#the spirit of sappho compels you

[lesbian-ed]

How do you move on? I've been in love with this girl for years and I only recently realized we'd never truly be in a committed relationship and it broke my heart. I miss her and I think about her everyday. I joined Her and I've gone on a few dates, but nothing has stuck. I don't really want it to or expect it to, but it still sucks.. I'm completely emotionally unavailable. I feel like I could sleep around and feel nothing. I've never felt like that before. How can I move on?

First and foremost, Anon, I think we need to dispelthe notion that moving on and getting over a broken heart necessarilymean jumping on to the next woman in line. If, as you said yourself,you are emotionally unavailable, my experience is that trying to bewith someone else to break the spell won’t aid you in the least.

See, moving on isn’t about moving on to the nextgirl, but moving on with life, with ourselves. You shouldn’t be attempting toerase the mark this girl has left on you by inviting lots of other women into your bed because it won’t have any effect if youhaven’t done the proper ‘digesting'—it’s no use to strain your bodyto fit in with another while trying to mend your heart and change yourmind. There’s a whole process involved, one of letting go and‘enjoying’ one’s solitude.

I know 'enjoying’ might seem a bit inappropriate whencoupled with the word 'solitude’ in light of an unsuccessfulrelationship, but there are elements of enjoyment to be found inbeing alone once one has surpassed that initial moment of disbelief,hurt, possibly despair. There is nothing novel in recommendingsomeone time in dealing with issues of feeling, I’m sure, andthere’s a reason why people will tell you to wait and let timeflow, but what most fail to tell you is that you cannot sit idly bywhilst consumed by the thought of this one girl, the errors orproblems that led to this outcome, wishing things were different—onthe contrary, I think one must use this moment to assess things asrealistically as possible. If it didn’t work out, then it wasn’tmeant to be—otherwise, logically, it wouldn’t have broken, wouldit?

There is a difference between grieving what we thinkmight have been amazing and condemning ourselves to misery by believing that that was the one chance for happinesswe’d get in this life. The first is a feeling that comes and goes,for, even in the future, when we have left this wholly behind (and itwill happen if you let it, if you make it happen), we still do findourselves wondering 'well, what if?’ but we don’t lose sleepover it anymore; it’s casual, human curiosity. Whereas the second option can lead us to a statevery close to what you’re describing, in which we become somehow verydependent on the memory of what was and on the desire of what couldhave been (or should have been, in our minds), dependent onthe idea of the woman that does not want us back. And that is bad.

It’s common in the first weeks following a break-upor another kind of romantic disenchantment, but to suffer years ofthis, of being shackled to one person who is clearly not at allshackled back to us?

You ask, Anon, how to move on. One must allow time tosweep away the dust of our sadness—but, and many will not like mesaying this, one must also give oneself permission to move on; onemust, at some point, actively pursue the overcoming of our sentimentif time by itself won’t do the trick. And to do that does not mean topursue someone else—but, perhaps, to pursue ourselves.

Now, personally, I dislike psychology and I do notwish to present myself an expert on the matter (Sappho forbid!), butthese sorts of issues, of over-dependence on an ex-girlfriend, onwanting what didn’t come to pass or what has already ended (or neverbegun, depending on the case) always seem to me linked to issues ofconfidence and self-esteem, as if one found it hard or unfeasible toimagine oneself without that person in one’s life. But the truthgenerally is that the person in question is already out of ourlife and we have not yet accepted that reality. For fear, perhaps; ofnever being loved again, of never loving someone to thatdegree again, of never settling down and finding happiness in thearms of any other woman… Reasons abound.

But we tend to feed on a handful of illusions and allof these motives for fear are just that: illusions. Nobody losesvalue by not being corresponded in love; nobody ceases to beimportant because one person in the world suddenly thinksdifferently; nobody is doomed to sadness because we believe ourselvesunloved and/or unloving. I wager we put too much value upon others’perception of us, that we base too much of our happiness on otherpeople—wonderful people, sure, women who stand out in a crowd,otherwise we would not have loved them, but even so we should notforget ourselves to their benefit. We should have the courage to facelife as it is; to choose to move forwards, to leave behind that whichgives us nothing.

Someone might argue that to love a woman still,albeit she loves us not, might give us some strength here and there;that this ideal, romantic, self-sacrificing love is ‘inspiring’; thatit is the only force driving us onwards, that it compells us to make something outof ourselves so those cherished eyes will once again befall us… And I would be forced to respond that livingfor someone else, and especially to that degree, is no way of living.It shouldn’t be difficult to verify that these circumstances are farfrom healthy—and to cling to a love with so much potential for harmis masochistic to say the least. We build prisons out of our owndreams, sometimes, and pain from our joys. With all the romanticismwe tend to use in approaching relationships, it’s a fairly commontrap to fall into.

