How to Survive Transformation
I'm happiest when I am transforming.
I didn't always used to feel that way. Like many other people, I would get swept up into the fear of change that's neurochemically programmed into animals such as us. Our survival-driven brains associate familiarity with safety and pull the emergency lever as readily for the first day of a promising new job as it does a predator snuffling around your home at night.
It's the same mechanism that gets you caught. In an abusive relationship. In deteriorating housing. In cycles where you're simply stuck and there is no way out as you currently stand.
Transformation is less of a desire than it is a requirement when it comes knocking. Sitting here now with peeling skin from tapering off sunburn, I am not saying that I am comfortable with all parts of the process. Just that I am more excitable when throwing myself into its gears, knowing that whatever version of me that comes out on the other side will be worthwhile.
To get to this point involves the belief of purpose as well as cultivation of faith. After I initiated our divorce, my ex-husband was bitter with me, saying once, "You've decided to change your whole life and now you're throwing me away along with the rest of what you had." During that period, I frequently had my favorite tarot deck in hand and was pulling Celtic Cross spreads every day with my guides, less for clarity and more for encouragement. Every day they would come through, pulling something like Strength or 7 of Wands (meaning victory) for the "future" position.
Creating that ritual established stability when I needed it most. I didn't have a life partner anymore. I didn't have longterm housing or a place that felt like home. I didn't have a job. I had limited income. And I had yet to discover safety in my own body and selfhood. But I had cards. I had a set position to put them in. I had knowledge of their meanings. I had my spirits. And so with every new day, I pulled cards and I prayed.
The planetary deities swelled around me during this time. A strange, elusive, but optimistic feeling of fate permeated my cosmology.
Eventually, my ex left. I found a job. I spearheaded the foundation of a new home (for a year). I had more income again. I was working in the field I had always wanted and had related goals for the future. It seemed like I was starting to get the hang of things and then... my gender awakening occurred. I thought I was just about figuring out who I was at last and that broke new ground, forcing me to start yet all over again.
Nothing is permanent nor guaranteed... Maybe that's the next lesson in transformation.
For this current process, I almost want to bite my tongue here just in case it all turns out rotten. New home. New job (but more importantly new book to write). New graduate program starting in two months.
New deity.
New reality.
The Devil is a popular guy and He brings a whole culture with Him. Even my saved music on my streaming service is novel and changing. I want to go to goth events again. My femininity is returning, smirking up at Him with a black lipsticked mouth. Through me, He snarks at my two friends who have longstanding relationships with Him. The experiences and interests or goals through Him are staggeringly consistent. What is the meaning of life? we ask Him. Can you clear us of our overly harsh inner judges? Can you help us make art?
You should really be more of yourselves and take up space, He invariably responds.
Wanna fuck? He also frequently asks.
He does help with the art, though.
He also helps extract me from the incredibly unhealthy relationship with my ex-girlfriend that began in astrological study and planetary worship. Rapidly, unexpectedly, my several years deep focus in astrology wanes—just in time for an upcoming astromagician camping trip, which is darkly funny. Fortunately, my individual ties to the planetary deities remain strong and they are amenable to my changing approaches to connecting; they too, of course, recognize that it was time for me to do so. The 7 of them also belong to a variety of polytheist constructs and are accustomed to sharing space.
Devil is a little more jealous. He demands attention and desires to usurp or at least come equal to whatever came before Him; usually the Abrahamic G-d, but toward other beings that you deem important as well. In a sense, it's what makes him Necessary the way all deities are Necessary. There are so many people in this world damaged by religious systems, but if your reality is already integrative of faith, it's not something that always reverts. It also transforms, or transfers.
That's where He comes in, or so I believe. He takes over where humans feel they have been abandoned. He becomes the new Lord when you need one desperately, but you're trapped in a culture and time period where there is only Right or Wrong, Good or Evil, White or Black, Man or Woman.
I never want to be stuck between two choices when I can be everything all at once. So I take His beckoning hand, and where once every cell of mine used to scream with terror at His presence there is now a thrum of relief. Sometimes there will be uncertainty. Sometimes there will be pain. But He's here and He's not going to let anything happen to me; nothing that bad, at least.
