Sanctuary

I always loved the idea of this.
Danger outside, shelter inside.
Tired? Weary? (did it take you long to find me)
Come in and rest.

All of these traits and skills I have been learning and honing for years are finally making sense.

Its so fucking cool!!!

This encompasses the book, this blog and my Facebook page.

Better part of a decade at the farm getting cheated on.

The years I spent with someone else’s man in my bed.

Moving here and the shedding of all my things, including my magic.

The years in Milton alone, learning how to love solitude.

And even moving to Hamilton, to my tiny third floor apartment with crooked floors and crown molding.

Once upon a tiny apartment…

Did I ever tell you the whole story of Hot Neighbor?

I know I told you all of how I would see this boy around my neighborhood, I was always a mess or in a rush or both. And he still looked at me with lusty eyes. And I him. He was strawberry blond, freckled and looked chiseled almost, all perfect curves and sharp angles.

Did I tell you my son came upstairs one day and said “Ma, I got a job roofing.” And my belly dropped a bit, dangerous, shitty work but I was still proud. I will always be proud.

Did I tell you he asked if he could bring a coworker up to smoke pot after work one night and “I said sure honey, I am not home anyways.”

Did I tell you when said coworker walked in the door, he looked around at my little gypsy nest and immediately asked my son who he lived with.

“My mom.”

“Does she have long dark hair and a lot of tattoos?”

“Ya, that’s her, don’t worry, she thinks you’re hot too.”

Coworker was Hot Neighbor.

He walked into my house and knew it was mine, without even knowing my name.

“This place looks like you look and feels like I thought you might feel. Warm, welcoming, safe and strange.”

He came back with wine and pie as offerings and my door stayed open to him until we moved.

Scorpios have always been better at explaining the inexplicable than most.

They just know things. I have learned from them.

Young un the First was a Scorpio too, Halloween baby.

He walked into the Milton house and declared it sanctuary, then revised his original statement when he realized it wasn’t the bricks and mortar. It was me. He was the first one to say it.

You carry this feeling of home wherever you go. Bless him.

I am learning what it means.

In its entirety.

It is one thing to be a beacon, a guiding light.
Stella Polaris (told you I would give you a star).

I am also a safe place, I know this. I am the archives and the temple.
I am a conduit, I know what to say, how to fix and soothe.

When the world is too much, come here boo, I gotchu.

And for a long time that was enough.

But what about when I was lost?

I learned to self soothe. Mostly. Sometimes I’d cry out loud enough that my ghosts would rally. A select few I can call on to help me with this conundrum or other. But when the work is finished, they go back from whence they came and I would tend to the bones alone.

Do I deserve what I give?

Have I earned it?

Is it even something that must be earned or is it a birthright or karma, or all three of these things.

This path of mine has not been easy. I admit a lot of that is my own doing, making the harder or stranger choices. I have reconciled this. My pain has not made me hard, doesn’t make me feel justified in violence. The opposite really. Anything I have endured I shield others from.

Maybe I do deserve it. A taste of my own medicine. Physician, heal thyself.

Deserve.

What a strange word.

Do I deserve to be happy? 

You believe I do.

You message me every morning. 

You kiss my forehead whenever I present it to you.

You listen when I’m scared or excited.

You know by doing these things you are contributing to my happiness. 

Please take that leap and realize I feel the same about you. 

Please also take the leap and realize that the things that please wolves are much too carnal for the sheep.

He thinks I am giving him gifts, this Wolf of mine.
Trust, liberation, libations, debauchery, all of me really.

Sanctuary.

The core of what I am.

Just so happens I am not a pious church full of ridiculous rules and a judgmental god.

We don’t sacrifice here. Only rejoice.

I am a temple to honor the old ones.

Every fuck a prayer and an offering.

They are very pleased.

I understand fully what it means to hold space for someone.
And finally what it feels like to have them hold space for me.

To him I am his princess, he is the castle and the wolf who guards it.

He is my long sought after safe haven and I his.

Me: I’m shaking and smiling and tearing up bit.
        I’m not even overwhelmed.
        This is relief. Absolute pure relief.

Him: I feel the same way. Fucking relief, I can’t explain it any other way…

Amen