You might accuse me of being unromantic or unfeelingto speak of these things in this tone, but I assure you I know allabout seeing no way out, about being chained to someone I loved whowould not bat an eyelash towards me. We all have at least oneexperience with this kind of thing and we must find ways to breakfree from this conundrum.

I said earlier that moving on might have something todo with finding ourselves rather than someone else to replace thewoman we loved. That’s also got to do with self-esteem. Many will saythey are incapable and unwilling to love themselves because theybelieve the 'love yourself and others will love you’ line a fallacy;whether it is true or not is completely negligible, because you don’tneed to love yourself, just accept and, perhaps most of all,respect yourself.

Respect your faults and qualities, the time you needto get back up again. Get to know yourself a bit better, enact a bitof harmless selfishness (as in 'I want to see that film in theatresand so I shall, regardless of company’ rather than 'fuck mum and dad,I can spray paint my room and turn up the heavy metal to full volumeif I want to’, mind you), spend time with yourself.

That is, I think, the best and only way to trulyheal. Talk to yourself, listen to yourself. What do you like doing?What are your wants and needs? What are your dreams? What’s yourfavourite smell, food, colour, book, film? Maybe you enjoy walking orswimming or sculpting or meditating or writing. Immerse yourself inyourself. Amidst the chaos of contemporary life, despite thepressures of study or work or peers or family, take a few minutesoff to be with yourself. No, you will not find a void there—and ifyou do, who better to fill it with something nice than you?

You mentioned putting yourself out there, trying toget in touch with other women, but I think sometimes we need to getin touch with ourselves first. And not just when getting over abreak-up or something of the sort, but as much as possible.

It well may be that this is nothing but my own,hyper-individual view on the matter and that many people willdisagree, but, alas, I was the one to answer your question on thisblog today. These are methods by which I have risen again afteradversities of the heart. For we rise again always, Anon. We mustsometimes help ourselves to do it, occupy our hands and muscles andthoughts with something other than our perceived failures, dosomething with ourselves for ourselves rather than for others, wantto be better for ourselves rather than for a partner. In theend, there are few people we can rely on in life apart from thatperson we see in the mirror staring back at us every day.

To finish this (and spare you any more of myphilosophy of life), you will get through this, Anon. It might seemlike a dead end right now, it might seem like you will never leavethis spot of stagnation, but you will. You must want it, as well, ifjust a little bit; be courageous and shed this shell. Breathe. Letyourself be alone for a little while, let it sink in that it did notwork—and that you are not obliged to make anything with anyone elsework at the moment. Focus on you. Find what brings you pleasure anddo not insult your own intelligence and spirit by thinking only shegives you pleasure in life; it isn’t true, not for you, not foranyone. We are made for more than to serve as partners to others,adorable as they might prove to be. If you are currently unable toopen yourself up, then don’t. Don’t go looking for women you’re notyet ready nor willing to bring into your life. Take what you have atthe moment and make the best of it for the time being.

The pressure to find a new girlfriend might even dieout. And that’s a good thing, because we tend to find the mostfantastic and remarkable partners precisely when we aren’tlooking—when we’re ready to live a life with them ratherthan for them, if you know what I mean!

Be patient with yourself and listen to yourself. Bekind. Be to yourself what you’d like others to be. You’ll do just fine.

/Mod T

[goblinlipgloss]

The Bestiary: Strix, Gelloudes, and Strigoi

Settle in, cause this is going to be a long post. We've got a lot to cover here, and it's going to take us from ancient Greece to Romania to early Biblical scholars. Since these creatures are all so related, we just couldn’t justify splitting them into three different posts!

Strix

The strix, a “bird of ill omen” was closely tied to witches and malevolent beings, but whether or not that’s because it was a malevolent being or the familiar of one depends on who you ask. Ovid, Antonius, Pliny the Elder, and even my girl Sappho were just a few to write on the strix, so it’s understandable that the mythology got a bit muddled.

The really early mythology, recorded by Antonius Liberalis, gets confusing. The first strix was Polyphonte, who got on Aphrodite’s bad side and was cursed to lust after a bear. (Look. I don’t know, either. Aphrodite was mean.) From this… er, union… twins were born. They were hulking men who just happened to be cannibals. Zeus, in a strange moment of clarity, decides he doesn’t like them, and sends another god to go and punish them for snacking on innocent travellers. The god sent, Hermes, was going to kill them, but Ares stepped in--the bear men were his great grandchildren, and, well, this is Ares we’re talking about, of course he’d defend cannibals.

Anyway.

Hermes decided that instead of punishing only the twins, he’d take the whole family down with them. He transformed the twins and their mother into birds. Polyphonte got turned into a small owl, which neither ate nor drank normal food. Instead, she spent all that extra free time crying into the dark of the night, which was seen as an ill omen for mankind.

And so Polyphonte was the first strix--or at least, the first recorded usage of the word I could find. She herself has nothing to do with the Labyrinth, so let’s move on.

