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Erii

Feb 08 2019
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Villain

By Musings No Comments

People yearn to be seen for who they are – to suffer, scream and cry before someone else. They want to be seen naked, stripped of all their masks. They desperately yearn for someone who understands them.

This is why there’s nothing sexier than the image of a villainous character who reflects the darkness inside.  It fosters the illusion that “this person can understand my darkness” and admiration that “this person is honest in ways I cannot be.” Also the fantasy: “I could save tis person… I could make the villain change for me.”  The dark, lost, fucked up monster. “My love would save him.” And the ego cries on.

We are all the villain of our own story.
We make the choices that bind us.

If you’re true to yourself, nothing can destroy your integrity. Not even death, because your message will live on in the hearts of others.
There’s no enemy, no villain, except the mechanisms by which you tear yourself down.
We project that villain onto others, and others can serve as ‘tricksters’ or truth-revealers in our own life, to open our eyes to our own biases and push us to confront our demons.
But the only one who can confront your demons is you.
The rest is a backdrop which can only serve as a reminder for what we already know in our hearts.
Anyone who says something like “I’m not a great man, I’m just a regular guy” – wrong. Gandhi and Peterson and MLK also were just regular people.
There’s nothing about anyone that inherently makes them great, or destined for greatness.
“Privilege” may make the path easier, but in and of itself, it does not ensure greatness or mediocrity.
Those choices come only from us.

You can be a “great man” or “great woman” in the context of your own life.
Not everyone has to be world famous, to be great.
Mediocrity is a temptation that lures us. It’s easier to avoid making waves.
When you make a statement, grow and expand, you come up against boundaries, challenges and difficulties.
It’s easier to say “fuck it, I’ll just do what’s easy, what remains unchallenged.”
And the idea of a villain or an enemy is also tempting.
It’s easier, it’s the path of least resistance – to hate and fear another person, instead of delving into ourselves.
The peaceful path is not always the wrong path. Sometimes excess drama and challenge is also the path of least resistance, a projection of “war” out into the world instead of focusing on the battles inside us, which are most important.
The path of least resistance comes in many forms, and all of them are the devil’s lure.
Our character is determined by whether or not we succumb.

Dec 21 2018
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The Limits of Typology Descriptions

By Musings No Comments

A type is a living breathing pattern that manifests through living breathing people. Once someone has years of experience with typology, the type starts to come to life. There’s more than words on a page; there’s a rhythm, a chemistry. This is what type really is. And once you understand that rhythmic essence of the types, then the descriptions become a ‘guide’ rather than scripture. Jung and Gurdjieff knew this – they were describing archetypes, not full people, and both were careful to explain that their systems (Cognitive Functions and Enneagram, respectively) were about a fundamental underlying gestalt which underlies the psyche of anyone that embodies that archetype.

If you can feel the types, and see them in motion in actual humans, it is clear that no description on its own is adequate. The various descriptions are maps and the people are the trees and the houses. The underlying gestalt of each archetype is clearly the same throughout each system, even if descriptions by different authors contradict each other – at least to my eye. Not everyone sees the world the way I do, but I certainly don’t gain much anymore from arguing about this description vs. that. It is a necessary stepping stone toward understanding what type is, but I don’t see how tit for tat cut-and-paste does anything to bring a type to life and make it breathe, so that a human may embody its essence. Once we get past that second-grade cut and paste, we graduate to the world of archetypes and rhythm of the world. Yacking about this definition vs that, is no longer relevant.

When you hear a piece of music, do you argue that someone else played the notes in a different syncopation? Fur Elise is Fur Elise, no matter who plays it. It can be to a rock beat, a jazz beat.. it’s still the same fundamental melody and chords. This is what makes it Fur Elise. You can argue that someone completely changed it, but if you heard that intro and you said “Fur Elise!” then your gut knew what song it was. This is the same for types.

Dec 14 2018
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Freedom

By Diary No Comments
I don’t like freedom, I feel like I’m not really alive unless I know what I’m willing to die for; and what trajectory I’m on. When I hear “freedom” I hear “nothing to lose” – which is not attractive to me, especially because I’ve been there, involuntarily. All it is, is hunger.
 
I need a reason to get up in the morning, a sense of purpose that remains constant; something that runs so deep in my bones, I trust it will fuel me for several lifetimes, if only I could live that long. Music did this for me; and my fantasy series, although that has more of a ‘slow burn’ effect during some periods, whereas music is always on red-hot fire mode.
 

