It’s been almost two solid months since I posted anything, and the seasons are changing. There has been much upheaval going down in my personal life, which has impacted my spiritual practice and left me somewhat unmoored. Similar upheavals in the lives of my spiritual network and my friends have also contributed, but things are stabilizing now and I’m finding my way back to my faith.

Acolyte

In January of this year, my principal mentor, Jack Drago, underwent a spiritual experience with the Demon Raum. He had been seeking this experience, so its appearance wasn’t unfounded, but it impacted him on a greater level than I think he intended or expected.

Already under psychological pressure from his gender expression being subverted by the Capital Rioters on 1/6, Jack had been seeking guidance. He got it. It left him wandering the streets late at night without his phone or keys. He was eventually picked up by the police, taken to the ER, and placed on a 72 hour hold for psychiatric evaluation. This did not assist in grounding him, as you might expect.

Jack’s support network flew into action, but we had a few tense days trying to get Jack released. He had been transported to a psychiatric hospital, given a full evaluation, and eventually released. Yet, his legal status has changed as his husband now serves as his legal conservator and he’s in an outpatient treatment program ostensibly for his dissociative identity disorder.

We all breathed a sigh of relief. We knew that this scare had disrupted him and it would take some time for Jack to settle out. He’s undergone a redefinition of his own gender expression — defining a new “more masc than masc” gender he calls Hypermale — and has been exploring and building out that identity vigorously in the past few weeks.

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I know that Jack is busy working on himself, but, as his acolyte, I can’t help but feel the newfound distance that is between us. We barely have conversations anymore and when we do, they can be mildly surreal as Jack is thinking fast and broad about the world and his identity and communicates it with a certain manic drive that can be hard to follow.

I’m trying to find the lesson for myself here and it’s one of self-reliance. I have to make certain that my faith and spiritual practice is guided by Jack, but not founded on Jack. It belongs to me and me alone, and maybe I relied too heavily on Jack’s viewpoint. Now, when I ask advice from him, I get very little solid thoughts. I’m uncertain if Jack is just busy with his own thoughts and projects (which would be fair) or if our connection is shakier than it had been.

Either way, it’s turmoil for me that I’m settling out myself. As connected as Jack and I have been (ritually, spiritually, BDSM-wise), it isn’t a surprise that upheaval for him would cause similar upheaval for me. It’s just tough to walk through.

The Move

I’ve been married to a wonderful man for over a year now. Yet, when we got married, I was stuck in an apartment lease that couldn’t be broken, so we’ve been living apart for that year. When I say “apart,” we were only about 5 minutes away from one another, so we saw each other a lot. Even so, we’re both consummate introverts, so whenever we needed our alone time, we could easily take buckets of it.

Well, the lease was up and I moved into his townhouse in March, about the same time that Jack was getting released and finding his new gender definition. Of course, the necessity of packing meant my altar was disassembled and in boxes for weeks. I guess I’m a little shocked at how important the altar had become to my practice and my day-to-day feeling of connection to my Patrons. But, without it, the connection drifted and lessened.

I’ve been in the townhouse for about two weeks as of the writing of this post. My altar is set back up and I have begun having a “daily exaltation” at it each morning. With the situation with Jack and my need to “find my own way,” I have begun back simply exalting Marbas, my principal Patron.

I’m focusing on realigning with him and deepening my connection to him, but it’s slow going and difficult to “get out of my own way.” The messages I’m receiving from Marbas are along the lines of: “You’re not giving of yourself enough,” or “You are giving half-measures,” etc. I’m looking for ways to fix this, but they are hard to come by.

In the meantime, my husband and I are going through the “adjustment phase” of living with one another 100% of the time. We expected this phase and are giving one another grace, but there are about 1,000 daily habits that need minor tweaks. He’s gotten on my nerves (seriously? what’s with all fans?!). I’ve gotten on his nerves (Why are we watching Voyager again?!). This causes stress, obviously, but we’re working through it.

Stressed

Writing this post, I sought to bring these issues to the fore and to record what’s happening. Even in the most profound spiritual practice, “real life” intrudes with a host of stresses and strains. We sometimes have to take our eye of the esoterica for moment and settle up with reality.