Eden Bloom

Every morning I wake before dawn to brush away the demons and angels that have accumulated through the night, the ones that follow in my wake, my albatross, my mutated cross. 

Broken oaths, bad blood, blood bonds and divine protections, wanted and unwanted, some intentional, some still unseen, but all felt daily, and not only by me. 

So in darkness or twilight, without malice, but maybe with a slight post-penance regret, I sweep out the cobwebs and push them back at bey and clear the way for the coming day. 

Even so and as I do, they’ll regroup and re-approach while waging their battle over my soul and my deeds, one side bound to protect, another sworn on blood to destroy. 

And they do, and though I sway with the battle, these days I’m able to maintain and wake early in the morning, clear out the dead and those hiding.

Say the words, draw the signs, make the gestures the ghosts and the land taught me and clear the way for another day in this contested space, this place where the river turns.

© EschatonLife

Very thoughtful morning. Lots of impressions of my parents. Our parents are often the gatekeepers of our ancestors and filter the ancestor’s manifestation.

The way in which people, particularly but not exclusively white people, internalize and interpret equity and equality is making me itchy this week.

I’ve been through numerous anti racism trainings of rather varied quality for the last 10 years. It’s been a few years since the last one so I’m sure Mama Lila will call and I’ll find myself in another soon. For me it’s an expected aspect of living in a majority-Black city and working for Black women lead organizations.

I not only need to have an awareness of black history, but also must consider and have a deeper understanding of my history and how I’m placed in the present moment. While I have arrived here under duress, my approach has not lacked strategy or intention.

Let’s start with a few definitions. Equality and equity share the same root, but the blurring of subtleties between them seems to trip well intentioned people up and replicate inequities rather than resolve them.

Equality is what we could have on a level playing field, one without the towers and quarries of oppression. Equity is about everyone getting what is needed to create equality or to level the playing field.

One of the important subtitles lost is here is that, in order to level the field people living in the hills, those who have access to resources and are all set, are not entitled to further benefits or an equal stake.

It is in fact possible that in order to archive any semblance of equity, individuals and groups with amassed power may have to sit out for a few turns at the table or possibly even make sacrifices to the tune of redistribution.

© EschatonLife

Then, Magic was about pursuit,
dominion of this and that, binding angels and bar tricks,
stealing fires, self hip gnosis, slight of hand
living a life in one night, smashing it to bits by dawn’s early light.

Begging, broken, anything but blessed. how far can one intentionally fall?
citing detachment, impermanence, apocalypse,
using “who do you say I am” head trips
to confuse followers and friends in some appropriated
bodhisattva bullshit with a ‘carpe diem’ twist.

Now, Magic is about survival,
side-stepping destruction, protecting my own,
without tipping the scales, bind runes and banishings,
foraging and charting, walking patterns, worship forgotten gods
living focused solely on staying alive while striving to celebrate.

Trying to stay present, to build something that will live on
knowing that the circle never ends, and now,
that the infinite fires are not a destination
but the fuel we carry within us ‘round the sun.