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Mama Brigitte's Embrace
- Mama Brigitte's Embrace -
Being a sacred Vodou vision I had, on the evening of May 16, 2021...
It had been a very stressful day for me, and upon the evening my mind and my will called out to the Loa for assistance with dealing with how I felt come nightfall. My thoughts were dark, and my spirit felt drawn to the other side, to the ethereal domains of the spirit. Not many people know, that I practice Vodou and that I have ever since the early 1990's, when I first came to it during my studies of all things of an occult and mystical nature. The Loa have been actively speaking to me pretty much all of my life, and with my third eye open endlessly, for it never closes... I could always see them and hear them, in ways that many others cannot. I have only to call out to them with my will, to seek their assistance, and they can appear when they are of a mind to. Throughout the 90's, I honed my innermost abilities until sometime just before the dawning of the fateful year 2000 I engaged in a series of blood rituals during which I gave of my own life's blood in sacrifice to the Loa and to other things as well... some of a dark nature, and some of a lighter nature. I gave of my blood, and the powers beyond answered. Did I say powers “beyond”? They are far from merely beyond... they are a part of the very world all around us, and a part of them exists in us as well. And so the Loa are always able to hear us when we call out to them! And so they came unto my presence, and I accepted them and was thereon taken upon a journey into their hidden domains. I walked in the darkness and in light, and emerged from it further changed. And so we come full circle to the reason why in my moment of stress and pain I called out to them! And they answered my heart's calling, for it is desire and will that calls the strongest. Let me tell on!
Some pains run deep, deeper than flesh and bone and blood and sinew... and in the coursing of such pain there can come an epiphany in which one sees beyond everything. My third eye was watching and my desire was for solace. I gazed upon my altar place, at the images of various gods and goddesses that sit upon it, at the various sacred objects and tools of magical working that I have placed there. At all of the crystals, and at the beautiful colors of the altar cloth as well with its' various shades of orange and green. I looked upon all of this, and felt drawn into an altered state of seeing and knowing. It was then that things grew very otherworldly! The room seemed to fade outward, and I was suddenly someplace else entirely. All was gray and there were thick mists and fog everywhere... I was between worlds and between realities. Time and space had no meaning in that realm. I could hear whispers faintly, and on occasion laughter or crying, and I saw shapes moving about in the mists. I sensed no malice within the beings and got the impression that they were souls and spirits of various sorts. Some making their way to other planes of existence, some stuck where they were and uncertain of where to go. Upon the night previous, I had been sent various dreams involving Mama Brigitte, one of my patron Loa, and I could feel her spirit calling out to me. I followed it, as much as one may follow a sensation, and I soon found myself standing within a great cavern that was fully open to the outside world beyond it. I saw a vast, sprawling grassland with rough gray mountains in the distance and the cavern was in some high cliffs on a kind of plateau. I could not say where I was or how I came to be there. It looked like some place in Africa, but how much of it was also in another dimension or plane of existence I could not know with any degree of certainty. A campfire blazed on the cavern floor and there was an old man sitting by the fire. He stood up when he noticed me standing there. He was brown-skinned, and his clothes were all gray, mostly tattered robes with a hood that was drawn back. Around his neck, he wore a necklace of animal fangs, and he wore bracelets that appeared made from copper. His hair was as white as snow, and his eyes as brown as the soil. He had a beard that was gray, and he leaned heavily upon a gnarled staff decorated with feathers tied to it with cords. He smiled broadly, and appeared friendly by nature. “Welcome, you who are a god that walks in the flesh of a human being! I would now speak with you.”
In my depressed emotional state, I said to the old man in a melancholy tone: “I am no god, old man. I am barely able to stand life as a human being.” and the old man smiled still as he replied cheerfully: “Oh my dear, dear friend... you are mistaken! For were you not a god I would not have been able to call you hither, and as you can see... here you are.” And I asked him: “Where is here, anyway?” and he said to me: “Here, is my home. This cavern is also home to others who revere you and have for ages now... since of old, when you first had walked among us and bore other names which we dare not speak. We called you here by way of safer means. Gods may become forgotten by the civilized world over time... but then, the supposedly civilized world is never truly civilized... is it!” And I had to agree with him on that matter. It was just this very uncivilized way that people have treated me with so much in my life, that had been weighing so heavily upon me prior to this strange journey I had been taken upon. Strange, but familiar at the same time! I had been there once before, long before recorded history, and I was here again now. This mysterious old man had summoned me, and I could not even begin to guess why. Even so, I told the man that I agreed with him and asked him: “Fair enough... but why bring me here now?” It had been nearly eleven at night when I stood before my altar and was taken from my home, and into the mists. Here, it was morning already and the sky was beautiful above the mountains in the distance. The old man cleared his throat and answered me, saying: “To show you something.” And he took a tiny bell from a pocket in his robes and rang it. Suddenly, a man came out from a side cave dressed in a red loin cloth, a bright copper breastplate of some kind, and a red mask with white stripes down the front of it. The mask was shaped and designed much like the face of a great cat. The man wearing the mask began to dance, and the old man told me a story. It was not a long story, and it was fascinating. It went thus...
“Long, long ago my people believed that there used to be these large cats that once roamed the vast grasslands far below. They were as red and orange as is fire, and had white stripes. They were magical cats, so the ancient legends tell us, and they were of the element of fire made into the form of animals by the gods themselves. Their bodies produced heat to rival that of any campfire, and this heat came forth from their fiery spirits! Though often the days could be quite hot indeed in this part of the land, sometimes the nights could in fact grow very cold and on the coldest of those nights the fire cats would come to the dwelling places of the men and women most in need and they would help to warm them. But people grew lazy and came to depend upon the fire cats too much... and so the fire cats taught them how to make fire themselves. This was, of course, in the age before anyone knew how to make fire, and it is said that in other places the gods themselves taught mankind this very simple secret. But here, in this place, it was the fire cats who did this service for us! Most were grateful to the fire cats for giving mankind their gift, but many were greedy and sought to tame the wild fire cats in order to make them slaves of men. Many of the cats were hunted in those days... none were caught but many perished. And the ones who survived called out to the gods with their very spirits and the gods took them from this world, to the world below. And sometimes, when the ground grows hottest and fire springs forth from the earth... it is said to be the spirits of the fire cats that wills this to be so. For they seek to warm us still, though they are angry with us also for our having betrayed them. So sometimes fire from the earth is beneficial and sometimes it can kill. That is the legend of the fire cats. I tell it to you, because it is also a metaphor for your existence as a god. People have often, over the years, betrayed you and sought to enslave you to their will in order to learn what knowledge only you possess. Yet you still try to help them, and sometimes you grow angry and wish for their destruction. But it is their sins that cause this, not any sin of yours. Just as the fire cats were without sin, and their anger was brought on by mankind.”
And that was what the old man in the cavern told me. He also added: “Many have forgotten you or how to worship you. But here, in this place, we remember and we honor you still. So, now... you see.”
The masked man stopped dancing, and the old man smiled still more widely, his face exuding much kindness and understanding. And I did see, after all. “You wish for me to not give up hope, then.” I observed. The old man corrected me: “That, yes, but also you must never give up upon yourself. For it is your strength of spirit that we revere so highly and seek to emulate within ourselves. Keep bringing your light to those who can receive it, and like the fire cats of old you will make the other gods smile.” And that caused me to inquire of the old man: “Are you also a god, then?” and he admitted unto me: “I was once, but am no longer. You still are, but you can sometimes be blinded by your flesh. It is a trait we all have from time to time. My people do not know this secret about me though. To them, I am just an old shaman with much wisdom to share when others are in need. I do this for my people because I love them. I do this for you this day, because we share a kinship. Never forget... who you really are!” And then the cavern filled with mists, and I could see nothing. I felt a pulling sensation and my spirit was drawn downwards, into the lower world where the dead come to dwell when their time within the living realms is done and over with. I saw things that are indescribable, but soon I sensed the spirit of Mama Brigitte once more and it called out to me even stronger. I was closer now, to the source of that calling and I followed it ever onward, ever deeper... ever further down, into the domains of the dead.