People seem to hold freedom as some kind of ideal. To me, freedom exists only within limits. Meaning there’s something I have to do, somewhere I have to be, some deadline I have to meet. Mortality is intrinsically a limit, so our minds are programmed to exist within it; and I’m all too aware , due to illness, that I could die at any time. To me freedom is knowing that while I was here, I lived. I did something meaningful, valuable, highly specific. Something expressed itself through me. I need to know I surrendered to a force greater than myself — the divine symmetry of music; the epic tapestry of my fictional world. The rhythm of life. 

 

Freedom is knowing that if the illness takes me from my body tomorrow, I won’t regret what I did (or didn’t do) with my life.  Freedom is knowing my purpose is strong enough that I can justify consuming plants and meat and other resources to survive. That my life was worth the sacrifice of all those other living entities. (It’s not really worth it, but at the very least, I know those sacrifices didn’t go to waste if my life has meaning .)  Without meaning, it seems more morally justifiable to take my own life. 

 
‘Freedom’ … it’s empty. It’s cold. It’s nothingness, formless.  At least in the sense of being “free of obligation, free of constraint.”  Give me something worth fighting for, something worth dying for. That’s freedom. If I die fighting for it, I’m free to die in peace.
Dec 13 2018
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Cognition: SeFi

By Diary No Comments
~ If it’s not Worth Doing in Excess, it’s not Worth Doing at All ~
 
Over the past decade, I have engaged an obsessive study of typology, with focus on Enneagram and Jungian functions.  Both systems have been reinterpreted ad nauseum, but I took a holistic approach.  Recently, I discovered a more scientific angle on cognitivetype.com, whose basis for typing, known as vultology, rests on the premise that cognition reveals itself in observable expressions.  There, I was typed as SeFi  based on vultology signals, which matched the psychology I portrayed in a video I submitted and the archetypes I highlighted in my art.  Since then I’ve been in communication with the leading writer of this website, and my SeFi psychology has been confirmed on multiple levels.  
 
The four functions in my type are Se, Fi, Te and Ni.  My creative work is heavily focused on Fi and Ni, yet my vultology showed that my Se and Te functions were fully conscious in my typing video.  Naturally, this distinction intrigued me, and I’ve been reflecting on it since I was typed.  After some thought, and interaction on the website, we concluded that I am Fi conscious as well. Here, I will unpack the development and expression of my functions, as they manifested in different forms over the years.  
 
 
~ Music is Divine Symmetry ~
 
Morality, inner compass and ability to form crystallizations are all part of the Ji function.  I suspect this was more developed in my youth.  At age 11, I parsed out music theory on my own, and could sight-read chord charts while transposing at the same time.  At 15, I took a theory test at Berklee College of Music, and my scores placed me in top classes alongside the eldest professionals.  I mastered each modicum of my 4.5 octave range and scored 100% in state competitions which required singing opera in foreign languages.  Additionally, I scored 99th percentile on standardized math tests, won awards for Latin and French, and embodied strong personal values.  Singing was my life path, and at 13, my career began.
 
Everything changed at age 16, when Lyme Disease nearly killed me.  After that, my math scores dropped to 30th percentile and I was unable to remember or learn foreign languages.  Brain scans showed damage to my cognition which improved with Lyme treatment, but never fully recovered.  This brought on disintegration of Ji: I lost my ability to ‘delicately parse things out.’  Worse, I was left speaking in a whisper, with no hope of recovering my voice.  This left me bereft of the music career I had been pursuing for my whole life, stripping me of my hard-earned talents and dreams. 
 
 
~ So Carnal, it’s Spiritual ~
 
As my life path slipped from my grasp, moral clarity evaded me.  I involved myself with men that fell short of my ideals, did drugs even though it was against my previous convictions, and made other compromises to my once rigid standards.  This is how I devolved into my most base form, Anäeia – short for ‘Annihilate.’  She was a conquerer, heartbreaker, hooked on drugs, sex and appetite; an animal.  Anäeia is pictured here with an LSD tablet on her tongue, hungry and ready to feed, with men in the background. Most photographs of her are nude, scarred and bruised, jarring to the senses, yet magnetic. The sheer wildness of her encapsulates the idea that you’re only free when you have nothing to lose. She embodies the myth of the dark trickster which encapsulates my primary cognitive function: Se.
 