In Petronius’s Satyricon (1 AD) and Ovid’s Fasti (8 AD), the strix get a little more bloodthirsty. Petronius details the story of the strix (or striges--the words are pretty much interchangeable) carrying away the body of a dead boy after they substituted it with a straw doll. Why a straw doll? I don’t really know--the Satyricon is incomplete, but it sure sounds like something adjacent to a changeling to me.

Ovid described the strix as large-headed birds with grey-white wings and hooked claws, but says himself that he doesn’t know if they were born or transformed by a curse. They were also said to harm or eat humans, infants specifically. He also discusses a more concrete account of a strix attack, in which they attacked Procas in his cradle. The attack was unsuccessful--their screaming alerted a servant, who helped drive them away. It did, however leave him with scars all over his cheeks. Ovid and Petronius both spend a lot of time telling us how evil the strix are, specifically that they’re so evil they specifically attack infants. Pliny the Elder went to far as to suggest that even just saying their name worked as a curse.

...And then you have Horace, who claims that their feathers were used in love potions, so there’s that. Maybe he was an optimist.

But the strix were apparently so evil that medieval sources talked about them too. There’s not much going on here that we haven’t discussed already or that doesn’t get mixed in with Christianity, so I’ll gloss over it a lot. What is important is that John of Damascus equated them with the gelloudes.

Gelloudes

The problem with the gello (singular of gelloudes) is that they already existed in the Greek mythos, and they definitely weren’t the strix. I’m including them here because they were similar and, as we can see, were later conflated with the strix.

The Greeks said that the gelloudes were female demons or revenants. I’m not quite sure if there’s much of a difference in those terms in context, considering this is before the Judeo-Christian concept of a demon.

The gelloudes were notable for killing or abducting newborn babies and virgins--what they did with their abductees, I don’t know. Probably ate them, all things considered. A gello was the “feared bane of children” as far back as 6 BC. By the Byzantine era (~250 AD) they were a class of beings unto themselves, and no longer just female--meaning there could be a male gello, oven if it was considered uncommon.

A gello in both cultures would be blamed for the death of a newborn infant, something we today would attribute to SIDS or other childhood illnesses. These gello-stricken children were known as gillobrota.

Strigoi

The gelloudes were also still discussed in the medieval period and beyond. Later Biblical scholars would discuss their similarities to the strigoi. And speaking of the strigoi���

A strigoi is your OG vampire. Think Nosferatu or Dracula--in fact, the strigoi was one of the inspirations behind Stoker’s Dracula. They were either spirits of the dead rising from their grave or living people with magical properties who just so happened to need to eat other living people. The strigoi were noted to be able to transform themselves into animals (not just bats), be invisible, and drain the vitality from the living through blood loss. Folklorist Wilhelm Schmidt (1865) wrote that the strigoi plagued infants especially, and after the birth of a child, one was to throw a stone over one’s shoulder and say “this into the mouth of the strigoi.” An Authenticated Vampire Story by Franz Hartmann (1909) noted that strigoi were meant to be active in a village in the Carpathian mountains, where they went specifically after children.

So, why Labyrinth?

Well, we've got a creature that through its history has been known to shapeshift--or just generally be an owl--and is known for attacking infants. In the stories, the strix is known to have gone after male infants specifically.

The word strix and the owls themselves are known for their screaming or keening noises, which you can turn into singing, if you feel like it.

I mentioned in a previous post that I think Jareth is a little vampiric, and that explains why I think a strix/strigoi might make a decent fit in Labyrinth lore. Do I think he's going to chow down on Sarah or Toby? No, not particularly. But I do happen to think that in some way he's feeding off of them, or humanity in general. It might not be blood, or flesh, but there are compelling arguments to be made that he's feeding off of Sarah's dreams or imagination. It is because of this that more vampire-adjacent creatures will likely appear in future Bestiary entries.

All of these creatures are heavily tied to magic. Also of note to me is how enduring this creature seems to have been. There are more creatures that I had neither the time nor the space to write about, but I'll mention them below. The creature is very, very old and known to shift over time, so why not bend it a bit to your writing needs?

Further Notes:

Here are some odds and ends that I couldn't fit into the main post but might help you if you decide to use the strix, gello, or strigoi in any future works.

According to Dimitrie Cantemir and Teodor Burada, an encyclopedist and a folklorist in 1882, a person could be born a strigoi under the following conditions: The could be the seventh child of the same gender within a family; be cursed by a witch; die without being married; be executed for perjury; die of suicide; live a life of sin.

"a striga" is the Romanian infinitive for "to scream", which is derived from the Latin "strix" and "striga", the root of which pertains to both owls and blood parasites or diseases.

"Strega" of Italian origin, and "striga" of Venetian origin: both mean "witch."

"Stryge" is a bird-woman who sucks children's blood in French folklore.

Creatures related to the strigoi are the strzyga, a female demon in Slavic (particularly Polish) folklore, the shtriga, a vampiric witch in Albanian folklore, and the shtrigu, her male counterpart.