Dedicated to the Supernatural Family

Introduction

The title of this book, Adventures in the World of Darkness, was what the TV show Supernatural (2005-2020) was known as in Romania, where I’m from. Adventure TV shows, starting with a few cartoons that were broadcast here after the 1989 Revolution, have always been my go-to entertainment. There was something special about that format, whichever genre it was being used with. So I couldn’t help but smile when I came upon such a light-hearted, joyful translation – it probably sounds more kid-friendly than it should, but for me it carried a special significance. For example, the horror cartoon series Tales From the Crypt had a very similar atmosphere, with its Gothic themes and darkened, muted colour palette, and it had taught me a lot about human connection. Though its subject matter involved death, graves, ghosts, spirits, the undead and so on, I was never frightened by the scenes in these shows, even as a kid; in fact, I found it all immensely comforting, like being wrapped in a cocoon or a cosy blanket of safety and peace. I also found that I’d be deeply moved whenever an on-screen change in affiliation (evil turning good) took place, so I used to think about the concept of villains a lot, about what they were communicating.

When I first started writing this story, in May 2023, I had just finished watching Supernatural (the entire Adventures) for the first time. Initially, I wanted to use random elements as prompts, as I felt that some parts of the script were either off somehow, or otherwise not reaching their full potential. Other parts were quite the opposite, deeply resonating with me: take for example my Training Diary, which I’ve included in the book because as a kid, I actually believed I was “in training” through the shows I followed. I used to imagine these were love letters from my imaginary family far away (please note I did have a normal family, so my fantasy was never about filling in for anything I lacked growing up). I used to think of them seeing the same shows and I would anticipate meeting them in the future, when we would understand more about who we were and why we were connected.

This interconnectedness has since grown exponentially, so a while ago I switched gears and decided to use the inspiration from one of the questions asked at a fan convention: would Sam or Dean keep a Hunter’s diary in order to give other Hunters an updated reference to add to the existing lore, and which creatures would they focus on the most? Great idea, I thought, I shall apply a diary format to my book (because it’s meant to be about the supernatural in my own life, after all). No sooner had I locked onto that thought, than I found there was an actual published diary, written in-universe as a Men of Letters’ book authored by Sam with a few additions from Dean. Hey, that’s what I wanted to do: update the lore! Just to be clear, however: I am not writing within the fictional universe of the show. That book has some gorgeous illustrations I love, but it kind of gives me a bad feeling – because it remains within the confines of the fantasy, something I hope to transcend with my writing.* So if you’re looking for a way to immerse more in the story as it was created by Eric Kripke, my book is probably not going to be of much help. But if you’re like me and you have been wondering about these fascinating connections in the wider world, read on.

I’m also going to add chapters with longer essays, as I now have a thing for answering Supernatural‘s most frequently asked questions: What do you mean? What does that even mean? What’s that supposed to mean? … and Why do vegans always get screwed in the deal?! (All right, I made that last one up. But I’d like to know.)

Doing an impression of ‘Winnetou in the Valley of Death’ (Bucharest, 1989)

*Note that I wrote all this before I read how The Winchesters plays out, so I’m having a high-pitched screaming session right now! I don’t want to spoil my Book of Adina here, just to give you a hint that there are some amazing parallels I started noticing in 2023, which can be used to explain how Dean can still interact with the land of the living, where that ability comes from, and why it’s important for the Family as a whole. There is in fact a journal out there, and said journal did come from someone being involved with The Book of Revelations, who felt that his life had been orchestrated and wanted others to have a bit more choice than he did. (Screaming fit! Sorry LOL… it’s just that I’d been telling everyone how given the Supernatural finale, any spin-offs should try to include such spiritual interaction “from beyond” more than anything, and there it is!!!). Now, this doesn’t mean there is a complete equivalence or correspondence between these characters, but it’s still quite mind-blowing – enough to suggest a connection. That connection is the Stairway to Heaven, which the Family represents.

Training Diary

Prayer to the Evening Star. Path to Olympus. Werewolf. Fight with the Fairy. The Feels. Ecomancer. The Gentlewoman.

