while, it felt really good to go to church.

I believe in Christ, but I sometimes have a hard time with it, or with believing Him, believing the Gospel, believing in grace and unconditional love and Heavenly Parents and eternity and progression.  This is even while I'm contemplating the merit of multiple mortal probations (reincarnation, to most people.)  I guess I just get to feeling like it's too good to be true, even if I want it to be.  It's too good to happen to me, so I'd better work my butt off to get a seat on the train.  Or something.  It's a little neurotic, a little Air, but that's me, I suppose.  So, I've been contemplating grace, and it's role in the Gospel.  It's huge, enormous role that we tend not to talk about because we're very focused on obeying the commandments to raise up a righteous people and following the prophet(s) because these are spiritually hazardous times.  And I've been contemplating my place in the world, in the cosmos, in the everything of everything.  It's been rather overwhelming,  This is all while Mom's finishing radiation and I'm sick and my friends are having their various crises and doubts right along with me and... I really know how to overload myself!

Anyway, but I do believe.  I do have faith.  It's that faith that keeps me going, keeps me plugging along, keeps me saying, "I have no idea what's going on, but I know this must work some way or another."   And today I found that the balance point--for me, as far as I can tell--is closer to home than I thought it might be.  I am happy being Mormon.  I am happy with the Gospel.  Sure there are inequalities and policies that suck and practices that people don't like and the Church is not perfect.  The Prophet and Apostles and others aren't perfect, no matter how much we think they should be.  It is possible we may even be massively, horribly off-track in many ways as a people.  Look at ancient Israel, or the Nephites.  We're no better..  I asked myself today, though, whether I still believe Christ is at the Head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  And I found that my answer is yes.  I still believe this Church not only bears His name, but also answers to Him.  I don't know why the Church isn't going in every direction I think it could or should go, why it isn't doing the things that many people think it ought, but I also don't know why I'm not married with children right now.  Actually, I do know why, but it's a very recent discovery/understanding.  It took me a decade to get here, and that's just my one little life, not millions across the world.   I don't know why X-Y-Z, but what I do know, as well and as deeply as I can, is that I believe in a man named Yeshua who lived some 2,000 years ago in a region not much larger than mine, on the other side of the planet.  He had a beautiful, wise, contemplative mother named Mary and a gentle, just father figure named Joseph.  He lived a simple and faultless life and shed his body in a horrible death upon a cross, after suffering the pains of the world in a garden, and took it up again in a tomb.  He is my Savior and Redeemer, the one who teaches me how to be better than I am, and comforts me when I find that I'm still myself at the end of the day.  He accepts my imperfections and teaches me to accept them too.  He lives, and he appears in many ways to those who are open to seeing him.  I believe I will see Him, whether in the flesh, in this life, at his Second Coming, or beyond the veil to take up my own body again someday.

There's more to the story, of course there is, but this is what important right here, in this post.  Wherever else I go, whatever else I do, this is home for my heart, my faith in Christ, my belief in this Gospel, and even my dedication to this Church.  It isn't perfect, not at all, but then again... it never has been, really.  Comings, goings, ups, downs, and pride cycles... they have always and will always happen among the people of God.  Every people.  And that's okay, because that's why there's a Plan.  And I can't let that go.

I need my Mother

Fairly early on in my Daughters of Mormonism episode about the Mother Fast, as part of recounting my history with the Church and my life in it, I mentioned that I was adopted at birth.  Sybil then asked if I thought part of my reasoning behind starting the Fast was because I was adopted and whether I felt like I was reaching out for that lost connection.  At the time I answered no, and I still think that answer is true (though who knows what motivations are triggered in the subconscious?  That's why it's subconscious.)  I feel far more affected by my adoption than my sister does--she forgot to even mention it to her husband until their first tithing settlement and he noticed the sealing date on her record--and while I often think about my birth mother, I truly am happy in the life and family that I have and I can't imagine a better one.  It might be a tiny contributing factor, but maybe.... there's a more obvious one.

I alluded before (is it allusion when it's pretty much straight up?) to the fact that my mother has cancer: melanoma to be precise.  And it sucks.  We've been dealing with this in some way, shape, or form for almost two years now and it's just... not getting better.  The treatments she just finished may still take another month or two to really start showing results; meanwhile her most recent scan indicated significant tumor growth since the scan that told us the cancer was back.  They're talking about radiating one of the tumors, but even then there's two more, one of which is in her lung and she has already done all of the chest radiation her body can take.  Ever.  It's no longer an option.  Neither is surgery.  Chemo isn't very effective for melanoma.  She wants to live past the time when my niece is born enough so that no one ever thinks, "It's her birthday, and this is the time we we lost her Grandma."  My niece is "due" in early-mid January.  In theory, my Mom could be gone in six months.  I wasn't thinking it could be that soon.

I need my mother.  I need my Mother.  I conceived the Fast not long after Mom and Dad told us about the cancer's return.  Maybe part of my motivation for this search for Heavenly Mother is because I can't stand the thought of losing my Mom.  We already lost her Mom when I was seven.  I lost a woman I saw as something of a second Mom in my teens.  I've never known my birth mother.

One of my best friends lost her Mom when she was a young child, only three or four years old.  I can't even imagine that kind of loss.  I can't.  Even when my Mom passes on, at least I'll be an adult.  Still, I don't know what I'll do.  I feel badly because people lose their mothers every day.  People go through this grief all the time.  I don't want to be one of them, but I will be and I don't know how I'm going to endure it.

I had planned to start saving to move into town right before we found out.  Now the idea makes me sick to my stomach.  I don't want to go away, but I need to.  My adultness needs to, and I know she understands that; but my childness needs all the time it can get with her.  And if I fail to move until after she's gone?  I'll leave my Dad alone in an empty house that he just might feel the need to sell at that point, and with it would go over two decades of memories.

My thoughts have just come to a screeching, messy stop with stuff tumbling over itself out of order and scattering across the floor.  I guess it's time to stop.  I just really... I need my Mother.  I need my Mother.

Cancer sucks.  Patriarchy sucks.  I need my Mothers.