I was shown flashes of various previous lives I have lived, and other flesh I have worn, and I saw the spirits of people whom I had loved and lost down through the ages. I saw my lost beloved Andrea there, and she was smiling and welcome unto me. I was wearing all black, and I was traveling in dark places. She looked different than when last I saw her spirit... her skin was a deep, rich brown and her hair was long and black and wavy. But her eyes were still those I once looked into when she was alive! I asked her if indeed it was her, and she told me that it was in fact she. “Stay with me here, please! You are so lonely, and I long for your companionship endlessly.” she pleaded with me. She was dressed in a gown of black and purple, with a purple belt. She was of the souls who are watched over by the Loa known as Ghede Nibo, who cares deeply for those who are outside of the conventional thinking regarding gender and identity. Andrea had always favored a more androgynous appearance in life, and in death her spirit had the power to alter her appearance to suit whatever she wished. She was learning from the Loa how to express herself further through her appearance, and she often experimented with different looks and styles in order to find whatever she felt worked best for her. She was a broken soul when she died, and she was broken still... for no matter what shape she crafted for herself, she was still lonely and sad. But I was still among the living, and could not join her there. “I have always loved you, Andrea.” I told her, “But I am not yet ready to come and dwell in this place here with you. For I still live, and I was drawn here only by the will of the Loa. I must answer their summons, for they have always answered mine.” And I had tears in my eyes, which matched the tears in hers. “I need you!” she screamed to me, and I took her into my arms, ran my hands through her hair, gazed deeply into her eyes and confessed: “Oh my love... I need you too! I never stopped needing you, not all these years.” and my heart was breaking for I did indeed long to join her there in that place with all my heart. For it was a paradise there, with gardens and palaces and beautiful jungles untainted by the pollution of mankind's carelessness. There, Andrea wanted for nothing... except for how much she wanted me to join her there. I felt a hand upon my left shoulder all of a sudden, and a deep but soft voice spoke to me saying: “Come, my friend. You are still alive, and still have much living to do. Andrea will be waiting for you, never fear. When your time comes, you will indeed join her here... where you too may learn to be whatever your heart desires most to be.” The man spoke with a definite accent... like someone from Jamaica or Haiti. I then turned around, and beheld a dark-skinned man dressed in a black suit with a black top hat upon his bald head. His face was painted like a skull, the face paint as white as bone, and he wore black sunglasses. It was the Baron Samedi, also known as Ghede. The father of Ghede Nibo. He smiled at me... his face kindly.
He was skinny and tall, the Baron was, and his suit jacket was open with no shirt on underneath so that his chest was bare for the most part. His dress style was elegant. A red sash for a belt, as red as is blood, and a necklace of bones around his neck, all carved smooth and bleached to perfection. In his hat he had a black feather, and his feet were shod with black sandals. He was not young, but not old. Rather he was as ageless as this great Loa was timeless. “Come, my friend!” he insisted, taking me by the hand as serving ladies came to wait upon Andrea and dry her tearful eyes. In his other hand, he held a black cane with a white, skull-shaped top segment adorning it. “Very well, Baron. Let us go, then.” I said, my voice sounding tired and weary. And he led me far, far away, down winding roads, long paths, and very disused trails... to a place where the ground was covered all in snow and there was a house upon a hill. It was the very image of the same house in which I had lived for much of my life prior to moving out to the American Midwest most recently. Just as it had looked when I still lived out on the East Coast, but for this strange hill. The back and front yards were the very image I remembered. None of it is the same in the living world now... the real estate agency that purchased the place had changed everything. But in the domains of the dead, this image of it was as if it had been pulled straight out of my memories. And it felt like home indeed! I ran towards the back yard, the Baron allowing me to do so. I searched for a very specific spirit there... and she was there: my grandmother, looking like she did when she was still young, back when she was only in her forties. Before old age and illness claimed her. “Grams! What are you doing out here in the snow? Come back inside, before you get sick!” I exclaimed, forgetting for a moment that she was dead and could no longer get sick or feel the cold any longer. Nor was she old any longer either. For that matter... despite the presence of all that snow upon the ground, it was warm outside and the snow appeared on the verge of melting from the warm temperatures of this place. “Oh, don't worry about me, silly! I'll be fine. I'm just doing some work in the yard is all.” and it was just like when she was still alive. She was dressed in black pants with a black blouse, her hair long and done up in one of those cones she used to where back in the 1980's when those were all the rage. She wore black shoes too, and carried her old purse with her, slung around one of her shoulders. She was busily picking up stacks of loose branches and putting them into piles to tidy up the yard. Her face and hair were full of green glitter, the kind she used to wear back in the day too. I let her get back to her work, when I had noticed my old cat Mittens wandering up to me... his long fluffy black fur with his distinct white paws having been the whole reason we had named him Mittens. But we had always just called him “Mitty” for short. I called him by name, and it was indeed his spirit because he meowed just like he always did when I called him... and he began to purr and nuzzle my leg. I pet him, and I had tears in my eyes again, remembering how much it had hurt the day he died. He had been my favorite pet of all, and a staple of my childhood and my teen years. He had lived to be quite old, by cat standards. He was very sick and skinny near the end of his life... very much like how my grandmother became near the end of hers. And Mitty had been away from home for a good week near the end... and, my family and I were all deeply worried for him. He came home though, and wandered into the back yard where he fell over. Both my mother and grandmother rushed outside to tend to him, and they told me not to look and ordered me to go back into the house. That was the day he died, and I never got the chance to say goodbye to him. He was buried in the back yard, and often I would go into the back yard to say hello to his spirit and to tell him how much I missed him. I had raised him from a kitten, and when he was still just a kitten I had to feed him special things with an eyedropper because he was too young to be away from his mother... but the pet shop had showed me what to do, and I had raised Mitty well. He grew up strong and happy, and looking to me as he would have his mother, and because I had so very few friends as a child he was like a best friend to me. That was why his death had hit me so very hard, as it did. But here he was, just as healthy looking and happy as he had been in his prime! He scampered off after that, and the Baron was walked over to speak with my grandmother about something. That, was when Mama Brigitte appeared.
She had walked up to me from the edge of the back yard, where the old wooden fence was broken in many places. Mama Brigitte had a somewhat pale complexion, though not unhealthily so by any means. She had a pleasant, rounded face with lots of freckles and her eyes were green and sparkling, her mouth broad and smiling, with her features being overall very elfin-like in their aspects, both delicate and fine. She had long, wavy red hair that cascaded down her back, and she wore a long black evening gown of quite the fancy design indeed. She wore round spectacles, and she had also been wearing a top hat when she showed up. She took off the top hat, bowed very politely, and greeted me warmly as one would an old and dear friend. “It is so honestly good to see you! I am very glad to see that we could both make it here.” She said, at the same time taking my hands into her own. There was something of an awkward pause, and then she embraced me with all the intensity of a lover, whispering into my ear: “Let us go inside for a little while... alright, then?” Her voice was charming and almost musical, and I felt deeply entranced by her. In the dreams I had in which she had come to me in visions, she had been physically intimate with me, and so we were both quite familiar with each other already. In many respects, quite far beyond mere friends. We held hands as we walked up the side porch and into the house. I had one of my arms around her shoulder by that point, and she was smiling very mischievously. She was about a head shorter than I, and she had to look up at me. She was Baron Samedi's wife, but she was known to show intimacy to those she sought to heal in various ways. It is said that those she cannot heal, she will escort into the afterlife, showing them the correct paths to follow that will lead them to where they are meant to go after death. The Baron did not mind this about his wife, and it was part of an understanding which they had which went back far and distant, into much more ancient times. The kitchen was clean and neat, and everything in the house looked absolutely beautiful. It did not just simply look like my old home... it felt like my old home, too. All of my things were still in my room, and they were in the den too. Old toys I thought lost forever, old video game consoles and whole collections of games like I used to have back when I was younger. Stuffed animals I thought my mother had sold on me. Works of art, books, comics, everything I had ever collected and loved over the years. All neatly set up and made organized in those two rooms. With many of my things in the living room too! Like when I was in my teen years, how we kept things. Brigitte showed me all around the whole place. “How do you like it?” She asked me, adding: “We had this whole house made not just for your grandmother, but for you to enjoy also.” And I told her it was perfect. “I am glad!” she exclaimed. “More than perfect...” I went on, stating honestly: “It is actually better than anything I can remember about it. You have improved on it in every aspect, in every detail!” and Brigitte was happy to hear me say that. “Your grandmother likes it too. She and the Baron will be talking for some time I think... how about we go into your room and talk a bit ourselves for the time being. Okay?” and she led me back into my room again (our tour had ended in the living room), where she shut the door behind us. “Now we are alone at last!” she sighed, seeming content. She walked over and laid down on the bed, stretching out, as I stood in the center of the room. It had been such a long journey, and I never expected it to end back at a surreal version of my old home.
