Well, Kyeli made a brave, honest post about abuse, so I’ll do my best to make my own brave, honest post about abuse. This is based on yet another epiphany I had during Iron Pentacle class and now feels like a good time to share it.

I’ve been on both sides of abuse. I’ve been the abuser, and I’ve been abused. Not so much with the physical abuse, and not even so much with the verbal abuse either, but definitely with the emotional abuse. Pressuring, manipulation, pushing to see how much you can get away with, that sort of thing.

But in Iron Pentacle class, when we were talking about the point of Power, we split up into groups and formed stop-motion statues to illustrate words like “oppression” and “victim”. Then someone said something about gender roles, and it hit me — all my abuse-giving was when I was male, and all my abuse-receiving has been while I’ve been female.

What the hell does that mean?

That I’ve deeply internalized these gender roles, and when I transitioned to female, some part of me said, “Okay, time to start letting yourself be pushed around now”?

That it’s entirely coincidental, and just happens to coincide with when I did a lot of personal growth?

I don’t know.

But what I do know is that both sides of the coin suck. Abuse is gilded Power, and being abused is rusted Power. Either you’re taking someone else’s power away (not good) or you’re letting your own power be taken away (also not good.) The middle ground is fierceness and holding healthy boundaries. Standing firm in your own power while not infringing on others.

It’s like I’m going through the classic thesis / antithesis / synthesis steps. I abused others, overreacted when I realized what I had done and let myself be abused, and am now in a nice happy place with no abuse either way.

It’s hard to talk about abuse. If you say you’ve been abused, people look at you like you did something to deserve it. If you say you’ve been an abuser, people look at you like you’re a monster.

But if we can’t talk about it, how can we learn?

Another Friday, another epiphany from Iron Pentacle class.

Growth moves us. Growth keeps us from stagnation. Often, we fear it, but the alternative is far, far worse – a lack of growth is a lack of living.

I was sitting on the floor, learning absorbing taking in all this magick and light, and I could feel myself growing. I could feel my tendrils reaching out. I could feel my edges expanding into newness.

I was sitting on the floor, listening. The epiphany had planted seeds, but I wasn’t quite there yet. Suddenly, I got it – and I started drawing circles into the carpet with my fingertips.

We live in circles – we are circles. We have boundaries and edges, personal space and comfort zones. Growing feels safest in tiny pushes against those circles – I form little rings outside what is currently comfortable for me, and then I grow out. I grow into that slightly bigger circle til it’s comfortable, then start the process all over again. Sometimes I’ll have rapid growth – and my circles get bigger all lop-sidedly. Then it takes me a while to even out and adjust, but it can be just as awesome and fun as the little pushes.

Like tree rings!

It’s a process, growth. Expanding your edges, pushing just outside of your circle. Feeling it out, testing the waters.

Recently, I was trying on clothes. My favorite thing – the one that most delighted me – was a pale cream dress with pink flowers! If you looked in my closet, you’d know why that’s so odd. Most of my clothes are dark earthy colors: olive green, brown, some dark grey, some black. No dresses. Certainly no flowery things, and certainly no light or bright colors!

It seems minor, but it’s actually a reflection of major inner workings. Growth – I’ve been expanding my circles for over a year, and now my fashion sense is starting to reflect that. It pushes my boundaries a little to wear the light cream dress with pink flowers.

But it also makes me happy. It makes me feel new.

Expanding into newness is an excellent way to grow. Test things, try things, see what works and what fails. Try a shirt in a color you’ve never worn. Try that new dish at your old favorite restaurant. Try a new hairstyle – hair grows!

If you always stay inside those comfort zones, you’ll never feel that sense of newness – you’ll never grow.

I challenge you to try something new today. One new thing – it can be little or big. If you leave me a comment, I’ll even cheer you on – I’d love to hear what you’ll try!

Another Friday, another epiphany from Iron Pentacle class. We know you missed it last week.

In the class, primarily when we were focusing on the Self point, I was dipping into my needs, thinking over the things I need to be happy and content. When my needs are met, I can focus on everything else in my life much more clearly, because I’m not always struggling with those basics.

But what happens when a need can’t be met?

It happens sometimes that something we need just isn’t possible for one reason or another. Perhaps we’ve chosen a path that takes us away from an easy solution, or perhaps our partner or family can’t help us fulfill a need.

I have a need for winter. This is somewhat bizarre, being a born-and-raised-here Texas resident. I’ve grown up in this place where there are two seasons: summer and other. Summer lasts from early March (and sometimes February) through late October (and sometimes well into November). Other is a crazed mix of sometimes chilly, sometimes warm, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes rainy, sometimes ice, sometimes oh-gods snow (everything closes at the first dropped snowflake). We might have a week of weather cold enough to bust out my actual coat (which, to most other places, would be a jacket). We might have a week warm enough to wear tank tops and shorts.

