This piece has been picked up by In the Rooms, A Global Recovery Community. It can be seen at https://www.intherooms.com/home/iloverecovery/all/recovery-in-quarantine/

This week an lost lover contacted me through the mists of the internet. When I saw his name in my inbox I didn’t know how to react. I was shocked. I was excited. I was a little afraid. Our last face to face moments together weren’t pleasant, and as I went through all the reasons why I shouldn’t respond in my head, my fingers typed in the words

“ I remember you”

and then they pressed “SEND”. This led to a phone conversation which lasted into the early hours of the morning. Even as I write this, days later, our conversation continues. I feel this is a good thing.

It has also thrown me into a deep pool overflowing with emotions, and I’m trying not to drown in them.

For 33 years he has held on to some photographs of us. He said he saved them from a former partner who tried to throw the evidence of his life with any other woman away. We can’t change our own past; how can we even think about changing someone else’s? He scanned the photos into his computer and sent them to me. Suddenly I was looking at a familiar stranger that resembled me.

I’m an addict and an alcoholic, and at this time in my life it was all just beginning. I had an appetite for cocaine and meth.  Both seemed to flow freely in the circles I surrounded myself with, and I had discovered ways to feed my addiction that I’m not proud of.  By the time I made it to rehab I was a broken shell of myself.  The young woman I was seeing in this photograph was me just before the darkness swallowed me up and I began to fall into the depths of my addiction.  

She is a ghost of my past.  She is someone who died a long time ago, and is now resurrected and reaching out through 33 years of history, clenching my heart in her cold spectral hands.  Her face is so familiar, but she is a stranger to me. She is someone I once loved, but she is someone I let down.  She is someone I couldn’t save from all the heartache and pain she was just about to experience when this photograph was taken.  She is me.

What would I say to her if I had a chance? What would I tell her? Would she listen to me? Would my words have even made a difference? Knowing her as intimately as I do, she would have looked into my 51 year old eyes and told me not to worry. She would have assured me that this man loved her like no other and would never dream of hurting her. She would have told me that the drugs were something that she could stop at any time. She would have talked to me in that sweet voice of innocence; that voice that knows nothing of how hard the world could possibly be to a lost young woman. She would have believed every word she said even though she probably knew deep down inside that she was lying.

The woman I have become is so different than the young woman in this picture. At 51, I’ve climbed the mountains she hadn’t even approached yet. I stumbled and fell and I bear the scars of every fall I took. At 51 my hips are wide from the birth of my son, my belly is soft and stretch marked. My hair is streaked with grey in a defiant act of acceptance. I have zipper scars on my leg, belly and breasts from surgeries. She has wounds that are still fresh. Her hair is streaked with color in an act of defiance of anything or anyone that had the courage to tell her what she should do, or who she should be. She still has the flat stomach of a woman who has never carried a child full term, but her eyes hold a sadness of an innocence that was taken without consent. Her heart had suffered the pain of loss already, but she was only beginning to accrue the burden that heartbreak leaves you with. She knew what loss felt like. She knew betrayal, fear and a deep sadness that a woman her age should have only read about in romance novels with happy endings, but there was so much more to come for her. For me.

She would learn that closure doesn’t happen if you seek it. She would learn that you can’t ever really go home again. She would learn that some people just want to use you up and leave you behind. She would learn that the sweetest words can cut you apart when you find they weren’t said with truth. She would learn that you have to scrape off the scabs and stretch the scars if you ever want to be able to function properly in life. She would learn that sometimes you have to leave everything you love and run and not look back because you could turn to stone or salt.

She would learn that there are some people in your life that want to help. She would find out that there are people who will love you with boundaries firmly in place. She would learn to create boundaries for herself, as well as she would learn the consequences of letting those boundaries slide. She would find recovery and then she would lose it, only to find it again, and again, and again. She would have a child that created an anchor to the responsibilities of motherhood and through him she would finally know what it felt like to be overwhelmed with love. She would find independence that she never dreamed possible and a strength that only age and experience can bring. She would grow comfortable in her skin and in her spirit. She would learn to walk on broken legs, with her head held high with the elegance of a woman and not the arrogance of youth.

Every once and awhile someone comes into your life and changes your direction.  They don’t even realize the consequences of their actions, and you don’t either, until you find yourself spinning out of control in the complete opposite direction you had intended on going in.  It isn’t their fault.  In fact you, unknowingly, probably changed their direction too.  We don’t always realize or even understand the impact we can have on people with our words and our actions.  

