News and a newsletter

Hello, gentle readers. It’s been a while. I’m almost afraid to check on the date of my last post here. But I’m still alive, and quite well, although a number of things have changed.

First I’d like to remind you that I published a book! Loving the Beautiful Boy: Hymns and Prayers to Antinous is available in print from Lulu.

Second, I’d like to announce that Loving the Beautiful Boy is also available in Amazon Kindle format! Get your ebook copy today and for Antinous’ sake, write me a favorable review. *g*

I don’t think I have written here about my bird companion Sunny. In October 2021, my dear bird Rembrandt died at the age of about twenty-three, having been with me for twenty-one years. I was honestly devastated, even though it was not entirely a shock; I knew he was old, and he had been visibly slowing down. Months went by before I could even dispose of his empty cage.

I had been without any birds for a little over a year, for the first time in nearly thirty years, when a chance conversation with a co-worker led to her rehoming with me a little lutino cockatiel named Sunny, whom she had taken in five years earlier when his first owner died. In that time he had lived with five cats and at least one dog, not at all a comfortable situation. When I was introduced to him, I offered him my hand, and this bird who rarely came out of his cage immediately stepped onto my finger and began telling me his life story. I have now had him for about eighteen months and he is my spoiled only child. Right now he is snoozing in the afternoon sun.

Over the past few years I have engaged with blogging less and less, not only as a writer, but as a reader; most of my writing has been fanfiction, which you can find here at AO3. Due to the rise of so-called AI, I have locked most of my archive to registered users, but the most recent couple of stories will always be readable by guests as well, and there will never be any monetization of my fanfic.

I have, however, just recently started writing a newsletter through Buttondown, a fairly new service that I am so far pleased with: A Letter from Saskia. I have been writing about Sunny, about my reading, about what’s happening on the spiritual front, and whatever else crosses my mind. With this in mind, I am planning to delete this blog sometime this year. I will make a further announcement about that when I have set a date.

I wish a blessed Holy Week and Easter, Ramadan, Ostara, Purim, or whatever else one might be celebrating to all my readers, and hope to see you as subscribers to my newsletter. Love to all.

Publication Announcement!

I am joyous and grateful to announce that Loving the Beautiful Boy, a collection of my devotional writing to the god Antinous, is now available from Lulu, and will soon be available through Amazon as well.

This is the culmination of many years of work, a thing of which I am very proud. My thanks to Michael Routery for writing the foreword, to Jay Logan for his kind blurb, and to Dver of A Forest Door for editing, and, of course, to Antinous Himself for his many blessings.

POEM: Ad astra

In his grief the Emperor languished,
unconsoled by the ancient rites.
The Nile had taken his beloved;
could the gods of the Nile give him back a god?
He would worship the boy, Antinous,
and cause him to be worshiped everywhere,
if only he could believe.

Astrologers came to him with the good news:
A new star had been sighted
in the constellation of the Eagle,
the sacred emblem of Rome in the skies.
Surely, they said, it signalled
that his beloved had ascended,
that the boy made one with Osiris
was now traveling the skies like Ra.

Hadrian, his heart now lightened,
his mind enlightened, his spirit revived,
beheld the Star of Antinous
and bid the world rejoice.
Worship this new god, a god
of love and beauty, a god
of poetry and prophecy, a god
of life stronger than death.
In every place he bestowed
the image of Antinous
to inspire devotion,
to awaken aspiration.

Without a star to which to aspire,
how can one go forward?
The star of the Beautiful Boy
shall guide us on our way.
Hail, Antinous the Navigator!
Hail, Star of the Eagle,
approaching the Water-bearer!
Hail, greater than Ganymede!
Hail, you who travel the skies by night
as Ra does during the day!
Hail, giver of wisdom,
illuminator of the way!
Give us your blessings,
at this time and always.

POEM: Heartfire (for Vestalia)

In the sky above us, in the infinite sky,
Sol the light-giver, life-giver, all-seer,
a flaming fusion furnace 93 million miles away.

In the depth below us, the ineffable depth,
Vulcan the forge-beater, artificer, fire-maker,
a core of molten nickel spinning in the heart of the earth.