Ya never know.

It utterly sucks. I hate the weather here with every fiber of my being. Every time someone says, “What a lovely day!” when it’s January and 75°, I want to scream. I start getting surly and wanting to punch people in the face. I wear my hoodie when it’s 70°, for crying out loud, because otherwise I might not get to wear it. I pretend like it’s cold by blasting the air conditioning in my car when I’m going places.

And for a long time, I struggled with this. I’m in Texas, I’m choosing to live here, so it’s not okay to need colder weather. And why is it even a need? Surely it’s just a strong desire?

Yes, it’s true that I’m choosing to live here. An out-of-state move is rough and costly, and our friends, my family, Pace’s day job, and our budding business are all excellent reasons to stay. Austin itself is a fucking awesome city – I love it here. All except the weather.

And the fact that, when Texas finally does decide to ditch the Union, we’re kinda hosed.

But that aside, I was beating myself up constantly because I need cold weather. I need four full seasons. I need a good freeze so the bugs don’t keep me isolated in my house for six months a year. I need the trees to actually change colors. I get dissonance when I go so long with no reprieve from the warm-hot-sunny weather. I get depressed and angry.

Regardless of how odd or silly or weird it is, I need winter.

It’s okay to need what you need.

We’re human. We have needs. Sometimes they seem stupid or ridiculous or even pointless – but they’re part of what makes each of us who we are. Being wholly ourselves, and accepting not only that we have needs but that sometimes our needs are weird, is awesome.

So now, I accept that I need seasons. I need cold weather. I live in Texas, but I’m not a Texan, and we won’t live here forever. Some day, we’ll pack it up and move somewhere where the blue birds fly beyond the rainbow… er, or where there are seasons and cold.

Another Friday, another epiphany from Iron Pentacle class, this time from Kyeli!

Power over: I have power over you, he has power over her, the government has power over us all.

Power with: We share power, I have power with you, we are powerful together.

In Iron Pentacle, we talked about power. The Iron point is power, the gilded is power over, the rusted is powerless.

I have a long history of struggles with power. I spent most of my life feeling powerless. It was unsurprising, then, that I would get into relationships with people who would take advantage of that. Nearly every relationship I had, friend or romantic, prior to finding and standing in my own power was unhealthy in some way or another. People who had power over me, people with whom I was powerless.

A few years ago, I underwent a dramatic Phoenixification. I suddenly and rapidly burned away a huge chunk of myself, replacing the old tattered bits with new, stronger, shinier, healthier bits. I started embracing myself, embracing my light and my darkness, my flaws and fears and strengths. I became powerful.

I found my magickal center of power through ritual and tattooed a dragon with a negative-space unicorn there, to mark the wholeness of me – I am light and dark, good and bad, whole and strong.

Around the same time, I started losing friends. All of the sudden, some of my best friends started snapping at me a lot. We started bickering a lot, stopped getting along so smoothly. Eventually, those friendships died, the relationships ended, and I was left wondering what the hell happened.

In Iron Pentacle, I figured it out.

When you’re in a power-over dynamic, the one with power isn’t going to easily give it up. Power over others corrupts the ones with it and weakens the ones without it. My sudden growth spurt into a powerful being broke the connections in those friendships based on others having power over me, because I was no longer willing to accept being in a powerless state.

It wasn’t entirely one-sided: I accepted those relationships and allowed them to keep me powerless. They accepted the power and used it. And when I came into my own and wanted to move toward shared power – a more equal relationship – it didn’t work.

It usually doesn’t. Power over stays power over until the relationship ends in some way. It’s so all-consuming, so unbalanced, that bringing things into balance often either breaks things or results in different imbalances. In my case, in all of them, I found that my desire to share power wasn’t shared by those with power over me – they wanted to stay in control. In some cases, I spent years struggling for balance before giving up and going my own way.

Eventually, though, I did go my own way. I found power in myself, and that gave me strength, self-love, and confidence. It is hard and painful when relationships end, but forming a solid, loving relationship with yourself is the most important thing in the world – after all, when everyone else is gone, you’re left with you. Best if you like who you’re stuck with.

Another Friday, another epiphany from Iron Pentacle class. I realized this when we were working with the point of Sex, but it applies to broader relationship patterns as well.

It’s rare that my magickal self-work looks anything like traditional psychotherapy, but today I’m lying down on the couch and talking about my parents. Mark it on the calendar. (:

I have this two-year cooling-off cycle.

