Category Archives: Angels

Mondays Are Hell Guest Post: The Demons of Addiction

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Elizabeth Cheryl

Elizabeth Cheryl is a fellow Crescent Moon Press writer and her novel The Summerland is due out this month.  I sent word out to my fellow CMP writers that I was looking for guest bloggers to write about demons and Elizabeth took me up on the offer.  What she has given me is moving, and though it’s not the funny, or well, forced-humor of my regular posts, it is stirring.  I am very proud to showcase her talent and thoughts.  You can find more of her gorgeous writing on her website.

Thanks again to Elizabeth for her wonderful piece.

Elizabeth Cheryl writes: When we are young we are taught that addiction belonged to drug users and alcohol abusers. It wasn’t until I reached my mid-twenties did I realize that there are many forms of addiction. It’s not that I hadn’t already experienced my own addictions before then but I clearly didn’t see the signs until later in life. I had what we could call Love Addiction. I know it doesn’t sound scary or at all close to terrifying but the effects of Love Addiction and the demons that lurk in the dark parts of us can wreak havoc in our lives.

It all started on one sunny Sunday morning…..wait, who am I kidding? I have no idea when it started. All I know is that I have had some of the darkest demons visit me in my life from violent or dysfunctional relationships. I do have memories though of being a very young girl watching my step-dad hit and abuse my mom. As a child witnessing such an act can cause emotional damage that we are not aware of until we look back at our life’s choices.

I have one particular memory of him striking her so violently that she fell down an entire flight of cellar stairs and hit her head on the cement basement floor. I was only seven at the time but I recall her not moving for a few minutes. That image still holds terror in my gut as I write about it. Memories that I rarely revisit.

We have to ask ourselves at what point do we as humans go from being a loving supportive partner, doing daily chores and picking up kids to hitting your spouse so hard that it immobilizes them? I went to a conference last weekend in San Jose called, PantheaCon. [Admin: Pantheacon is the largest indoor gathering of pagans in North America, according to their website.] I know it sounds a little different and it was, but it was fascinating all the same. The theme of the conference was Unity in Diversity. One of the workshops presented at the conference was an exorcism of some sort. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I showed up to this workshop.

The room was filled with a few hundred people and it was semi-dark. There was a fire pit with a fake fire, of course, seeing it was indoors, and a circle around the fire made up of six to seven people with drums. As they began to close the doors to get started everyone got very quiet. One of the women began to chant as she cast a very large circle around the room protecting us from negative energy. She talked of demons and their powers that can grab hold of us and manifest inside. But these are not actual demons with horns and fanged teeth, these demons are of our own creation. Demons of fear, greed, anger, rage, obsession and so on.

These demons that live in our darkest parts of our mind and soul eat at our potential every waking hour and every moment of sleep when we have no control over our thoughts. They evolve in our dreams turning them into nightmares. Whatever we are battling in life whether it be a loss of a job or a loved one. The need for money and food on the table or an abusive relationship. Weather it be verbal abuse, physical or emotional it will bear down on you in your subconscious mind. In this Exorcism we were to connect with what was ailing us that night, I connected mostly with greed. I feel as if I never have enough money, enough love, enough of the finer things. I see the house that I want to live in someday and I just want it…

Now some of you may say that we need those goals to be put in front of us so we may strive to succeed and do better. And I will not disagree with that perspective but our Ego has a lot to do with how we go about achieving those goals and what we find important enough to sacrifice in achieving them. What are you willing to sacrifice to have the nicer car and the bigger house? Will you give up time with your family or will you work yourself to the bone with no time left to enjoy what you own?

These thoughts ran through my mind dizzying me like a spinning top as I watched countless people enter the center of the circle dancing and shaking. They were releasing their inner demons, their addictions. Some thrashed their heads from side to side, some just danced to the beat of an aborigine type drum and some stood in the middle of the circle and just screamed the words, “Greed, Fear, Rage!!” It was the most intense and the most human thing I have ever experienced in my life. Seeing that this was my first time witnessing anything like this I enjoyed watching more than I would have joining. The drumming was playing to my soul as humans danced and released their demons amongst perfect strangers. And the most beautiful part about it was that no one cared what they looked like nor did they care what anyone thought. This was our time to release what life and society had covered us with.

Now that’s not to say we all walked out of there different people that night but it definitely made me think about how much I let fear, greed and obsession control parts of my life. The obsession part has been the one thing that I could say has been the most damaging. Years and years of failed relationships with all types of abusers. Physical abusers with demons so dark in their soul that we had to move to another city when I was twelve to avoid him ever finding me, unfortunately he still did. A twenty-six-year old math tutor that my mom had hired for me when I was eleven, turned into a potentially deadly stalker for four years until he was arrested and sent to San Arita State Prison. But that’s for another story.

I then went on to relationship after relationship ending them as I danced along to the next when it wasn’t working for me, completely numb to their feelings of pain. As this process continued I became my own demon of addiction, addicted to the highs of the butterflies in your tummy and the euphoric feelings of falling in love. Come to find out later in life that I really had no idea what the heck love was in the first place. You see, I thought all that good mushy stuff in the bottom of your belly was actually LOVE! Well leave it to my surprise when a few hits to the eye or a hundred foul words and years of starting over and over and…over, did I finally get the big red flag placed on my front door step.

How many times do we need to see that damn red flag before we put up our white one?

If you are battling demons from rage or abuse or any form of addiction it’s time to put your white flag up! If you are playing ping pong and you think that just by hitting the ping pong ball back to your abuser softly is ending the game, or even if you still have the paddle in your hand and you think that you have stopped playing the game? You’re wrong…. You will only rid your life of those nasty demons when you take that paddle and set it down. Game over…Perform your own exorcism and rid your life of the darkness that brings you down or holds you back.

We all say it but it couldn’t be more true, life is too short to be kept in the shallows of it. You belong with the Angels, not the Demons.

Best of Blessings,
Elizabeth Cheryl

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Heavenly Fridays – Angels Everywhere

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When I met Bree Ervin, well, everyone has a “how I met Bree Ervin” story, but here is mine.  I was walking through a crowded hotel lobby at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, and I bumped into this red-headed demon, who said, and I quote, “I’m Bree, and I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I needed to meet you.”  And meet me she did.  We talked about God, atheism, faith, hope, love, and the greatest of these…is love.  I love Bree Ervin.  She is a dynamo: writer, publicist, wife, mother, poet, warrior, queen.  And so, I enlisted her to write a blog on angels, thinking she would say no.

She said yes.  This is the result.  Take it away, Bree!

* * *

The truth is, I don’t believe in angels. I don’t believe in God. Or Hell. Or Demons. Or the Devil either. I am an Atheist.

I tell you this to establish a baseline for what comes next.

Angels are everywhere.

That might seem like a contradiction.  After all didn’t I open with the promise of not believing in angels, with the statement that I am a militant Atheist?

Sure. But in this, like in most things in life, you have to look a little closer.

I don’t believe in semi-divine beings with wings and a penchant for fighting over God’s favor. I find there is quite enough of that down here in the human realm, why sully up the heavens with it?

And yet, it turns out that angels, real honest to goodness angels are, in fact, everywhere. And no, I’m not talking about the Victoria’s Secret babes either, they’re even more improbable than the little godlets we all get so worked up about.

I mean angels. Real angels.

Let me explain.

Angel means messenger.

It comes from the Greek – ἄγγελος and before that, the Hebrew – מלאך. Both of these words mean messenger. In fact, if you read the Bible in its original form you will discover that most of the angels described in its pages are not supernatural, paranormal beings with wings – but people. That’s all, just people. People with a message.

Some of these angels became prophets or priests. Some were just one time runners. Many became scapegoats.

I tell you this, not to take away whatever magic or power you wish to imbue the world with, because while I may not believe in God or angels, I do believe in Magic. No, I tell you this to open your eyes and mind and heart to the magic and power that really is here.
Because when we break through the semantics of what we’d like an angel to be, to discover what an angel actually is, a shift happens. A very important shift.

Suddenly angels are everywhere.

When we begin to look at the world, and the people around us, as if they might hold a piece of the divinity we seek, we open ourselves to a new realm of possibility. It is one that we do not have to tithe for, or pray for, or be judged by. It is not one we have to fear. It is, instead, a reality of exaltation.

When you see the person making your morning latte not as a loser who couldn’t do any better, but as a piece of the divine, who just might be carrying a message for you, your perception shifts. You listen closer, you open yourself more, you see deeper.

Then, one day, the full shift comes and you realize that if all of these people that you interact with on a daily basis are part of the divine, then you must be too. If they are your angels, your messengers, then you are theirs. All at once it matters what you say and how you act.

When we see each other not as competition, but as compatriots all trapped in the same endless maze, it becomes that little bit easier to offer a helping hand. When we start to really account for all the help we receive every day from friends, family and anonymous strangers, it goes beyond that and becomes a genuine obligation.

Aaron Ritchey’s book, The Never Prayer, asks the question, “When do we struggle to change the world and when do we let go and embrace life’s broken beauty?”

When we open our eyes to the miracles of life all around us, when we open our hearts to the messages laid out before us, when we begin to see the angels everywhere – the answer becomes simple. We struggle to change the world, always. For we are the angels we’ve been waiting for.


Bree Ervin can be found ranting at her blog, working at her website, and wasting time at facebook/bannedthoughts and on twitter @thinkbanned where she believes she is an angel of common sense.

Thanks, Bree, I owe you my life.  And dude, you used Greek and Hebrew on my website.  I’m so in love with you again.

 

Heavenly Friday – Feathers, Angels, and Kittens That Love You

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In my book, The Never Prayer–no really, I wrote a book. No, seriously. Why are you laughing?

I’m going to keep on, while you titter, you titterer you.  In my book, my heroine’s three-year-old brother finds feathers, all the time, and says, “Angels are in heaven, but the God Birdies are all around us.” I wanted to make a distinction between the mythology of angels, Michael, Ariel, beyond, living with the Christian God, and the God Birdies, who are always around us, spirits, on the other side of things, pushing for good.

This all came from a friend of mine who, whenever she sees a feather, believes that it is God’s way of making contact with her.

That feathers are like the feathers of angels.

At first, I was cynical. My logical mind thought, “Well, that’s stupid. Some pigeon gets eaten by a hawk, and she thinks God is watching over her. Yeah, maybe God is watching over her, but what about that frakkin’ pigeon?”

But then, I started finding feathers, just around, you know, the detritus of the world, and I realized what a nice idea that is. But then, that is the secret of the mythological part of who we are, the spiritual, the divine, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, if you wanna get downright Catholic about it.

You can find meaning and symbols all around, as long as you look, as long as you are aware. It is so easy, though, to keep our heads buried in the sand, or to turn robotic about the world. The rainbow doesn’t mean anything, just light through water. That squirrel who lives on my porch is just a rodent feeding off the rotting meat of my BBQ. A+B=C.

And yet. The world is a mystical place, if you have the right mindset. For example, when I was thirteen, I wanted proof that God existed. And so, I asked for proof. Right now. I wanted a burning bush. Lightning. Fear and trembling. I am the Lord, thy God, thou shalt not have any strange gods before me!

Nothing happened. Until the next day, when a white kitten showed up and camped out in our back porch. For days and days. And I pet it. And fed it. And it was a sign from God. My heart was moved. And then the kitten left us forever.

Of course, it was acoincidence. A stray. Please, let’s not get hysterical. And yet, what are the odds? I was looking for God and found something.  In my experience, if you look for God, you’ll find God. If you don’t, you won’t. It’s all up to you.

And so, are the feathers we find angels watching over us? Why not?

I lie to myself about reality all the time. Might as well lie to myself that the world is good, and that something is watching over me. Might as well. It is JUST as valid as the alternative. That I am alone, the world hates me, heaven is empty, and I’ll die alone and stay dead, rotting into the dirt.

Might as well believe in Heaven. And angels. And goodness in the world. Believing such things has never harmed me personally. And I got to pet a kitten out of the deal.

A lovely white kitten. An angel.