Diary

my rant about what God really is, and how it doesn’t matter what you ‘believe’ — inspired by my friend solly who is an absolutely amazing person, and an atheist.
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i personally don’t have much need for anyone to believe the same things i believe
i was raised atheist
so actually it would be helpful if i had stayed atheist. then i’d be in the same boat as my family and we could all live happily ever after in blissful agreement
but i had psychic experiences early on
but at the same time
if i would find out tomorrow that im not psychic and it was all fake and God doesnt exist
my life would be largely the same….
because for me God isn’t an abstraction
its just a name i am giving to the feeling i’ve always had, of connectivity, vibrations, rhythm of the world, connection to nature, mirroring
maybe you could say “Erica has strong Mirror Neurons” and call it a day
but whatever you call it, doesn’t matter
doesn’t change the essence of the thing
so i’m not hung up about people interpreting their experiences differently than i do
solly can be an atheist but he experiences connection, I’ve experienced it with him, i feel it in his music, and we both felt it together in the game, and in many of our other conversations
so really his life experience is not ESSENTIALLY that different from mine.
in fact, its more similar to mine than most people here
because we both navigate music similarly and that is core to my existence, it’s my first language
so if he speaks “music” – the universal language – then our language is one and the same….
i don’t really give a crap if his “world view” is different than mine, i still feel at one with his heart and soul in the moments we share music and connect
if he doesn’t believe in God or psychics its not a threat to me
like, i’d be hurt if he told me i’m crazy or stupid but he hasn’t and wouldn’t
but its all the same to me, if music is his God. it was mine for the majority of my life
as a kid i had that line from les mis in HUGE letters i wrote and hung over my closet: “To love another person is to see the face of God”
and music helps me communicate that love, that emotion, that connection
so to me that IS God. love is God. music is the word of God. as is nature.
solly experiences music and love and nature as deeply as i do, communicates with music as deeply as i do, so who gives a flying fuck if he calls it “God” or not?
thats semantics
if you TRULY experience God, you feel it in everyone. not just in people who verbally confirm that they believe the word “God” is a real thing
if you TRULY open your heart to God, you also open your heart to every person you meet. of course, it’s wise not to spill your secrets to randos. but you can still feel their humanity.
and you can repeat the word all you want. “God.” “Jesus.” “Allah.” “Buddha.” “Nature.” “Spirits.” “Ghosts.”
but it means nothing if you cannot feel the heart of the person in front of you
its just words, ramble and lies
so to me
its irrelevant what someone believes. it’s interesting conversation at best, and it is definitely fun, enlightening, thought provoking and intimate to talk about that stuff
but in the end it’s more relevant that we feel each other’s heart and communicate our own
that’s what God is
love
if you can’t connect to the people around you, and you’re using the idea of “God” as a replacement for connection
in my view… you might as well be an atheist
because that connection is fake. you’re connecting to an abstraction in the air
to put it into practice… love an animal. love a person. love your garden. love yourself.
solly’s love is more powerful than 100 religious textbooks.
just ask his dog.
ask his friends here, who he has supported when he’s weak, suffering, sick and in pain
if theres no one who can say this about you (and im not talking to anyone in particular, im talking general “you”) then perhaps reconsider whether you really experience God.
if you do, you know what im talking about.
and you would be able to love and resonate with an atheist just the same, if the atheist has love in their soul. you’d still look in their eyes and see God.

“The best women get chased, and the best men chase” – this advice was imparted to me at a young age, and I saw that it was true. Men want to chase someone and women want to be chased. Obvious, right?

The problem is, I have a willful personality. I’m not any kind of ‘warrior’ or physical beast, but I know what I want, and I figure out how to get it. In all other areas of my life, I was assertive and driven; but where men were concerned, I was afraid of rejection. I knew exactly who I wanted, but I needed to make them come after me.

Hot guys chased me all the time, but I wanted exactly who I wanted, and couldn’t settle for less. I didn’t want to demean my own worth as a woman by chasing my crushes outright, yet I was hopelessly obsessed. So I would lure them to chase me while feeling tortured over any sign of rejection, and essentially destroy myself over each one for years. This could have been resolved by simply asking them out and getting a direct answer, but I was terrified that would turn them off and I’d ruin my chance.

I fantasized about being a man so I could be more direct and woo my crushes through romantic acts. I wanted to exhibit chivalry and honor, and get down on my knees and serenade the beautiful boys who made my heart sing. I researched transgenderism, but I didn’t have body dysphoria and didn’t want to condemn myself to being a short guy with a high-pitched voice and female organs. The only place I could live out my fantasy relationships was in fiction. What a coincidence that I started writing books at age 11. 

