Here's a link to the article in pdf. It reads like the description of a sexed up YA story, with Althea tragically giving in to the powers of her new dark lord.
www.100thmonkeypress.com/biblio/acrow...

I was lucky to have a very good therapist with whom I'd developed a close working relationship. I also had a supportive spouse, the privileges of time and money, and a strong inner desire to break free from the shame and fear. Psyches were a key part of this, a necessary part, but not the only part.

Well, that sure as hell leaves my etchings in the dust.

I know enough to know I don't know. Mental illness and trauma took my father, and my brother, and almost took me. I can believe in Crystals, Hecate, Cernunnos, and the powers of herbs and spells.

I just hope I don't realize I'm pouring water into my gas tank.

But what if some of the "crazy" in our world is really people who are supposed to be going through an awakening, but can't accept it? What if my exploration of paganism is another man's fancy car and way-to-young replacement for his wife?

Even while exploring magic and witchery, I still believe in science. I have experience with gravity and that Newton stuff. Vaccines matter.

I worried that I was following in his footsteps. I had heard the Voice. I believed in things I didn't believe in before. I believe in magic. I even spent time with my therapist.

Me: "Am I crazy?"

Her: Gets up and hugs me (she doesn't like touch).

That loss of shame around vulnerability began as a joyful freedom, but now it's a tool, a power.

The element that most enabled my spiritual awakening was the medicine or gods or the power of my shaman (can I call her that?) plucking poisonous shame, shame about being vulnerable, from my body. It was flicked away, like, "We don't need this anymore."

"You will learn things about yourself through enacting castings and rituals, and what you learn may not always be comfortable."

-- Ivo Dominguez, Casting Sacred Spaces

Every day, somehow, you post something that appeals to me in interesting ways.

People think there are two states of existence in times like this: politics or war. There is an in-between state. We are past politics now. The military isn't machine-gunning people in the streets, but we're a lot closer to that than we are to debates over tax policy. This is a scary time.