I need men who are unapologetically feminine, witchy, kittenish, silly, sentimental, lovers of high heels and experts in outrageous make-up. I need women butchers and wolves and Valkyries, planners of pandemonium, movers and shakers. I want to see people who defy every gender characterisation stepping forth and making this world a better place by destroying every notion of normality, sexuality, appropriateness and categorisation. Fuck this world, fuck society, fuck normal. We're the demon lovers of those witches you did not manage to burn. We're their familiars, their cats, their succubi and incubi, their toads and sprites and their fits of madness. Fuck this world and pass on the rainbow, bitchy, fairy ammunition. We'll infiltrate this brothel of a dimension and make you desire us, fear us, worship us. Do you hear me? We'll make you wish you were us.
If you belong to my cult, here's visual material for your needs. Let me begin with a male model and continue from there...
And as I said before, let the wonderful freaks come to me. Let them come out of their closets and rock my world. I need them more than ever. This world needs them more than ever. And anyone who has a problem with that can go get stuffed. (If you enjoy my content, please consider supporting what I do. Thank you.)
You wake up, after bad and not enough sleep, because the latest addition to your cat population is a completely blind and very sick kitten. He cannot see or smell his food, so when he's hungry he meows and wakes you up to feed him. You already have serious trouble sleeping and staying asleep and the kitten does not help. It's not his fault, of course. So antibiotics, eye ointment though he has two red holes where his eyes should be, mountain tea compresses for the eyes and the mucus crusted nostrils, the works. Blah de blah. Or bleurgh de bleurgh, depending on how sick and tired you feel. He looks like a very ugly blind fly with black stripes, and you want to cry for how pitiful the poor thing is. At the same time he's so happy to be safe and constantly fed he plays like crazy and knocks his head against various surfaces. Usually he's trying to locate a kitty tit inside your mother's hair or somewhere in the vicinity of her ear while she watches TV with him on her shoulder like a bizarre black-striped blind parrot.
The tiredness and heavy head persists throughout the day, the weather is hot and humid, you alternatively vegetate and snap, give photosynthesis a go and wish you could drop a silence bomb to make everyone around you shut up. In a typical ADD style you jump from one task to the next feeling sick of everything. People in Facebook have written you personal messages and you can't be bothered to read them, let alone answer them, and you eat lots of food and sugar. A small mountain of sugar in the hope you'll keep your head out of the muddy sea of static electricity that's covering you up to your ears and makes your surroundings incoherent and moving in slow motion. You can't think, can't concentrate, and wonder what would be better, shooting someone full of giant holes or putting a single bullet to your head and enjoying some good solid rest.
Your social life is a thing of wonder. You meet up with people once every blue moon and either absorb the wrong type of energy and therefore spend the rest of the night farting, or your meetings develop into impromptu therapies. You pull out a magnificent variety of bullshit from people's (etheric) bodies, from nails, pieces of metal, rotten lengths of cloth, ropes, chains, vortexes, caves, statues, immaterial technological constructions that float on the astral level and get attached to the gifted ones when their defenses are down, to entities, thought-forms, demons, you name it. More often than not, you know it's futile. For every one thing you remove, three more come to take its place when that person is vulnerable, and there is no end to the work you do on yourself, or the excuses humans use to fuck up. But what can you do? Give up and go home? And do what? Once more fail to sleep? Har har har.
You remember the conversation you had concerning an abyssal female creature not unlike Tiamat, part whale, part dragon, part what we later on came to call a mermaid. She is not a maiden with a fish tail any more than a hell-hound is a fluffy chicken. She is the size of a building, terrifying like a storm, as majestic and wondrous as a bottomless ocean. You called Her the other day because She was the one best suited to help in a therapy. The friend who's undergoing the therapy asked how you managed to get in touch with Her, and you wanted to ask that friend, what do you mean how? You just thought of Her, and She responded. You don't need to make a mirror from a special alloy the hour of Saturn using candles from pigeon fat and the blood of the virgins. Gods, demons and other entities reside within as much as without. You just give them a shout and they pop up for a conversation. More often than not, they're happy to help. It doesn't even matter if they are figments of your imagination or real. If they cause results, then they are as real as they can get.