Anäeia was a vampire, undead yet not alive; stripped of her humanity.  She was an animal and a symbol of something primal, but not human.  Her trajectory had been ripped from her ruthlessly, leaving her bereft of direction and dignity.  She hunted to fulfill the desires of the flesh, but what she yearned for most deeply was the soulfelt sense of purpose she once possessed, and the innocent wonder that spawned from it.  Without Ji (conviction and purity) and Pi (long term development of an internal map), she was unleashed, hungry, and empty.
 
I longed to recover my innocence and to embody my deeper calling once again.  In a desperate attempt to reorient myself, I studied Jung, pored over my psyche and learned to explore and control my dreams.  I would often take LSD and restrict myself to specific artistic mediums to see what was residing in my unconscious.  When I was sober, I would compare the results to old diaries, photographs and music I’d written, mourning the loss of hope and seeking a coherent narrative. 
 
Over the years, I rebuilt my values and redirected my trajectory toward a purpose.  My reawakening began when I rose from the ashes, singing through my whisper and leading a band to perform my music.  The albums were attached to stories and concepts which were expressed through three manifestations of myself: Erica Xenne (Fi), Prince Ruby Valentine (Ni), and Riki Jane Wild (Te).  I did not know cognitive functions at the time, but this happened organically, and the orientation of each alter-ego is clear.  
 
 
~ Art is the Blood of the Exile ~
 
The surname Xenne combines ‘foreigner’ or ‘stranger’ in the prefix Xen- with ‘not’ in the suffix -Ne. I was alone in an alien world, but no longer a stranger to myself.  I often wore white when I sang in my youth; likewise, Erica Xenne was depicted in white. She resurrected the ghost of my voice and, along with it, my innocence. 

White is essentially Ji: it reflects the colors of the world, but doesn’t absorb them. It mirrors them through music, art and empathy, while remaining separate and true to itself.  My original form was a singer whose music connected to the heart of life; in the Erosia Myth, Erica Xenne embodies this. The magical muse believes in her love for Prince Ruby and holds on to her principles at any cost.  She was born from two people playing music together, absent of any physical contact, and raised by animals in the outer islands of Erosia.  Thus, she was made of pure music and life-force, divorced from any particular species or culture; an entity unto herself.  Since the songs came from her, I wore white when I sang through my whisper.  She embodied the druidic myth of Fi, connecting to the heart of the world in a pure, primal manner, unhindered by social standards and earthly trauma, immune to the corruption in the world, retaining her integrity.  Yet ultimately, she left Erosia, sacrificing her magic power (singing) to follow Ruby into exile. Though she was warned that Dystopia would corrupt their souls and they could never return to Erosia, she was determined, at the very least, to keep Erosia alive in Ruby’s heart.

 

~ Without a Muse, Music is just Math ~

Prince Ruby Valentine was a mysterious man of royalty.  Unlike Erica, Ruby was tied to a wider context from the moment of conception, and he remained determined to untangle its implications throughout his life.  He was born to Queen Onyx Valentine, the best ruler Erosia ever knew, but she died in childbirth.  He rejected the duties and accolades he was afforded as a Prince, as they seemed inappropriate to him under these conditions, and instead took a vow of silence, determined to communicate only through music, poetry, prose and art, resisting the widespread effort to fill the air with meaningless words.  He retreated to a cabin in the woods and lured all manner of creatures with the call of his guitar.  The Erosia myth portrays the story of his exile from Erosia, resulting from his failure to believe in love, but his depth lies elsewhere.

From his earliest days, Prince Ruby contemplated the God of Erosia, known as Nokoma (“Animal” in his own language), who was credited for giving birth to Erosia.  Ruby wanted to unravel the story behind this and to understand Nokoma’s life as a mortal man, to unpack Erosia’s roots and cosmic significance.  It was the “Ruby” inside me who spawned the fantasy series about Nokoma’s evolution from man to God, which became my life’s work.  Together, Ruby and Erica elected to write the series from the perspective Nokoma’s soulmate; they both understood she was his “compass.”  Nokoma’s lover embodies “Ji” and is drawn to white and gold, but Nokoma himself mirrors me.  In contemplating Nokoma, Ruby is drawn to religions, symbols, typology, archetypes and more, to place both ‘self’ and ‘God’ in a wider context and tap into the rhythms of the world that connect all things, embodying Ni.  He views the world on a cosmic scale where everything is connected and remains detached from the present, as portrayed in the sardonic biography he posts on his profiles: “The line – between myth and religion, dream and reality, making love and fucking – is drawn wherever you start believing.  Believe what you will and have your way with me. Yours, Prince Ruby Valentine.”

