Words Dancing On The Wind

Queer and Questioning

I never expected to be
So close to fifty
And once again questioning
How to define my identity.
What does it even mean
To be pansexual
On a long-term vow of celibacy?
I know I’m not asexual
I love sex, I miss sex.
I’m just not willing to sacrifice
My peace or my mental
physical and emotional health
For orgasms I can give myself.
What does that make me now?
Demisexual? Demiromantic?
I would be probably Demi
If I was even willing to consider
Being open to romance again.
But I don’t think I am.
At least most of the time I don’t think I am.
Just every once in awhile
When I’m in bed alone
And I wonder if I’m really content
With the last time I had sex being it.
The last time.
When I realize I’m starving for touch
And physical affection
But I don’t know if I’ll ever be capable of trust
On that level again.
I have been destroyed too many times
In the pursuit of relationship happiness
When each time that happiness
Was a temporary illusion
Unmasked into trauma, loss and pain.
I feel too young to be choosing
To never experience the pleasure
Of romantic love or romantic sex
And too damn old
To ever choose to put my heart
on the line again.
What letter does that make me now?
I suppose I just embrace the Q
Of being queer and questioning
Whether I will ever let anyone
Touch my body or my heart again.

~ aurora winddancer
May 28, 2024

Somewhere along the way
In my adult life
As a single mom
I developed a habit
Of sitting in the car
After I parked
Just sitting alone in the car
Usually in the dark
In between the things
I need to do
In between the places
Of responsibilities
Sitting in the car
When it’s parked in the dark
Is an in-between space
A quiet sacred place
Where there’s no expectations on me yet
I can take a few moments
To breathe
To think
To maybe respond to some messages
That have been waiting for me
Sometimes I lose track of time
Sitting in a car
Until I realize I’m cold
And it’s gotten late
And just outside of the car
Is a home that’s waiting
Patiently
For me to arrive.

I’ve spent so much of my life wanting to be attractive. Trying to find love and relationship, seeking connection and companionship, chasing oxytocin and orgasms. Giving up on that completely has been equal parts grief and relief. No longer being concerned about the male gaze has been freeing. It’s amazing how much time, energy and effort we spend trying to be attractive, trying to find a mate. How much of our time and energy we get back as freedom when we are no longer trying. When we no longer care. This has been a blessing with the timing of the paralysis of my face.

When it first happened I was mortified, terrified, I wanted to hide away from the world I didn’t want anyone to see me disfigured. But in the weeks since then I’ve gone through some ego dissolution, some release of my vanity, some letting go of giving a fuxk. When it first happened I didn’t want anyone to see me, I would avoid the public as much as I could and cover my face with a mask when I couldn’t avoid it. But I’ve had time to process now and realizing that I’m 47, it’s all downhill from here as far as my face is concerned. Whether it’s the paralysis of Bell’s palsy or just the natural changes of aging that I’m going to go through in the coming years, I’m never going to look the way I did before. My face is going to age and wrinkle and sag, I’m going to go through other health things as I age that will change my body. And I’ve realized now that there is a important difference between beauty and being attractive. All that focus on being outwardly attractive, physically attractive when trying to find a mate, that’s not beauty. That’s just external masks and decorating, that’s window dressing and landscaping to make yourself look more appealing from the outside.

The beauty is on the inside truly. And it can’t be disfigured by age, wrinkles or time. It isn’t changed by illness, paralysis or disability.

The most beautiful women I know are silver-haired goddesses, and they have wrinkles around their shining eyes and their bright smiles. Crones lead the way for us women as we let go of the external pressures to be “attractive” and we embrace the beauty we’ve always been. No matter what is happening with our faces.

Seven months ago, I officially chose and embraced staying single permanently and giving up on dating and cis-het men in general. I had already decided at the start of my last dating experience last winter, that if it was a trainwreck and he turned out to be awful, that was it. Trigger law in effect, quota of terrible awful dating experiences met for this lifetime. Done.

I’ve been generally happier for it, my life has been more peaceful, and my stress and anxiety in life is only about work now, no longer riding the cortisol/depression rollercoaster of trying to find a decent cis-het guy to have a romantic relationship with. I felt in my body the moment my hormones shifted and I didn’t even Want that anymore a couple of months later. Yay peri-menopause for the blissful relief.

But every once in a while that old addiction gets triggered by something, some cute couple being all sweet to each other, some sappy movie or book, some love song on the radio and I’ll feel that craving flare up. Love is my drug. But… I found the cure!!

