I’m reading a book called The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture and Psyche by Daniel Deardorff. Though this blog, and this book, aren’t necessarily about “Otherness”, in the sense that they talk about Otherkin and the like, they are about the “Other.”
I am becoming ever more aware of myself as “Other”, even if I don’t identify as ‘kin, and, as such, my path is stretching out, or rather, finally embracing, that “Otherness”, and is becoming a path in which otherness plays an important part.
For those who need a primer on Otherkin, look here:
What Are Otherkin?–by Tirl Windtree
A Day in the Life of Otherkin–by Lupa
or
A Field Guide to Otherkin–by Lupa
Being Other, and being a Poet, go rather hand in hand. For the poets, though a considered part of the structure of the tribe in ancient Ireland, were also necessarily outside of the structure of society. Even kings had to submit to poets. Much of the same issues, as will be seen, occupy the minds of Poets as of Others, and much of their journeys are ritually (or psychologically or spiritually) the same. In a word, Poets are Others.
The other perennial Others, or Outsiders, of Ireland were, of course, the Fiana, the warriors that lived between society and nature. Many Fiana were poets, though not in an official sense.
But one doesn’t need to be official to be a Poet… or Other. And that is the whole point, isn’t it?
Being Other and being depressed have a great deal to do with one another, at least in my own case. Identifying as Other, and as depressed, are stories, in and of themselves, that add a depth and a resonance to the story I live. The same mentality accompanies both of those stories; the mentality of depth, death, betrayal and wounding, exile, loneliness and despair. But within this mentality also lies resurrection, initiation, life, wisdom, change, soul and humanity; the mentality of the essential soul, and the essential self is a mentality of plurality, of liminality and marginality, and the descent into the underworld.
And now, some quotes to ponder:
