Strip Me Back To The Bone

Bring Yourself Before Them

Or: how to do devotion. Though, in truth,this is more ‘a way to do devotion,’ and not ‘the way to do devotion.’ (Honestly, if anyone tries to sell you THE way to do devotion, run, don’t walk, as far and as fast as you can.) When asked what I believe is the single-most crucial step…

Did I fool anyone?

Likely just myself. I can’t do this. I can’t not blog. I mean, I’m sure I could, but the break, the retreat, whatever, is not working out the way I thought it would. Instead of feeling rested, I’m beginning to feel stifled. Damn it. Okay, so: I’m making the blog public again. I thought about…

Vishnu

In my mind, in memory, once Vishnu made His entrance into the stage that is my devotional practice, I stopped writing or practicing or even really thinking about it all that much. In memory, I balked and struggled, and dragged my feet, and was the physical embodiment of reluctance. When cautioned by a dear friend…

My big goal for 2017: or: I’m retiring Strip Me Back to the Bone

I’ve known, for months now, that I’d be treating 2017 like a ‘retreat’ year. Not in the running away sense so much as in the distilling/simplifying/slowing down sense. I’ve also known, for months now, that I’m growing tired of writing for my blog. I’ve sat with this, because in historically, being tired of writing has…

So, Beth and I are getting married.

I’ve talked about this briefly on FB, and Beth’s written her own post about this here, and that was going to be that, but now that it’s the wee hours of the morning, and my week of being mostly offline is starting to chafe at me (gonna have to rethink this whole social media sabbatical,…

A Dream

She envelops me in an embrace I have no hope of escaping, pressing me close as if we’re old friends and not newly met. Her arms are strong, holding me tight, and the draping fabric of her clothing billows around me, making me one with her for a brief, brief moment. Then she steps back,…

I miss You.

I stand before the shrine, the house quiet around me. The cold clings to be from an hour spent outside in near-freezing temperatures, waiting for a cab to bring me home. The house is asleep — the cats doze on the couch, Corbie is tucked into bed with Beth. A half day on the job…

Confessions, cont.

Veiling. I began veiling back in 2008, because Poseidon asked me to. It started while I was still in Philly, and I veiled sporadically. When we moved to Oregon, I began covering full time. I’ve researched veiling as a religious practice in various traditions, I’ve played around with different types of styles and fabrics, I’ve watched…

Confessions, or saying out loud the things I want to keep most quiet.

and because I’m mad into lists right now . . . Depression. Once upon a time, back in May? June? when I had my last check in with my doctor, she expressed a desire to see about having me come down on my medication, or completely off, beginning in March. I’m on 20mg of fluoxetine….

Depression, new job, bullet points!

Got a new job! I started on the 9th (what a surreal thing that was, sitting through orientation on the day after the election. “What are we doing, how are we not all running around screaming like the sky is on fire??”) I’m three weeks in, and so far loving it. My immediate team is…

Rings of Fear, Rings of Grief

So, a ways back, I wrote a bit about the rings of grief — more properly, Susan Silk’s Ring Theory. Go ahead and click that link if you want to read that post, but really, the picture says it all. This has been a guide that has stood me in good stead as I’ve sought to…