Diving Into The Abyss

The first post of a new blog is always one of the most awkward for me to write. The other Most Awkward Post is when a blog is completely closed. I've been an author of many blogs over the years. Some were professional. Some were, and some still are, personal. Some of the personal ones have actually been a little less personal than they looked, all dressed up for "cozy conversational atmosphere". Hell, I was "blogging" when it was still a new term and platforms designed for it didn't exist yet. We had webpages that updates were regularly added to, time and date slapped on, and the whole thing was pretty much a publicly visible journal. I'm middle-aged for a human, but old on the Internet.

It doesn't really matter if this first post is awkward, though, because you probably aren't reading it. If you are, the rambly nature of it probably appeals to you and it's not so awkward. I've got a long journey to take with this blog, so I just need a starting point. That's what this post is. Some of this may eventually be put on an About Page. Today, we just start here.

I'm not really looking to draw in readers. There would be better platforms for doing this these days if I were. I'm a very introverted person who wears a very extroverted social mask. I've been highly successful with getting posts out there to be seen and shared, and it always results in me focusing a lot more on what my audience wants to read than on what I need to write. This blog is not the place for such shenanigans. I may not even be adding the link for the blog to my collections of "where to find me on the Internet". If you're meant to read it, you'll find it. I'm writing for myself here.

Life has been taking some surprise turns that aren't really a surprise when I pull back and take a larger view. Or perhaps that just turns them into pleasant surprises that make sense. I'm in the process of getting things together for joining a specific group that doesn't recruit members much like I'm not looking to recruit readers. This blog isn't really meant to be about my membership in the group, but about things that involves. My writing here will be about my own journey, my own devotion and practice, my own gnosis. Involvement in the group will be part of the fuel making that happen. It's a "separate but related" thing.

The title of the blog comes from my love of word play. That's all the explanation I feel the need to give now. It might be all the explanation I'll ever feel the need to give.

Do I understand that Lovecraft was a racist, sexist, xenophobe who was writing fiction? Oh, honey...you're going light on him if you think he was merely racist, sexist, and xenophobic! His bigotries spread so far that's just a fraction of it. The man was an asshole. I have my speculations about what might have been a driving force behind it, but it wouldn't excuse it. I have avoided the use of the term "Lovecraftian" as much as I can over the years because so much of the mythos was built by other writers and I don't like giving the man more credit than is necessary. Looking at him more is going to be necessary on this journey. I don't think I'll be at risk of liking what I see, even if I do extend more empathy to him than he extended to anyone.

The thing about the work being fictional, though...well, is it? Or does that really matter? Storytelling is a strange thing when it's not done merely for the entertainment of filling quiet time. I don't remember if Stephen King himself said this, or if he was quoting someone else, but I remember reading in one of his books many years ago, "Fiction is the Truth inside the lie." That resonated with me. Lovecraft told made-up stories that came from his imagination and fears, but that doesn't mean there's absolutely nothing True in them. What is often called "cosmic horror" in literary circles is, to me, often Cosmic Mysteries. I may not be literally worshipping Yog-Sothoth, but I do see things in those stories that overlap with things about the goddess I am devoted to and can help me deepen that bond. Most romance novels aren't written about couples who have actually lived in our world. Science fiction has inspired a lot of scientists. Sometimes "True" is bigger than just "scientifically/historically accurate".

And do take note of which side of this I'm on. The creatures of Lovecraft's horror - to be avoided whenever possible - draw me in and guide me. He would, I believe, truly be absolutely horrified by the idea that his stories have led to anyone seriously pursuing this, in any way. Some of his letters show he thought it was ridiculous and sad that some people thought any of it was real to him. From my first reading of The Call of Cthulhu, I was glad to already know there would be a lot more to it all than just what he wrote because it felt like, somehow - some weird, twisted somehow - an author had managed to miss the point of their own stories. I just never have been on his side. I've been happy to see how the mythos has grown in more recent years, with female authors, Black authors, and a variety of authors firmly rooting their stories in the world Lovecraft created so that they flip his bigotries inside-out. The first time I was aware I was reading an author doing that, it was when I read Victor LaValle's The Ballad of Black Tom. I was very familiar with the stories he was working with as a frame for his story, and I fell in love with the mythos a whole new way.

Yes, I'm sure many of the posts that will be written here will look off-the-wall batshit crazy to a casual observer. That's not my problem. I'm not trying to recruit people to my way of thinking, I know where I'm coming from, and I'm too busy doing the work to be spending all my time justifying it.

One last note before I stop writing this "way too vague to be this long" introduction and just get to work. There's an oracle deck I'll regularly be using for things here, and it's very different from Cthulhu-themed tarot and oracle decks you may see other places. It's the Temple of Abzu deck. I'll just add a "Temple of Abzu" label to things and not explain that every single time I post something related to it.