Marrying your Imaginary Friend
Before the Three Kings ceremony in January, I had a chance to sit down with a new initiate who had recently been proposed to by Ogou Feraille (Feray). She was trying to work out what that even looks like, or how one marries a spirit and has a marriage.
“I can only picture it,” she said, “like marrying your imaginary friend.”
Since no one else at the table was married to a spirit, I ended up talking quite a bit about my experiences. I’ve been married to one for several years and I’m about to marry another, and another the year after.
Wife me up, spirits. Wife me all the way up.
I ended up talking to her in metaphor about the experience of being married—of knowing that there’s someone to call when things are rough (or happy), of knowing someone has your back and that your well being is important to someone. Much like a real marriage, this does not mean your actions don’t have consequences. The spirit can and will let you have the fruits of your idiocy. They are not slaves to us, nor do they mindlessly agree with what we do.
Several of papa’s students living here are also married to various spirits. I feel obliged to say that it’s a little different for everyone. I love that I can be disciplined, corrected, and/or disagreed with. I’m not perfect, and I want to know if I’m not behaving right.
She asked about sex, and I laughed. For me at least, it’s a very sexual relationship. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my imaginary friend never managed that.
It comes down, for me, to things better felt than described. How does one feel a spouse?
In the warmth, in the presence, in the wry knowledge of your quirks, in the comments that lie just below the surface of thought like a welling fountain.
It comes down to the look on my spouse’s face in possession, in the way the body that lwa inhabits approaches me, wraps me up and the smile or fierce glare.
The body is really the least important part of that.
I’m not sure she was convinced, but I’m not here to convince people. I’m here to be here.