Now, if only you had some idea what to do with the matter of finding a new job, everything would be peachy. (If you enjoy my content, please consider supporting what I do. Thank you.)
Septicflesh/ Jon Simvonis: Portrait of a Headless Man.
I have been busy doing what I can't refer to here. And what is just too mundane to write about. I know you are reading this blog because you're certain that any moment now, I may bare more than just my soul. You hope you may glimpse a tit. Instead you get cat photos. Such is the unfairness of life.
Well, my friend Jon Simvonis has been busy too. Unlike me, he has something to show for his efforts; the staggering music video of this post. He's responsible for the visual part, which is a feast of industrial SF horror and black slime. You see Septicflesh have been busybodies, and they pushed out yet another deliciously wicked baby called Codex Omega, which you can listen to hereand grab here. If you want to begin your day with a torrentuous hail of unearthly growls married to brutal death metal onslaught while the orchestra of the damned performs in the background (using entrails for strings, dragon skulls for percussion and bladders for wind instruments), now you know what to do. It's probably what demons listen to while tearing the souls of the sinners to bloody shreds. It's certainly what I'll be listening to in order to deal with bureaucracy or depression.
So September is here and I'll be soon looking for a job. I have a good feeling. I swam a lot this summer, and the sea has a calming effect on me. I don't know why the majority is afraid of the deep. There is nothing more tranquil than swimming in very deep sea. The open firmament above, the abyss below, and me balancing on the fine line of the horizon. Effort is reduced to a bare minimum, movement is unrestricted, relaxing, almost poetic. It resembles flying while wide awake. Let's not forget it was the ocean that gave birth to life. Like any other primordial element, it should be respected. It is the closest we have to the womb of creation on this planet.
Do humans respect it? Ha.
Do I give a shit about humans? No. I mean really, look at that and tell me why I should bother.
My soul and I went to the great sea to
bathe. And when we reached the shore, we went about looking for a hidden and
lonely place.
But as we walked, we saw a man sitting
on a grey rock taking pinches of salt from a bag and throwing them into the
sea.
“This is the pessimist,” said my soul,
“Let us leave this place. We cannot bathe here.”
We walked on until we reached an inlet.
There we saw, standing on a white rock, a man holding a bejewelled box, from
which he took sugar and threw it into the sea.
“And this is the optimist,” said my
soul, “And he too must not see our naked bodies.”
Further on we walked. And on a beach we
saw a man picking up dead fish and tenderly putting them back into the water.
“And we cannot bathe before him,” said
my soul. “He is the humane philanthropist.”
And we passed on.
Then we came where we saw a man tracing
his shadow on the sand. Great waves came and erased it. But he went on tracing
it again and again.
“He is the mystic,” said my soul, “Let
us leave him.”
And we walked on, till in a quiet cover
we saw a man scooping up the foam and putting it into an alabaster bowl.
“He is the idealist,” said my soul,
“Surely he must not see our nudity.”
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a
voice crying, “This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and
mighty sea.” And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned
to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, “Let us pass on. He is
the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies
himself with a fragment.”
So we passed on. And in a weedy place
among the rocks was a man with his head buried in the sand. And I said to my
soul, “We can bath here, for he cannot see us.”
“Nay,” said my soul, “For he is the most
deadly of them all. He is the puritan.”
Then a great sadness came over the face
of my soul, and into her voice.
“Let us go hence,” she said, “For there
is no lonely, hidden place where we can bathe. I would not have this wind lift
my golden hair, or bare my white bosom in this air, or let the light disclose
my sacred nakedness.”
Then we left that sea to seek the
Greater Sea.
You can find the book here. (If you enjoy my content, please consider supporting what I do. Thank you.)
Been re-reading old letters I wrote. Nice to see not much
has changed. Irreverent, angry, anally obsessed and funny.
"Yesterday I had some large beans cooked with tomato
in the oven for supper plus five eggs for dinner. The result is that today my
ass levitates at some centimeters distance over the chair due to continuous and
continual gas production. I look like a levitating Indian fakir. It’s ominous.
