I've recently started reading the TransMythology by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus. As I'm going through it I might post my thoughts about it and interpretations. I think it would be cool for future people interested in the Mythos of the Tetrad++ to have multiple points of reference instead of just the book and a few wordpress blogs.
La panadería es maravillosa, hermosa, satisfactoria y agotadora; lo tiene todo y nos regala uno de los alimentos más sinceros 🙌🏻 🙂🥖🥖🥖🥖🥖🥐🥐🥐 #paneros #yapa #masamadre #septiembre 🥖🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🤟🏻🤟🏻🤟🏻🤟🏻 (en Yapa Panaderia Creativa) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTSt14rPLNk/?utm_medium=tumblr
Every reconnection starts with someone reaching out, even when scared the answer would be "no".
After over a year away from the Tetrad++ and almost a year since I last worked with any of Them (i.e. since the last Trans Rite of Elevation), I contacted them today and said I wanted to reconnect with Them. I miss Them and find them inspirational and want to talk about Them more to other people but feel it is dishonest of me to do much of that if I am not actually working with/worshipping them.
Given I had been told by Them the month before I started my Masters we were not to be continuing for that year, because of reasons partially relating to my inability to consistently hear Them properly and doubts about my ability to commit while simultaneously being in uni (which, given how the year was, were warranted), I could not assume I had blanket permission to just go back and that They would welcome me with no problems.
So, I set out the statues I have for them and lit a candle and offered them some tea that I was drinking with them...and spent the following two hours telling each of Them how they inspired me and then discussing how They felt about reconnecting and what I need to do next in order to do so. With a fifteen minute toilet break in the middle.
I drew a batch of six cards intially, one for each of Them, but after requiring clarification on the first one about both what Panpsyche meant and what She wanted me to do, I subsequently drew a clarification and an action card for each of Them. One card also jumped out before I drew the initial six, making it 19 cards total, which is a huge spread for me!
I am so out of practice with tarot I had to look up each individual card in the LWB and interpret the key words, often with a series of yes/no "20 Questions" style questions when I was split between two interpretations. One of the things I knew I need to work on is accuracy in understanding what They're saying so I do not trust my intuition regarding Them right now. It turned out I had spent nearly a year thinking They were pleased with where we were going and that I was doing well, or at least ok, only to find out when I went to renew our commitment I had been only communicating with sock puppets in my mind the majority of the time and They were not so unanimously pleased with me. Hence the double-checking and 20 questions this evening.
My heart fell intially as I surveyed the six cards I had drawn. 5 reversals and the single upright was The Devil, coupled with a reversed jumper card. I am disappointed in myself that I have disappointed Them, and I had hoped my honesty in unscripted descriptions of the inspirations I gained from Them all would show my sincerity of feeling and be sufficient to start again but...I think deities have longer memories than we do, or perhaps I just normally run away from people I think I've disappointed and so never have to deal with the consequences.
However, I worked through each of the Tetrad++ in turn, honestly discussing how I felt and how I interpreted the cards given to indicate how They felt. Two cards to express Their feelings regarding potential reconnection and one to given an action for me to do if I wanted to develop a relationship again with that particular member.
Panpsyche is being like a stern mother and wants my actions to reflect my apparent feelings, by me donating to trans people's fundraisers, particularly trans women's (naturally, She being a trans woman Herself). I disappointed Her before and have to show that I mean my apologies and not just say them.
Panhyle started with the upright Devil, which visually seemed like a fitting representation of Him (being a faun in this deck). He wants to work with me to improve my body to what I want it to be, and for me to stop complaining about it if I am not doing anything to fix it. I need to start a regular exercise regime and not falter.
Paneros I did not know what to expect, as I have some anxieties about my own desires that keep me from exploring them fully and so, E being All-Desire among other things, I had always kept distance out of worry. But I don't want to be afraid any more. E said E is disappointed and sad things did not work out before but hat we can move past that now. E wants me to fall out and drop away from the things that bind me, from unhelpful routines and stagnant actions, to hatch from my egg and grow from my seed, to rise again. It scares me, because what if I fail and free-fall and never fly? But I have been longer afraid of rotting inside myself from not being authentically me, so I agreed.
Paneris, All-Strife, was one I did not have any expectations for. He literally embodies conflict and strife and change, so having any expectations is counterproductive. She said the two of us were an "undependable youth" and a "distrustful person" also who is which is unclear. They will.work with me on a case-by-case basis, a transactory relationship rather than, say, a friendship. And the first thing Thon said Cor'd do was help me with Paneros and breaking out of my shell, if I made a bad decision. As in, to invoke Hir spirit of change in my life to make everything different, I had to make a bad decision, a conflict-causing decision. Which would no doubt bring change by necessity!