 

~ Tell me the Odds; I’ll Beat them Senseless ~

The trinity is completed by Riki Jane Wild, the “manager,” of the band. She is excluded from the Erosia myth because she is from Earth, named after my father Richard and my mother, Jane.  She met Erica after she was exiled to Dystopia, heard her struggling to sing through her whisper, decided there was something fruitful and marketable in that fight, and designated herself Erica’s manager.  She was more reluctant to take Ruby under her wing, as he appeared lost and aimless, but she eventually came to appreciate his hidden genius and the way it inspired Erica.

Erica resisted the idea of organizing an album, as the songs were written for Ruby, who was against ‘trapping a song in a cage,’ but Riki convinced her that in spite of his ravings, he would appreciate her compiling memories of Erosia.  If not him, others might remember their own personal utopia and overcome setbacks to achieve their dreams.  Erica was moved by this idea, and agreed to buckle down in the studio.

Riki helped Erica to organize her project and battle her many symptoms, to sing despite tremendous odds. She managed Erica’s band, booked shows, auditioned musicians, promoted events, made fliers, took pictures, photoshopped, edited video, and reminded Erica to stop poring over each note so she could finish larger projects.  Erica was determined to capture a perfect reflection of Erosia in the album, to feed Ruby some life and remind him of his heart; but Riki enforced deadlines and made sure the album was released. She understood that ideals were meaningless without concrete results.  As stated in the myth of Te, she served to remind Erica, “your goals don’t care about your feelings.” Due to Riki’s iron hand, the musicians who played shows with the band ‘Erosian Exile’ lovingly referred to her as “Hitler.”

The mythology of Erica Xenne and Prince Ruby Valentine worked together in tandem, incomplete without the presence of the other, and neither one was capable of manifesting on Earth without Riki, who worked to capture their musings in concrete form.  Riki was dedicated to this pair, but also embarked on her own journey: she wrote about politics and other topics extraneous to the band, found jobs, fulfilled responsibilities, and engaged Earthly activities for their own sake. Indeed, the Te development was independent.  

 

~ A Vessel through which Passion Emerges ~

Anäeia was so hungry and expansive, she left no room for additional alter-egos.  To create the beast, she destroyed the human I had been before.  She is the shadow of my current incarnation, which is more holistic, as it combines destruction and creation, passion and purpose, love and war, now and eternity. 
 
I have come to sense that, at any given moment, I am animal, human and symbol at once.  Animal is my visceral survival instincts (desire, hunger, carnality); human is my conceptualization of my experience (ideas, endeavors, beliefs); and symbol is my legacy (image, archetype, energy).  I cannot control my symbolism, as it is determined by how others view me; however, if my animal and human are balanced, then my symbolism comes to match my sense of self.  
 
Recently, I was informed that my work was reminiscent of the Goddess Kali.  I researched her and discovered that her mythos reflected mine, from my aesthetic to my mission.  Like me, her ‘nudity’ – artistic, physical or psychological – strips others of their illusions, laying their truth bare. Cycles of resurgence encapsulate my life in the manner of a phoenix; likewise, Kali represents the dissemination of the boundary between life and death, illuminating the timeless and infinite.  Kali incorporates my deepest purpose, which is why I channeled her unbeknownst to myself, and she is often associated with the Se-Ni axis in the Gamma quadra.  Taking each function separately, as well as Gamma as a whole, it is clear that the manifestations of myself – which are well documented through photos, writing and music – match with these function delineations and their mythology.
 