I have farting spells that last for several seconds and change tone, tune and
temperature at my nether region. Their result is usually clinging around the
proximity of my ass as a cloud of fluff and instant death. I am forced to
change my surroundings every time I am struck by this nasty muse’s endearments.
In fact every time I release one of those I start running and never look back,
propelled by the gas as much as by my legs. Seriously, if we ever find
ourselves in the same house I’ll let you know in such a case, so that you don’t
switch on the lights. If you do, they’ll find both our corpses next day in the
ruins, blackened and burned beyond recognition. :P The joys of single life,
farting as much as you please."
"I want to go to heavens and butt-rape every single
meddling deity that was ever born in the collective unconscious with gigantic,
whale-size dildos with spikes, then take a shit and smear it on their faces. I
want to organise a party with the heads of those deities stuck on poles
greeting my guests, blue tongues lolling and eyeballs dangling. I want to
commit acts of violence on their hides that no intelligent race across all
galaxies has ever conceived. And I’ll be laughing constantly while reminding
them every bad thing that has happened to me and the ones I care about.
There are days, or rather, moments in a day I am content.
Not happy, but content. I can even glimpse a shred of meaning in breathing in
and out. But most days are disheartening and infuriating and exhausting. Still,
I refuse to give up. I’ll stay till the last credits to see what this fucking
idiocy of a movie called my life was about. But whoever is responsible should
beware, because I am getting my spiked whale dildos lubed up and ready even as
we speak. I’ll kick their asses so hard they’ll spend the rest or eternity
exchanging postcards with their missing behinds which will have landed in the
farthest end of the other side of the bloody universe. I mean it and probably
can do it."
Ah, the arrogance of some deities... ;) And some butts. (If you enjoy my content, please consider supporting what I do. Thank you.)
I have no idea what to tell you. I can tell you what I know from personal experience, which I'm afraid doesn't count as a universal rule. But let me compile a list anyway.
I don't think this level of existence is fair. I mean, how can anyone talk about fairness when there are kids with cancer, or leukemia? How is that in any way fair?
I don't know if there is any kind of higher order or justice. Judging by the fact politicians who destroy the lives of millions live just fine and thrive, there is no justice, human or otherwise.
Good deeds are not rewarded and bad deeds aren't punished. Just look around you.
Nothing happens for a purpose, or if it does, don't delude yourself that you know what that purpose is.
People are greedy, lazy and hate responsibility. Although they can do the greatest good, more often than not they'll choose to crawl in the mud and fling shit at each other. It's easier.
Love can't save you, because it isn't love unless you know yourself first. Knowing yourself is a life-long pursuit and not for the faint of heart.
Understanding doesn't exist. You can't understand others when every person grew up in a different way, trapped in their bodies and their senses, with so many different traumas, prejudices and cultural and religious norms clouding their judgement. Compassion, on the other hand, does exist.
Death isn't the answer the same way life isn't the answer.
I don't think anything we do makes the slightest difference on a greater scale. I mean, we count for less than an amoeba's fart on the grand scheme of things, and I doubt there's a grand scheme of things to begin with.
Art matters only if viewed from within the human experience. For another species, our art probably means nothing.
Life is probably completely meaningless. What you do, or don't do, changes nothing on a large scale. I don't know if it's always been like this or something sealed this world in a bubble outside the reach of what I understand as divine. But that's how it is.
Okay then. If you take all these things out of the equation, what are we left with?
We're left with each other. And we are left with ourselves.
My opinion? There is absolutely nothing I can do except keep on trying, because effort is what makes you build character. By 'character' I mean what the Victorians meant. Honesty, self-discipline, commitment, and conviction. Character is in turn what makes one accept whatever life throws at them with a modicum of grace and dignity. And that's about the only power I have in my possession. That, and the ability to make the lives of the ones I love a little better by being in it.
That's my take on it, and it helps me sleep better at night. Take it or leave it. I can only talk about myself anyway. I am trapped in me. I'm sure you understand.
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly." Marcus Aurelius
Twice in the last week I've had to deal with the matter of forgiveness. I thought I was dealing with it. In reality it seems I had just pushed the anger and hurt away, at the back of my mind.