Whenever any part of me, body, mind, or heart has a twinge of desire to even think about considering trying dating again – I run a social experiment that cures that desire in less than two hours. Works Every Time!

I find some comment thread on social media where I post a fairly innocuous little comment that’s slightly feminist or supportive of women…. And then I wait and watch as literally Hundreds of cis-het men dog pile onto that comment with awful, abusive, insulting, hateful, misogynistic, sometimes violent and even threatening responses. When it gets to around 200 or 300 comments I note the time, skim through to see how bad they got, and verify that they are all really different guys, not just one or two crazy guys commenting multiple times.

And then I breathe, I take in that reminder that This is what the majority of single cis-het men are like, because this is what happens Every time. And not just to me, but to all women, every day. And then I delete my original comment after blocking the worst ones so they can’t stalk me.

And my craving is cured again for at least a few months.

Interesting part of this social experiment I’ve done three times this year – there’s always at least 2 or 3 sweet gay men being supportive and calling out the Chads for their awfulness. And there’s always lots of other women, of various orientations also being kind and supportive.

When cis-het men say they don’t understand women or what women want – it’s mind-blowing to me. Women want very simple basic things. To be loved, respected, valued, and to be safe in the relationship. To not be abused.

That’s it. The bar is literally on the floor.

But for reasons I will never understand a huge percentage of men seem to really enjoy hating and abusing women. And that’s one of the saddest things about being human.

The results of the experiment today were bad enough I probably won’t need to do it again for at least 4 to 6 months.

On a positive note, science has proven that single women live longer, healthier and happier lives. Just need a good friend or two, a hobby or two, a pet and some good books. Maybe a passport and money to travel. 🙂

Here’s to a healthier, happier, longer life for me and my single sisters! 💖💖

I want a man who will make me tap out
But only in the best ways
And not the worst ways
Which is all I’ve ever known before
A man will make me tap out
And still want more

I want a man who will give me so much love,
So much kindness, so much affection
So much attention and connection
So much laughter and so much joy
So much pleasure, so much passion
That I need to tap out, just for a second

Just for a moment to catch my breath
Just for a minute to clear my head
A man who loves me so completely,
So properly and deeply
That I need a moment now and then
To remind myself that he is real

I want a man who loves me
The way I have always deserved,
Because I Do Deserve to be Loved that way
I always have deserved it
And I’ve always had that kind of love
Ready to give, with my whole heart and soul

I just haven’t met anyone who has been able, or willing to love me like that.
Yet.

Being a medium, since very early childhood I have had a lifetime of very intense and visceral experiences with spirits, both those recently dead and those older and more ancient. I remember as a child being often surrounded by spirits, and drawn to them, as well as being drawn to cemeteries, pulled to the calling of aiding spirits with crossing over, and as an adult conveying messages to living loved ones on behalf of the dead. It was my abilities as a medium that led me to a House of Ifa, where I was blessed to receive more guidance and training with those skills, because in Ifa mediums are understood and embraced. My experiences as a medium also led me to seek understanding in the Egyptian wisdom about death, dying, souls and their journeys.

But my most beloved experience with my ancestors is one I shared years ago, and long distance with my Nana, who is 83 now and still thankfully with us here in the land of the living.
When I was 18, and my first born son was about six months old, I lived in Mt. Angel in a little two bedroom apartment, and my Nana had traveled to Georgia to be with her mother, my great grandmother who was in the hospital and not doing well. When my baby was born we were all so excited to have 5 generations living, and I had hoped to find a way to go visit my great grandmother in Georgia and have a 5 generations picture taken of her holding my baby boy.
Unfortunately being a young mother just out of high school I couldn’t make that happen in time… but, Love found a way. One night, I on the West coast and my Nana on the East coast, we shared a moment neither of us will ever forget. I had gone to bed, after tucking my baby into his crib in his nursery room just across the hall from my bedroom, leaving my door open and his just door just cracked a little bit. I was woken up in the middle of the night by a bright light in shining into my room, and when I opened my eyes I saw that the bright light was coming from the nursery, through the cracked door. Thinking my then husband had left the light on in the baby’s room I got up and went to go check on him and turn it off, but when I opened the door I saw two spirits, standing side by side next to the crib with their backs to me, looking down at my son. One was a young man, and the other a young woman, they were dressed in clothes from the 1940’s and he had his arm around her waist, she reached her hand down and gently touched my baby’s head and then the two spirits looked at each other and seeing their profiles, I recognized the faces of my great grandmother and great grandfather, my Nana’s father had died of Tuberculosis when she was only 4 year’s old, leaving her and her mother alone in a world where single mothers were not accepted even as widows, and women had very little rights or ability to support themselves. My great grandmother was forced by circumstances to remarry a man she didn’t love, in order to “give her child a father”, but she told my Nana that her daddy was the great love of her life. I watched them looking at each other with so much love shining on their faces as they smiled, looked again at my son and then slowly faded away, taking the light that had filled the room with them. I cried knowing my great grandparents had come to see their 5th generation and they were reunited. Taking my baby with me I went back to bed to cuddle him and fell asleep. Early the next morning my Nana called me and told me her mother had passed away during the night, and she wanted to tell me the amazing thing that happened.