“I hear you are in need of some healing, my dear.” Brigitte began, adding: “Your spirit... may indeed be strong, but you've been under a whole lot of stress lately. Too much for one person to handle and not crack from! What affects the spirit can affect the mind and the body as well. And that, is when a person needs healing the most. This is true for mortals, and it is true also for gods like us. Come on over, and lay down by me... you'll find the bed just as comfortable as you remember it. Probably more so!” and I did as she asked, putting my left arm around her. She was warm to hold, just as people have said about me over the years. “You are so beautiful!” I whispered to her. “Thank you.” she smiled. I was in a male form during this whole journey, and Brigitte said to me: “You are very handsome, you know. You can believe me when I say that I have been with far, far uglier people than you. You just need confidence!”
For years now, about ten years at least, I have been living full time as a woman... but even so, I never fully transitioned all the way. I never had the hormones, never had the surgery. But I made myself fully, convincingly female in every facet of my appearance and in my voice and in my walk and in all of my mannerisms. But I had not always been so, and back when I was with Andrea, when she was still alive, I had been living as a male indeed and I was extremely happy at the time to do so. Although I had been born hermaphroditic, I had very fully functioning male parts that were perfect and with no deformations or problems whatsoever. I was one of the lucky few, given that most hermaphrodites are born with very serious problems that I did not posses. My female aspects were pretty much internal only, for the most part and it was debatable whether I had very tiny breasts or just very nicely developed chest muscles. When I was living as a male, I could go shirtless and people just thought I was very muscular. When I was living as a female, I could wear a bra and make it look like I had cleavage. I could be either gender and I could do so flawlessly, like a shape changer. I never hated my body when I was growing up, never felt at odds with it. I was just... me, is all. “You just need confidence!” Brigitte had said to me, whilst we were lying together upon my old bed in my old room, in that beyond perfect re-creation of my old house. And, something struck a chord within me when she had said that. Why did I wish to become a woman, to begin with? As a hermaphrodite... I could very easily choose either gender and it would be equally true to myself without causing me any sort of dysphoria of any kind. Being a woman had not always been something that I had wanted for myself, not for all of my life growing up at least... and that much, I knew for a certainty. Being a man, had just simply been something that I had tired of, and could no longer see myself as. Three times previously, this had happened to me. Once when I was two years old, once when I was ten years old, and once in my late twenties. In each of those cases, I had grown very irritated with living as a male, and so I longed to become female and attempted on each occasion to express this longing outwardly to the world. But always, it had not been fully what I had hoped it would be and so I went back each time to living as a male. What was it that I truly lacked confidence in more? Confidence in myself as a man, or confidence in myself as a woman! Perhaps both. I had lived a difficult life, and known a great deal of abuse, suffering, and hardship along the way. Enough to erode the strength and confidence of a thousand men or women. And I put these thoughts from my mind as I regarded Brigitte. I began to caress her body, enjoying every moment as I did so. She smiled, sighed or made a cute giggling laugh once or twice, as I ran my hands over her. Her eyes were bright in the light shining in through the window, and she had laid her spectacles aside on a nearby table previously so I could bask in the beauty of those eyes without anything to impede the view. “Kiss me!” she said, in a very commanding tone. I could not resist, and I began to kiss her beautiful face and neck. Her lips were decorated with deep blood red lipstick, and I kissed those lips hungrily... like savoring a pomegranate that one has not tasted in years. She was breathing heavier, becoming aroused, as was I. I felt much like as if I were a teenager again! “Make love to me.” she whispered, longingly. And I exposed her breasts, kissing them, squeezing them gently. I wanted her, I realized. I wanted her very badly! I pulled up her gown all the way to her waist, pulled down her undergarments, and she opened her legs for me. I took down my pants and undergarments, and I could feel the hardness between my own legs. I was so hard for her, that I could barely stand it much longer... and so I entered her, enjoying her wholly, entirely, all the time raining kisses down upon her beautiful face, her neck, and her bosom. As I heaved atop her, our breaths quickened and we made love for some time before reaching our climax together. It was beyond perfect, and I lay next to Mama Brigitte afterwards, my energy spent, as was hers. We spent several hours whispering and talking about things. She told me of her life in the realms of the dead, and I told her about mine in the realms of the living. We were less like gods or goddesses, and more like a couple that had not seen each other in a long time, trying to make the most of the time they had. Soon, we got cleaned up and re-dressed and walked outside by way of the front door. It was time to depart.
“I hope that was not in any way awkward for you.” Mama Brigitte teased as we walked down some roads past the hill upon which the house in the domains below had been built. Just as in the world of the living, there was a cemetery one street up past the house... only this cemetery was much larger and had whole mausoleums standing within it. Much like the grand cemeteries of New Orleans and the like. “No, it was not. If anything... it felt far too right.” I confessed to her. “More right than you could ever have realized, eh?” she asked, and I admitted this was true. “I felt like this... with Andrea.” I told the great Loa, and she admitted to me that she already knew this to be the truth. “I know that girl. She is always so sad and lonely here.” Brigitte explained. “Always crying for you. But you... you're a god and she was just a mortal who became something greater after she died. She'll wait for you, even if she has to wait a thousand years or more. Time has no true meaning here, after all. To her, maybe it will just seem like a week or two... it is all relative to one's perspective.” And I wondered how long I had been there for myself at that point. I saw among the graves in the cemetery, a pale woman with long black hair and totally black eyes, wearing a long white Victorian style gown. It was Lilith... the goddess who had been so much more to me, over the centuries... in the various forms we both had walked in down through the ages. She looked intent on searching for something, her body mostly ethereal and ghostly in appearance. She shrieked and wailed a few times, the sound horrible and shrill and unearthly. It made me shudder and feel cold all of a sudden. “I know her too, that Lilith.” Brigitte told me quietly as we walked onward, heading for the woods on the far side of the cemetery. “She's a lost soul, mostly. She is neither living nor dead, but trapped somehow between those two states of being. I don't know what it is she is looking for, but we had best move on and not stay in this part of the cemetery.” and I agreed, for I sensed a gathering darkness there that was much more profound and terrible than I was accustomed to dealing with. I have known such darkness... but this was concentrated, like a million dark spirits all in a whirl, and all converging upon a specific location. I did not wish to be there when they arrived... for such spirits can mean harm more often than not, and in the distance I could hear a multitude of voices wailing and shrieking and crying aloud, and I knew that was they. Brigitte took me deep into the woods ere long, and past some swamps that lay off the beaten trails we walked upon. I felt safe with her... far, far safer than I ever had with my own mother in all the years of my childhood. I could hear drumbeats off in the distance, and I could see campfires and bonfires here and there in the swamps, with shadowy forms hunched over them or gathered around their light. “Where are we going, Brigitte?” I asked my guide, and she told me only: “That way!” and she pointed ahead of us, towards utter darkness. It was night time all of a sudden, and had been ever since we left the house. But there was neither moon nor stars to be seen in the sky. Only a sense of unfathomable vastness. I looked up, and suddenly saw that all of this was within a massive cavern... or someplace deep underground somewhere. For there were immense formations of rock where distant stars should have been... and where the light of “day” had come from previously, I could not know or say. “Are we under the earth?” I asked the great Loa, and she smiled and replied cheerfully: “In a way. In way that perhaps only the ancients fully understood.”
Before long... we found our way, unto a white gleaming palace, which we had glimpsed beyond the swamp lands, with lights that were like electricity which illuminated the place beautifully. I saw people there, tall men and women with pale white skin, all dressed in long white flowing robes, with hair of the same colorless hue. As we drew closer to that place, I saw their eyes were silver or white and had no other color within them. They seemed aloof and unfriendly at first, but smiled warmly when Brigitte and I walked past them. I was brought before the elder of those people, and he and Brigitte talked for some time about various trivial matters. Finally, he turned to me and asked me: “Would you like to go home soon?” and I was not expecting that. “I... I don't really know...” I said confusedly. “Can you send me back?” And the man nodded his head in the affirmative. “Yes, I believe that we can send you back.”