Every word is a prayer.  Every word we speak or sing or write or whisper is heard by that divine self.  Once it has formed in our thoughts and is released onto the world, it becomes something completely outside our self.  This was such a hard lesson for me to learn.  It was also hard to learn that I am responsible for how I allow other’s words and actions to affect me.  I can swallow them and let them sicken me.  I can step aside and let them fly past me.  Or I can meet them head on, like a warrior picking her battles wisely and then proceed with grace.  A woman’s grace is so powerful.

I’m so happy he found me again.  I’m so happy that he searched for someone who has deliberately made being found a challenge.  It’s made my heart feel better to know that I am still thought of with love.  I’m happy to know that the wreckage of my past didn’t ruin the chance of healing what was and what has become.  I can look back on this chapter in my life and know that although I’m battle scared, I survived. I survived gracefully.

I’m also grateful I was able to reconnect with this part of me.  That I was able to dissociate from her enough to be able to see her for the person she was, and yet to assimilate her back into myself and hold her gently in my heart with love.  I can’t take her into my arms and tell her everything will be ok.  I can’t save her from the pain she is going to have to endure on my behalf.   However, I can take her into my heart and let her know that she will never be alone again.  

I recently had an idea to curate a recovery themed art show. In my mind I saw artists of many talents expressing their journey of recovery through all the many different mediums that art allows. It was my hope that this art show would spur dialogue between people in order to make recovery from addiction a possibility for someone who never believed it to be obtainable. I found a quote by Pablo Picasso which seemed fitting for a show with this subject in mind. “Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction”. It was relatable to creating a piece of art as well as building a functional life out of the chaos of addiction.

I shared my idea with two friends and they saw the vision of what I was trying to achieve.  We met in the gallery space of Magus Books and Herbs, the local occult bookstore in Minneapolis where the show would be held, and came up with a plan to make it happen.  First we chose a date.  Once that was in place we laid out a plan which included the call for artists, deadlines for submissions and requirements for art and artist statements.  There was so much to consider. I had never been a part of curating an art show, but my friends had done it before.  Letting them take the reins on this was easy.  We all had the same vision in mind and they knew how to reach the goal of making it happen.

That allowed me to focus on my goal of creating a piece for the show that depicted my recovery and how my life changed because of it. I played around with different mediums, since I dabble in quite a few, and finally settled on a tape sculpture. It is a fun medium to work with, but I didn’t see the metaphorical references to my recovery until the piece began to take shape.

I decided that I wanted to show the weight of my addictions and how I was able to rise out of the darkness into the light.  The form I saw in my head consisted of two human figures.  The figure on the bottom would be on its hands and knees with head hanging low.  The second figure would be rising upwards from the heart area of the bottom figure with its arms outwards and head upwards.  I wanted this piece to represent both the heavy and dark energy that one feel caught up in when lost in addiction, as well as the freedom of release when one is able to find a way overcome it. 

I spent a weekend with my son and his sweetie in Chicago, and she volunteered to be my model for the sculpture. We spent hours together in my son’s apartment, her, wearing barely nothing and me intently covering her torso and limbs with layers of packing tape while my son yelled at the video game he was playing. Luckily he’s used to me doing weird art projects like this. She, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine her mom doing a project like this. My son would occasionally put the remote control down and scratch her itchy nose or find the end of the tape roll for me. A family that creates together sticks together. Once the pieces were all formed and she was freed from them, I carefully packed them up and headed home. Once home, the building started.

I have a roommate. He’s a really nice guy, and he understands the quirks of living with a woman like me. My art collection leans to the erotic or the Satanic. I often have meetings of the Left Hand Path and Witch community in the living room. You just never really know who or what you are going to see at my house. He posted the following photograph on his Instagram one evening when he came home to find this on the table on the front porch.

The large inflatable penis in the background only added to the confusion he must have felt, but the photo shows the structure I had to build as part of the process of creating the base figure.  A seven foot structure made out of something as thin as tape needs a structure to support it, and I made this one out of ¾ inch PVC tubing, using different connectors to piece together the angles needed to fit the form. 

I wanted the figure at the bottom of the structure to portray the murky, heavy energy of addiction, so I chose to stuff this figure with black tissue paper. I didn’t realize how hard I would be hit by the act of stuffing this dark paper into a human figure. As I watched the limbs and torso fill with the black wads of paper, I was reminded of all the times I swallowed what I was really feeling. Pushing the paper through the hole I left in the heart of this figure where the top piece would attach, I was overwhelmed with knowing all the times I denied myself something as simple as love. By the time I finished stuffing the head of this figure full of blackness I had tears pouring down my face, because I was remembering every negative thought I directed at myself; every idea I had that I wasn’t worthy, wasn’t good enough to be loved even by myself. I stuffed fear into my stomach. I crammed loathing into my belly. My knees were full of things I thought I could never forgive myself for and my feet full of things I could never walk away from as long as I stayed trapped under the weight of this illness.

