I dislike the term "anniversary". So many people in my life have taken that word and turned it into a boon, a burden, etc. So when I think of happy things, I don't use the word "anniversary". I use something else.
But August is full of anniversaries- for me...for my family...for my husband...
More importantly, however, August...is a turning point in my wheel of the year. A particularly sparkly spoke, if you will. It isn't just because my birthday lands in it. It's because everything seems to land in it. It's like my own personal Chinese new year. While the rest of the world wraps up its dog days of summer, I'm wracking my brain wondering how things will be different this year from the next.
I'm nearing my thirties. That happens in August. I've been alive and on this planet for more than a quarter of a century. 1/4 of a very healthy man's life. (Possibly half of mine. Who knows?)
My mother's mother was also born in August. She's no longer with us, but I still remember, just the same.
The first and second of August were days of religious observance for me from about 2005-2008, respectively. I celebrated the pagan holiday Lammas. I often treated this as my new year and gathered tasty treats and bid farewell to summer. I loved sending summer off with a bang. I always welcomed fall, and Lammas gave me the opportunity to run to it head-on, colliding into its brisk arms in a crunchy hug of falling leaves and frosty cider. I couldn't tell you why I don't still celebrate it. Well...I suppose I could, but I'm not sure if it would be the right answer. I miss it- but I'm not about to pick back up and reinvent my holiday traditions. I blocked a lot of them- most of them- after 2007. In my last year of celebrating Lammas, I forgot- entirely- how I celebrated in the past. I instead spaced out for 2 hours and forgot what I was doing. I also got candle wax all over my dorm floor. I don't think you can call that celebration, really.
But I did do one thing that was bloody brilliant that August. That very last Lammas celebration, I offered up a prayer- the very last request I made as a confirmed pagan.
I asked God for my soulmate.
It wasn't anything dramatic. I didn't chant or scrawl things into candles...well, I did, but I did most of that for me, to symbolize my commitment to the change I was inviting into my life. I got up at dawn on a day on my vacation by the beach and I walked 2 miles up the cliffs and down the rocks to a little alcove where no one but you can see and feel and touch and taste the beach. I gathered stones on my way down to the sand. I gathered my little black handbag that had poetry about what I envisioned in my soulmate- and what I would be open to. Some rose quartz and rose petals accompanied me in that bag, I think. I sat in the sand, circled myself in the stones, and waited for the sun to rise over the water. I was quiet, pensive...and very afraid.
Let's back up a bit. I mention I was afraid. This is because at this particular point in my life, God- to me- was dangerous. He/she was more unknown to me than ever. God had put me in harm's way, or let me walk in harm's way, or something. God, as confident as I was in his existence and his ability to make everything happen for a GOOD reason, was not making it very clear that I was in his good graces. To be fair, it really wasn't God's fault. See, I had placed my trust in a human- a group of humans, in fact- who felt in touch with God- and who also, in their zealousness, had placed a threat on my life.
I belonged to a spiritual group we'll simply call the Corps. Outside of its backyard existence, it wasn't likely anyone knew who we were or what we believed- I doubt most of us knew ourselves. But the Corps was homegrown, made from a group of teenagers who dared to ask "why" after most religious organizations had thrown these grand coming of age parties for us that we hardly understood. We all had different backgrounds coming in- I fell into the group somehow because I was dating the leader. Who knew what a shitstorm he could spin.
The short of the story is that the Corps went fom a spiritual think tank to a fully functional cult. Our group met regularly to mentally and physically "train" for upcoming spiritual battles. We also practiced a moderate form of paganism- some of us in traditional form, some of us in New Age form, some of us in its own eclecticity. I was still very attached to my Roman Catholic upbringing. Paganism was a hard transition for me- but mysticism in the Bible helped me better transition and plugged the holes that confirmation had brought upon me. I was a good Pagan. I was even a great Pagan. And while I didn't really advertise that I was with Vode or practiced what bordered on Wicca, I knew it was at least a little visible to folks. I didn't much mind. I figured if I didn't shove it in anyone's face, it was no big deal.
But he wanted me to. The leader of the Corps, an ex that I now pined after in my late teens, wanted to see me take the organization further. It was no good if we couldn't mobilize, he said. And I was the perfect one to mobilize- of the entire group, I was the only one to attend college- far enough away that I could no longer make Corps meetings. I'd have to find another way to contribute. I guess it couldn't hurt to share my experiences with others- so I did. Within months of the beginning of my sophomore year in college, I had initiated 3 new people into the Corps and become a leader of a sort of hiving off of it.
I didn't like feeling like I was associated with the Corps. I really desperately wanted to take some time to explore my individual spirituality. Things were starting to get weird. The higher ups, namely our leader, were having "visions"...visions that would turn into prophecies, seemingly overnight. Visions I would question- and then have nightmares and no longer question them. Instead of spending my nights up studying for school, I studied the Bible. I scoured religious texts for similes. I pawed at my Tarot cards and prayed to anyone and anything that would listen. And weird shit would happen. Stuff I just couldn't materialize as coincidental. Hallucinations of portals in my bedroom ceiling. Dreams of angels. And a sick foreboding feeling about the end of the world.