I get into a serious relationship. It gradually cools off, then eventually we break up after two years.

I’ve been running this pattern since I was fifteen.

Kyeli is the only exception, and I still ran the cooling-off part of the pattern even without the breaking-up part. Settling down, losing passion, sex drive cooling off, taking for granted — all things we’ve dealt with in our relationship.

Does this look familiar?

When I was a pre-teen, my parents started having marriage problems. They stopped being physically and emotionally affectionate toward each other, and they started sleeping in separate beds. Eventually they separated and got divorced. At the time, I didn’t know or understand why.

So I assumed it’s just the way things go in a relationship.

*waves in case they’re reading*

I’m not blaming my parents. I’m just noticing the source of this pattern. Now that I know its source, I understand it better, and I understand myself better.

Best of all, now that I know where it came from, I know that it’s not the way it has to be.

In retrospect, I get it. But the pattern didn’t form now; it formed when I was 11 or 12. Trying to logic at it in adult terms doesn’t work at all.

What has helped is this.

Simply acknowledging it. Feeling how it feels; remembering how it felt. Putting it in perspective; putting those thoughts and feelings next to my adult thoughts and feelings. Not judging or comparing them, just putting them next to each other in my mind and in my heart. Kind of… letting them talk to each other?

I’m not sure I understand it myself, but I feel as though a big chunk of cholesterol has been dislodged from the artery of my love.

That’s disgusting. Let me try again.

I’m not sure I understand it myself, but I feel as though a big rock has been dislodged from the dam of…

Ugh. How about we forget the metaphors?

I feel good, open, and freely flowing. Unbound.

Much better. Now bring it home!

Discovering the source of a pattern or assumption you have can give you power over it. Think about some things you take for granted; you think “That’s just the way it is.”

What if that’s not just the way it is?

What if it could be different? What if there’s some reason in your past that you’re making this assumption? What if it’s possible to change it? What if it’s possible to figure it out instead of taking it for granted?

If the world being “just the way it is” sucks for you and makes your life miserable, mightn’t it be worth a closer look?

In Iron Pentacle class, we explored the point of Self. Part of this involved stripping away all our roles. Wife, mother, daughter, entrepreneur, witch, scientist, lesbian, bisexual, poly, and so on and so forth. Stripping it all away to see what Self is underneath. Who am I when I’m not being myself for someone else?

All of a sudden, WHOA. I realized that “female” is yet another role. People feel like it’s an intrinsic part of themselves, and in some sense they’re right, otherwise there’d be no transgender people, but in another sense it’s not true at all.

Take me, for instance.

Six years ago, I identified as male. There I was, boy Pace, bopping along, doing my thing. I have friends, I have girlfriends, I have a job.

Then *BOOM* something hits me, I have a massive gender avalanche, and now I identify as female. So I take steps to shift my body and my gender role from male to female.

There, look! I said “gender role”. It has “role” in it. Gender is a role!

It’s a mask we put on when we interact with people. It’s a set of assumptions and scripts about how we expect others to act and how we’re expected to act. For instance, when I was wearing the boy mask, I went to the men’s bathroom and it wasn’t okay to chat with other fellow bathroomers. Now, when I’m wearing the girl mask, I go into the women’s bathroom and it is okay to chat with my co-bathroomians.

Male and female are roles that we play.

Whether it’s socially okay for me to talk in the bathroom has nothing to do with my Self. But whether I’m happier playing that role versus playing a male role does have something to do with my Self. One is comfortable for me, and one was unimaginably uncomfortable for me.

When I transitioned from male to female, everyone started treating me differently, because I was switching gender roles, and roles tell people how to treat you. But I was basically the same person. In other people’s heads, there was this switch that got flipped. One day, I’m boy Pace, and the next day, I’m girl Pace. But from my point of view, one day I’m me, and the next day I’m still me. My core sense of self didn’t change when I changed my gender role.

One day, I’m having heterosexual sex with my girlfriend. The next day, I’m having lesbian sex with my girlfriend. Same girlfriend, pretty much the same me, and kinda-different-but-not-entirely-different sex, but the labels change as if I had crossed a huge chasm.

It’s like clothes.

I can wear bellbottoms or I can wear slacks. On any given day, whether I’m wearing bellbottoms or slacks doesn’t change who I am. My pants don’t define me. Heh. That would be a pretty funny thing to say out of context, so I’ll say it again.

My pants don’t define me.

But I do have a fashion sense, and what I prefer to wear is part of my Self. So if I really really prefer bellbottoms to slacks, I’ll change, even if it costs $30,000 and is very physically and emotionally painful. (;

This metaphor is silly.

