I think my fever just broke, and it feels slightly short of a miracle.

There is often an opportunity for alaethia in intense sickness for me. As one nonphysical friend made clear, it's because I don't have the energy to maintain all my usual bullshit. I understand some of the manifestation of shamanism (not the right word, but my vocabulary is diminished right now) after a serious illness.

Had an interesting conversation with my biggest nonhuman friend. As he put it, while I may reject absolute Truth, there are truths about me that cannot and should not be denied: I am quick, clever, under the best circumstances, playful and adventurous, fiercely loyal, achingly kind, and also intensely angry and capable of great violence. I am also both a girl and not a girl, and it's not my fault if others can't or won't understand it.

I asked if these gifts came from him, since many fall within his classical portfolio. The answer was clear: they did not, but I noticed you because you possessed some of my favorite things about myself.

We talked about my fear, both of him ("I don't know why, but if you feel it, it is legitimate. I never mean you harm") and of being seen as being different, other, not fully "of the tribe" ("you let small, scared people push you to be less than, and it wounds you. I wish you did not do this"). We talked about my feeling unworthy of his attention ("*I* get to decide whom I love and how I focus my attention, your feelings of unworthiness aside") and of the abundance of treasures I had been given ("And yet you treat them like curses and chains. They are yours, and I wish you would embrace them")

When I woke up feeling so much better, I thanked him for the assistance (also in his classical portfolio), to which he responded, "You're welcome, but I did nothing".

This seems important. I needed to document this when still fresh in my mind, before "all my usual bullshit" came back.

Strange dream about not actually threatening evil/badness.

Three small old houses in very close proximity (across the small yard, basically), otherwise surrounded by post agricultural regrowth. While structurally sound, all had the feeling of generations of rural poverty. The middle house was unpleasantly haunted, and that's where we (me and someone else, but I don't know who) lived.

It was a weird mix of unrelenting dread, the occasional strange happening, and scenes from previous tenants' much more actively haunted and persecuted experiences. All the characters, both the haunt and the tenants, appeared to be women, as did the person who lived in the first house with whom we took short term refuge, and who provided background and assurance that we weren't crazy.

I think the third house was empty.

I woke at 4:00 AM to intense rain passing overhead. I expected a feeling of fear and discomfort to follow me from the dream, and was slightly surprised when it did not. I fell to dozing for the next hour and a half.

The same three houses, in the same physical set up, only this time it was in a near tropical environment, and the site of a group of white tourists that included me and my extended nuclear family. The site had the feeling of a guided or curated event around indigenous/pagan/voudun spirituality, and all the facilitators were black women with pronounced Caribbean accents.

At one point, my sister (who was wearing a simple white shift, and walking with a cross between a stick and a cane) said she needed to get out for a bit, so I walked with her past agricultural fields to get to "civilization", which took the form of a small, strange enclosed mall. We stopped at a jewelry stand, and she took great interest in trying on much of the jewelry; the upscale proprietress was unfazed by her shoelessness or rustic appearance. After buying nothing, we walked back and I became aware of an oblong black box, that seemed fully of fancy billed caps once when I looked, and that I had had it the whole time.

Upon return, a large ritual had just begun. The head facilitator/priestess cried out "Let us make him welcome!" and the him in question had a definite Satan vibe. Many of the women and some of the visitors began taking up positions representing/embodying beings like Saturn, Jupiter and Io. My ex-stepfather was hanging back, and confessed to being uncomfortable with the generally Satanic vibe. I remember he was standing near a stone wall that marked a boundary, and he was inside. I began explaining that many of the rites the Catholic church performed were equally as Satanic, and that neither were necessarily bad or evil. As I was speaking, I could see his physical kinesthetics shift, and his usually gruff voice became higher and clearer. As he started to walk toward the ritual site, saying things like "Let us see how they did it this time", I ended my explanation to him with "...but I believe, sir, you know all of that".

I realize today that I've done a shit job of introducing myself to the genius loci. There are some constants (wind, the sun, my muse), but I don't speak the local dialects, and I've been lazy and inattentive when it comes to learning them. Some of this has been due to circumstance, some due to personal changes, yet none of that forgives the rudeness of not introducing herself to the local hosts. I need to change this.


Also, I've realized that the fear I had years ago, on a weekend dedicated to psilocybin introduction, there was a nightmare on the eve prior to ingestion/introduction, in which I was aware of scores of suddenly apparent cylinders/stylized mushrooms declaring in increasing unity, "He's here! He's here!" might not have been a portent of some terrifying external presence, but might have been to/about me (what does gender matter to mushroom spirits?). Or, I could be very wrong. Still, I own a mycological debt that has yet to be paid.


My breasts are large enough now that I think they're visible to others if I dress without care. I'm acutely aware of my fear of appearing to be a guy-with-boobs, and all the negative judgment with which such a perception is associated, and I can bemoan how impoverished the interpretive filters of others are, but what am I doing for myself in regard to others? What is it that I want, and is it worth more to not face that and realize it can't be had, or to see it for what it is and try (even if failure is (overwhelmingly) likely)?


Also, look deep within at your envy/jealousy. You may not want what it looks like others want/have, but this keeps coming up enough to suggest (demand) some internal attention. Green may be your color, but envy poisons that which it touches.