Prayer to the Evening Star

PRAYER TO THE EVENING STAR. I was born in Romania on 1 June 1983. Yes, my name is Adina. No relation to the Angel Adina of Supernatural, but I do share a conceptual focus with Adina, the captain of King David’s army from the Bible. David-and-Jonathan. Like the song says, “Lovers of the world unite, you alone know what is right.“ My mother named me after an art teacher from Buzău, a town found near the bend in the Carpathian Mountains known for a number of paranormal occurrences. That’s where I spent most of my childhood: drawing, dressing up, pretending to be a knight in shining armour, and pretending I was in solemn ritual processions arriving at a monument I referred to as “the Column of Heroes,” where I would be taking off into Space as a beam of light, to the intro of Europe’s The Final Countdown. Stuff you do.

During the early years, I saw myself as being “in training” somehow. I used art and illustration to communicate things I knew, felt and continuously learned about the world. Sometimes I would receive encouraging messages from “older colleagues” as they called themselves. There was also a ghost I felt an artistic kinship with: I sensed his presence at a friend’s house, as the ghost was my friend’s grandfather who had died. As a child, I never thought it was anything strange, just interesting. And it was full of light and hope for the future, always.

I often tried to share my insights with my peers at school, but that never went well… so I just decided I was going to stay on my path, explore and see where that went instead. As I say about travelling: “The most important thing I’m learning is the vision that I can identify with the freedom I find on my travels, instead of worrying about explaining myself back home. That was quite a revelation!” That’s not to say I’m no longer sociable, it just means I no longer blame my psychic abilities whenever I get lonely. The loneliness actually comes from me rejecting that part of my life that means so much to me, in other words from “trying to be normal”… hey, at least on the surface! It offends my soulmate, who starts sulking, philosophising about being “an alien in this world,” and… well, point taken: it is “normal” people who are lonely inside. If you can muster up the courage to go towards those feelings of loneliness and embrace them, instead of trying to appear strong or separate from such feelings, any negativity associated with them dissolves, as you become one with yourself and you are no longer running.

I think I was born with the ability to teach myself everything because I knew there weren’t many of us awake at the time, but I was still shocked when I understood just how rare the magic was in this world. I felt betrayed, like I had been put here under false pretenses. To grow into an adult whose life is simply devoid of all inner knowledge – what kind of world is that? I just wanted my knowledge to grow with me, not go away and be forgotten. Then, I think it was in 1993, I decided to do something about it: I prayed to the Evening Star that night, asking to remain in touch with the magic, continue experiencing that mysterious warmth I believed was my “special secret” that no-one else knew about.

Path to Olympus

PATH TO OLYMPUS. Way back in the days before I went to school, there was not much TV – everyone had rooms full of books in their home and I liked teaching myself how to read. Once I’d decoded a few books that Grandma had read to me at first, I went for the Hercules legends and, when I got to the ending with his funeral pyre and celebratory sporting events that became our modern-day Olympics, I felt a strange mix of emotions: loss of an entire world as it used to be, sadness, deep longing for something I couldn’t articulate, but also hope and purpose. “This is what I was put here to do,” I nodded to myself: the writer was suggesting that after shutting their copy of the book, readers should go out and look for Mount Olympus in real life, walking on the path brought to humanity by the hero’s journey. The notes said Hercules mythically represented the Sun, sinking beneath the horizon while wearing a blood-soaked shirt and rising again in the heavens that, thanks to his Labours, had been astronomically redistributed (notice the Earth Axis reference here, it will be important). This moving symbolism made me question how it was even possible: this was clearly a controversial figure, caught in an inner battle of his own, and in real life nobody seemed too keen on following that path to Olympus. I myself was not terribly excited about the prospect of seeking the Greek gods, who had been responsible for the events in the hero’s life in the first place. But there was something else too: the story of how the hero’s companions desperately looked for that person who could light his funeral pyre and free him from pain. It had me in tears, because in a flash of insight I just knew what it all really meant: someone had been close to Hercules on his travels, knew the man behind the myth, and yet the myth also endures in future generations, through such a beautiful image as the light of the Sun pulling the soul towards the heavens and completion. That spiritual vision belonged to the companion who lit the funeral pyre, and the sadness and longing I sensed did too. I never forgot that feeling, and on my first day of school I drew the Sun, touching my forehead – this was how I envisioned the new adventure I was on, where I would gain knowledge about the world and, perhaps, also find that path to Olympus.