 
Anaeia 
The wild pink/red beast, hungry, vampiric and bold (Se)
 
 
Erica Xenne
The pure moral compass wearing white, at one with nature, druid reflecting the heart of life in her song (Fi)

 
 
Riki Jane Wild
The Earthly “get-to-it” manager, sassy bitch and speaker of political truths (Te)
 
 
Prince Ruby Valentine 
The ‘allusion’ or ‘hint’ of something you cant quite see, the shadow, figure in the distance, magnetizing animals and women, raving unintelligibly, weaving a tapestry of archetypes, tapping into the rhythm of the world (Ni)
 
 
Nokoma – Animal – Volcana
The vessel through which passion emerges; the phoenix rising from the ashes.  Timeless symbol of resurrection and fight, holding a mirror to the world to show them the bold, naked truth until their illusions explode; deathless, naked and eternal (Gamma)
Oct 28 2018
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Femininity

By Musings No Comments

What is femininity?
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Cultural ideas are arbitrary. What remains consistent is the biology that we can’t get away from. However, transgenderism forces us to reconsider and ask ourselves: is masculinity and femininity purely biological? One might argue that some transpeople are ‘going with the trend’ (a very un-PC thing to say!) – but there are also transpeople who we would never know were born with the biology of another gender. So, how can we justify saying gender is just biology? At the same time, cultural ideas are even less important because of how much they change. So what the difference really is – is energetic. It’s about tapping into archetypal energies, which is something we do unconsciously.

This was an old post of mine on a similar topic:

Before Aphrodite, there were other depictions of the “Goddess of Beauty.” In the Sumerian Tablets, this was Inanna. She was later known as Ishtar.

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She was the Goddess of War. She seduced men and tricked them at the last minute. She was sent to rule over areas near India, which is why Goddesses like Kali were given importance there later, endowed with war prowess and trickster-like sexuality. 

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In these early cultures, someone like me would have been closer to what is seen as the Ultimate Feminine. Warlike, opinionated, hyper seductive, determined.

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Over the years, the Western cultures took the sex and war out of female ideals, and turned them into modest, plain, sexless robots with pristine morals. The ultimate saint is Jesus’s mother who gave birth to the Messiah without having sex.

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This is, by no means, a universal, timeless way of viewing an ideal woman.

Aphrodite is a cousin of Mary. She’s jealous of other women who are considered beautiful, but never warlike. Compared to Innanna and Ishtar, she is more modest – instead of squeezing her privates with a taunting smirk, she covers them with a coy smile.

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Yet, Inanna was here first.

In the summaries I’ve read of Sumerian tablets, she was lusty, dangerous, strong, seductive, magnetic, ruthless. Her desire was visceral, and her style embodied the trickster, tricking and laughing at her prey. There were major themes in “justice” and cunning tactics for war. 

The meaning of Beauty changes over the centuries.​ Femininity is constantly redefined, but Abrahamic ideals have shoved our femininity into a tiny box that neighboring cultures borrow from. Real women with blood in their veins need only to be themselves in order to lay this stereotype to waste.

Aug 07 2018
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Lust

By Diary No Comments

When it comes to lust, most people cant touch the outermost edges of my extremes.  Some people need more sex than I, but my lust still knows no bounds.

It’s not just about the body – it’s about a need to own the person completely; to conquer his soul.  To possess, rule and infiltrate every fucking inch of his mind, body, heart; even his dreams and his past.  To have him do the same with me.  I want absolutely no pebble unturned, no corner of his mind that I can’t reach, no lost memory that I haven’t ravaged for everything it’s worth.  I need to be King, Queen, Princess, Prince and people to him.  He is my dominion and I am his.

Lust is even more dangerous perhaps, for me, than those who are purely physical.  Because the physical will never approach the depths I need to infuse in order to feel even a drop of satisfaction for a mere moment and then hunger for more.  The universe is not big enough to compete with the lengths I will go to in order to reach every fucking corner of every past life and every future life; to completely own him.  Limits, boundaries, ‘good ‘ and ‘bad,’ dirty… none of this has any place in this world.  His soul will be devoured down to the last grain until there is nothing left between us but øne.

May 02 2018
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Slytherin

By Musings No Comments

Some people love to hate Slytherin and all it represents.  Yet Slytherin is an archetypal necessity that possesses tremendous merit.

Without competition the world would stagnate.  Knowledge (Ravenclaw) and kindness (Hufflepuff) are both wonderful, but very localized.  What can you do with knowledge if there isn’t an ambitious Slytherin broadcasting it?  It just dies with you.

How do you get great ideas out in to the public eye?  You think the world just lets that happen?  No. Galileo and Jesus’s head are always on the chopping block. 

Ravenclaws can yap about knowledge but, when push comes to shove, it’s a Slytherin who is going to take their ideas and actually change the world with them. Hufflepuffs can be sweet and nice but when push comes to shove its Gryffindors fighting the war up at the front line to defend them. Otherwise it’s all North Korea and the rich powerful run everything.

