I’m so excited, I just found out deerkult/deerpocalypse was a thing. I think it was spring 2016 when the Horned One first grabbed me (and also made me face that fact that I’m trans). Then shortly before Bealtaine 2017 our connection deepened, and I considered Him my main Deity until Gwyn ap Nudd revealed Himself to me last summer.
To clarify, by “Horned One” I mean the Wiccan Horned God. He gave me several names to call Him by but none of them felt like His “One True Name” for me. I do think the Horned was wingmanning for Gwyn that whole time, which is rather sweet. For a long time I only knew Gwyn as “that Faery King aspect of the Horned God.” He’d show up as a very tall man dressed in black, with long silver-white hair, and He’d tell me to come be His bard, or take me to the deep ocean (I was so confused). I was surprised by how different He looked from how the Horned usually appeared to me, but I still knew He was my Horned One. And He was honestly gorgeous. Still is.
Dreamed I had to go back to my dad's property in nj because i found out somehow, several years after he had passed, that he left me a whole deer carcass, macerating in a lake nearby.
I was, for some reason, a part of a magical consultant team, almost like P.I.s, looking into something happening in and around Philadelphia; storms, disappearances, deer and mugwort (It's PA, both of those last things are everywhere up there).
A lot of internet woo names were there, too, the sort who do podcasts & books & conferences, and I spent a lot of it trying to figure out my place on the team, and why me, up until we investigated a pub, and I found a small hidden compartment in the floor full of fist-sized, vaguely humanoid frog eggs. I knew exactly what was happening, but woke up before i could explain.
Seriously, whichever deity is throwing deer stuff at me, you can stop. Message received. "Nice dash you got there Aly, be a shame if someone started THROWING DEER ALL OVER IT AGAIN!"
But I was going thru my poetry from Oct/Nov/Dec 2015? & at the time I was writing from a different place . It was strange at the time, but I can always tell when I’m not quite present. And that’s not to say I was channeling - but all of my poems at the time were automatic writing. & The subject matter & the words didn’t make much sense at the time but now that I’m thinking about it the shit lines up. Read more if you want, but I’m just posting the poems I wrote with the dates they were written. Beware I am shy.
Oct 24, 2015 Claws
Omens are comforting calculations, coincident or obvious proof
We wake with the dawn, moon not long gone
And echo down along the grass
You’re telling me to leave the problem-solving to you
But you’re a liar who’s always been hurt
I’m sure you can’t understand
Without the missing pieces I am
Nothing, no one at all
To reap from the seeds, you keep me sick and suffering
But it all balances out, spiral flowers from her grave
It’s out of our hands but you protect like iron bands
Shackled her hips and waist
Bruised until grey, hair blackened waves
The goddess visits man, the following is brave
Eliminate the threat, put me further in your debt
The brightness grinds into my bones
The light’s so low I can hardly see
I long to watch your transcendence entirely
I’m left without a lead that I can follow
If you look close enough, she said she was always hollow
I don’t feel, no, not at all
My blood’s gone dry, limbs, and I want nothing more than this
You’re an impossibility wrapped in a death wish
Oct 31, 2015 Automatic Writing
I am not willing to change
I am the ache, I am the night
I am the being
Inside that itches and lies
I am the master the servants ask for alive
I cry for death with each breath
That lets me have reprieve that I don’t need
Open up and grasp
and touch and love
It’s the best thing for you in life
Let go, let go, open up and show me
Who you’ve always meant to be
If you’re scared, I’m scared
I’m ready, aware
Open up, open up, open up
For me
Nov 3, 2015 Deity
It feels like wind whipping through the darkness
Looking up at trees without leaves, through branches
Right into the cold black of oblivion where the sea
Parts and cradles and sits waiting patiently
For all life there ever was to end, for just a break
It gets so busy when everything happens all at once
Dizzying, drawing attention back to street corners
And cars bustling past the stragglers at 3am
Who can’t decide if they would rather be living or dead
And instead settle for the nothingness between the two
Lounging on couches, covered in nosebleeds and picking at scabs
Longing for a youth that has been replaced by bitterness
You had a teacher once who told you that life spoils you
There has to be great care taken you don’t die before you rot
He waxed on about power lines and the role of money in politics
And promised he was the supreme specimen, rational
But he forgot to look up at the stars at night, to remember
To inhale the smoke that’s never visible, to exhale white winter frost
He never left behind his body in the pursuit of understanding
I miss him and the legacy, the promise of materialism
Everything seems so pointless from this vantage
Nov 22, 2015 Repetition as Weight
Father said immortality was a wave upon which I came and crashed
And to embrace the ephemeral like the claws of the cat, a scar on my knee
That vanquished all of my fears of living safely, blood, and who knew
It would outlast the skin, down to the bone, down, past the soul, the cut
I would make many more as the years left me
Father said my willingness to learn was a godsend, that too many folks
Waste their whole lives pretending they have all the answers, and I said,
“And, Daddy? What about you?” And he told me that he knew everything, and
Somehow that didn’t grate unexpectedly then, as it does now
He lied to me and I lie to the whole world to right that wrong
Father said that how fickle it was, how time was, how time goes, how he just
He knows, and he let me in on the secret, the magnetics, electricity
The undeniable, insatiable grasp when the whole world is in your hands
We traversed all of the United States in a semi-truck, only breaking to sleep
Only pausing to look out of the windows at an Arizona desert where, maybe
The Totem Poles were the spirits of the dead calling out to us to stay, just once
Father said I was supposed to eat and am entitled to growth, how delightful
Change is, and I embraced that philosophy with enough barbituates poisoning
Me I could finally feel the infinity that he talked about, and how he shied away
From the word God, and still talked about his childhood and his destruction
As if they were tangible things, he said he’s forgotten so many details already
I didn’t even know the Norse gods were a thing until a few months after writing these but holy shit do they not fit eerily with Odin at least. And Loki for sure! Possibly some other as yet unidentified Deity as well? not sure. All I know is this shit is weird looking back.
I just want to say that I'm incredibly grateful you reblogged those posts on deerkult. I've been running into an overwhelming amount of deer and deer-related imagery especially lately. its a relief to know that I'm not the only one experiencing this. A particular spirit I've been extremely close to for roughly a year now is antlered. I've nicknamed him "Stag" since he won't tell me who he is, and it's evident he's connected to The Hunt. I'm that much closer to uncovering his identity. Thanks!
You are far from the only one.
Deerkult as a name came out of #deerpocalypse which started, I think Autumn 2014? I was not really an active participant in that round of the shenanigans on tumblr, but it neatly coincided with the arrival of Herne and the Wild Hunt in my life. I kept quiet on this for a long time because I have paranoia about echo chambers and revealing too much of the innards of my practice to people. But deerkult is certainly A Thing for me. Other deerkult people are many and varied and may wish to weigh in on this :)
For me as I said it’s centered around the Wild Hunt plus Odin-as-Herne. This is not the only interpretation, deerkult is a road with many forks, a question with many answers. But that is the facet of it for me and it sounds like it’s important for you too.
I’ll say this: the Hunt is very much a movable feast. There are so many folkloric iterations of the Hunt and, in my gnosis, that manifests as multiple interlinked Hunts. And the members of the Hunt are their own spirits and entities, not necessarily figures with identities to be found in lore ... duskenpath has some posts about unnamed/unworshipped Gods here which, while the Hunt isn’t made up entirely Gods, has some relevance to the issues here I think.
I’ve found working with them, building relationships with them to be scary & intense at times, but absolutely worth it. Best of luck & I am generally willing to discuss things if you want at any point!