I didn't really pick up on the false doctrines my leader was implanting in me. I suppose I really couldn't have around that time- in addition to being a member of the Corps and attending regular meetings, I was also dealing with the pseudo relationship I had with the Corps's leader. When I began in the group, we had been together- then broke up. My mother thought he was dangerous, so I ended it. (She could not have been more right.) We met, often in secret, to discuss thoughts and viewpoints, for a few years. Toward the end of high school, my leader became more persuasive in his speeches to our group- and more predatory toward me. His questions would spike in sexuality, to the point where a meditation with him one on one over the phone would end in some powerful phone sex. I suspected he had decided to take me back, and welcomed his advances at first...until I noticed that his advances had nothing to do with love. More and more, he insisted that his advances were to help me break my barrier of sexual repression, to release my truest self, and etc. He said one afternoon that if it came down to it, he would "take one for the team" and force himself upon me if it came to that.
Rape wasn't in my vocabulary then. Rape was a word used to identify other women who were too weak-willed to stand up to the men that assaulted them.
How ashamed I was when it finally dawned on me, many years later, that one afternoon before my high school graduation was the day my leader felt he was destined to rape me.
And how glad I was that, despite 45 minutes of sexual assault under the guise of "guided meditation", I had somehow managed to escape being penetrated. It was my proudest moment.
But at 20, now having spent about 5 years in the Corps (memory is fuzzy), I had all but shut this out. I didn't even remember it. I didn't even remember that it was the reason that the August of my high school graduation, I broke up with my now husband, for the first time, because I was convinced that I had asked to be touched and stimulated by 2 Corps members that fateful afternoon...and that meant I had been unfaithful to my boyfriend. You cannot imagine what it is like to feel pleasure and wish that you could kill every nerve in your body, to get it to stop responding, to make it whisper or scream "NO", to keep saying "no" over again and think "no one will ever take me seriously"...
But as far as I was concerned, the sophomore-in-college me never experienced any of that- no, that was a spiritual enlightenment, a special initiation into my true calling. A calling to be a divine witness...to what, I wasn't sure. That year, I would find out. And I wouldn't like it.
Paranoia seemed to be the drug of choice in the Corps. If I didn't have a circle and talk to my leader about it, he'd get upset and want to know what the fuck I was doing. He showed up to a circle of mine once- and met my initiates. When he began to hit on one of them, I wanted to scream. I could have reached right out and strangled him for petting her shoulder in circle that night. I could have scratched his eyes out with my own nails- I couldn't understand my rage- I rationalized it- I rationalized it away, that I had picked up on some negative force, some old misplaced jealousy, and I let them be alone with each other. I knew better. God, I knew better. But I never saw it coming. And when she came to me the next morning and asked me if I knew where the nearest pharmacy was, I wanted every bone in my body to disintegrate- and for the LIFE of me, I could not understand why taking her to a planned parenthood clinic in the ghetto of our city was making me so physically ill. I couldn't understand. I had blocked any thought of harm.
The blocks came off when I started to hear him discuss the End Days. I was in a sort of sick twister of religious jumblings and storytelling...trying to find proofs for every word that came from our leader's mouth. And I was getting sick, too. One afternoon, after a particularly challenging day of poring through some books on Wicca and contrasting them with my Bible and another religious script, I flipped the TV on to the History Channel. There was a documentary there about Jonestown and its massive murder tragedy. I had never even heard of Jonestown before then, but suddenly I felt immense pain. The more I watched, the more my nerves began to sizzle. I shook with rage when I heard Jim Jones' voice as he rallied his people...I shook with fear when I heard him ceremoniously call them to the vats of poison. At the end of the documentary, I was violently ill, and at a complete loss to explain it. I must have cried for hours. I woke up the next morning with my eyes sealed shut from the swelling from the tears. I got up and wrote music that day...I called the piece "Lullaby for the Human Race". And I called my leader and told him of my experience.
And he called it an epiphany.
I didn't know what that meant. I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I had a sick feeling in my stomach when he said it, and proclaimed how proud he was of my tremendous breakthrough, and how wonderful things would all be very soon. I didn't feel wonderful. He buffered me with cries of how wonderfully compassionate my heart was and how well suited I was to be called to such a great mystery. I thought he was on crack. I questioned his health frequently after that. He would smile and patronize me that I could rationalize myself out of such an immense task.
What was the task? Oh, well, wouldn't you know...I was actually an incarnation, he said, of the seventh angel in Revelations. After all the others blew down the world in the End Times, I would be the one to sound the call of rebirth, the song of forgiveness to the human race.
