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What We Do The Temple Introduction Philosophy
Sienna's
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Sad facts about most people's sex lives Control yourself What's love got to do with it? Hedonism, hypocrasy, and humping Wilhelm Reich's Notes Pan Problems Magick of Sarcasm On Loneliness & Being Alone |
Pan Problems I never liked Pan. Pan was a male God with a male ego, the most conceited and cocky God since Zeus. You might even say that I hated Pan. Pan was not a nice deity for a young girl to play with. He was dangerous, cunning, and ruthless. Or so I believed for many years. Funny thing happens, though, when you try to avoid a deity. It seems that that particular deity shows up everywhere you go. My resistance to Pan created quite a puzzle to people who knew me. They would give me pieces of antler for no reason except they thought I would like the gift. Several different people gave me altar items with Pan's image on them. I would accept these as graciously as possible, depositing them in my cedar tool chest when I got them home, not really intending to use them for real magick. to the mountains would result in being stopped by a herd of deer crossing the road. A trip to the local produce stand brought an incident involving someone's pet goat. My tarot deck would repeatedly drop the Devil card -complete with smiling goat - seemingly at random. Male friends would do invocations of the Horned One, manifesting Him beautifully, and annoying the hell out of me with the energy. But still I resisted. I refused to admit that energy into my life, and I was not about to allow Him any sort of solid manifestation around me. Why would I want such a horny, self-serving, arrogant Godform in my temple? I never liked Pan, and I didn't think I ever would. However, as you might have guessed, things change. It started when my friend asked if he could try an invocation during a monthly ritual meeting that I held. Silly me - I agreed to it before I knew who he was invoking. He wrote the script, recruited the bit players, and submitted it to me. At the top of the page in big bold letters, underlined 3 times, was PAN. Eeeeeek! Too late to get out of it, I thought "okay, I'll just observe." The night of the ritual came, and everyone was seemingly ready. But in the course of the climax of the ritual, something went wrong. The group fired the energy at the wrong moment, and instead of manifesting in the Priest, it bounced around the room. It was obvious to the seasoned pagans that Pan did not manifest as planned. For the next several days, that Pan energy would pop up in various ways for everyone involved; mostly as heightened libido, but sometimes as simply a yearning for the forest, or a manifestation of something goat oriented. I ignored it as best as I could. The hot young men in the springtime sun, the cool dark mountains on the horizon, my partner's sudden interest in primitive hot springs, all of it taunting me for days after the ritual. I kept it at bay, laughing on the outside, as other people would relate their Pan-ish experiences, a curious fear beginning on the inside. A few days later, I sat down to my weekly personal trancework, going into my astral temple and calling in my guardian, who happened to show up in the form of a spider. I was getting set to do really deep work, when I felt a dangerous presence outside the circle. This was the first time I'd ever felt threatened on the astral, and what was worse, I could not make out what I was sensing. I sent the spider out to see what was up. He came back laughing at me. "Pan's out there." he said. "Pan?" I freaked. "What does he want?" "I don't know." He shrugged. (quite a trick with 8 legs) "Ask him." "You're the guardian. You go ask him." The spider left and came back in a flash, as things usually do on the astral. "He wants to talk to you. He wants to apologize." I was stunned. I could see through the mist outside the circle now, and sure enough, there was the Goat Footed one, a giant towering over my temple, squatting on one knee, looking down at me like a whipped puppy. He was pathetic. I couldn't believe it. "Apologize? For what?" "You ask him." He pointed one leg at me condescendingly. "As your guardian, I'll confirm it will do you no harm to invite him into the circle." "Ok, fine. He can come in. But none of this overpowering, overbearing male dominance shit, ok?" With that thought, Pan manifested instantaneously, as things do on the astral, bringing with him the scent of goat. He had shrunk to exactly my size, still on one knee, so that I was looking down at him. Before me was a young man with silky goat legs and small horns. He was absolutely beautiful, light brown hair and short beard, and big brown eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, and before I could ask why, he went on. "I'm sorry for all the men who have used and abused you in your life. I'm sorry for all the crap your father and your stepfather pulled on you. I'm sorry for your elder brothers and older lovers. I'm apologizing