Werewolf (from ‘The Monsters Gallery’, a project for English class)

WEREWOLF. This school assignment was simply to create and print a gallery of images with descriptions written in English, which I immediately subverted of course: mine would be about monsters! I found a few Greek monsters in a digital encyclopedia, and also created new images (in MS Paint! woohoo!) when I couldn’t find the ones I wanted. Note that in the original gallery I put the mysterious Dark Dweller from Pirates of Dark Water next to this werewolf, who in turn looks like Adam Lambert on Halloween for some reason (my Mum likes his shirt!)… Speaking of things that pop into one’s head, I named my first doll Rosie, which is an English name – no idea where that came from. Mum had kept Rosie hidden as she was looking to surprise me on my birthday, so she kept telling me it was just a pincushion she had stored away; but I was like, “Nah, that’s a doll, I can see it up there on that shelf with the fabrics! May I have it to play with?” “How on Earth could you see it, there’s no way?!!” – so much fun.

The Fight with the Fairy (a tale from Gascony, France)

FIGHT WITH THE FAIRY. That’s pretty much what I wanted to do to everyone who picked on me and bullied me in school. Unfortunately, I was advised that it wasn’t very ladylike, and I should “just ignore it” and “not react in any way.” Moreover, I was advised not to “sound so smart” when I talked, because it drew the insecurities out of people. Worst advice of my life, because first of all it didn’t stop the bullying; second, every time I wanted to express anything at all, even late into adulthood, I would get overwhelming anxiety and start censoring myself to appear less confident. I would also lose control over my motor skills and bump into things or break them, or trip over my own feet, and I would lose or forget items wherever I went. I gained weight and struggled with my health for years, both mental and physical. So if anyone tells you something like that, you should definitely run in the other direction. As for the bullies, those you should confront, and stand up for the kids being bullied – it makes a world of difference.

Raoul Sleeping (from ‘Ten Tears Later’ by Al. Dumas)

THE FEELS. The final sequel to The Three Musketeers by Al. Dumas would have been a very boring book, but for a peculiar literary device which transferred homoerotic feelings onto the familial relationship of Athos and Raoul – had me glued to the progression of chapters as well as copying quotes for French class (to learn new words, of course). Please note this has nothing to do with any real-life confusion of that sort (ew!) but if you look at the history of literature, this technique was often employed in contexts where writing directly about queerness was not advisable: wise brothers, travelling uncles, feisty cousins, long-lost fathers etc. all represent male archetypes, in other words the type of balance one seeks in a queer relationship, that “inner soul figure” (“Everyone wants a Dean to their Sam”). Besides, as seen in Greek mythology, there was always a more mature partner acting as a teacher to the younger one. Now, you could make a case for their closeness being just an example of non-toxic masculinity, it’s a fine ideal; but honestly there are aspects that don’t fit that description at all, such as unrequited love and even jealousy. This was yet another one of those instances where I asked myself, “What IS this?!” I kept experiencing: the Feels. For something to have such an impact in my own life, to the point where I felt nothing would satisfy me except figuring this out, it couldn’t have been just a nicer relationship between parents and offspring – to me it’s just weird to expect such a poetic, romantic attachment there, and you’re weird if you choose to expect it, rather than entertain the idea that some people are in the closet and fictional characters aren’t always literal (especially ones from writers who are Men of Letters themselves, as I was often surprised to learn! One moment you think you’re reading about a peasant woman’s troubles, and the next it’s all a veiled tale about Isis and Osiris…).