Subtlety and coyness did not suit me, and the attempt to fit that role made me less appealing. I came to terms with this in my late 20s and began taking direct initiative when needed. Since I’m attracted to shy men, this dynamic worked out well, and I finally had good relationships.

Still, this does not mean that I want to be “in charge.” I need a guy who holds his own, who defends women, and who is strong and firm in his own mind, but who finds my willfulness sexy. It’s an absolute necessity because otherwise I’d spend my whole life pretending I’m someone else, and that is not sexy or honest. But I do not want someone that backs out of a fight, expects me to carry all the weight, or allows me to dominate him. He needs to hold his own in an argument, a decision, a fight. He needs to be a man.

In short, I need to be with someone I respect. How could I respect someone if I completely dominate him?

I did not have what it took to attract the right man when I was ‘waiting for them to make a move’ and playing games. I needed to be real about who I am, in order to attract someone equally real. And now that I found my soulmate in Kilian, I am driven to nurture and worship him. It turns me on that I cannot dominate him intellectually, emotionally or physically, and I trust that nobody can. 

I feel like a lot of these messages about ‘men and women’ miss these human, grey areas; where a woman doesn’t need to fit the ‘submissive’ mold to the T, yet there is still room to express her will in an honest, loving relationship; without being a dominant warrior who “doesn’t need a man.”

We all need to figure out what type of balance we are personally comfortable with. And there are as many shades of men as there are women; so there is always someone who fits with any woman who discovers who she is and expresses it with an open heart.

~ 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.  

 

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. 

 

 

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.

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.  

 

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. 

~ Without a Muse, Music is just Math ~

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

~ 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)

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.

This is my message to the heartless manipulators who try to shame me for my honesty and my open romance with natural beauty and love. My nudity- whether it be physical or psychological – is only offensive to those who have something to hide. My nudity burns their eyes and makes them feel exposed, so they try to cover me up and make me shrink away like they do, so they can cower safely behind their masks. When that doesn’t work they create rumors and stories around the meaning of my nudity, trying to cover it up with fantasies. “She wants me, she cheats on her husband, she’s a whore, it’s a scheme!”

Yet I remain naked, open, honest and true, in all of my beauty, suffering and errors: I remain true. Psychological nudity, physical nudity, emotional nudity, mental nudity.. I am what I am, and I am here to stay. Murder me, and I will haunt you in another form. Murder all the lovers in the world, and the monsters in your head will strip you naked in your nightmares. My nudity is a force of nature, and it is not going ANYWHERE. Your only chance against me is to free yourself from your lies before the fire of truth burns you alive.

I did not fall from grace.
I clawed my way through my own inner hell and traveled so deep beyond its core that I caught glimpses of the other side.
I had wonderful, loving parents.
But I was not innocent, idealistic or good. My hope, innocence and goodness had to be earned, if ever I was to discover them at all.
What about you?

“Four years ago, Erica had a dream. Standing on a snowy rise, she was captivated by the sight of a stranger. He wore a long dark coat, just like hers. As their eyes met, they both recognized the familiar sight of destiny. They knew, from a single stare; they are One.

For all of her life, she had been writing stories about this stranger, this one man amongst men, who possesses the very soul that has been, and always will be, intertwined with her own.  And for as surely as she knew this, she saw that he recognized the same. He too, had written countless stories about her, and dreamed about many delights.

No word was spoken, no question was asked. For truth had been felt, their hearts had been joined. They knew, that from that moment forward, they belonged together and would be, for the rest of their lives.

He took her hand, and put his arm around her. Together, they walked up the frosty hill. The couple approached a square shaped pool, with its surface frozen over. Surrounding it were wooden cabins, each with a large, cozy firepot placed on the porch. There were people playing acoustic guitars, there was singing, and there was eating by the fires.

The two lovers presented themselves to everyone, greeting all with heartfelt warmth, and leaving no doubt that the two of them belonged together.

After she awakened, Erica was convinced that she would, indeed, meet this man. Her heart knew the man in her dream was real, and that he was looking for her too.

When Erica first saw Kilian’s eyes, she recognized the gaze of the man of her dream. She recognized her soulmate. Just like in the dream, both she and he only needed one look to know they had imagined each other before, and that they were always meant to be.

As they got to know each other better over time and text, Erica discovered that Kilian possesses traits she had always associated with the man in her dream. Traits she had written down before to make sure to never forget.

In many ways, the universe shows us deep truths. It tells us many stories, from the making of time, to the dawn of men. And so, as it had happened before, Erica and Kilian met, and recognized destiny in each other’s gaze.”

by Kilian De Ridder

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I married my soulmate, Kilian, on Valentine’s Day. Our Ceremony Speech, about how we recognized each other, was a true story. I recounted it to Kilian and he wrote it out for our lovely priestess Lauren to read.