I didn't like the sound of this, but I had learned not to question my leader by now. Maybe it was metaphorical, after all- he couldn't possibly be this serious about such a thing. I decided to bring it up in jest one afternoon and test the metaphoric usage. I had been so misguided. I joked about the end of the world and my supposed role, and, while still laughing, asked him what his big important role would be.
"Oh haven't you figured that out, sweetie? I am the beginning of the end. I am the Christ."
Something absolutely snapped inside me when he spat those words out. Suddenly, he was a peon. Suddenly, he was nothing to be feared- he was a charlatan, a sick son of a bitch playing sick mind games with people, and damn it, I was going to tell him so. This joke, this game had gone on far enough. I never saw myself as much of a "Jesus Christ" cheerleader, but in that moment at that point in time, it was my saving grace, the switch that finally flipped for me to state, loudly enough,
"No. You're not. You, my friend, are fucking crazy, and I'm done with all of this."
And of course, I let him rationalize. I let him talk. I let him give me reasons WHY this had to be so. But I couldn't listen any more. And as all of my years of learning tumbled down around me, I hissed at his blasphemy, raged at his nonchalance. How DARE he compare himself to such a high power? How DARE he? Who was HE to talk of such things?! I could hardly stop myself from speaking. I was furious beyond a state I even understood. And as he listened to my rant, he began to speak quieter and quieter, until finally his words were just letters jumbled together on my computer screen.
"Wow. Well then. I guess I'm just going to have to kill you."
I remember that I laughed at first. Laughed right out loud. Told him he was sick and a whole bunch of other things. And then the texts came. Line by line. Details on how he knew where I lived. Details I never gave him. Details of the kind of weapon he'd use. How he would do it. How I could prepare myself to die with dignity. How he understood why I couldn't bring myself to believe in the truth, and that I would be forgiven for it, but I could not stand in the way of the great plan. He quoted my zipcode. He mentioned sharpening his knife. He cautioned me not to lock my door and to stop pleading for my pathetic life. And signed off.
I. Panicked.
Within minutes, I was on the phone to anyone who would listen, who wouldn't judge me, and who wouldn't ask questions. I wasn't about to tell someone I was in some sort of religious cult and now the leader was after me because I thought he was cracked and wanted out- I just didn't have the frame of mind to go through that. My best friend told me to call the police. I called them. They came. They took one look at the conversation on my computer screen, told me I "could have doctored it" if I "had an axe to grind against an old boyfriend or something", laughed me off, and said to stop talking to drunk guys at night. My roommate didn't even take me seriously. I didn't sleep that night. I didn't think I ever would again. For the next two weeks, I slept in the basement of different college buildings so that I could be behind locked doors where guards would be watching 24/7.
I'm not going to kill you. Idiot. Thank you for showing me how pathetic and completely worthless you really are.
You'd think that would be the end of it. But he chased me even after that. I got a year of peace and then another call to arms. "You threatened my life," I said angrily, "you don't get a second chance. You or your fucking group." But he would still call. He'd dig. By now, I had moved to a new location. And I had dumped any trace of practicing paganism or any other religion. As far as I was concerned, if I so much as sent a prayer up, the Corps doppler would catch me and shoot me down. I couldn't. I was paralyzed with fear around anything spiritual. I stayed that way for quite a while.
Until an August about 4 years ago, when I finally summoned the strength to say, in one of his last prying phone calls, "If you call this number again, I will call the cops. They will find you and they will arrest you. And if I were you, I'd be more afraid of my threat...because it's not a threat. It's a promise. Leave me alone."
I don't have to tell you, I'm sure, that I didn't have to make the phone call. I doubt it would have done me any good. I couldn't even get a restraining order out of the written death threat I had received that night. I no longer trust law enforcement to protect me- any more than I trust ANYONE to protect me, other than myself.
So he disappeared. And I went and spoke to God at dawn on a cool breezy beach that August. And I told him I was ready to be free. And that, if and when I was ready, I would love to meet my REAL soulmate. That there was no hurry- but that if I had managed to find it within myself to walk away from this cult leader, I probably had a good idea of who I was- if not externally.
And my high school squeeze, just like that, walked back into my life. And dated me long distance for years. And finally married me, just last month, almost exactly a month ago today. And I wouldn't change a thing about it- or him.
He knows that August is hard for me. It's hard on him, too. Anniversaries are not pleasant for him- his brother died over 10 years ago this month. And yet he can still appreciate how I still feel stabbed in the chest by the Corps and its leader, how I feel scraped empty and I always question what the "truth" really is...until it leaves me spaced out and crying on the couch. And he can appreciate that the pain of a similar betrayal that happened last August with a therapist is just as real, just as awful.
But that is a story for another time.
Lammas has come and gone. I've not celebrated it. But I do celebrate August, with all my heart and soul, however internal it may be.
Because every August, I learn a little bit more about who I truly am. And how truly strong I can be.
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