Beltaine is Coming Up
April 30 is May Eve (also called Walpurgisnacht), and May 1 is Beltane. Since the pagan holidays appropriated by Satanic cults start at midnight, May Eve is basically part of Beltane.
This year, May Eve is on a Sunday. It wouldn’t surprise me if the preceding Saturday, and perhaps Friday the 29th, will be treated as part of Beltane.
Here are some previous posts on Beltane and May Eve.
Beltane: A short article on Beltane traditions.
https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/beltanehttps://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/beltane/
Walpurgisnacht: This background article has information about Saint Walpurga, plus additional information about Beltane.
Rereading it, I had an “aha” moment. My father’s birthday was just before Candlemas, which means he could have been conceived on Beltane. I didn’t catch that when I wrote the article. I feel sick to my stomach.
https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/walpurgisnacht/
Beltane Blues (personal) Read it to the end – there is a beautiful letter from my friend GhostWolf.
https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/beltane-blues/
A Beltane Re-Birth Memory (personal) https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2018/04/30/a-beltane-re-birth-memory/
My New Blog Is Still Scheduled for April
Although I’m still hoping to get it going in April, I’m beginning to have a few doubts. April is more than half over, and there’s still a lot to be done.
At least I am not working at some high-pressure company. I have no boss but myself. My deadline is not firm. The world will not end if I take as long as I want. Besides, SquareSpace keeps coming up with exciting new features!
No matter when the change occurs, this blog will stay up for reference for a long, long time. It may live forever through the WayBack Machine at archives.org.
Spencer
I took him to the vet the other day. His litter box behavior is not due to a UTI, but to anxiety from changes in his environment. The biggest change was in me – I got pretty stressed out around the time he started having litter box problems. Anxiety is contagious, even between species! At least I have something to work with.
The vet found a heart murmur. She said it could be something serious, or it could be a big nothing. We did a blood test for some marker, and the results showed that it might, indeed, be serious. So there will be more tests to find what we are dealing with.
Happier news: Shedding is slowing down. He has lost almost all of his winter coat, even though it’s still only in the 40-50 degree range here. Less fur all over is happier news for me – he doesn’t care one little bit.
Blurring the Past and the Present
I think it’s very easy to get past and present mixed up. I also think it would be much easier to learn to be present all the time and not have to think about the past or future. Not sure how that would work, but I am certain it is something I am not going to achieve any time soon.
Before my amnesia dissolved, I projected the present back into the past, covering most of the events in my life in a sanitized version of my childhood. I did remember some major changes, like getting older, taller, and more educated, and I saw how they shaped my present. I, therefore, thought my past was pretty much like the present. I was safe, taken care of, and had the best clothes, food, toys, and education possible. All was good. There were photos to prove it.
When I finally remembered what the past had really been like, I no longer believed for one second it had been as safe as I had thought. On the contrary, it had been dangerous and abusive and had damaged me deeply.
Remembering reversed the flow of time; the past became projected onto the present. Although the abuse had, in fact, stopped many years before, it felt like it was still going on. That’s because the past feelings came swooping back in flashback form. I felt all the terror I had experienced as a little child. I thought I would die from the pain and the fear.
I also worried that the past had continued unbroken into the present. Could I still be going to cult rituals? If I had once not known I was going, thanks to amnesiac barriers, what was to say I wasn’t doing things I was unaware of now? Was I missing time and not knowing it? The thought was terrifying. Over and over, I checked to see whether I might still be involved and slowly decided I wasn’t. I had no way of figuring out whether I had “sleeper” alters – parts that had been deactivated but could be brought back to return and participate in activities they had been trained for.
In the first case, when I was still amnesiac, the present flowed back into the past, covering up everything that did not fit with the official version of how my life was unfolding. Nothing was confusing, and nothing felt wrong or out of place.
Except I knew there was something very wrong with me. I knew it as early as first grade. I ks? Fear of men? Anxiety? Depression? Hatred of my body? No matter what I tried to do to fix myself, nothing made any difference.
When I realized that I had been ritually abused, the first words out of my mouth were, “I always knew I was damaged goods.” The past had been flowing into the present, sending out hints and coded messages, at the same time that the present was flowing into the past, covering up the ugly parts.
Think of it as tides in an estuary. The salt seawater flows in and covers the fresh river water. It retreats, and the freshwater takes its place. High tide, low tide, over and over. A natural process. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing to fix. It’s just the way things are.
There has never been anything wrong with me. My reactions to extreme danger, fear, and pain have always been natural and healthy. It’s normal for a child to believe what the adults say. It’s normal not to challenge your childhood beliefs until later in life – and only then if there is a compelling reason to.
The main things that are wrong with my body can’t be fixed, but I can adapt to them and find ways to compensate for the deficits they cause. The same for my mind, my emotions, and my behavior. Why try to fix them? Why not accept them as they are? It’s more realistic, after all. And more pleasant. Also easier. I can’t think of a single downside to accepting them enthusiastically and then learning how to adapt and compensate.
Ritual Abuse 