Pancrates...flat out said Sie doesn't like me. And it makes me worried that, someone I see as upholding the pillars of order in the universe doesn't like me, I am a bad person. But, one thing that has always been apparent to me from previously working with the Tetrad++ is They are very much like people and have likes and dislikes accordingly. And I cannot be liked by everyone. Sie wants of me The Tower - to tear down and utterly reconfigure my view of myself and the world. So, I said that may happen due to the work I will be trying to do with Paneros and Paneris, but that I could not promise I would turn into a person Pancrates would like. I am surprised to have such a negative reaction from Hir but...I will never be liked by everyone.
Panprosdexia, ever dutiful, felt my time away was a waste and that it could have been better spent being more of a light in the darkness and leading others through. But now I am back I can start again and help others and shine as I can and work on assisting Them in Their duty. I need to keep an eye out for omens and on my dreams for further messages.
Overall this means I can move forward with redeveloping relationships with each of the members of the Tetrad++, save perhaps Pancrates. This is particularly immediately relevant because I have called upon Them every time I've done the Trans Rite of Elevation so far and wish to do so this year too, and did not want to do so if I were in unredeemable stead.
On a personal level, it fills me with hope. I did not realise I was holding Their presence in such an important place until it was gone.
In the West, the void of not-knowing is not a fertile place, a place of stillness or potentiality. For us, it remains mostly an abyss - a place of irrationality where nothing is known for certain. In such a place there can only be darkness, chaos, and an endless descent into madness (and maybe weird new genders).
Gender Theory, Queer Theory, Riki Wilchins, 2004
Reading this paragraph, I was immediately put in mind of Paneros. E dives into the river Styx, supposedly abyssal and inescapable, and rises in touch and in love with Emself - a gender beyond genders, a meta-gender, a gender not understandable at all through any existing gender system. And I am glad to see that reflected a non-religious queer theory primer.
It also puts me in mind of Panprosdexia, who leads everyone through the darkness. it reminds me of Them specifically because of the similarities between darkness and the abyss. I had always interpreted it as “They lead people through the darkness and out the other side” but with a conceptualisation of darkness not as depression or bad situations but a fertile abyss full of things beyond what is known - perhaps Panprosdexia is also a guide to being in the beyond, beyond the system, and not simply traversing it.
Between the love god’s sensual aura and Pan’s own attraction to the other god, the god of the wild was flushed. He hadn’t been expecting the kiss, but it was so so nice. Satisfaction and something much hotter filled the pit of his stomach as he took Eros’s lips for his own yet again.
“They can tell we make a wild pair,” Pan breathed back, the teasing smirk more than obvious in his voice.
Paneris. Change. Fluidity. STRIFE. Gender and sex change like two spinning colour wheels: blue on yellow, red on green, purple on black. It is a shock when they match. Bared teeth. Broken chains. Bitter laugh. In every raised shout, in every harsh word, in every slam, push, stab, slash against anything, any boundaries - there is Paneris; in every breaking, every destruction, every argument, establishment of self against state, every riot, every fight - there is Paneris. In every unfinished work, in every yearning to grow, in every broken boundary, shattered taboo, ignored poetic metre - there is Paneris. Sharp tongue. Sharper words. Sharpened claws. Do you fight to live? Paneris is there. Do you strive to be free? Paneris is there. Do you set out hopes, plans, and dreams only to find yourself going somewhere else? Paneris is there. Did you think you were straight? Did you think you were cis? In the dread and the guilt and the fear; in the defiance, in the rebellion , in the anger; in the shattering, in the crumbling, in the lightning striking The Tower: Paneris is here. Break everything. Regret nothing. Laugh into the darkness. And allow All-Love, your spouse Paneros, and All-Acceptance, your child Panprosdexia, to rebuild the world in your wake.
Panpsyche, Soul, All-Souls, the expression of Soul. The Bird of Flame, solar flares of Truth. Whatever body you wear you are yourself. If your body fits your soul well, then it leaks out all over, every movement an expression of your Self. If your body does not match your soul well, then your soul spills over and bursts out, in creation, in incorporeal expression having failed to make its mark on the physical. In ephemeral song, music, poetry, zines, written, spoken, thought externally expressed, not confined to the physical but more visible than mental. When your soul fits your body, you glow, you shine, you beam. When your soul does not fit your body, you burst forth, you flare out, you spill molten and beautiful. The soul is a bird in a golden cage and sometimes that cage must burn. Panpsyche, Soul-Bird, Flamed-Winged. You open your mouth and sing. No body can contain you, All-Souls, True Soul. Your children, your daughters, are radiant with your Truth, their Truth, all souls blazing bright beyond bodies. Only your brother, your lover, All-Bodies, All-Body, Panhyle. Only he can handle you, sometimes. And when there is harmony between All Souls and All Bodies, then there must arise, must ubiquitously arise, must inevitably arise All Love, Paneros.