The first person I have to forgive is my father. I am working on it. It's next to impossible because forgiveness is a very special animal. It's easy to forgive when the damage inflicted to you by a person is minimal, or you have found a solution and it does not affect you anymore. But when the damage done has shaped your life to what it is now, and the past choices of that person still echo in your present situation ten years after his death, then... then you want to take the ossuary with his bones, fill it with kerosene and light it up. You are sure it will make an excellent fire, and that's the only kind of gesture that reflects your true feelings for him.
There are those who say that once a person is dead, we should forgive them and move on. I consider that a grave oversimplification. So because they're dead, that means they didn't screw you over royally when they were alive? Hitler is dead too. Should everyone just forgive him because he's dead? That's the weird trip you get into with forgiveness. You can't forgive them when they've wronged you, when their decisions destroyed parts of your evolution and potential. They can't be absolved just because they are gone. The consequences of their actions are still part of your life, so forgive them how? And that's the paradox, because that is the exact case that forgiveness is needed, not in the sense of forgetting, but of moving on and not giving them power over you anymore.
If the person you need to forgive hasn't wronged you or hurt you, then you don't need to forgive them. You simply need to get over your ego. Forgiveness is needed when that person has left scars so deep that shaped your whole life. It's required when the damage done to you can't be undone, when their decisions have affected you deeply and profoundly and stolen from you your most valuable possessions; time and compassion. The one is the currency of life, the other is the currency of humanity.
If my father had been less of an asshole, my life would have been very different. He, too, would probably still be alive. I wouldn't have lost 14 years of my life trapped in a job I hated, without getting any stamps. I wouldn't have been forced to return from UK; I would have been able to get an MA and would have been working for the past 15 years in a job that would have paid me and given me social security. I would not have to deal with his sister taking me to court because she wants to appropriate more of his possessions. Perhaps I'd even have a companion. When your life has stability and security job-wise, it's not a giant leap to find someone. Right now I am where I am, doing what I am doing, and know that this man is more than 50% responsible for these things. I have a mother who's alone and slowly getting older and can't deal with everyday life, no job, no MA, no relationship, no previous job experience... The list goes on. I got social security for the first time this year. I am 39. And he has the nerve to ask for forgiveness when he has destroyed me, he has the nerve to think he can be forgiven when he ruined my life. Just because he died. So a bonfire with his bones seems like an excellent idea. Right?
The problem with forgiveness is that it takes a leap of faith, a gigantic motherfucker of a leap of faith. You need to forgive someone exactly because they did those things to you. You need to say, "I will deal with this mess and I will do it on my own terms". Because this is how you take the power back in your hands. As soon as you decide there is something you can do instead of being angry and accusing the other person of how they destroyed your life, you stop being a victim of that person or situation. From a "waaah waaah oh poor me" mess, you become the "come any closer and you'll see if this bitch has any fighting left in her" kind of person. Because truth is, that bitch (me) has a lot of fighting left in her. But she should do something better with that fighting spirit than bash the head of a person who's dead.
I am trying very hard. Trying to let go while what I want to do is somehow get hold of him and yell at him, stomp him to the ground. Trying to move on when I see children with fathers who are there for them, who care, who help, who try to understand. I stare at those fathers, with their failings and mistakes and good intentions and wonder what planet was my father from. I wonder for the umpteenth time why, as I wrote in my previous poem, "I was raised by wolves". Why there wasn't a single safe adult in the family I grew up. And what the fuck it is that I'm doing here.
And now I have to forgive him. How the fuck am I supposed to do that?
I am just so tired. But I need to keep going. There is no time to lose. There just isn't any time for self-pity. I need to stop being a victim. And the only way one can stop being a victim is, curiously, by faith, and by letting go.
The lyrics of the very beautiful song are here:
Chelsea Wolfe- Sick
This suffering brings me closer to you
and time is broken and moves slow
your pure heart, your white light
I should be put to death for ever being cruel to you
you washed me clean like no one ever could
come closer now and step right into
the wide mouth, the sharp teeth of the one you love
I'm not the kind of sick that you can fix
don't you worry about me baby
I've got no enemies and I've got no time
the song, we carry on
even though you pushed us down
we carry on
when you try to blind my eyes I can see tenfold
It's nothing that my heart can't take, 'cause your hate
has made me strong