Between Sol and Vulcan, between sun and earth,
between globe of flaming gas and globe of molten metal,
our earth, our home, our houses, our hearths.
In our hearths, in our hearts, the fire in our spirit,
the link between gods above and gods below,
the priestess, the hostess, the fire-tender, the focus,
Vesta. Vesta. Vesta. Ave!

A prayer for Rhodophoria

 

Beautiful Aphrodite, hear me.
Gracious Venus, hear me.
Flora and Rosa, kindliest of nymphs, hear me.
Great Isis, who art all goddesses in yourself, hear me.
Today we come carrying roses for those who died of love.
Not those like Tristan and Isolda, pining for each other
after their adulterous affair was interrupted,
nor those sad women who were killed
by men who claimed to love them,
but wanted rather to possess them.
Today the devotees of Antinous come before your altars
carrying roses for those who died because of
whom they chose to love, and because
they wanted to dance.
They wanted to dance in freedom, in joy, in celebration,
in love, in lust, in the fullness of everything that means
life: And they were shot to death.
Victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting,
may you be remembered:
A rose for Jean Carlos Nieves Rodriguez, 27, and
a rose for Stanley Almodovar III, 23, and
a rose for Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32, and
a rose for Luis Daniel Conde, 39, and
a rose for Juan Pablo Rivera Velazquez, 37, and
a rose for Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40, and
a rose for Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33, and
a rose for Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37, and
a rose for Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35, and
a rose for Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21, and
a rose for Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49, and
a rose for Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24, and
a rose for Franky Jimmy De Jesús Velazquez, 50, and
a rose for Juan Chavez-Martinez, 25, and
a rose for Jerald Arthur Wright, 31, and
a rose for Antonio Davon Brown, 29, and
a rose for Miguel Angel Honorato, 30, and
a rose for Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, 25, and
a rose for K.J. Morris, 37, and
a rose for Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34, and
a rose for Frankie Hernandez, 27, and
a rose for Akyra Monet Murray, 18, and
a rose for Joel Rayon Paniagua, 31, and
a rose for Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24, and
a rose for Yilmary Rodriguez Sulivan, 24, and
a rose for Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25, and
a rose for Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25, and
a rose for Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26, and
a rose for Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22, and
a rose for Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33, and
a rose for Paul Terrell Henry, 41, and
a rose for Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35, and
a rose for Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25, and
a rose for Amanda Alvear, 25, and
a rose for Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30, and
a rose for Angel Luis Candelario-Padro, 28, and
a rose for Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31, and
a rose for Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26, and
a rose for Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19, and
a rose for Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25, and
a rose for Enrique L. Rios Jr., 25, and
a rose for Darryl Roman Burt II, 29, and
a rose for Cory James Connell, 21, and
a rose for Martin Benitez Torres, 33, and
a rose for Luis S. Vielma, 22, and
a rose for Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20, and
a rose for Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36, and
a rose for Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, and
a rose for Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32, and
a rose for every dead lover
who just wanted to dance.

Initiation still working… augh

As you may know, Bob, I’ve been on unpaid leave for two weeks now because my employers fear the bedbugs in my apartment the way medieval Europeans feared lepers, bubonic plague, and intelligent heretics. Tired of waiting for something to happen, I went in person to HR this morning after seeing my therapist.

Things… did not go well. They refuse to pay me for leave that they ordered me to take, because I have no accumulated leave. Unless I can declare my life bedbug-free by July 27th, my employment will “become inactive”. A new level of euphemism has been achieved here: What they mean is that they will fire me for having a bedbug problem, in the city with the highest number of bedbug infestations in the country.

The best deal they can offer me, apparently, is to take a disability retirement, based on my knee problems and my ongoing depression. I’m going to get on the paperwork for that.

Meanwhile, I still have to vacate my current apartment by July 31st… just that now I have to do it with no income and no savings.

I invite you to donate to my Ko-fi if you can, but also! I can offer my services as a writer and editor.

• For $25 I will write a prayer, hymn, or other ritual text to your specifications.
• I will edit/beta read non-fannish writing, fiction or nonfiction, for $10/page.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give, and that includes prayers and good mojo.