She was in the hospital room with her mother alone, other family members had left for the night, and Nana was staying up to keep vigil, as she knew her mother would be passing soon. She was sitting in a chair by her mother’s bed reading a book when she heard someone in the hallway whistling a song, and it was a song she recognized because her mother whistled and hummed it often. The door to the room was closed, but through that door she saw her father, as a young healthy vibrant man, dressed very dapper, and he walked towards the hospital bed. When her dad came into the hospital room he walked up to her mom and he said “I’ve been waiting for you for so long.” My Nana turned to look and she saw her mother’s spirit rise up out of her body, looking young healthy and shining again and wearing a dress she’d worn in pictures taken when she was young. She was smiling and took my great grandfather’s hand and he helped her rise up to standing, pulled her into his arms, and then whistling the song he Danced her out of the room. My Nana said they only had eyes for each other and when her mother’s spirit left the room with her father’s, the machine alarms went off that her body had died and her heart had stopped.

After she told me her story of seeing them reunited, I told her my story. Of how they came to my home and visited Joshua in his nursery crib. The way they looked to us and the clothes they were wearing were the same and we know that they came to see their most recent born grandchild before leaving this plane. My Nana still feels her parents’ presence sometimes, and I know they are present when I call in my kind, loving and benevolent ancestors, which I do everytime I am doing any spiritual or magickal work or divination. This is why I am not afraid of death or the other side, because I have seen lovers reunited after a lifetime of separation, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever witnessed.

Update – a few minutes after posting this, I reached out to my Nana over Facebook Messenger to share it with her, and to confirm these memories are real. And she confirmed for me the whole story again and reminded me about what her father’s spirit said to her mother when he walked it. So I added that part in an edit.

One of the things I’m grateful for is being able to confirm these experiences I’ve had with others who either shared them or witnessed them. It helps me feel grounded and not crazy, to know that others also experienced things with me or witnessed the events.

I think if I ever wrote my autobiography people would think it was paranormal fantasy fiction 😂… But I think that makes it even more of a reason to write it. Paranormal fantasy non-fiction with a whole lot of witnesses. Many of whom could also write their own paranormal fantasy non-fiction autobiographies.

How fortunate are we, to live with magick in our lives.

Today I spent my day with someone I have never met before, and I will probably never meet again. Our meeting was a complete unforeseeable coincidence of same day same place. And yet I feel more seen than I have ever felt in my life by anyone. I spent my whole life being a person that everyone tells their whole life story too. Ok, It may not be everyone, but it is so frequent and common that it is one of the defining characteristics of my existence. And today I had the rare and beautiful opportunity to tell someone my entire story. Everything really, everything that made me who I am and defined me as a person and everything that helped me become the person I am today. I just shared the whole story with him, and he listened the whole time and he engaged. He listened and he asked questions and expressed interest and displayed real emotional connection with what I was sharing. And he never once in any way expressed even a shadow of doubt or disinterest. And I felt more comfortable and free and safe and good than I have in a very long time. I don’t even know what that was. It felt like I fell in love with someone and we became best friends in a matter of hours, only to part ways at the end of the day knowing that we will probably never see each other again or interact beyond this and it didn’t matter. It was like being a child again, you know how when you’re a little little kid and your mom and dad would take you to a playground in the neighborhood you don’t usually go to, and you’d meet another little child on the playground or in the sandbox and you would become instant best friends for the day. It was like that. And I didn’t know that was still possible. I didn’t know adults can experience that. I feel like a part of me healed today that has been ragged and jagged and torn for many many years. And now I feel sown back together. I took a walk in the woods with a man I’d just met and I was safe with him. And I knew I was. And I was completely open vulnerable and honest with him and it was easy and safe and painless. And I had thought I’d lost my ability to experience that. A kinship with a man that felt safe.