Tula the Ecomancer (from D. Kirschner’s ‘Pirates of Dark Water’)

ECOMANCER. The female version of a Beastmaster (someone who can telepathically talk to or influence animals) from Pirates of Dark Water. I loved this show because I sensed there was something else going on beneath the surface, where the good guys (Ren and co.) and bad guys (Bloth and his gang) were concerned, as in they kind of… sought each other? Again, this was something I believed was my special, secret knowledge. Looking back on it, you can see that the last Treasure is hinted as the jewel attached to Bloth’s earring, so there you go. Now, why are we so fascinated by people who can talk to animals? It is because these tales are all connected to the ancestral legend of Adam before the Fall, who had that ability whilst living in Paradise. So even though such a power may be relegated to the murky collection of Antediluvian mysteries, it nevertheless appears to be a family legacy, either genetically inherited or taught as a skill. And that, in essence, suggests these gifts are not evil to begin with, but come from Paradise after all.

Lady Oscar (from R. Ikeda’s ‘The Rose of Versailles’)

THE GENTLEWOMAN. The grown-up version of a tomboy, she values freedom of expression above all, including via activities that are traditionally considered masculine.

It didn’t always go wrong with me sharing my insights at school, I just had to exaggerate the subjective feeling a bit. Flying our freak flag a little bit higher actually helps fight that feeling that there will be no more fun in adulthood, because at the end of the day, that is what it’s all about.

Telling my friends about the supernatural things out there (Bucharest, 2003)

A Supernatural Family

So what is really going on here, who are these people? The Supernatural Family is known in other quarters as the Holy Grail Family, the Holy Nation, or the Nation from Revelations. Jensen Ackles called it a “pseudo-nation” once at a convention, referring to the loyal fans who keep turning up in every city. What’s very funny is that the Family is anything but “pseudo” in truth – the Book of Revelations explains they only tend to feel that way, because of missing clues. So that was extremely amusing (pseudo-Nation! ha!) and made me think this clue might just turn out to be something real after all (Once In A While). They are indeed connected with Jesus, but were not his material children as has been implied with recent books and films – they are his Brothers and Sisters who were originally given the Knowledge from Paradise. The Fam can be identified by their active spiritual abilities, and you will see many things being reminiscent of Jesus in that way: for example, people healing through experiencing joy and excitement in the fandom (this is actually an Orphic tradition). There are several different cultures derived from the Knowledge, both light and dark – these are shown as the various creatures inspiring the storylines on Supernatural, or as human cultures: Hunters, Men of Letters etc. This will sound confusing, but many of those creatures are actually the same one (for example, a werewolf and a vampire are both witches) but I shall get to that. I like that Supernatural holds this ground of everyone being sort of “douchey” and “just another monster” in the end, because we are at a point of really having to deal with the old religious nonsense and imbalances; but as said in the beginning, I feel that some portrayals draw too heavily on misogynistic views, and I’m interested in unpacking those. Being a true initiate of the Knowledge manifests not just as a heroic attitude, “Evil is bad and we should fight it!” but also as compassion: “Everyone can fight evil and do some good – including monsters.”

Which brings me to the most important part: the Stairway to Heaven. Lucifer is shown to be torturing Sam by singing that Led Zeppelin song, over and over. 😀

The Supernatural Cultures

THE PERPETUAL ROAD TRIP. The symbolical road-tripping relates to the Axis Mundi, we are told, which in turn suggests a crucifixion, which might explain all the blood and gore that appears, at the same time, quite restrained and tastefully done – here is how, with the help of Wikipedia: ancient Greek has two verbs for crucify: anastauroo, from stauros (which in modern Greek only means “cross” but which in antiquity was used of any kind of wooden pole, pointed or blunt, bare or with attachments), and apotumpanizo “crucify on a plank,” together with anaskolopizo “impale.” In earlier pre-Roman Greek texts anastauro usually means “impale.”