Pants are easy to change and gender role isn’t. But I hope you get my point. That there’s a difference between your core Self and the roles that you play. And that a lot of things you might take for granted as part of your Self, like for instance “I’m male” or “I’m female”, might be, at least partially, just roles.

People are people.

Before I transitioned, when I’d meet someone, I’d immediately say to myself either “I’ve just met a man” or “I’ve just met a woman.”

Now I say to myself “I’ve just met a person.”

Because when you get down to it, past all the stereotypes and all the bullshit, people are people.

Okay. I’m done talking now. Your turn.

What roles do you play in your life?

Which parts of yourself are core parts of your Self, and which parts of yourself are just masks that you take on and off?

When the points of the Iron Pentacle are in balance, it’s healthy and good. There are two ways that each point can get out of balance: rusted (deflated) and gilded (inflated). For example, if the point of Pride were rusted, it would be Shame or Guilt, and if it were gilded, it would be Arrogance or Hubris.

One of the personal growth techniques a lot of people talk about is putting yourself in a mindset of having instead of wanting. Instead of thinking “I want $5000/month”, instead think “I have $5000/month”, and this will send out vibrations that resonate in the universe and make it come to pass.

I sort of get the idea, but it feels inauthentic to me.

But the general idea is that one way to grow is to raise your mindset to be a little bigger, then you will grow into your newly biggified shoes. Take this one for example: “I am a well-respected expert on relationships and communication.”

So here’s the big question:

Is this biggification mindful or gilded?

(If you prefer business-speak, substitute “marketing” or “business image” for “biggification”.)

On the surface, they seem an awful lot alike.

On the one hand, it seems gilded (Arrogant and full of Hubris) to make yourself out to be bigger than you are.

On the other hand, it seems mindful to embiggen your shoes so you have room to grow into them.

Intent: Is that the answer?

A big difference between the two is intent. Are you trying to puff yourself up to feel better about yourself, or are you trying to mindfully embiggen yourself to be a better (more effective, more helpful, happier) person? In other words, if you’re biggifying your shoes, are you biggifying your feet too?

That’s a step closer to the answer, but bottoming out at intent doesn’t satisfy me, because of Honest Hal. So let’s talk about roots instead of intent.

Is your biggification rooted in fear or in love?

Are you puffing yourself up because you’re afraid of not being good enough? Are you telling everyone else how awesome you are because you’re insecure and don’t believe it yourself?

Or are you growing your self-image because you wish to grow your self? Are you expanding your words and thoughts because you want to bring more love, care, and goodness to yourself or to others?

That’s it. That’s how to tell the difference between mindful and gilded biggification. Rooted in fear, or rooted in love? As of today, I have some of each.

So here’s what I’m going to do.

From now on, I will be more mindful of where my biggification is rooted.

I’ll remember that it’s okay to feel afraid.

And if I find myself reacting to my fear by shouting “Look how awesome I am!”, I’ll listen to my fear. I’ll acknowledge it. Then I’ll take a breath, think about it mindfully, remember the iron and gilded pentacles, and listen to my heart.

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you’ll know that one of the big things I work on is deepening the connection between my head and my heart.

My internal dialogue talks so loud I can hardly hear my heart.

Yap yap yap, yammer yammer yammer, blab blab blab. Constantly chattering away to myself, constantly remarking on everything and analyzing everything.

Once, to show Kyeli how very chatty my internal dialogue is, I gave it voice. I narrated every single thought that went through my head, including reading all the street signs. Of course, this slowed it down a lot, but it gave her a much clearer picture of what it’s like inside my head. Two words: VERY NOISY.

During Iron Pentacle class, there were several times my internal dialogue would shut up. Some of them were obvious; when we were doing a ritual, a trance or meditation, or another sort of magick. But I also noticed that my internal dialogue had quieted during one of the discussions, which is exactly when it’s usually most active. Talking makes me talkier inside.

It was because I had taken off my glasses.

I have this automatic reading thing. I read everything that enters my field of vision. I’d say it’s obsessive or compulsive, but it doesn’t even enter the realm of consciousness. If you look at a TV and I ask you what shape the screen is, you’ll say “rectangular.” If I ask you to look at the TV without analyzing what shape the screen is, I doubt you’ll be able to do it. It’s automatic and happens below the level of consciousness. It’s the same for me and reading.

When my brain sees words, it automatically focuses my vision on them and reads them. This produces a piece of my internal dialogue, a not-too-interesting narration of signs, book titles, and labels. Given that I can’t read anything without my glasses on, it’s no wonder that I associate internal dialogue with my glasses!