You may not assume the Slytherin would want to broadcast your kindness and knowledge, but understand, that’s what Slytherins do to get ahead.  They take something that people need so that they buy it and thus they get paid.

Slytherins are shit heads, but they are necessary for the world. They may be broadcasting an idea because they want to make money or be famous. But they’re still selling it. While Hufflepuffs are resisting competition because they don’t want to hurt anyone, Harry Potters, Hermiones and Snapes are up front and center defending and fighting for what they believe.  Rowling is a Hufflepuff herself, but her book centered on Slytherins and Gryffindors for a reason: because thats where the world moves.

Still, Hufflepuffs are equally necessary to the world, because kindness is a thing worth defending. If that doesn’t exist, Gryffindors will go back to sleep and Slytherins will take over.

I am a thousand percent Gryffindor. I’ve always been ambitious, but my big heart defending what I believe is first and foremost and I’ll die in the fire of my loyalty and integrity. If there’s one thing that stops me from “making it big” it’s my big stupid heart.  I work hard, but I won’t sell a lie. That is the death of me. And it can be stupid, but it’s the way I’m wired. Still, I’m smart enough to recognize that without Slytherins, people like me would have no purpose and nothing in society would move.

This is not to say that (archetypal) Hufflepuffs utterly and completely lack ambition, but rather, that they are under the delusion that they don’t have to step on any toes to actualize it.

Feb 02 2018
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Control

By Musings No Comments

“What’s wrong with your voice?”

Since I lost my voice to Lyme Disease and was left speaking in a whisper, random people at stores or restaurants ask me what’s “wrong” with my voice.  Without missing a beat, they tell me to stop smoking (which I have never done), to try seeing a doctor or drinking tea, or offer other unsolicited advice which suggests I am a complete idiot who brought this “defect” on myself, by neglecting my own health. When people learn that I used to sing, they tell me I must have been singing wrong. In some cases they say it’s karma or a punishment. No matter what I tell them about my diligence and my top notch doctor, they come up with alternative options, paranoia about medication and suggestions… as if I have not tried everything in my power to cure myself.  

The reason they do this is they want to believe they have control over their own lives. The thought that, like me, disaster could strike and leave them crippled or stripped of their greatest passion through no fault of their own, is too harrowing to face. So they have to project their fear on me, by convincing themselves that I deserved my cruel fate, and as long as they do things more correctly than I did, they will fare better.

After 20 years of being asked this question any time I dare to shop in a new store or call a company, it doesn’t hurt me emotionally anymore, but it never fails to remind me how fragile the human mind is, and how lucky I am to have been forced to face major losses and struggles in my early life, so that I could grow stronger. 

Jan 31 2018
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Name

By Diary No Comments
I was thinking about my name, looking at the root “ven” for venus, veins, and “hunter.”
 
I’ve gone through one incarnation already, from Erica Brand (who died with my voice) to Erica Xenne (who resurrected the ghost of my voice from the dead after being exiled from passion).  Xen means foreigner/stranger, which is what I became when I was exiled from Erosia through that loss.

Now, I feel I’ve stepped into the space of my ultimate purpose. As a child, I always saw my desire mirrored in Venus, Aphrodite and the like, though it was never quite dark and destructive enough. In this sense, Kali is perfectly in line with what I related to and the “Goddess” symbol I was looking for. I hadn’t heard of her when people started telling me they saw her mark all over my art. Her name means time/eternity and “black” (the shadow self, death). I relate to her volcanic, destructive-creative nature, and the eternity inherent in cycles of death and rebirth (phoenix). Also, the carnal-spiritual blend. “So carnal it’s spiritual.”

People often tell me I look like Botticelli Venus, but it’s too innocent and pure a depiction for what I am. I am a destructive force.. sex is transformative. And it goes beyond sex. Passion and purpose itself is what I embody. Creativity, diving deep into the darkness in oneself to come out the other side, burning alive so you transform fully – this is what I embody.

Xenne was only the beginning stage, as I was a stranger, reborn. But I need something that combines the soul-marking power of Brand with the reanimation – the self-discovering, self-actualizing and autonomous/alien nature of Xenne.

Brand was my original voice – it left a powerful mark on people and was physically strong.  Xenne was my new voice – foreigner, stranger, exiled from my power, coming to terms with my rebirth and resurrecting my voice as a ghost. Xen- (stranger) -Ne (Not). I reclaimed myself by singing through my whisper, making a powerful statement out of my loss and exile.