Gee, thanks for that mental picture (say it a few more times: impaaale…)! Now we’ve arrived in Dracula territory, and what’s funny is that I have in my library this historical fiction novel I inherited, which suggestively “ships” Vlad Dragonborn the Impaler and Steven the Great of Moldova – this was a while ago and written by a man, so make of that what you will. I just wanted to bring you to Romania for a bit, because something stood out to me from the old tales: my ancestors the Getae believed they were born here once upon a time from a virgin named Geea, the Black Land (virgo is Latin for “woman acting like man”). Our fairytales revolve around the virgin birth of the hero and the adventures he shares with a blood brother (also known as a brother of the cross, meaning the pole around which the heavens revolve) to restore the primordial balance. The Biblical term for virgin also translates as “black land.” So for me, whenever I see historical or fantasy characters with “black” or “dark” in their names – in this case the black 1967 Chevrolet Impala that is a reference to the Spiritual Vehicle – it draws attention to an ancient tribal relationship with the Getae, more specifically with their royalty (for example, the dragon Ancalagon the Black). According to historians, these were at one point the same people as the Dacians (goddess Danu, the Danube) who were known for having a wolf-dragon depicted on their banners. There was however a slight difference, in that the people of Danu identified their origins with the Water of Life (the life-giving river form of the goddess) whereas the Getae came from the Black Land, as said (death and burial). Still, their religious teachings told of how these were “the same Water and the same Earth” in both cases, in other words they were all one family. Likewise, there are some indications that the original symbolism of life versus death was in fact reversed, being part of an initiation ceremony with the purpose of awakening dreams and visions; but the information that the material world is not ultimate was distorted into a kind of morbid fatalism when it became disconnected from the existence of the ceremony itself, and so only the highest initiates would still be able to grasp the true meaning, by fulfilling the quest in their lifetime.

Awesome! Let me break this down for you:

DEMON-WHORES. These are women who experience strong attraction to gay men. It is a widespread archetype, often expressed unconsciously: examples include Galadriel and her shadow version Shelob, Madonna, Lady Gaga and Lord Gaga, etc. Lilith however was not unconscious, because the story says she went to Ahriman i.e. Lucifer “out of boredom” and asked him to give her “Desire for Man” as a gift. He then kissed her on the forehead (opening the portal of Angel Raziel – “Secrets of God”) and she became pregnant with the special knowledge that is passed on to the kids. The initial impression upon hearing this myth is that it’s trying to say sexual attraction came from boredom as opposed to love, hence the cautionary “Bros Before Hoes” trope (Good Sir! Place Thy Comrades Before Yon Harlots! :D). However, feeling bored would suggest Lilith was extremely intelligent and therefore searching for a mental escape into another reality. Those escapes became stories, art, fantasy. For instance, the original concept behind adventure stories of valiant male brotherhoods was women’s empowerment, neither their exclusion nor their designation as villains. Moreover, the theory “Love is fleeting, but true companions are forever” is completely useless in practice, since the person you will always be responsible for is your true companion anyway, you love that person. So what is striking here is that Lucifer is the one who felt “Desire for Man” all along, while Lilith is the lady who recognised that desire as being Love – meant to be read as one word, not as divided into “desire” (from Lilith) for “man” (material creature). This is how she became the first Demon (TM). Yup, I would definitely choose to torture Sam with the song, too! Aaaand one more time!

THE SUPERNATURAL PEOPLE are Family Tree of Adam and Eve. Having just established that Eve was now in possession of the secret which explains why Adam was forbidden to eat from the Tree in Paradise (fertility, the life-giving power of the Goddess) then why did they go ahead and create that family tree anyway? This question has been puzzling people for millennia, with some making a rather racist claim that such creatures would be soulless and therefore easily controlled. Smarter people often reimagine the story as one of triumph, which it is, or even point to abstract cosmic forces instead of a living, breathing ancestral pair of humans; yet there is more to the story and it only makes sense if we are indeed talking about two people who entered a deal consciously: if Adam and Eve were soulmates (union of the spiritual and physical) as it’s generally believed in religion, there would be no imbalance of power in their family, who would be considered just a natural family, not a Supernatural one born with the aid of sorcery as it is believed – no need in Nature for all the occult symbolism, triangles, pentagrams and hexagrams to solidify the special identity of this tribe. But there was obviously imbalance and struggle for dominance and assertion in the social hierarchy, which mirrors the original quarrel between Adam and Lilith before she flipped him the bird. As the negativity raged on, the psychic powers with which the Supernatural Kids were born made it possible to untangle those very strings, and ultimately bring balance (“you know, stop all the monsters, all the bad”). According to Greek initiatic lore, the Soul spark (Psyché) has been passed on to the descendants alongside the physical body, which comes from the Titans. So while there is imbalance wrought into our creation, we don’t necessarily have to see everything as evil. If the secret of the Soul had not been passed on to the family, then during the event of the planetary disaster mentioned in the history of the Axis Mundi everything would have been lost, the Lightbody no longer accessible to anyone on Earth – so we represent a kind of insurance there. That is why we are told the initiation story of how our ancestors “fell” in creating us, in other words took on the roles of Dark Lord and Lady and became part of the world’s history. But such symbolism shouldn’t be taken too seriously, because in truth the Lightbody is still accessible to all – including them. We just need to get over our prejudice and see Humanity as a whole.