That was how we came to it, how we came at last to discuss the journey home, back to the world of the living for me. Mama Brigitte and the elder spirit... whomever or whatever he was... explained it to me in detail. Basically, it was thus... and thus I did, exactly as I was instructed: I made my way alone, out from the gleaming palace and into the distant foothills, which led me to some tall, jagged looking mountains and cliffs and crags. Nearby, were large chasms in the ground, and I saw lava and fire just beneath them. The air was filled with smoke and dark mist, and it was hot there. As hot as a day at the height of summer's heat could be. I was given ceremonial black armor to wear, with black robes that adorned it... and to light my way I was given a staff that held a red glowing crystal in a claw at its' top. The crimson illumination emitted by the crystal only made this landscape appear that much more like some vision of Hell. Steps led up the cliffs, up into a massive cavern set into the mountainside. I made my way up the steps, and into the cavern, and the climb to get up into there was long and treacherous. I slipped several times, and nearly tumbled down, only to try again with greater determination. “Why?” I asked myself at one point. “Why do I even want to go back... when everything that could fill me with the greatest joy, is here in this realm?” And I thought of Mama Brigitte's smiling face. I thought of sad Lilith, appearing lost in that cemetery. I thought of Andrea, crying such bitter tears for my company. I thought of my grandmother and my cat and my old house and all my things in it. “Here, I do not need to wear any masks, I can simply be anything I wish to be. Have anything I wish out of life, and it would be made so.” and I sensed that back in the realm of the living there were still people who missed me, who needed me, who would weep truly bitter tears at my death if I decided to abandon my physical body and remain in the realms of the dead. I had to return, if only for their sake. “Time has no meaning here, and life is short enough... all this joy, all this happiness, will still be here, waiting for me when my time is at hand. And Mama Brigitte will be there to show me the way... as will Andrea and Lilith, and others who have loved me over the years.” And so, my willpower renewed, I made my way into the black may of the cavern, the only light being the red glowing crystal within my staff. I felt a sensation of utter dread.
On the far side of the cavern, deep within the dark mountains, there was a massive shaft cut into the ground, with another bored into the ceiling. Both down and above, the shaft led only into an endless shadowy darkness with no end in sight. I could fall downward into the abyss, or rise up using my own willpower, but either way the journey was without a difference. Darkness awaited, whichever way I could choose! I had been instructed to come to this shaft, but I was not told which direction to travel in. Only the two different ways by which I could make that journey. One would think that the way would be to travel upwards... but this place was sometimes bereft of physical logic. The way back could just as easily be to fall downwards. All of a sudden, out of various side caves came hordes of emaciated, nearly skeletal looking creatures with savage fangs and sharp claws. They had long, wild hair and made awful shrieking and wailing sounds, intermixed with animal-like growling noises. A Duppy. That was what Mama Brigitte called them when she warned me of their presence in that cavern. “They will try and take you away, off into darkness so deep you will never find the light again. But if your will is strong, they will not be able to take you... and the way home will open to you at last. A Duppy knows how to frighten the living... and it knows who it can frighten and whom it cannot. So be strong, and do not let them win!” I held out my staff before the gathered throng of lost souls... for that is what a Duppy is. A soul that has lost its' way and become something horrible as a result of entrapment in the darker places of the realms of the dead. And the crystal shone into their faces. They were taken aback by that, but I could see their primal fury, their desire to tear me to pieces if they could. I knew them by another name once, long, long ago. They had cause to hate me then... and they had reason to hate me still! They were, as one, drawing all around and about me... forming a terrible circle that grew closer and closer, tighter and tighter. Like something possessed of a singular hive-like mind or will... they sought to claim me.
The horror of that moment was unspeakable! They surrounded me on all sides, caught me up and we were all carried into the air together by some unseen force. Up, into the shaft that led into the ceiling. Like a whirlwind of absolute death, those grotesque creatures slashed at me and tore at me, clasped me and attempted to carry me off... but they could not, and this made them only all the more ferocious. A great whirlwind carried us higher and higher into the very heights of the shaft, and I looked up seeing only blackness without end. I felt the pain of their attacks, though my astral body had no flesh to tear, no bones to break, no blood to spill. They were attempting to siphon away my spiritual energy, but I had too much for them to consume. I spun about with that staff, and crimson light shot out from the crystal like swords of blood-red fire, consuming some of the fiends and seriously injuring others. A few appeared to be torn apart by this magic, and soon the horrors began to retreat back down the shaft. I was ascending too fast though, and I knew not where I was going. “Mama Brigitte, hear my call. Help me get back home safely! In your name, I call. Come, and help me to be free!” and I screamed this aloud, feeling a presence come upon me afterward. Her spirit was upon me, carrying me away someplace. I was surrounded by thick mists and fog everywhere. I could feel her energy all about me, healing me from whatever the Duppies had done to me. Soon, I felt much like someone who was drifting off into sleep, and when I awoke from this I was back in that other cavern again, the one with the kind old man.
It was still morning there, as it had been before my journey into the regions below. He smiled at me still, and said: “So you survived the journey back, then. It is not the first time, though, for you. Only one of many! What have you learned about yourself, then?” and I told the old man the truth: “That I lack confidence, and I need to learn to believe in myself more strongly than in the past. I may be a god, like you said, but at present I must dwell in a mortal body, one I must learn not to hate. It does not truly matter whether I choose to live as a man or as a woman. Either way, I need to be confident in myself in order to be happy. Without confidence... I would never have escaped the Duppies in order to emerge here once again. I need to learn how to have that confidence when I am in my physical body once again. Only this time I must never lose it. That is what Mama Brigitte wished to teach me, and I am grateful!” At which point the old man seemed pleased. “It is good, then, that we brought you hither.” he said. “It was not for nothing... and so, you are ready to return to your body and find yourself back in your home. Remember, also... that you are not wholly forgotten! There are many like me and like my people who remember you. Who you truly are! And whence you came, of old. We will keep the old ways, forever.”
And the man who had been wearing the costume of the fire cat previously, the one who had danced while the old man told me the legend of the fire cats... he was a man no longer, but a real fire cat which looked just like in the ancient tale. “Appearances can be deceptive.” the old man who had once been a god himself told me. “We are... all of us... a great deal more than we at first seem to be. Never forget this, and you will never forget yourself!” And the old man was wise in telling me that. I had come full circle upon this journey, and now I was ready to return whence I came. “Send me home, old man. I am ready to go back now.” I told him, and he nodded in agreement. He began to chant something in some ancient language, and the glow of the fire before him became increasingly intense. Soon, all became a mix of deep mists and fog, intermixed with light. At length, this all faded and I was once more there in my apartment, in the bedroom, standing before my sacred altar. Exactly as I had been... before having been called away. In a manner of speaking, Mama Brigitte had indeed healed me. For although I would always have to contend with the occasional feelings of self-doubt, I knew that the power lay within me to send that doubt back into the darkness whence it first came. In Brigitte's warm embrace, I had gained strength beyond measure and a glimpse of my old confidence once again. Now the hardest journey was about to begin... the journey to discover myself anew, and to do so with all the skills the Loa taught me.
Being a sacred Vodou vision I had, on the evening of May 16, 2021...
It had been a very stressful day for me, and upon the evening my mind and my will called out to the Loa for assistance with dealing with how I felt come nightfall. My thoughts were dark, and my spirit felt drawn to the other side, to the ethereal domains of the spirit. Not many people know, that I practice Vodou and that I have ever since the early 1990's, when I first came to it during my studies of all things of an occult and mystical nature. The Loa have been actively speaking to me pretty much all of my life, and with my third eye open endlessly, for it never closes... I could always see them and hear them, in ways that many others cannot. I have only to call out to them with my will, to seek their assistance, and they can appear when they are of a mind to. Throughout the 90's, I honed my innermost abilities until sometime just before the dawning of the fateful year 2000 I engaged in a series of blood rituals during which I gave of my own life's blood in sacrifice to the Loa and to other things as well... some of a dark nature, and some of a lighter nature. I gave of my blood, and the powers beyond answered. Did I say powers “beyond”? They are far from merely beyond... they are a part of the very world all around us, and a part of them exists in us as well. And so the Loa are always able to hear us when we call out to them! And so they came unto my presence, and I accepted them and was thereon taken upon a journey into their hidden domains. I walked in the darkness and in light, and emerged from it further changed. And so we come full circle to the reason why in my moment of stress and pain I called out to them! And they answered my heart's calling, for it is desire and will that calls the strongest. Let me tell on!