My new name would be the process itself; the process of branding and transforming, dying and rebirthing, destruction and creation. This unites the two. And it would also show that I am more than my singing voice and its incarnations. I am a vessel through which passion itself emerges. Desire is the force that drives all living beings, and my purpose in life is to mirror it in my work.

My given name, ‘Erica,’ suits me in meaning.  My parents did not do this on purpose, but they accidentally named me after my father.  Erica is a derivative of Richard.  By keeping Erica I’m not only preserving the name my parents gave me, my father’s name specifically (since the surname is usually the father’s name; not because I have him in some hierarchy over my mother).

I want to change my middle name to Jane, my mother’s name. My given name is Erica Kelman Brand. Kelman is my mother’s maiden name. I’d like it to be Erica Jane, since Erica carries “Richard” within it and Jane is her name. (“Jon,” my brother’s name, is also the name from which Jane is a derivative.) This would preserve the family connection in my mind. And I am very close to my family. I also like the meaning of Erica.

The given name Erika, or Erica, is a feminine form of Eric, deriving from the Old Norse name Eiríkr (or Eríkr in Eastern Scandinavia due to monophthongization). The first element, ei- is derived either from the older Proto-Norse *aina(z), meaning “one, alone, unique”,[1] as in the form Æinrikr explicitly, or from *aiwa(z) “long time, eternity”.[2] The second element -ríkr stems either from *ríks “king, ruler” (cf. Gothic reiks) or from the therefrom derived *ríkijaz “kingly, powerful, rich”.[3] The name is thus usually taken to mean “sole ruler, autocrat” or “eternal ruler, ever powerful”.[4]

Unique/one/alone, ever powerful, eternity/time, autonomous (sole ruler)…. this is me. I would not change it. I am the sole ruler of my own destiny (though I choose to do Kilian’s bidding, since he is my muse), and a powerful force behind the creation of a universe.

As for a possible surname for my current incarnation (likely my final one in this lifetime), I like the prefix “Ven.” In Sanskrit, “Desire.” In the dictionary it is associated with both Venus and Veins. I like Veins because I’m a vessel through which passion emerges.  So I may look into a second half of this name that embodies my Kali nature and also my sense of purpose: to be a vessel through which passion emerges, and ideally, to create mirrors in which others can see their true nature, bare and exposed. As I said above:  Desire is the force that drives all living beings, and my purpose in life is to mirror it in my work.  

 
This is also very Kali. Her nudity is a symbol of honesty with oneself about the soul, the forces that drive them, birth life and death, desire laid bare.
 
My final name must incorporate desire/hunger (as the force that drives all beings) desire laid bare,  naked desire –  but also, chasing or hunting.  That would tie it in with the idea that desire is what drives us to hunt.  Sort of like “passion and purpose.”  Mixed with some idea of ‘eternity,’ this would be the perfect name. So carnal it’s spiritual.
 
Jan 10 2018
Love0

Equality

By Musings No Comments

The “oppression olympics” mindset is a real threat to our safety and the integrity of our society. It has already eroded our morals, self respect and respect for others, so our moral integrity is going down fast due to the effects of this mindset taking hold over the last century. Yet people take for granted what we DO still have.. freedom to choose our job, sexual freedom, freedom of choice in many areas.. people won’t realize how important these liberties are until they take them away by trying to force everyone into “equality.” 

What equality really means is oppressing the strong citizens so they can be brought down to the level of the weak, and the only people with real power are those in government. So it ends up being a divide between the well-to-do government and everyone else.

What we want to improve is opportunity, but we cannot fool ourselves into believing this can ever be equal without forcing everyone to be the same at the cost of their personal choices. 

The sentiment underlying the current “apologize for your advantages” type of social pressure is that the strong must be made weak so that everyone is equal..except the government, the great Big Brother savior. If you read Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” he outlined the path for this type of ideology to become mainstream: by infiltrating the schools, the media, the government. Hillary Clinton trained with him and his influence is all over Obama’s speeches. What is happening now is not some “stupid accident,” but rather, the result of almost a century of radical leftist indoctrination. 