How to know if your initiation worked

Seven months ago, I was in Seattle, Washington. I flew across the country to meet long-distance friends who were fellow devotees of Antinous. That by itself would have been a good and joyous thing, but I also was initiated into the Mysteries of Antinous the Liberator. My friends staged a powerful ritual for me, and I had a profound experience that felt life-changing. I came back home full of joy and faith, ready to change my life in all sorts of exciting ways.

Seven months later, my sister is dead at the age of 63, my building has been sold and I have to move, I have an unaddressed bedbug infestation in my apartment, and I’ve been suspended from my job until I deal with the bedbugs. I’m losing income because of my suspension and feeling desperate for a new job, a new apartment, a new everything.

As all this has been building, or should I say collapsing, around me, I kept looking for meaning. I began paying more attention to astrological transits as more and more of the outer planets moved in on my natal Sun in Capricorn. I did Tarot readings. And I did various magical workings recommended by friends, none of which seemed to do me much good.

On Tuesday I was thinking about things I needed to do, phone calls I needed to make (and wow, do I hate making phone calls). I had the idea, perhaps a kind inspiration, that I should make an offering to Mars and ask for his help, for the gift of courage. I don’t have many dealings with Mars, but I do observe some of his festivals and mention him in my daily prayers on Tuesday, so I felt okay about approaching him with this request. I kept thinking that I should do it on Tuesday, because it’s the day of Mars, etc., but it just didn’t happen. So I said fuck it, and did it Wednesday morning.

I composed a prayer asking for the god’s help. I compiled the prayer, the magic square of Mars, and an image of a Roman statue of him into a Google doc. I prepared offerings of water, olive oil, incense, and a red candle. Then I lit the candle and incense and made my petition, promising further offerings if the god helped me.

I got shit *done* yesterday. I kicked names and took ass, to quote Marvel heroine Mantis. *g* And not only that, I realized something which, in retrospect, should have been obvious: All of the real-life, mundane shit I’ve been going through has been the unfolding of my initiation.

How do you know when an initiation works? When you find yourself re-enacting the whole thing in “real life”. When it shatters your everyday existence and puts it back together. When the fear and the pain and the challenge become 100% concrete and interfere with your job, your health, your self-care. It sounds terrifying. But now I know I can, I will survive this, because I already did. I just have to remember what I learned in the ritual:
–keep moving forward
–be confident in myself and what I have already learned and accomplished
–the gods both challenge us and travel with us as helpers
–there is a time to surrender, but only to the gods, not to defeat
–my true motivation is love and service, for my gods and my community
–I have already died and come to life again as a god.

May these words help you through your initiations.

A cup of coffee (or tea) can go a long way

Gentle readers, I’m facing a quick move from my apartment to a new place, hopefully not far away. Funds are short because health issues have caused me to lose time at work. If you’ve been following my writing, I’d appreciate your good mojo, and a little donation if you have a few bucks: ko-fi.com/mtodd

POEM: Hekate and Hermes

Neither virgin nor crone but a mature woman
firm breasts that have not suckled
strong arms and strong legs
she runs through the night to meet him
at the crossroads, this place which they share:
Hekate Trioditis, Hekate Enodia,
Hermes Psykhopompos, Hermes Trikephalos

And there they lie down, when the moon is dark,
when the moon is full, Hermes laughing,
eternally youthful, his winged sandals kicked off,
his hat tossed aside, his wand planted in the earth
as he makes the lascivious joke about his other wand
rising up, ready to plant between his lover’s moist thighs

and Hekate eager, biting her lip, raising her skirts
with no fucking patience, no waiting whatsoever
as she rolls him beneath her, her torches to right
and to left, her wet cunt his heaven, his sweet seed
the fountain jetting up, splashing down

and the witches dance and the dogs howl
and the hounds bay and Hekate groans
and Hermes laughs and he rolls her over
and they do it again, and again, and again,
until the sun comes up and Hekate,
laughing under her breath, walks home
with the first rays of sun drying her gown

and Hermes flies away like an arrow
from the string, Zeus’ messenger boy,
and the dogs and the hounds roll over
and go back to sleep, and snore.

Interview with an Orphic Rhapsode

Check out my interview with Sara Mastros, witch for hire and translator of the Orphic Hymns, here at my other blog.