kiya

Thanks for posting this, it's a lot of food for thought (some of which I just addressed in cloth_of_five, of all the comments I might get, I'm most interested to hear yours). I wish I could see the comments to carolyn_korone and the words from ardaniel. I also wish I could read what you wrote for Witch Eye. The interaction between damaged sexuality and the primacy of sex in Feri is the biggest thing holding me back from engaging with it. I'm both impressed and fascinated as I'm watching you wrestle with it-- for as much as you register your own damage, I can tell you that you're much further along than I am. Ecstasy in Pagan paths seems like one of those dividing lines, another elephant in the circle, that people either instinctively draw to or they don't. Material-- and Thorn's book counts for this-- written by and for (for lack of a better term) "ecstatic practitioners" presumes that instinctive draw, but doesn't IMO speak well to those who "don't get it".

They do not stop being true if I am not currently directly expressing them, but it is not genuine to treat them as always relevant, always dominant, always a part of what is happening in this moment.

Thank you especially for this, this is essential. I've got the same issues as lady_and_lion, although slightly altered. I always have the desire to unpack my entire tangled yarn-ball on subjects because it *is* relevant, in a way, to understand how I got from there to here. Yet the few times I've actually done so I know I've gone too far, said too much, given away too many truths about myself to people that weren't intimate enough with me to know what to do with them. And yet the knowledge that by choosing to hold things back, people will simply misunderstand (the person, for instance, who, after all of the things I pulled from my deep self and put out there about Bush, came away with "she's voting for him because her god said to") frustrates the living crap out of me. But hearing "it's still true, even if you don't put it out there" is useful as a reminder, that you haven't denied the truth of yourself if you need to hold things back.