ANGELS. I oscillate between having multiple issues with the entire Lucifer arc (“Wrong. That’s wrong. Does anybody fact-check this stuff?”) and just throwing my hands up in the air, because it occurs to me the numerous troubles depicted on the show could actually be the results of its own premise: that angels need to inhabit hosts in order to walk the Earth (this could also be a meta-reference to how we are watching a show with “characters” played by actors). That is an odd thing to need, indeed – didn’t angels reject human form in the first place? Now they want to walk the Earth? In that case, their vessels would constantly experience unnatural highs and lows, as well as misrepresent the spiritual concepts accessed in this fashion – because the only angel who can truly inhabit you is your soulmate-friend-lover-doodah-thingamajig. The human body acts as both an antenna and a decoder of information, so it’s a good idea to look for the embodied reality of whoever it is you’re talking to in your dream or channelling session (there’s a long story about how I did that exact thing with The Lord of the Rings – still working on it, but the main takeaway was “Hey we’re family!” Whaaa?!!). The embodiment is the Spiritual Lightbody which is the main logo or symbol on the show: the anti-possession tattoo. So yeah, just come out. It could be quite nice after all: the Apocalypse, combining powers, reviving an aging rock band…

By the way, I’m sorry Sam has such a traumatic experience with Lucifer, but that’s due to how people in general are taking the initiation story of our origins and reversing it to suggest our psychic gifts come from “demon blood” making us “impure” therefore unable to access higher realms (Sam’s childhood notion of being some impure thing that’s not allowed to search for the Holy Grail is just heart-wrenching!). That’s like taking out the knowing from the knowledge. So instead of seeing that NOT using our gifts is what traps us in this fallen reality, people worry the gifts will trap us in this fallen reality. Which is why at times Supernatural feels like so much pseudo-heroism it’s making my head hurt. Typical of Mankind there: violence and death are perfectly acceptable it seems, but eroticism? Neverrr! We shall die on the barricades!… Listening is a feminine act, so any male-presenting creature asking you to listen must be lying or trying to get into your head, right? Because it’s inconceivable he truly means what he says: that he likes you, that you’re perfect and so on… it would make him feminine too. Like a ginger Irish Fairy with pink wings and a green dress. Here, read a papyrus then! (By the way, did you know you’re supposed to unroll these horizontally?)

HUNTERS. These seem entirely based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Rangers of the North, who are Atlantean survivors. Here being the quotes: “Few now remember them… yet still some go wandering, sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things folk that are heedless.“ (Tom Bombadil) and “Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters – but hunters ever of the servants of the Enemy, for they are found in many places, not in Mordor only.” (Aragorn) I actually woke up one morning with the vivid thought in my head that Sam and Dean were Atlantean Rangers. I think I know why my subconscious went there: in Boromir’s words, “By the blood of our people are your lands kept safe!” – this particular frustration would only be made obvious later in the show, but I imagined it would be there and how it would feel to never be able to connect with those who live in the illusion of the normal world. The Rangers wore a star as their symbol, so basically they were a type of police force; but I can’t really imagine their job as literal (killing everyone who’s on the weird side would be anti-Knowledge) so there must be an equally symbolic aspect to the Hunt itself. Whenever monsters die, regardless of their light or dark affiliation, their deaths seem to represent a type of “ecstatic illumination” which changes their placement in the life-afterlife continuum.