for your ex-husband. I'm sorry for the way you have been mistreated all of your life by men." He went on. "You have laid these burdens on me, so I must do my duty as a God and accept them." He reached up and took my chin in his hand so I would look him in the eye. "Sienna, I accept the pain and suffering you have laid upon me in the name of all men. I take responsibility for it, and I am truly sorry that you suffered." This hit home with me; I realized that he was right. I had taken all the negativity that was dealt to me and allowed it to color my perceptions of the strongest male deity I knew. Although I realized that Pan was simply an energy form and not the cause of my suffering, the fact that he accepted all of that negativity and apologized for it gave me a new perspective on the God. I suppose there must have been tears in my eyes as all of this hit home. I was speechless. He kissed my hand. "I want you to know that I love you," he said. "I've been following you since you were a kid, waiting for you to open up to me." He sat next to me on my astral chair, which grew in size to accommodate him, and put an arm around me. For the first time I noticed The Phallus. Not so legendary-looking, I thought to myself. "I'm not having sex with you, Pan." I surprised myself when I said that. "Sienna, I'm not here to screw you. I'm here to tell you that I love you, and that you don't have to fear my aspect in the men around you. They love you as well, and would never hurt you intentionally. And neither will I. Remember that I can't do anything, anyway, unless you invite me." I wasn't buying that. "Look, I didn't invite them either, and they took advantage of me anyway! These men took things that didn't belong to them. They took away my self-respect, my ability to make decisions for myself, and my sense of security. They used my sexuality, my mental ability, and my bank accounts for their own purposes without my permission. I didn't invite them, and I only invited you into my circle, no farther, because you came knocking." I pulled his arm off me and slid away on the astral chair, which grew to accommodate me. "I'm beginning to feel manipulated here. What is it that men want from me? What do YOU want from me?" He sighed heavily. "All I want is for you to understand that men are just as brainwashed and socialized into accepting that paradigm as women are. They are taught to dominate, and they don't know how not to. There are no schools that teach them the line between manipulation and harming none. If you don't speak out, they don't know that they've harmed you. You can speak out to me now, but can you do it every day?" Again, the God spoke truth. Again it hit me hard. I hadn't spoken my mind to most of the men in my life. Even on that day there had been friction between my spouse and myself because I didn't tell him my feelings. "There aren't as many psychic men as you would like there to be." Pan said with a chuckle. I shrunk the astral chair again and scooted over next to him. I put my chin in my hands and leaned on my knees, turning my back on him for the first time. I felt his hands on my back, rubbing my shoulders gently like a friend would. It felt good, so I didn't stop him. It occurred to me then that I actually enjoyed some aspects of men very much, which is why I had allowed myself to be manipulated in the first place. "So basically, all this time, all these men just wanted me to speak my mind?" "Yes." A chaotic wash of emotional energy came over me, and I did my best to purge it, finding tears in my eyes both astrally and physically. Memories of interactions with men from as far back as I could remember flashed before me. I found myself reliving old experiences and making sense of them finally, my physical body being wracked with sobs. God is a marvelous, indescribable sensation. It's like being loved by the entire universe. It's like rolling in soft, fluffy stuff that caresses you inside and out. Sure, it was merely an astral experience, but as I cried, my physical body thrummed with ecstatic sensations beyond compare. And this from just a hug. When all the energy that was pent up from years of miscommunication was released, all the tears of restraint had been shed, he continued to hold me. I closed my eyes and grounded, but still my body hummed with the love of this compassionate, understanding male God. I had him all wrong all this time. He patiently waited for me to move away or say something, but all I could do was relax into his arms and breathe deeply, finally finding the deep trance state I sought when I cast the circle, allowing my mind to go blank. When I came back to my senses, he was still holding me. My body was still vibrating from his energy, and I was still filled with ecstasy. And all this from just a hug. How could I resist? Of course I invited him. Things are rather elastic on the astral plane. Things happen instantly, chairs grow and shrink according to need; Gods can change their size at will, or the size of any one part of them. It really was legendary. © 1999 -2005 Sienna Newcastle |