As a Witch who loves to talk about personal gnosis, let’s talk about meeting a godd.
Or at least the way I did.
Or at least a part of the story.
Though an internet search. Sort of like online dating.
Totally unexpected, and yet I realize looking back I called to Her too.
I talk about this in my book about Iris, but I wanted to look at it a little more closely.
Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being an author, it’s that by the time you’re done with writing one book, you realize you should have and could have said so much more.
Finding the Rainbow
What I didn’t know at the time I found Iris (or I didn’t remember) was how I was the rainbow girl as a child. I was the one who wanted to wear all of the colors at once, even though it embarrassed my mother and confused my brothers.
Maybe it was because I wanted to be Claudia from “The Babysitter’s Club” books or I wanted to stand out. Or maybe it was just because I wanted to wear bright colors. Even if they were very bright.
To be fair, my parents were the ones who bought me a fluorescent pink sweatsuit. That I wore ALL THE TIME. With blue shoes. Velcro, of course.
But fashion aside, I remember wanting life to be brighter. Perhaps this was the gray haze of the Midwest that pushed this agenda. Or the way everyone in my classes had those bright had colorful ESPRIT bags.
I wanted to burst into a rainbow.
And I was a writer. The typical story. “Oh, I’ve written since I was young.” I’ve since lost or burned most of those things, so there’s no telling if it was any good. (Likely not.)
I was asked in an interview with Moon Books recently if I’d always thought I’d be a writer. And I said something to the effect that I think it would have been strange if it hadn’t happened. I have truly written for as long as I can remember being able to write.
I wrote dark, afterschool special-like stories. Tales of warnings about fitting in or trying to escape life’s tragedies in unhealthy ways.
Nothing that I’d ever experienced, but things I just knew.
Messages. Messages from the godds.
Like Iris coming down to tell me to share the stories with others.
Like She does.
Getting to Know You, Getting to Know all about You
Fast forward a bit to finding the biggest rainbow falling from the sky behind the first apartment I lived in after moving to California. The BRIGHTEST. I could see every color distinctly. And it almost had a sound it was so large and so steady.
Like a godd yelling at me.
LISTEN UP, YOU.
In the middle of filling out the registration form for Elements of Magick, that rainbow answered the question for me: should I take this class?
Recognizing this might be a sign, I went to the Internet and looked up ‘rainbow’ and ‘goddess.’ After all, there were goddesses for everything else.
And there She was: Iris. All detailed in a short piece on Wikipedia.
From there, I picked up every book I could find that even mentioned Her. And there weren’t a lot of them. There still aren’t.
Being a ‘minor’ deity and figure in Greek mythology will do that, after all.
I found Her on the Internet. And tried to find out more. I asked questions of Her in trance. While aspecting. While walking through my everyday life.
And She arrived in flashes of ideas. In divination. In the way I held and often still hold myself in the world.
How can I be of service?
How can I share with others the messages of the godds?
She lives in me.
And sometimes, that’s all I can know.
And it’s everything.
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Of course, there’s much more I could say. Do you want to hear more?
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ETA: Right as I was finishing this up, a person on the show I was watching said, “Look at the beautiful rainbow!”
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My first class on Iris starts on March 22, via Zoom. Detail and registration are on my website:
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