Back from my break. I am shattered, so I woke myself up with drum and bass and an impossible mission to draw a nice picture of myself to stick at the top of this blog (involving finding a rare good photo of myself on facebook, then finding one I can actually draw. Tired drawing is not inspired drawing.). Shall I add wings? Too corny? Do I care? It’s a blog about faeries and spirituality for goddssakes, it’s not like any of my college peers are gonna read it and critisize my poor taste in illustrative techniques. They are more likely going to accost me for being a weirdo.
I would like to point out that I look completely and utterly normal, not at all the kind of person who would be involved in this kind of stuff. I’m pointing this out as I don’t find many of my type who dress as I do, and I think it’s reassuring to know that not every one of us out there wears massive black flares, or has dreadlocks, or only wears hemp, or wears lbs of wicca bling, or wears big clothes to hide their hated body (wise up guys! you’re gorgeous). I am a regular skinny 20 yr old (see, my age there marks me as naieve and optimistic – a decade or two of life will sort that out) who lusts over clothes from Zara and is dissapointed at the lack of oppertunities to wear beautiful dresses. So I don’t look like a weirdo, even though I may act like one.
Some deep stuff now. As I do, every now and again I look over the concept a lot of the wiccan world has about magical names, and wish I was the kind of person who could accept that and damn well take one for myself. However, you may have gleaned, reader, that I run a mile from taking anything cliche’d or romantic very seriously, and have deep reservoirs of secrecy concerning the inner workings of my mind and soul. Hence why a journal so much. And hence, well, I just cant take the whole magical name thing seriously. Come on, people. even you dedicated magical namers must see some of the naffness, the problems I have with it. But I have been thinking.
Magical names I guess are there to form a secret identity. Superman calls himself Clark Kent to get into the mindset of pretending to be human. In X-men, Aroura Munroe’s secret/alter identity is Storm, though why the hell she would choose another name after Aroura Munroe I don’t know. Batman is Bruce Wayne. The Fantastic Four use their stage names (Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic etc.) to present a celebrity front – I am a superhero, this is my superhero gotta-save-you personality, as oppose to the cassanove/geeky scientist they are in their other life. I’m running out of superhero analogies here. I guess your witchy/wiccan/whatever side concealed by your magical name in a sense is your dirty little secret, like Superman is Clark Kent’s, somthing you dont want the rest of the world to know and get to grips with, or at least not to associate with yourself. Perhaps I am confusing magical names with superheros too much. Hmmmm.
It’s a way to access a non-mundane side of you, like an affirmation of your path, your intentions and your ability to make change if you wish. I wish I could get over my issues and use it. It’s a tool, in essence, to help you along into the spiritual mindset.
To the point. Labels. This is a naff thing to talk about (note – I cant take serious seriously either) but, it interests me. The whole idea of labelling yourself as somthing in our world is somthing almost expected and forced on you – people go “what are you WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU???” Then take pride in the fact they understand you a bit better/pick apart your beliefs as they don’t think you’ve got the concept of “X” down. Finally stopped trying to label myself, spiritually speaking cos it doesnt help. I take the same line with this as I do magical names – If I was a wolf, I wouldnt need a name or a label because all the other wolves know what I am, who I am and what I get up to. Stick that in a spiritual context and you’ll get my point. I am now deliciously ambigous, floating pleasurefully in the netherregions between witch, wiccan, and priestess (obviouly alongside something faery-shaped). I can do what I want. thats nice. Technically, i don’t think of myself as a veggie, I just eat what I like, but If you don’t wanna eat meat you kinda have to say “erm, I’m a veg” even if everybody knows you had a lapse last week and had some sushi from Morrisons. (I had the urge. What more can I say?)
In other news, labels can be helpful, they give you direction and something to work towards. If someone asks me what are you/what are you going to be when you are grown up, I will pipe up and call myself an Illustrator. Sometimes you just need the label to get you on track.