Only a few hours before I found Supernatural in 2023 (“I wonder if I’ll like it!” – famous last words…), I had sent out one of those spiritual requests where I wanted to connect with other people from the Atlantean Family in the present – it was a revisit of a similar intention I had put out there in early 2005. I was ready to go to that next level. But it seems I couldn’t see Atlantis for the Atlanteans – because they had always been there, right under my nose.

In 1991 I found a children’s book in the school library, about a butterfly and a cricket who had this amazing friendship that was more like brotherhood. For the first time that I can remember, I felt something like a fire or heat in the palms of my hands, just thinking about that story. I knew it was something very special and I remember running around the classroom, book in hand, tugging on my peers’ sleeves and shoving the text in front of them, asking them how it made them feel: did they feel that fire too, in their hands, eyes and stomach? The problem was one of the two insects dies, that’s how the intensity of their feelings is revealed, affecting me on a level I couldn’t explain as I experienced a complete awakening and sense of direction – so my classmates told me it was “horrible” and, one by one, pulled away from me. That’s when I knew this, whatever “this” was, would require a lot of work. 😀

This is what “it” was – such information would only begin to surface around 1993

See, even back then I knew what the message was: I would get more choice in my life, by reading the story of the two friends, and I wanted others to have that too. But due to other people’s reactions, I never expected something that looked like it wasn’t going anywhere to represent anything more than a fantasy I would keep to myself. So whenever anyone asked me how I defined Atlantis if I was searching for it, I’d just mumble something like, “There’s this mountain symbol and a spiral and the soulmates” (my voice tapering off into nothingness). It alarmed me every time I tried to think about defining it, and in turn this made me more depressed in addition to my pining for that lost world. But yes, ‘Atlantes’ is the plural form of the lonely Atlas, either two men or two mythological male creatures holding up the Axis Mundi or primordial balance.

Back to the present: “Asexuality is the orientation that’s not oriented anywhere,” “an occasional phenomenon going all the way back to Númenor” – these are just some of the quotes I’m finding in the sources I’m reading, which certainly help put those thoughts in perspective. I finally came out as asexual in 2018, after a visit to Tibidabo, the tallest hill in the Serra de Collserola overlooking Barcelona. Now, knowing the humour of my ancestors the Getae (from whom ‘Catalunya’ is derived) I believe the name is in reference not to “… super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam mean et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum” (“Upon this rock I will build my church, and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven”) from St. Peter’s Basilica, but indeed to “…et dixit illi haec omnia tibi dabo si cadens adoraveris me” (“And saith unto him: all these will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me”) from Matthew 4:9, the words said to Jesus by the devil as they looked down from an exceedingly high mountain upon all the kingdoms of the world (the name of Barcelona’s hill refers to the popular tradition that it was in fact the “exceedingly high mountain” itself). Jesus, of course, has a different preference, explained in his next line… anyway, I really connected with that positive spirit over there! It was amazing. Not sure if this means Tibidabo is actually THE mountain, but it is definitely connected with the Getae, that is the Sons of Geea whose spirit I felt present.

Tolkien’s version of Atlantis is called Númenor, which is illustrated as a Venus pentacle shape, an island raised from the Sea to house a special tribe who followed the Cosmic Being indicated by a hexagram to that new home. The island also ties in with “True Dreams” within that universe, which as we shall see are connected with the portal on the forehead. There is something called The Path of Dreams, by which those living in Middle-earth can visit Valinor, the home of the gods, even while alive. So Númenor would be halfway there on this imaginary Path. This concept was abandoned in later versions of the legendarium (quite ironically because Númenor itself was destroyed due to its arrogance, as the legend goes) but against all odds it still features heavily in the screen adaptations – for example in the soundtrack (In Dreams) and in some scenes where forehead kisses symbolise hope in the face of losing a member of one’s family. C.S. Lewis also wrote a piece (The Adam at Night) which connects lucid dreaming to Adam in Paradise. The poem bears a striking resemblance to those “feels” so highly sought-after in fan-fiction, while that homey sense of calm was what I experienced when I asked to see in a dream what the Lord of the Rings looked like and he flat out told me we were family.

So if the Elves all share that same connection to dreams, it means they must have come from Paradise in the beginning, even though their physical form was long debated by Medieval Irish monks as originating in either heaven or hell, with no clear lore on the matter to settle the argument. “But their knowledge is clearly from Heaven,” the monks concluded, for reasons known only to themselves. Could I have that in writing right now, please?

Why some people can’t frame photos properly is a frustrating mystery… (Munich, 2002)

Hey, I did get it in writing! That final episode of Supernatural – omygod you guys, there are no words to express how seen it made me feel… Possibly the only comparable moment in terms of intensity was on BBC’s Merlin, when a dying Arthur told Merlin he could now see everything: what Merlin had done for the Realm and for him personally, and he just asked to be held as opposed to frantically magicked back to life. I love the finality of these moments, and I wouldn’t trade that feeling of completeness for any other possible ending. But in real terms, it does seem an old-world thing to have to wait for death before you share something so important and change the outcome of your “afterlife.” Even as a child, I knew for certain that I wanted a totally different outcome within my lifetime, as said.

I also kept trying to explain something to my classmates, who couldn’t understand “how I did it” to always pop into encyclopaedical mode and not take any crap from anyone: I don’t store these things in my head, just my emotional connection to them – like a path I open when I need to, I look around there, and take whatever information is needed in a situation. And it all comes from how I feel about a certain “alien in this world”… (This reminds me of something someone in a tank top said in a spiritual chat: “You need to ask what wills you so…” – no, I need to know if others get it when I explain what does!)

MEN OF LETTERS. “Georgeta… Getuța… Fragmasoana… Hei, tu, fir de trandafir… Măr de aur, măr domnesc, spune-mi unde te găsesc…” 😀 (V. Rebreanu) The Freemasons are the same thing as wizards and witches, archaically ‘farmazon’ in the Romanian language, which means an enchanter or alchemist. They were revived during the Renaissance in Italy, which was certainly interesting, except the part where “platonic love” was carefully sanitised for a Catholic context and eventually stuck in that form – it has nothing in common with Plato’s concept of platonic love, so quit weaponising “platonic love” against queer visibility now. The original wizards were Zoroastrians, whose knowledge can be traced back to the Black Land (Al-Khem) and the Getae, also known as the Immortals.

WITCHES. They claim that the Men of Letters stole the knowledge from them. Just work out that platonic love thing in reverse, and you’ll be fine. No, really, I mean it: one time I had someone trying to project a spell on me at a gathering, and though it made me sad at the time, I was like whatever. A few years later, he lifted the spell by describing how, unfortunately, it hadn’t worked on him (to bring that vibe he was after) – which is to say that people with these abilities are in fact more logical and reason a lot, unlike the popular “woo-woo” version of magic. That recognition brought me this incredible joy, since being logical often feels like there is something wrong with one for not being able to participate in group hype. So admitting that lack of delusion was like holding up a freshly cleaned mirror: it sent a clear signal to others with the same abilities that we weren’t wrong, we just had that same innate ability to close off against outside influence, a most curious side-effect of a connection we naturally shared in the first place. Note that I’m using the terms witch and wizard irrespective of the person’s gender, this is because a witch is someone who makes use of powers considered feminine, and a wizard masculine – there is no rule about who can use what power. That’s the point of knowledge, it gets passed on to whoever is receptive.

Ego Sum Filia Naturae

(Teehee, check out the grammar dilemma! “Give a slice to whoever wants one.” → whoever follows to, which puts it in an object position, of which the correct form is whomever, but it’s linked to the verb wants and it performs the action of wants in “whoever wants one.” Hmm, actually the object is the whole sentence “whoever wants one,” so there is no dilemma there, because each sentence has to make sense when taken separately and has its own syntactical function just like individual words do; but if you look at it closely, the object directly affects the imperative in “Give a slice.” 🙂 Slice wanted, order sent accordingly, slice obtained. Yum. So Whoever must be a power-bottom, I guess?)

TO BE CONTINUED