Some pains run deep, deeper than flesh and bone and blood and sinew... and in the coursing of such pain there can come an epiphany in which one sees beyond everything. My third eye was watching and my desire was for solace. I gazed upon my altar place, at the images of various gods and goddesses that sit upon it, at the various sacred objects and tools of magical working that I have placed there. At all of the crystals, and at the beautiful colors of the altar cloth as well with its' various shades of orange and green. I looked upon all of this, and felt drawn into an altered state of seeing and knowing. It was then that things grew very otherworldly! The room seemed to fade outward, and I was suddenly someplace else entirely. All was gray and there were thick mists and fog everywhere... I was between worlds and between realities. Time and space had no meaning in that realm. I could hear whispers faintly, and on occasion laughter or crying, and I saw shapes moving about in the mists. I sensed no malice within the beings and got the impression that they were souls and spirits of various sorts. Some making their way to other planes of existence, some stuck where they were and uncertain of where to go. Upon the night previous, I had been sent various dreams involving Mama Brigitte, one of my patron Loa, and I could feel her spirit calling out to me. I followed it, as much as one may follow a sensation, and I soon found myself standing within a great cavern that was fully open to the outside world beyond it. I saw a vast, sprawling grassland with rough gray mountains in the distance and the cavern was in some high cliffs on a kind of plateau. I could not say where I was or how I came to be there. It looked like some place in Africa, but how much of it was also in another dimension or plane of existence I could not know with any degree of certainty. A campfire blazed on the cavern floor and there was an old man sitting by the fire. He stood up when he noticed me standing there. He was brown-skinned, and his clothes were all gray, mostly tattered robes with a hood that was drawn back. Around his neck, he wore a necklace of animal fangs, and he wore bracelets that appeared made from copper. His hair was as white as snow, and his eyes as brown as the soil. He had a beard that was gray, and he leaned heavily upon a gnarled staff decorated with feathers tied to it with cords. He smiled broadly, and appeared friendly by nature. “Welcome, you who are a god that walks in the flesh of a human being! I would now speak with you.”
In my depressed emotional state, I said to the old man in a melancholy tone: “I am no god, old man. I am barely able to stand life as a human being.” and the old man smiled still as he replied cheerfully: “Oh my dear, dear friend... you are mistaken! For were you not a god I would not have been able to call you hither, and as you can see... here you are.” And I asked him: “Where is here, anyway?” and he said to me: “Here, is my home. This cavern is also home to others who revere you and have for ages now... since of old, when you first had walked among us and bore other names which we dare not speak. We called you here by way of safer means. Gods may become forgotten by the civilized world over time... but then, the supposedly civilized world is never truly civilized... is it!” And I had to agree with him on that matter. It was just this very uncivilized way that people have treated me with so much in my life, that had been weighing so heavily upon me prior to this strange journey I had been taken upon. Strange, but familiar at the same time! I had been there once before, long before recorded history, and I was here again now. This mysterious old man had summoned me, and I could not even begin to guess why. Even so, I told the man that I agreed with him and asked him: “Fair enough... but why bring me here now?” It had been nearly eleven at night when I stood before my altar and was taken from my home, and into the mists. Here, it was morning already and the sky was beautiful above the mountains in the distance. The old man cleared his throat and answered me, saying: “To show you something.” And he took a tiny bell from a pocket in his robes and rang it. Suddenly, a man came out from a side cave dressed in a red loin cloth, a bright copper breastplate of some kind, and a red mask with white stripes down the front of it. The mask was shaped and designed much like the face of a great cat. The man wearing the mask began to dance, and the old man told me a story. It was not a long story, and it was fascinating. It went thus...
“Long, long ago my people believed that there used to be these large cats that once roamed the vast grasslands far below. They were as red and orange as is fire, and had white stripes. They were magical cats, so the ancient legends tell us, and they were of the element of fire made into the form of animals by the gods themselves. Their bodies produced heat to rival that of any campfire, and this heat came forth from their fiery spirits! Though often the days could be quite hot indeed in this part of the land, sometimes the nights could in fact grow very cold and on the coldest of those nights the fire cats would come to the dwelling places of the men and women most in need and they would help to warm them. But people grew lazy and came to depend upon the fire cats too much... and so the fire cats taught them how to make fire themselves. This was, of course, in the age before anyone knew how to make fire, and it is said that in other places the gods themselves taught mankind this very simple secret. But here, in this place, it was the fire cats who did this service for us! Most were grateful to the fire cats for giving mankind their gift, but many were greedy and sought to tame the wild fire cats in order to make them slaves of men. Many of the cats were hunted in those days... none were caught but many perished. And the ones who survived called out to the gods with their very spirits and the gods took them from this world, to the world below. And sometimes, when the ground grows hottest and fire springs forth from the earth... it is said to be the spirits of the fire cats that wills this to be so. For they seek to warm us still, though they are angry with us also for our having betrayed them. So sometimes fire from the earth is beneficial and sometimes it can kill. That is the legend of the fire cats. I tell it to you, because it is also a metaphor for your existence as a god. People have often, over the years, betrayed you and sought to enslave you to their will in order to learn what knowledge only you possess. Yet you still try to help them, and sometimes you grow angry and wish for their destruction. But it is their sins that cause this, not any sin of yours. Just as the fire cats were without sin, and their anger was brought on by mankind.”
And that was what the old man in the cavern told me. He also added: “Many have forgotten you or how to worship you. But here, in this place, we remember and we honor you still. So, now... you see.”
The masked man stopped dancing, and the old man smiled still more widely, his face exuding much kindness and understanding. And I did see, after all. “You wish for me to not give up hope, then.” I observed. The old man corrected me: “That, yes, but also you must never give up upon yourself. For it is your strength of spirit that we revere so highly and seek to emulate within ourselves. Keep bringing your light to those who can receive it, and like the fire cats of old you will make the other gods smile.” And that caused me to inquire of the old man: “Are you also a god, then?” and he admitted unto me: “I was once, but am no longer. You still are, but you can sometimes be blinded by your flesh. It is a trait we all have from time to time. My people do not know this secret about me though. To them, I am just an old shaman with much wisdom to share when others are in need. I do this for my people because I love them. I do this for you this day, because we share a kinship. Never forget... who you really are!” And then the cavern filled with mists, and I could see nothing. I felt a pulling sensation and my spirit was drawn downwards, into the lower world where the dead come to dwell when their time within the living realms is done and over with. I saw things that are indescribable, but soon I sensed the spirit of Mama Brigitte once more and it called out to me even stronger. I was closer now, to the source of that calling and I followed it ever onward, ever deeper... ever further down, into the domains of the dead.
I was shown flashes of various previous lives I have lived, and other flesh I have worn, and I saw the spirits of people whom I had loved and lost down through the ages. I saw my lost beloved Andrea there, and she was smiling and welcome unto me. I was wearing all black, and I was traveling in dark places. She looked different than when last I saw her spirit... her skin was a deep, rich brown and her hair was long and black and wavy. But her eyes were still those I once looked into when she was alive! I asked her if indeed it was her, and she told me that it was in fact she. “Stay with me here, please! You are so lonely, and I long for your companionship endlessly.” she pleaded with me. She was dressed in a gown of black and purple, with a purple belt. She was of the souls who are watched over by the Loa known as Ghede Nibo, who cares deeply for those who are outside of the conventional thinking regarding gender and identity. Andrea had always favored a more androgynous appearance in life, and in death her spirit had the power to alter her appearance to suit whatever she wished. She was learning from the Loa how to express herself further through her appearance, and she often experimented with different looks and styles in order to find whatever she felt worked best for her. She was a broken soul when she died, and she was broken still... for no matter what shape she crafted for herself, she was still lonely and sad. But I was still among the living, and could not join her there. “I have always loved you, Andrea.” I told her, “But I am not yet ready to come and dwell in this place here with you. For I still live, and I was drawn here only by the will of the Loa. I must answer their summons, for they have always answered mine.” And I had tears in my eyes, which matched the tears in hers. “I need you!” she screamed to me, and I took her into my arms, ran my hands through her hair, gazed deeply into her eyes and confessed: “Oh my love... I need you too! I never stopped needing you, not all these years.” and my heart was breaking for I did indeed long to join her there in that place with all my heart. For it was a paradise there, with gardens and palaces and beautiful jungles untainted by the pollution of mankind's carelessness. There, Andrea wanted for nothing... except for how much she wanted me to join her there. I felt a hand upon my left shoulder all of a sudden, and a deep but soft voice spoke to me saying: “Come, my friend. You are still alive, and still have much living to do. Andrea will be waiting for you, never fear. When your time comes, you will indeed join her here... where you too may learn to be whatever your heart desires most to be.” The man spoke with a definite accent... like someone from Jamaica or Haiti. I then turned around, and beheld a dark-skinned man dressed in a black suit with a black top hat upon his bald head. His face was painted like a skull, the face paint as white as bone, and he wore black sunglasses. It was the Baron Samedi, also known as Ghede. The father of Ghede Nibo. He smiled at me... his face kindly.
He was skinny and tall, the Baron was, and his suit jacket was open with no shirt on underneath so that his chest was bare for the most part. His dress style was elegant. A red sash for a belt, as red as is blood, and a necklace of bones around his neck, all carved smooth and bleached to perfection. In his hat he had a black feather, and his feet were shod with black sandals. He was not young, but not old. Rather he was as ageless as this great Loa was timeless. “Come, my friend!” he insisted, taking me by the hand as serving ladies came to wait upon Andrea and dry her tearful eyes. In his other hand, he held a black cane with a white, skull-shaped top segment adorning it. “Very well, Baron. Let us go, then.” I said, my voice sounding tired and weary. And he led me far, far away, down winding roads, long paths, and very disused trails... to a place where the ground was covered all in snow and there was a house upon a hill. It was the very image of the same house in which I had lived for much of my life prior to moving out to the American Midwest most recently. Just as it had looked when I still lived out on the East Coast, but for this strange hill. The back and front yards were the very image I remembered. None of it is the same in the living world now... the real estate agency that purchased the place had changed everything. But in the domains of the dead, this image of it was as if it had been pulled straight out of my memories. And it felt like home indeed! I ran towards the back yard, the Baron allowing me to do so. I searched for a very specific spirit there... and she was there: my grandmother, looking like she did when she was still young, back when she was only in her forties. Before old age and illness claimed her. “Grams! What are you doing out here in the snow? Come back inside, before you get sick!” I exclaimed, forgetting for a moment that she was dead and could no longer get sick or feel the cold any longer. Nor was she old any longer either. For that matter... despite the presence of all that snow upon the ground, it was warm outside and the snow appeared on the verge of melting from the warm temperatures of this place. “Oh, don't worry about me, silly! I'll be fine. I'm just doing some work in the yard is all.” and it was just like when she was still alive. She was dressed in black pants with a black blouse, her hair long and done up in one of those cones she used to where back in the 1980's when those were all the rage. She wore black shoes too, and carried her old purse with her, slung around one of her shoulders. She was busily picking up stacks of loose branches and putting them into piles to tidy up the yard. Her face and hair were full of green glitter, the kind she used to wear back in the day too. I let her get back to her work, when I had noticed my old cat Mittens wandering up to me... his long fluffy black fur with his distinct white paws having been the whole reason we had named him Mittens. But we had always just called him “Mitty” for short. I called him by name, and it was indeed his spirit because he meowed just like he always did when I called him... and he began to purr and nuzzle my leg. I pet him, and I had tears in my eyes again, remembering how much it had hurt the day he died. He had been my favorite pet of all, and a staple of my childhood and my teen years. He had lived to be quite old, by cat standards. He was very sick and skinny near the end of his life... very much like how my grandmother became near the end of hers. And Mitty had been away from home for a good week near the end... and, my family and I were all deeply worried for him. He came home though, and wandered into the back yard where he fell over. Both my mother and grandmother rushed outside to tend to him, and they told me not to look and ordered me to go back into the house. That was the day he died, and I never got the chance to say goodbye to him. He was buried in the back yard, and often I would go into the back yard to say hello to his spirit and to tell him how much I missed him. I had raised him from a kitten, and when he was still just a kitten I had to feed him special things with an eyedropper because he was too young to be away from his mother... but the pet shop had showed me what to do, and I had raised Mitty well. He grew up strong and happy, and looking to me as he would have his mother, and because I had so very few friends as a child he was like a best friend to me. That was why his death had hit me so very hard, as it did. But here he was, just as healthy looking and happy as he had been in his prime! He scampered off after that, and the Baron was walked over to speak with my grandmother about something. That, was when Mama Brigitte appeared.
She had walked up to me from the edge of the back yard, where the old wooden fence was broken in many places. Mama Brigitte had a somewhat pale complexion, though not unhealthily so by any means. She had a pleasant, rounded face with lots of freckles and her eyes were green and sparkling, her mouth broad and smiling, with her features being overall very elfin-like in their aspects, both delicate and fine. She had long, wavy red hair that cascaded down her back, and she wore a long black evening gown of quite the fancy design indeed. She wore round spectacles, and she had also been wearing a top hat when she showed up. She took off the top hat, bowed very politely, and greeted me warmly as one would an old and dear friend. “It is so honestly good to see you! I am very glad to see that we could both make it here.” She said, at the same time taking my hands into her own. There was something of an awkward pause, and then she embraced me with all the intensity of a lover, whispering into my ear: “Let us go inside for a little while... alright, then?” Her voice was charming and almost musical, and I felt deeply entranced by her. In the dreams I had in which she had come to me in visions, she had been physically intimate with me, and so we were both quite familiar with each other already. In many respects, quite far beyond mere friends. We held hands as we walked up the side porch and into the house. I had one of my arms around her shoulder by that point, and she was smiling very mischievously. She was about a head shorter than I, and she had to look up at me. She was Baron Samedi's wife, but she was known to show intimacy to those she sought to heal in various ways. It is said that those she cannot heal, she will escort into the afterlife, showing them the correct paths to follow that will lead them to where they are meant to go after death. The Baron did not mind this about his wife, and it was part of an understanding which they had which went back far and distant, into much more ancient times. The kitchen was clean and neat, and everything in the house looked absolutely beautiful. It did not just simply look like my old home... it felt like my old home, too. All of my things were still in my room, and they were in the den too. Old toys I thought lost forever, old video game consoles and whole collections of games like I used to have back when I was younger. Stuffed animals I thought my mother had sold on me. Works of art, books, comics, everything I had ever collected and loved over the years. All neatly set up and made organized in those two rooms. With many of my things in the living room too! Like when I was in my teen years, how we kept things. Brigitte showed me all around the whole place. “How do you like it?” She asked me, adding: “We had this whole house made not just for your grandmother, but for you to enjoy also.” And I told her it was perfect. “I am glad!” she exclaimed. “More than perfect...” I went on, stating honestly: “It is actually better than anything I can remember about it. You have improved on it in every aspect, in every detail!” and Brigitte was happy to hear me say that. “Your grandmother likes it too. She and the Baron will be talking for some time I think... how about we go into your room and talk a bit ourselves for the time being. Okay?” and she led me back into my room again (our tour had ended in the living room), where she shut the door behind us. “Now we are alone at last!” she sighed, seeming content. She walked over and laid down on the bed, stretching out, as I stood in the center of the room. It had been such a long journey, and I never expected it to end back at a surreal version of my old home.
“I hear you are in need of some healing, my dear.” Brigitte began, adding: “Your spirit... may indeed be strong, but you've been under a whole lot of stress lately. Too much for one person to handle and not crack from! What affects the spirit can affect the mind and the body as well. And that, is when a person needs healing the most. This is true for mortals, and it is true also for gods like us. Come on over, and lay down by me... you'll find the bed just as comfortable as you remember it. Probably more so!” and I did as she asked, putting my left arm around her. She was warm to hold, just as people have said about me over the years. “You are so beautiful!” I whispered to her. “Thank you.” she smiled. I was in a male form during this whole journey, and Brigitte said to me: “You are very handsome, you know. You can believe me when I say that I have been with far, far uglier people than you. You just need confidence!”
For years now, about ten years at least, I have been living full time as a woman... but even so, I never fully transitioned all the way. I never had the hormones, never had the surgery. But I made myself fully, convincingly female in every facet of my appearance and in my voice and in my walk and in all of my mannerisms. But I had not always been so, and back when I was with Andrea, when she was still alive, I had been living as a male indeed and I was extremely happy at the time to do so. Although I had been born hermaphroditic, I had very fully functioning male parts that were perfect and with no deformations or problems whatsoever. I was one of the lucky few, given that most hermaphrodites are born with very serious problems that I did not posses. My female aspects were pretty much internal only, for the most part and it was debatable whether I had very tiny breasts or just very nicely developed chest muscles. When I was living as a male, I could go shirtless and people just thought I was very muscular. When I was living as a female, I could wear a bra and make it look like I had cleavage. I could be either gender and I could do so flawlessly, like a shape changer. I never hated my body when I was growing up, never felt at odds with it. I was just... me, is all. “You just need confidence!” Brigitte had said to me, whilst we were lying together upon my old bed in my old room, in that beyond perfect re-creation of my old house. And, something struck a chord within me when she had said that. Why did I wish to become a woman, to begin with? As a hermaphrodite... I could very easily choose either gender and it would be equally true to myself without causing me any sort of dysphoria of any kind. Being a woman had not always been something that I had wanted for myself, not for all of my life growing up at least... and that much, I knew for a certainty. Being a man, had just simply been something that I had tired of, and could no longer see myself as. Three times previously, this had happened to me. Once when I was two years old, once when I was ten years old, and once in my late twenties. In each of those cases, I had grown very irritated with living as a male, and so I longed to become female and attempted on each occasion to express this longing outwardly to the world. But always, it had not been fully what I had hoped it would be and so I went back each time to living as a male. What was it that I truly lacked confidence in more? Confidence in myself as a man, or confidence in myself as a woman! Perhaps both. I had lived a difficult life, and known a great deal of abuse, suffering, and hardship along the way. Enough to erode the strength and confidence of a thousand men or women. And I put these thoughts from my mind as I regarded Brigitte. I began to caress her body, enjoying every moment as I did so. She smiled, sighed or made a cute giggling laugh once or twice, as I ran my hands over her. Her eyes were bright in the light shining in through the window, and she had laid her spectacles aside on a nearby table previously so I could bask in the beauty of those eyes without anything to impede the view. “Kiss me!” she said, in a very commanding tone. I could not resist, and I began to kiss her beautiful face and neck. Her lips were decorated with deep blood red lipstick, and I kissed those lips hungrily... like savoring a pomegranate that one has not tasted in years. She was breathing heavier, becoming aroused, as was I. I felt much like as if I were a teenager again! “Make love to me.” she whispered, longingly. And I exposed her breasts, kissing them, squeezing them gently. I wanted her, I realized. I wanted her very badly! I pulled up her gown all the way to her waist, pulled down her undergarments, and she opened her legs for me. I took down my pants and undergarments, and I could feel the hardness between my own legs. I was so hard for her, that I could barely stand it much longer... and so I entered her, enjoying her wholly, entirely, all the time raining kisses down upon her beautiful face, her neck, and her bosom. As I heaved atop her, our breaths quickened and we made love for some time before reaching our climax together. It was beyond perfect, and I lay next to Mama Brigitte afterwards, my energy spent, as was hers. We spent several hours whispering and talking about things. She told me of her life in the realms of the dead, and I told her about mine in the realms of the living. We were less like gods or goddesses, and more like a couple that had not seen each other in a long time, trying to make the most of the time they had. Soon, we got cleaned up and re-dressed and walked outside by way of the front door. It was time to depart.
“I hope that was not in any way awkward for you.” Mama Brigitte teased as we walked down some roads past the hill upon which the house in the domains below had been built. Just as in the world of the living, there was a cemetery one street up past the house... only this cemetery was much larger and had whole mausoleums standing within it. Much like the grand cemeteries of New Orleans and the like. “No, it was not. If anything... it felt far too right.” I confessed to her. “More right than you could ever have realized, eh?” she asked, and I admitted this was true. “I felt like this... with Andrea.” I told the great Loa, and she admitted to me that she already knew this to be the truth. “I know that girl. She is always so sad and lonely here.” Brigitte explained. “Always crying for you. But you... you're a god and she was just a mortal who became something greater after she died. She'll wait for you, even if she has to wait a thousand years or more. Time has no true meaning here, after all. To her, maybe it will just seem like a week or two... it is all relative to one's perspective.” And I wondered how long I had been there for myself at that point. I saw among the graves in the cemetery, a pale woman with long black hair and totally black eyes, wearing a long white Victorian style gown. It was Lilith... the goddess who had been so much more to me, over the centuries... in the various forms we both had walked in down through the ages. She looked intent on searching for something, her body mostly ethereal and ghostly in appearance. She shrieked and wailed a few times, the sound horrible and shrill and unearthly. It made me shudder and feel cold all of a sudden. “I know her too, that Lilith.” Brigitte told me quietly as we walked onward, heading for the woods on the far side of the cemetery. “She's a lost soul, mostly. She is neither living nor dead, but trapped somehow between those two states of being. I don't know what it is she is looking for, but we had best move on and not stay in this part of the cemetery.” and I agreed, for I sensed a gathering darkness there that was much more profound and terrible than I was accustomed to dealing with. I have known such darkness... but this was concentrated, like a million dark spirits all in a whirl, and all converging upon a specific location. I did not wish to be there when they arrived... for such spirits can mean harm more often than not, and in the distance I could hear a multitude of voices wailing and shrieking and crying aloud, and I knew that was they. Brigitte took me deep into the woods ere long, and past some swamps that lay off the beaten trails we walked upon. I felt safe with her... far, far safer than I ever had with my own mother in all the years of my childhood. I could hear drumbeats off in the distance, and I could see campfires and bonfires here and there in the swamps, with shadowy forms hunched over them or gathered around their light. “Where are we going, Brigitte?” I asked my guide, and she told me only: “That way!” and she pointed ahead of us, towards utter darkness. It was night time all of a sudden, and had been ever since we left the house. But there was neither moon nor stars to be seen in the sky. Only a sense of unfathomable vastness. I looked up, and suddenly saw that all of this was within a massive cavern... or someplace deep underground somewhere. For there were immense formations of rock where distant stars should have been... and where the light of “day” had come from previously, I could not know or say. “Are we under the earth?” I asked the great Loa, and she smiled and replied cheerfully: “In a way. In way that perhaps only the ancients fully understood.”
Before long... we found our way, unto a white gleaming palace, which we had glimpsed beyond the swamp lands, with lights that were like electricity which illuminated the place beautifully. I saw people there, tall men and women with pale white skin, all dressed in long white flowing robes, with hair of the same colorless hue. As we drew closer to that place, I saw their eyes were silver or white and had no other color within them. They seemed aloof and unfriendly at first, but smiled warmly when Brigitte and I walked past them. I was brought before the elder of those people, and he and Brigitte talked for some time about various trivial matters. Finally, he turned to me and asked me: “Would you like to go home soon?” and I was not expecting that. “I... I don't really know...” I said confusedly. “Can you send me back?” And the man nodded his head in the affirmative. “Yes, I believe that we can send you back.”
That was how we came to it, how we came at last to discuss the journey home, back to the world of the living for me. Mama Brigitte and the elder spirit... whomever or whatever he was... explained it to me in detail. Basically, it was thus... and thus I did, exactly as I was instructed: I made my way alone, out from the gleaming palace and into the distant foothills, which led me to some tall, jagged looking mountains and cliffs and crags. Nearby, were large chasms in the ground, and I saw lava and fire just beneath them. The air was filled with smoke and dark mist, and it was hot there. As hot as a day at the height of summer's heat could be. I was given ceremonial black armor to wear, with black robes that adorned it... and to light my way I was given a staff that held a red glowing crystal in a claw at its' top. The crimson illumination emitted by the crystal only made this landscape appear that much more like some vision of Hell. Steps led up the cliffs, up into a massive cavern set into the mountainside. I made my way up the steps, and into the cavern, and the climb to get up into there was long and treacherous. I slipped several times, and nearly tumbled down, only to try again with greater determination. “Why?” I asked myself at one point. “Why do I even want to go back... when everything that could fill me with the greatest joy, is here in this realm?” And I thought of Mama Brigitte's smiling face. I thought of sad Lilith, appearing lost in that cemetery. I thought of Andrea, crying such bitter tears for my company. I thought of my grandmother and my cat and my old house and all my things in it. “Here, I do not need to wear any masks, I can simply be anything I wish to be. Have anything I wish out of life, and it would be made so.” and I sensed that back in the realm of the living there were still people who missed me, who needed me, who would weep truly bitter tears at my death if I decided to abandon my physical body and remain in the realms of the dead. I had to return, if only for their sake. “Time has no meaning here, and life is short enough... all this joy, all this happiness, will still be here, waiting for me when my time is at hand. And Mama Brigitte will be there to show me the way... as will Andrea and Lilith, and others who have loved me over the years.” And so, my willpower renewed, I made my way into the black may of the cavern, the only light being the red glowing crystal within my staff. I felt a sensation of utter dread.
On the far side of the cavern, deep within the dark mountains, there was a massive shaft cut into the ground, with another bored into the ceiling. Both down and above, the shaft led only into an endless shadowy darkness with no end in sight. I could fall downward into the abyss, or rise up using my own willpower, but either way the journey was without a difference. Darkness awaited, whichever way I could choose! I had been instructed to come to this shaft, but I was not told which direction to travel in. Only the two different ways by which I could make that journey. One would think that the way would be to travel upwards... but this place was sometimes bereft of physical logic. The way back could just as easily be to fall downwards. All of a sudden, out of various side caves came hordes of emaciated, nearly skeletal looking creatures with savage fangs and sharp claws. They had long, wild hair and made awful shrieking and wailing sounds, intermixed with animal-like growling noises. A Duppy. That was what Mama Brigitte called them when she warned me of their presence in that cavern. “They will try and take you away, off into darkness so deep you will never find the light again. But if your will is strong, they will not be able to take you... and the way home will open to you at last. A Duppy knows how to frighten the living... and it knows who it can frighten and whom it cannot. So be strong, and do not let them win!” I held out my staff before the gathered throng of lost souls... for that is what a Duppy is. A soul that has lost its' way and become something horrible as a result of entrapment in the darker places of the realms of the dead. And the crystal shone into their faces. They were taken aback by that, but I could see their primal fury, their desire to tear me to pieces if they could. I knew them by another name once, long, long ago. They had cause to hate me then... and they had reason to hate me still! They were, as one, drawing all around and about me... forming a terrible circle that grew closer and closer, tighter and tighter. Like something possessed of a singular hive-like mind or will... they sought to claim me.
The horror of that moment was unspeakable! They surrounded me on all sides, caught me up and we were all carried into the air together by some unseen force. Up, into the shaft that led into the ceiling. Like a whirlwind of absolute death, those grotesque creatures slashed at me and tore at me, clasped me and attempted to carry me off... but they could not, and this made them only all the more ferocious. A great whirlwind carried us higher and higher into the very heights of the shaft, and I looked up seeing only blackness without end. I felt the pain of their attacks, though my astral body had no flesh to tear, no bones to break, no blood to spill. They were attempting to siphon away my spiritual energy, but I had too much for them to consume. I spun about with that staff, and crimson light shot out from the crystal like swords of blood-red fire, consuming some of the fiends and seriously injuring others. A few appeared to be torn apart by this magic, and soon the horrors began to retreat back down the shaft. I was ascending too fast though, and I knew not where I was going. “Mama Brigitte, hear my call. Help me get back home safely! In your name, I call. Come, and help me to be free!” and I screamed this aloud, feeling a presence come upon me afterward. Her spirit was upon me, carrying me away someplace. I was surrounded by thick mists and fog everywhere. I could feel her energy all about me, healing me from whatever the Duppies had done to me. Soon, I felt much like someone who was drifting off into sleep, and when I awoke from this I was back in that other cavern again, the one with the kind old man.
It was still morning there, as it had been before my journey into the regions below. He smiled at me still, and said: “So you survived the journey back, then. It is not the first time, though, for you. Only one of many! What have you learned about yourself, then?” and I told the old man the truth: “That I lack confidence, and I need to learn to believe in myself more strongly than in the past. I may be a god, like you said, but at present I must dwell in a mortal body, one I must learn not to hate. It does not truly matter whether I choose to live as a man or as a woman. Either way, I need to be confident in myself in order to be happy. Without confidence... I would never have escaped the Duppies in order to emerge here once again. I need to learn how to have that confidence when I am in my physical body once again. Only this time I must never lose it. That is what Mama Brigitte wished to teach me, and I am grateful!” At which point the old man seemed pleased. “It is good, then, that we brought you hither.” he said. “It was not for nothing... and so, you are ready to return to your body and find yourself back in your home. Remember, also... that you are not wholly forgotten! There are many like me and like my people who remember you. Who you truly are! And whence you came, of old. We will keep the old ways, forever.”
And the man who had been wearing the costume of the fire cat previously, the one who had danced while the old man told me the legend of the fire cats... he was a man no longer, but a real fire cat which looked just like in the ancient tale. “Appearances can be deceptive.” the old man who had once been a god himself told me. “We are... all of us... a great deal more than we at first seem to be. Never forget this, and you will never forget yourself!” And the old man was wise in telling me that. I had come full circle upon this journey, and now I was ready to return whence I came. “Send me home, old man. I am ready to go back now.” I told him, and he nodded in agreement. He began to chant something in some ancient language, and the glow of the fire before him became increasingly intense. Soon, all became a mix of deep mists and fog, intermixed with light. At length, this all faded and I was once more there in my apartment, in the bedroom, standing before my sacred altar. Exactly as I had been... before having been called away. In a manner of speaking, Mama Brigitte had indeed healed me. For although I would always have to contend with the occasional feelings of self-doubt, I knew that the power lay within me to send that doubt back into the darkness whence it first came. In Brigitte's warm embrace, I had gained strength beyond measure and a glimpse of my old confidence once again. Now the hardest journey was about to begin... the journey to discover myself anew, and to do so with all the skills the Loa taught me.
Published 30th May 2022
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Anonymous
- Edited 29th May 2023 7:45am
30th May 2022 12:56pm
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31st May 2022 5:56am
Greetings to you, Rianne, dear sister and friend!
Indeed, it does seem like a very long time since I have heard from you. And it is great to be hearing from you now, once again! You sensed well and true, about the grief and trauma that I had gone through, which in the writing I had alluded to... in talking about the stress, which had led me to calling upon the Loa on the night I was writing about. It was a bit of a mixing of old pains and more recent ones, in fact. I had not been expecting such a powerful reaction to that calling out, but sometimes the bigger the pain, the more potent the remedy that is needed to attempt to relieve it. I was grateful that the Loa showed me such compassion though... and taught me many things that I needed to understand, beyond those that I had comprehended already. It was a journey filled with darkness and light in equal measure, and far from the last such journey I found myself embarking upon. Things have gotten spiritually a lot more interesting for me lately! My dreams of late, have become gateways through which I have had some powerful spiritual and supernatural experiences, which my latest two writings "Lessons of Love" and "The Secret of the Quicavi Tome" are all about. I know what you mean about the universe of late... a great deal of darkness indeed! And so many do seem to be crying out from so much pain. I do strive through my writings to teach what I can though, and through revelations about various deep things help to show how light can be found no matter how deep the darkness might become at times. Which seems to be the biggest recurring theme in my life, actually! So, I suppose that makes me very qualified... for teaching others about such things. It always gladdens my heart to see how many people read my works, since I know that my words are reaching a great many hearts that way. Which is always a wonderful thing!
Certain animals are indeed powerful, magical, and sacred! Whether they be of the mystical, spiritual variety or of the mundane seeming sort, they have a presence that is undeniably special. And all are in many ways connected by their spirits, which share a certain kind of further, deeper connection to ancient powers from more primeval times... which have not really gone anywhere, they just wait for the right people to remember them and reach out to them once more.
Zoey and I are both doing well, thankfully! We survived some very difficult ordeals but came out of them better than before, it makes me delighted to say. I look forward to hearing from you again!
Love and Light be with you always,
Kara :)
Indeed, it does seem like a very long time since I have heard from you. And it is great to be hearing from you now, once again! You sensed well and true, about the grief and trauma that I had gone through, which in the writing I had alluded to... in talking about the stress, which had led me to calling upon the Loa on the night I was writing about. It was a bit of a mixing of old pains and more recent ones, in fact. I had not been expecting such a powerful reaction to that calling out, but sometimes the bigger the pain, the more potent the remedy that is needed to attempt to relieve it. I was grateful that the Loa showed me such compassion though... and taught me many things that I needed to understand, beyond those that I had comprehended already. It was a journey filled with darkness and light in equal measure, and far from the last such journey I found myself embarking upon. Things have gotten spiritually a lot more interesting for me lately! My dreams of late, have become gateways through which I have had some powerful spiritual and supernatural experiences, which my latest two writings "Lessons of Love" and "The Secret of the Quicavi Tome" are all about. I know what you mean about the universe of late... a great deal of darkness indeed! And so many do seem to be crying out from so much pain. I do strive through my writings to teach what I can though, and through revelations about various deep things help to show how light can be found no matter how deep the darkness might become at times. Which seems to be the biggest recurring theme in my life, actually! So, I suppose that makes me very qualified... for teaching others about such things. It always gladdens my heart to see how many people read my works, since I know that my words are reaching a great many hearts that way. Which is always a wonderful thing!
Certain animals are indeed powerful, magical, and sacred! Whether they be of the mystical, spiritual variety or of the mundane seeming sort, they have a presence that is undeniably special. And all are in many ways connected by their spirits, which share a certain kind of further, deeper connection to ancient powers from more primeval times... which have not really gone anywhere, they just wait for the right people to remember them and reach out to them once more.
Zoey and I are both doing well, thankfully! We survived some very difficult ordeals but came out of them better than before, it makes me delighted to say. I look forward to hearing from you again!
Love and Light be with you always,
Kara :)