In the 1920s, Woodrow Wilson changed a lot of information in our history books to underline how horrible slavery was , our horrible slaughter of the Natives, etc. While these incidents are genuinely awful, slavery and conquest lies at foundations of every country but the other countries teach their children national pride. Here we have been taught for a century to be ashamed of ourselves. And this is why Lincoln’s prediction – that America cannot be defeated from outside, but that we will destroy ourselves from within – is coming true.

Did anyone ever notice that there are no black heroes in our history books? Looking back at paintings and documentation there were plenty of black war heroes, the first self-made female millionaire in the country was black, and there were black governors early on.. and they used to be in the textbooks. They were taken out so that black people would feel like they were never given a chance and white people would feel like blacks contributed nothing of value to the country (of their own volition anyway), and whites would also feel guilty for looking down on blacks and oppressing them. This would create an us vs. them divide that would become impenetrable.. and that is what we’re seeing today.

And the problem is, people are now feeling they aren’t entitled to the things they earn. Is this true… well, I understand the logic behind it: not everyone had the same opportunity. That’s a very easy sell. Problem is, have the radical leftists (meaning, modern liberals).. thought about the effects of this message that we are seeing right before our eyes? People aren’t willing to work hard anymore, to do the hard labor and discipline that it takes to improve.. because they can get more sympathy and empathy – not to mention government privileges, ranging from health benefits to lower taxes to welfare – by having less, and they don’t feel entitled to improve anyway.. everyone will hate them and they’ll have to give giant chunks of their income to a government that spends it on bullshit like war and governors using our tax money to pay off women who they assault to keep them from complaining. 

Motivation has been sucked out of our society, and we are made guilty for feeling entitled to our own earnings. This is the result of the mindset which lead to shaming people for their advantages, earnings and privilege, regardless of the merit underlying the complaint. And people love to complain about what’s wrong, and fix it by shaming other people.. but they don’t stop to think about where this is leading and what good could possibly come of this mindset becoming mainstream. We are seeing the effects, divisiveness, anger, hatred, violence and poverty among the citizens rising up now.. and if that isn’t enough proof that their shaming ploy didn’t work, I don’t know what is. Trump won because people were so sick of being silenced, shamed and belittled for having anything good in their lives or disagreeing with leftist jargon.. people were so relieved to hear “grab her by the pussy” and other such “I don’t give a fuck what you think” attitude, that they voted for this person to be our president. The left wants to believe it’s about racism, and there is definitely a percentage of racists on any side and arguably a higher percentage voting for Trump… but if they actually make people feel like they can be honest as I do, they would talk to a lot of people who tell them directly (in secret) that they voted for Trump, but they’re not telling their friends, but the reason is they’re sick of being silenced. It’s not just me either – some major media personalities, including major leftists like Russel Brand, have postulated the same thing and some have even done some research into statistics backing this up.

The left has gotten too complacent since the 60s.. too complacent about their rightness and the “obviousness” behind what they’re saying, without looking at the effects their mindset has reaped. They need to listen to people respectfully, stop hating and putting down the “other side” and actually watch the right wing media they’re cursing at (even though they’ve never actually given it a chance)… they need to wake up.

Now don’t get me wrong.. I’m not claiming that the right, the conservatives or the republicans are “The Answer” either. I had more hope for the left, but at this point it’s a cesspool of ignorance, shaming people for seizing opportunity, creating and honoring divides between people, and applauding weakness. I am not a fan of either “party” or mass mindset, and from the outside, it all looks quite ridiculous.

To be clear, I don’t judge the left for being heartfelt about the have-nots, but I notice that they aren’t thinking about the real living consequences of their “morals” and how they are enacting them and pushing them on society.  The problem with unbridled morality is that people aren’t thinking about the consequences of seeing them through. If there were more careful distinctions being made about the society that would realistically result from a certain mindset playing out in full, many people would address these problems in a different way than they do now.  The problems are real, but they are calling out problems and hates and blames and shames instead of sitting down to think about solutions.

Either that or they are busy thinking about who is right and who is wrong (morally) which isn’t as much the question as who is getting hurt and how do we fix that? And a quick-fix solution, like force-taking money from one guy and force-giving it to another, may put a band-aid on the issue but in the long term the consequences of this turn to loss of motivation as a society , expansion of government, more rules, laws and regulations, and less trust in ourselves to pull ourselves up, and more riots.

We would benefit from stepping back and thinking about what has worked historically; what mindset pans out in a timeless way, among people, to lead to social productivity long-term.