I’ve heard the phrase “art heals” at least 100 times. As I stood back and looked at her I felt a wave of healing come over me. Maybe healing isn’t quite the right word. Maybe it was forgiveness? Even that doesn’t seem quite right. I’m having a hard time finding the exact words to fit the description of what I was feeling; maybe because it’s a feeling too complex to be summed up in words. This figure, in the shape of a woman became me.

More metaphors became clear as I worked on the top figure. She was the representation of the Phoenix; the rising out of the darkness. Her energy was lighter, as the tape is translucent, and she glowed with the sunlight coming through the windows of the front porch. I left her empty, but she was full of possibilities.

Each layer of tape I placed on her represented another piece of me holding myself together as I rebuilt my life. One arm curved upwards, and the other arched towards the earth like the Baphomet, in an expression of “as above, so below”. It became evident to me that this symbolized Solve et Coagula; to dissolve and to make whole again. Each part of this sculpture had to be separated from the model and reassembled in a different location, symbolizing how I wasn’t the same person at this point in my recovery journey as I was when I began it. Her head was tilted to one side, yet she was gazing upwards. In this gesture she seemed to acknowledge her past as she was looking towards her future. She was balanced on the toes of one foot while the other leg gracefully kicked back behind her. This added to the feeling of weightlessness. She was spinning out of the heavy darkness of her past and rising upwards to the light.

The show was amazing. There were five artists represented, including myself. Each one of us created a piece that depicted our healing journey. It wasn’t until I saw all of us together in one room that I realized the bravery it took to be a part of this show. Not only were each of us stepping into a public forum with our art work, we were also making our addiction public. We were admitting to anyone who walked into that gallery that we had come from a very dark past. However, admitting that also gave the people who came to see the show permission to admit that the place they were coming from had shadows of its own.

I was so inspired by the stories they told and I was humbled to realize that I was someone lucky enough to hear them. It also felt good to know that I was part of a creative catalyst that gave people the opportunity to come together and acknowledge their journeys. We shared our clean time anniversaries. We talked about that moment we knew we needed help. We remembered the people who helped us on this path of recovery and the people whose journey ended too soon. One person told me that this was the best way they could think of to spend their first day sober.

This was a transformational experience. It was an experience I could not have done without the help of my friends Ryan Soberg and Markus Ironwood. I could not have done this without the help of Magus Books and Herbs in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I could not have accomplished this without each of the artists who took the risk to step out of the shadows and gave of themselves to create the work that made healing happen. This would have been impossible without the people who decided to go out on a cold and wet autumn day to appreciate the work of others.

Most of all, it couldn’t have happened if I was still living a life of addiction.

We tend to think of coming out as a term used in lgbtq+ circles, but in the Satanic world it’s a concept we are also familiar with.  Being outed is an invasion of privacy and a violation of one’s free will to choose when and if they wish to disclose their Satanic affiliation.  It creates a plethora of problems for the person being outed; legal, emotional, physical, mental and spiritual.  The act of outing someone has been used by weak people as a weapon of destruction, wielded unmercifully when their egos have been bruised.  They strike at what they believe to be the jugular of the Satanist; their very identity.

 There are many reasons a Satanist stays in the closet. We live in world where spiritual and religious affiliations can carry legal and social repercussions. In some countries, simply being associated with Satanism can cost you your head.  Disclosing a parent’s Satanic affiliation during divorce or separation has resulted Satanic parents losing custody of their children.  It has caused harassment in the workplace and it has cost people their livelihood.  Everyone has their own reasoning as to why they wish to keep their identity and affiliation private.  Being outed takes your control away from your own life’s narrative without your consent.

 Many use pseudonyms.  Employing the use of an alias can be a helpful way to camouflage your identity when engaging in in social media or public speaking engagements where you don’t want your true name and identity revealed. Speaking, writing or publishing under an alias is a common remedy to disguise your identity when your work will be under a public microscope, leaving you vulnerable to threats.

 Jezebel Pride is a moniker I’ve assumed to keep the crazies at bay.   I am a single woman, living alone, but also living publicly as a Satanist.  Because I am often called on to speak about the subject of Satanism and the Left Hand Path, and because I live alone and my mortgage is a matter of public record, I often employ my alias as a way to deter the hateful and often threatening attention I sometimes receive as a result of my path and my work. While I have been using my actual name more and more, when I know I will be speaking at events that will draw an overly righteous group of religious zealots, Jezebel does the talking.

 Besides using my pseudonym, I take other precautions to protect myself.  Before I agree to an interview, I do a little investigating on the interviewer.  I make sure the person is who they say they are and I get a feeling of the direction they are going to take the interview in.  I agree to a list of questions or topics to be discussed and I don’t deviate from it if I don’t feel comfortable.  I take a friend along when I’m doing an in person interview; a great big, intimidating friend.  I take threats seriously, and I report them to the police.  I also know my neighbors and they keep an eye on my home and car.  

 I also have been trained to defend myself.

 Being outed, against one’s will is to suffer a despicable attempt of someone trying to cut a person down at the ankle and then standing on their body to elevate a weak conscious.  It is an act of cowardice by a person with no better means at ending a conflict or a disagreement than to permanently do damage to another’s reputation. If you aren’t ready to step out of the Satanic closet it can be a terrifying shock.  You are suddenly vulnerable to the misinterpretations your spiritual path has endured at the hands of people who haven’t taken the time or energy to understand it.  Their misconceptions are based in fear rooted in the church’s dogma and from societal influences like the Satanic Panic of the 1980’s.  These misconceptions couldn’t be further from the truth.  

 I was recently on the receiving end of a vain attempt to out me.  I was commenting on a post in an addiction recovery support group on Facebook where a woman asked if it was possible to be in recovery without god.  I was telling her about secular addiction recovery groups and how to find them in her area when a woman going by the name MissPamela Ann Miller chimed in.  MissPamela Ann Miller, by all accounts was a Christian and she was making it known in that ALL CAPS way that the only way to recovery was by the grace of god.  That god.  Her god.  We debated for a short time, as people with differing philosophies do in Facebook comment threads, when suddenly she posts a screen shot of my profile picture and goes on about my Satanic affiliations in the post’s comment thread.

 I didn’t deny my spiritual path.  I didn’t stand on a soapbox and preach it either.  I did check her profile to see just how far she had pushed the bar and low and behold, there was the screen shot of my profile page with a caption that read:

 

“What yall think about this chick? would you listen to anything she had to say about how to achieve recovery and to leave Jesus out of it I don’t think I would LOL”

 At first I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach as I wondered just how far this would pay out.  I cringed, wondering how many of her friends would repost my profile.  I speculated how many ugly messages would begin to flood my inbox.  Would I receive threats?  If so, would any hold weight?  Did I need to be worried for my safety?  These are all legitimate concerns, especially since I am a single woman who lives alone.  

 What MissPamela Ann Miller didn’t realize is that I was already out of the Satanic Closet.  I had spent 2 years as the media liaison for the Minneapolis chapter of The Satanic Temple, and I had done numerous television and press interviews for TST Minneapolis.  I was also the United States chapter head for the Church of Rational Satanism out of the United Kingdom.  Both TST and CoRS are internationally recognized Satanic organizations.  At the time MissPamela Ann Miller decided to try to trash my reputation, I was one of the founding members of Minnesota’s Left Hand Path Community and I’ve become known around Minneapolis as “That Satan Lady”.  I had been a speaker at the International Left Hand Path Consortium and Paganicon, and I had been interviewed on the topic of addiction recovery from a Left Hand Path and Satanic perspective on two well-known occult podcasts, with an interview scheduled for a third.  

 I took a screen shot of her post with the screen shot of my profile picture and posted it on my Facebook page with a caption that read:

 

“Look at me.  I’m somebody now.”

 

I posted it in a couple Satanic and Left Hand Path groups that I’m established in and then I sat back and watched the shit hit the fan for MissPamela Ann Miller.  

 Besides being reported, multiple times, for harassment and booted from the original addiction recovery support group that the screen shot was posted in, she got a chance to hear from The Legion that is the Satanic Community I am humbled to be a part of. The deluge of messages that flooded her inbox from Satanists around the world was enough for her to delete her Facebook profile.  

 If you are going to be outed in this fashion, it’s best to make sure that your profile picture is on point.  

At the time of my attempted outing the image I had up was the latest head shot of me taken while I was attending the Rochester New York’s Erotic Arts Vampire Ball, fangs and all.  My banner photo was little ‘ole me riding “Big Richard”, a giant coin operated mechanical penis on display at local bar in Minneapolis taken by one of my friends when I was out for an evening of dancing. I was wearing my hair in two big dreadlocked horns and was dressed in a gorgeous black pentagram dress and a pair of fantfuckingtastic knee-high black leather boots over fish net stockings.   If she had the audacity to venture into the depths of my profile she would have discovered that the theme of my Facebook feed is sex, Satan, references to penises and photographs of my adorable pit bull/boxer/hound rescue puppy named Larry.

 I was lucky.  I was outed when I was already out of the Satanic closet.  It still left me with a sickening feeling in my stomach, however, just by the vulnerability the act of being displayed against and without knowledge of my will created in me.  I decided to use this act of aggression to capitalize on the addiction recovery work that has been at the heart and soul of my magical and spiritual calling.  I posted the video of my interview with Chaweon Koo on her podcast “Witches and Wine” and the interview I did with Markus Ironwood on his “Arcane Academy” podcast.  Both go into detail on how a person with a Satanic or Left Hand Path paradigm can find empowering and supportive recovery community.  After that I shared the Narcan Training I was hosting with Minnesota’s Left Hand Path Community, Magus Books and Herbs and Valhalla Place as well as information on the LHP Addiction Recovery Meetings I started in Minneapolis.  I figured anyone trolling my Facebook page would understand that I am a strong Satanic woman who is serious about helping people recover within their own Left Hand Path spiritual paradigm.

 If you find yourself a victim of someone trying to out you, don’t panic.  It’s not the end of the world, although it may seem like it at the time. If you are concerned that your safety or your family’s wellbeing is at risk by this accusation, absolutely take appropriate measures, but don’t pack all your shit up and vacate the family farm.  

 Take a look at the situation, realistically.  If you are feeling like a Satanic goat in the headlights, call a trusted friend to help you see the situation for what it is. Their perspective may be just what is needed.  Their presence and knowledge of you and the situation you are in may be a comfort.  Because they are looking at the situation from the outside, they may be able to ground you in the reality of what is going on in a calm and rational way that helps you look at all your options.  The problem may not be as overwhelming as it seems.

 Then take a moment to assess what it means to you to be truly Satanic and exactly how far in the Satanic Closet you were living.  Was this serving your greater good?  Was hiding your spiritual beliefs contributing to your highest potential?  Had you been out to some and vaguely shrouded to others?  Had you been planning to come out eventually, but this forced your hand?  Are your fears and concerns warranted?   Look at all these questions carefully.  Remember to keep breathing and don’t panic.  We fear that which we don’t know or understand. See where you stand with all of this and then move accordingly with the grace, strength and dignity of a Satanist.

 Take a look at the person who outed you.  Nothing excuses the act of taking away someone’s right to their own narrative, but still, take a good hard look at that little piece of shit that decided to do this to you. What role have they played in your life?  What was the intent of their action?  What is their level of credibility to the people they outed you too?  Are the people they directed your outing at going to be able to see the writing on the wall?   This is a good opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to people in your life.  It’s also a chance to spread a little light of the Black Flame to the dim an uneducated.  Some people set themselves up for a ‘schooling, and you know what you are talking about.  If you feel it would benefit you, confront the person that disrespected your right to privacy and let them know just how you feel.  Respectively, if you are confronted by the people they disclosed your private information to, you can choose to admit or deny based on your own situation.  You don’t owe anyone anything.  If you aren’t ready to disclose your Satanic identity then tell them that your spiritual path is your own and that their opinion of it doesn’t matter to you.  Remember that there is nothing wrong with being a Satanic person.  You have not committed a crime, at least in most countries, by identifying with a Satanic paradigm.

 

And then crush the little shit that created this mess in the most beautiful way you can.  By owning it with your head held high so that beautiful crown of knowledge and righteousness doesn’t slip.    

Welcome to my first blog post! A few years ago, someone told me I was just too nice to be a Satanist.

They seemed shocked that someone who identifies with the Adversary would work in a healing profession, teach empowerment workshops and provide a safe place for addicts and alcoholics in recovery. I didn’t fit into their stereotypical picture of what a Satanist should look like or how they should behave.

Many people hear the word “Satanist” and immediately the picture of a black clad figure pops into their mind. People picture death metal t-shirts, gothic costumes and long flowing robes made of black satin and covered with the blood of sacrificed virgins.

Seriously, have you ever tried to get virgin blood out of a satin robe???

With JezebelPride.com I will do my best to dispel the myths and misconceptions of what it is to be a Satanist.  You will be able to mull over my musings, read my rantings and join me in chewing the fat while we discuss what it means to be a Sober, Satanic Woman.  

So buckle up Buttercup! You are about to take a written road trip through the Inferno with your favorite Satanic Sweetheart, your Adversarial Auntie, your BFF with a Devilish Boo who sits high in Low Places. 

It’s going to be one Hell of a ride…