Thank you Aiden.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get there,” they said.
I’ve been trying to “get there” all my life
But only now at the half way point
Do I find myself asking, “what there?”
What “there” is there?
and why have I spent my whole life
trying to get to it?
Trying to get from childhood to teenager
From teenager to adulthood
Trying to get from abusive home
To foster home, to better foster home
To my own home, someday, some dream
Trying to get from highschool to marriage
From marriage to motherhood
From motherhood to college
From college to career woman
Trying to get from poverty and hunger
To stability and enough, just enough
The ever elusive “there” of enough
Trying to get from awkward isolated scared little girl, to strong confident powerful woman
Trying to get from alone and lonely
To alone and content, or at least okay with it
What “there” is there?
Every goal and milestone, every achievement attained, the “there” I’m trying to get to
Still wavers on the horizon, like heat waves
Over the desert imitating an oasis
Where at last my thirst can be quenched
Enticing me to keep trying
To “get there”, but it’s just a mirage
From wishful teen with tears in her eyes
Looking up at the moon and praying to Diana
To find her people, her place in this world
To priestess of many Gods, completely in love with a community of people she adores
Still feeling like an awkward teenager
Alone in every crowd, trying to earn her place with acts of service so she can belong
What is this “there” I’m trying to get to?
I ask my heart, “where are we trying to go, what are we still trying to find?”
“Home,” she says. “We’ve never been Home.”
I’ve lived in many houses,
slept under many roofs,
surrounded by many walls, and many people
but I’ve never been Home yet
And there’s a small flickering flame of hope
Still inside me, that is trying to “get there”
Whereever that “there” may be.

aurora winddancer
10/10/2023

Chase… I dreamt last night of you again, though we’ve never met and you most likely are just a figment of my aching imagination that only exists in my dreams, I can’t help but wonder if you might be real. If someday I might meet you in person. Or if you may exist in some alternate reality that my soul visits when I dream. I’ve dreamed of you so many times, but this was the first time I learned your name, the first time I truly saw your face and it wasn’t just a blur in my memory when I woke up.

I fought so hard this morning to stay with you, to stay asleep, to deny the morning light and the sound of my alarm clock. I’ve lived whole lifetimes with you in my dreams. And when I wake up to this reality every time I weep in agony, because you’re not here with me. When I’m with you in my dreams I’m happy, so very happy. And we are so in love. And then I wake up and I’m still alone in this world. I hate it.

I wish I could stay with you, be where you are, come live in your world. Or that I could somehow find you in mine. I miss you terribly in between the times I see you. I wish I dreamed of you more often.

But at least now I have a better memory of your face and your voice, your eyes and your touch. And now I have your name, Chase.

The last thing I remember before waking up was knowing that I was about to be taken away from you again, I was about to be pulled back into my world and I begged you to find me, if you are a real Chase, come and find me in this world.

Not my writing or art, but I found it so deeply moving and resonate with my soul’s longing that I wanted to save it here where I can read it again later

A MAN WHO TAKES HIS TIME

Have you ever met a man who takes his time? A man so in tune with your energy, your mood, your expression that he knows what you need without an explanation?

A man who doesn’t push you away when you’re upset or frustrated. A man who knows how to stand with firmness and calm in his masculine while your feminine works it out.

He’s taken time to get to know your mind and your body. He sees you, he listens to the little things, even when you don’t know he’s listening.

He learned how to connect with your mind and he’s learned how to touch your body. He’s able to slow things down and read your body’s response to his touch. He doesn’t rush, he’s not pleasing you for his own release. It’s for you with no expectation, no pressure, no manipulation, no games.

You can let go because he’s created a space of absolute respect and trust. He knows when to kiss you softly, when to hold you gently or when to consume your mind and body with masculine power and intensity.

Only a man who takes his time gives a woman time to experience every level of response, layer by layer, deeper and deeper until her mind, body and soul all explode together.

Only a man who takes his time can give her a release of what lays caged beneath her surface. And only a man who takes his time will ever glimpse the heights of ecstasy a woman is capable of, her secret remains hidden to all others.

Author: Jennifer Funk @whatevolvedwomenwant
Artist: Laura Bifano