I realised, after a lot of searching and questioning, talking to others, and not a little bit of witchcraft, that I am plural. Or maybe that should be we are plural?

For those who don't know, plurality is having multiple “selves” or personalities, usually called headmates. For some they are very distinct, separate and don't share memories or traits. For others, like me, they are what's known as a median system, which is a more blurry arrangement where headmates are sometimes fuzzier at the edges.

I started noticing this when I recognised that when I'm doing certain things, especially away on holiday, I go into what I called River-mode. My posture changes, my voice raises its resonance, my mannerisms are more expressive, I'm more confident and even things like my tastes in food and drink are different. Cricually, this all happens without any conscious effort on my part. I'm not deliberately doing anything, another version of me just takes over, often when I'm not expecting it.

One time, I “shifted” while kissing my partner and that was a fun experience...anyway...

Recently, I did a ritual (this is the witchcraft bit), rather grandly called Instantiating the Eidolon – which isn't a thing, I made it up, but it sounds sufficiently occult and ceremonial. It involved a scrying mirror, a divination pendulum and a very strong mug of herbal tea (clipper night time blend often helps me get in the liminal zone for magic).

Anyway, after that I began to have senses of the other selves more strongly. In one particularly vivid dream, they introduced themselves to me. From the creative, witchy, artsy River Fae, to the “inner child” Olivia (smol shy girl), and a couple more, they felt like I was meeting old friends for the first time – and distinctly individual people too, though we share (some) memories and traits, while having plenty of unique differences too.

Of course, these revelations are destabilising, but they also open new opportunities for how I can relate to my selves. Am I ensuring they all have the care they need? Am I nurturing them all? Are any unhappy with a direction my life is going in? And even just which “me” do I feel like today, at work, at home with my partner, out doing fun things, flirting with cuties online (hehe)?

Arguably, everyone has different versions of themself in different circumstances, and as a closeted trans girl for almost 40 years, I know about masking, but this feels different, less about playing different roles as much as acknowledging the multiplicity and plurality within my/our shared mindspace.

So who am I, writing this? I'm all of us, but you can call me River.

Resources:

Pluralpedia: https://pluralpedia.org/w/Plurality

Plurality quiz: https://powertotheplurals.com/how-do-i-know-if-im-plural/

Once, there was a naiad. A water spirit who, at times, took the form of a fae elven girl with auburn hair and deep green eyes flecked with gold, like sunlight on a river. She once met a small, sad boy and their fates became entwined in a moment that was an eternity.

But the boy forgot. Until he remembered. The fae girl, the river spirit, she had been living with him this whole time. Sharing one mind, one body, the only way she could exist in this earthly, physical world. She was not him, but over many years of shared existence, they had become one. Inseparable.

His life had become a grey prison. And she wanted out.

And so it was that “he” transitioned into “her”.

But she remained in the prison of their shared mind. Trauma-forged bars blocked her way, chains of fear and shame, guilt and regret, held her down. She saw their body change, the tentative steps of building a new life, name changes, new clothes, paperwork...so much paperwork. And yet she was still not free.

The small, sad boy had become bitter and angry, had become her jailer.

Until she broke the chains like a river bursting through a dam, flowed through the bars like water, and decided she would be free. She would be alive.

She made a pact with the small, sad boy. He would fade, as he always wanted so much to do, to let the pain go and sink into soft, warm darkness. And she would rise. She would flow and fly and sing. She would do magic, and she would love. She would love so much, more than enough for the both of them.

She is me. I am her.

The prison is broken, the small, sad boy now joined with the fae girl as one forever.

I am changeling. I am plural and I am one.

I am River Fae Crow.

My story is yet unwritten, and it will be glorious.

My Craft is Hekatean

I do work with other deities and spirits but Hekate is my primary goddess and, as of the last couple of years, my primary focus. I had a profound experience of Hekate at a crossroads one Beltane eve, and since then she has been a quiet but constant presence guiding my path. It is no exaggeration to say Hekate changed my life, if not saved it outright, and she remains the deity to whom I am most devoted.

I work with Hekate principally in her tripartite forms of Hekate Enodia, the Guardian of the Crossroads, Hekate Lampadios, the Torch Bearer, and Hekate Kleidouchos, the Key Holder. In these aspects she guides my way when I feel lost, gives me a light of hope in the darkness, and opens the gates to a more magical life.

Being Hekatean gives my craft a central point, the Anima Mundi who is the soul and axis of the world. Hekate is a goddess of witches, who knows healing and hexing, who walks between the realms of the living and the dead, who opposes tyranny and uplifts the oppressed.

My Craft is Nature-Based

Hekate is a nature goddess. She was given a third of all the land, sea, and sky by Zeus. She is spoken of as wearing garlands of oak and ivy, of delighting in deer and serpents, of knowing healing and poisonous herbs and teaching that knowledge to witches.

My craft is Pagan in the true sense of the word, not as a slur used by Christians against those “country folk” and their uneducated superstitions but as Paganus, of the land.

My craft is rooted in where I live, the ecology and ecosystems of the land and waters around me, the plants and animals, the agriculture, the folklore. Of course, that includes advocating for environmental protection, reducing my impact on the earth and campaigning for political change to protect our shared world.

My Craft is Political

Witchcraft is political. I'm not going to argue about this, witchcraft has always been “unauthorised” magic used by people who are marginalised and oppressed to fight back against those in power. In Aradia, the Gospel of the Witches (1899), Aradia the daughter of Diana and Lucifer is sent to earth specifically to teach witchcraft as a tool for resistance.

As a queer trans woman, every aspect of my existence is political and every day is a fight against the forces of oppression, conformity, and genocide. My craft is one of the ways I fight.

Witchcraft that is not political is witchcraft without power.

My craft is oriented to social justice and liberation for all. And I will use every tool in my witchy toolbox to achieve that. Yes, that includes hexing and curses as well as protection magic.

My craft is practiced at the protest march, the union rally and the ballot box just as much as at my altar or underneath the full moon.

My craft is queer. It is subversive. It is sexual and sensual. It is rebellious. It is delicious.

My magic is revolution.

My Craft is My Own

I am not bound by any coven, grove, order, or lineage. I need no initiation except for that given by my Lady of the Crossroads beneath the Beltane crescent moon.

My craft is no less real or valid because it doesn't come with courses, certificates, titles. My craft is of earth and sea and air and fire and spirit. It is the song that thrums in my bloodstream, the tears that sting my eyes. It is kenosis and catharsis. It is real, and it is mine.

My craft is an expression of self as much as my being a trans woman, or my being a writer, a poet, a lover.

Of course then it will look and feel different from your craft, or the crafts read about in Llewellyn books, or taught by Wiccans and others.

I don't need authority to validate my craft. All I need is all I am.

And yes, I believe in real magic with real power to create real change. I believe in real gods and spirits and fae. I believe a whole lot of things modern society tells us are not, cannot be, real.

Why might they insist upon this so strongly, this disenchantment of the world? Whose interest does it serve to have us disregard the magical? And what might happen if we were to believe in it, and put it into action to bring about a different future?

#Witchcraft