When I take my glasses off, it’s quieter inside. Not just the narration, but the analysis, the worrying, and the round-and-round circling quiet down too. I’ll remember this, and be sure to take my glasses off when I want some internal peace and quiet.

But even more importantly:

The glasses are just a symbol.

Yes, there’s a historical reason why my glasses came to be associated with internal dialogue. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because at this point it’s Pavlovian. You ring the bell, I drool. You put on the glasses, I mindchatter.

Our primal selves, our animal selves — they respond to symbols. They respond to repeated actions. You have a hard time concentrating? Do something specific (create a symbol or anchor) each time you settle down to a quiet place in a clear mental state. For instance, spread your arms wide and sigh deeply. After a while you’ll be able to evoke a clear mental state simply by spreading your arms wide and sighing.

You can switch the cause with the effect.

How’s that for empowering? (:

In Iron Pentacle class, we talked about passion. My concept of passion is that it’s what drives you toward your goals, what ties you to the work you want to do, what fires you up or what nourishes you as you journey.

It seemed obvious to me that to be passionate about something, you must also be attached to it.

This brings up some interesting associations, because we talk a lot about how attachment can bring disappointment. It seemed like two sides of the same coin; if you’re passionate about something, YAY! you get motivation and excitement and all that good stuff! And BOO! you also get disappointment and frustration if you can’t achieve your passion. It’s just the way the world works, right?

Wrong.

To be passionate, you don’t need to be attached. You just need to be engaged. This blew my mind, and is so important that I’m going to say it again in different words and in bold. And heck, I’ll even change the title of the post to be this.

Passion doesn’t require attachment; it requires engagement.

Engagement. What does that mean? It means actively participating in things. It means connecting to them emotionally. You can engage with your passions without getting attached to them. It’s like loving someone without being jealous. You can get all the good stuff without the negative!

This is going to help me a lot. I used to have a pattern where I would get passionate about something, then either it would die down and I’d feel guilty, or it wouldn’t come to fruition and I’d feel disappointed. This led to me having mixed feelings about passion itself.

But now that I know that passion doesn’t require attachment, it only requires engagement, I can shift my point of view. If I notice myself getting attached to something I’m passionate about, I’ll think about it and see if I’d rather be engaged with it instead.

Last week, Pace talked in depth about spirituality, both in general and personally. This kicked off a new series – we’re going to do a series of posts about Iron Pentacle.

Sounds witchy. What is it?

It is witchy! Iron Pentacle is a tool used by Reclaiming and Feri witches (and others, but mostly those two groups). It’s deep self-work. It’s magick. It’s spirit. It’s about sex, pride, self, power, and passion. It loosens stuck stuff. It opens closed stuff. It’s digging down and clearing out. It’s epiphany-inducing. It’s often tear-inducing. It’s, um, apparently hard to put into words. Witchy things are often hard for me to put into words.

That’s cute, but very woo-woo.

Okay, I can do this. We recently took an Iron Pentacle class with two teachers, Kira and Helix. They were an incredible team. They were kind, loving, open, and supportive of our work – even while entrenched in their own work (teaching self-work and magick is learning self-work and magick). In the class, we went through each point on the pentacle:

So, we focus on one point at a time, and we connect and ground, center, open up, breathe, listen…

And then I’m back to talking like I’m in ritual. Hmm. Apparently, writing about witchy stuff in a non-woo-woo way is quite difficult for me, so I’m going to pass the buck to Pace.

Take it away, Pace!

Thanks, Kye. (:

The Iron Pentacle is a concept. It’s a mental and spiritual tool. Like we talked about last week, you don’t need to believe anything for it to work for you. It will work whether you believe anything in particular or not.

But what does it do?

It aligns your head, heart, and body. It aligns you with your Higher Self. What that means in practical terms is that when you make important decisions after balancing yourself with the Iron Pentacle, you’re far less likely to regret them later.

It grounds you and energizes you. When you’re feeling scatterbrained, running the Iron Pentacle can help you get back to earth and feel centered again

It teaches you about yourself. If you have issues about sex, pride, self, power, or passion (and if you’re human, you probably do), you’ll feel blockages in different points of the Iron Pentacle. Sometimes just working through the Iron Pentacle can unstick the blockages, and sometimes it just points the way.

Sounds intriguing!

We learned so much in our Iron Pentacle class that we have about a dozen blog posts to share with you on the subject. We’ll be posting about Iron Pentacle every Friday for the foreseeable future. So if you want to learn more stuff that is spectacular (and ironly pentacular), just keep reading! (: