I used to be a lady. Very compliant.
Very demure as they say.
The smiling, cheerful, obedient one.
When I was a child, there was a song they taught us to sing each day. Like a mantra over and over again. Warning: I have encircled these words to mute and silence the power of them, because I believe songs are spells…this one certainly is a tool for brainwashing young, innocent minds. So, before you read the following words, consider shielding yourself. I want you to see them. To understand them. They are not, however, to have any power or sway or influence over you. Understood?
The song goes, “obedience is the very best way to show that you believe. Doing exactly what the LORD commands. Doing it happily. Action is the key, do it immediately and joy you will receive. Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe. O-B-E-D-I-E-N-C-E. Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe.”
Examine it as you would a creature in Biology lab.
For this, my friends, it what is at the heart of all cults. And so, I can say with firm conviction that I was raised in a cult. It was a form of Christianity. Its variant has its roots in spiritualist movement of the late 1800s and then later the Jesus-is-my-boyfriend version of Hippie Movement, but by the time it reached me, there was a more militant edge to it. An edge that has grown into something so self-righteous that destruction through “holy war” is believed a legitimate option: the most expedient way to bring about their philosophical domination. It is hardly a new pattern. Certain Christians have used it before. As have Muslims. As have Jews. As have atheists.
In days like we are experiencing now, the insistence to comply is everywhere.
Obey…or else you will be punished. And while I agree a certain amount of rules are necessary to maintain balance… that the universe is built on certain mathematical laws and principles that to not heed certainly reaps a consequence…the universe, in general, leaves a lot of room for self expression, creativity, and variance.
There is therefore the personal struggle that each of us must wrestle with in our realm of personal freedom. Looking inward while also casting a far glance outward to see what are the trails and paths of those actions. Where do I fit in this version of society? How do I balance my work, my family, my passions with what are the expectations of me?
For a decade of my early life, I was beaten almost daily to bend me into submission. Compliance. I learned to be as obedient as possible in order to survive. Yet my body kept score. My body would defy. Sometimes in ways that baffled me. That angered me. That frustrated me… because my mind for many, many years of my life was utterly terrorized. Mentally and emotionally abused. Traumatized. Straining to not snap.
But my body.
My body would not be broken.
Out of those beatings came a will of forged adamantine. I made mistakes. Certainly.
Mistakes that cost me my personal freedom.
I traded freedom for children and security.
For what I thought was love and commitment.
I accepted shackles for acceptance.
I lost myself for years.
I look down at my ankle and see a shackle there yet.
Through all of this though, my body did not forget who I was.
Who I am.
Even when my mind forgets and tries to be some version of myself that I am not.
My body knows what purposes I incarnated here for.
My body morphs.
Shape shifts.
Refuses to be contained.
Even as my mind struggles at times to catch up…struggles to understand what was and is happening.
I continue to make mistakes…my mind and body not fully aligned…the body trudges and soars on, like a great migratory creature facing northward towards the pole star, thickening, strengthening its inner resolve: with each tidal step and wingbeat forward and back proclaiming louder and louder, “I will be true.”
Not to some lord.
Not to some ideal.
Not to some creature, beloved or jailor.
I will be true.
To myself.
To my sovereign self. I have seen her sitting on her iron throne with the skulls of her enemies at her feet. Sovereign Queen who wears no crown, but rather with thick anklets of finest gold. Anklets formed from her former shackles.
I will align my mind to know that *this* truth is the foundational truth.
Though we know the words best through Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “To thine own self be true” is not his original principle. He may have coined the phrase, but the principle is an eternal one.
How can I be true to myself?
I must learn to know myself.
How can I know myself?
I have to listen to myself.
Feel into myself.
Embody myself.
Be here. Right here. Right now.
Feelings come and feeling go like ripples moving over water by the wind’s caress.
What are the deeper currents? The tides of my being?
The roots? That anchor and spread me wider?
How do I know myself?
How do I understand the myriad aspects of myself and give them embraced and welcomed space within the vastness that is my body, complete with the spacious, limitless dome of mind and flowing imagination?
I allow me to be.
Breathe the breath of life into myself.
“As above so below” I incant as I pull down and up strength and courage to be joyfully, fully me.
Allow myself to be the puzzling, quixotic, evolving creature that I am.
Allow myself to be my own mythos.
Sink into myself.
Release the fetters of shame, compliance, and demurred obedience and silently observe with eyes that flicker with the light of ever strengthening will and ever gathering wisdom.
When I speak (or in this case, write), it will be from a heart that honors itself as true to itself.
My voice springs from my own soul…from the blood and bones of countless ancestors…from my own lived experiences…from my own hard-won wisdom. This is whom you wish to listen to. This is who you wish to read…to hold as friend and lover. For this is raw humanity. What each of us craves more than anything: to be fully known and know. As we each utterly are.
This vulnerable, brave, beautiful pulsing life force that is uniquely and only you and me. This is how we change the world that ever commands us to be obedient.
We must be obedient firstly to our own selves. Then to the universal principles that govern the cosmos of which we are a part.
Nodding at you with a slight smile as I whisper, “be sovereign…and breathe.”
Erica Sittler is a Witch practicing her craft in Mississippi where she is a local, active member of the Temple of Witchcraft. Her magick is in the mundane and in bringing honor and attention to those small things that build a sustainable and adventurous life. She is a Temple Mystery School student under the instruction of High Priestess Sellena Dear.