The Iron Pentacle is a healing modality from the Feri Tradition of witchcraft that assist the practitioner in recentering oneself. This is my journey through the Iron Pentacle as laid out in the book “The Magick of the Iron Pentacle” by Jane Meredith and Gede Parma. The first exercise is sexual wounding. After creating sacred space, casting a circle, calling on my deities, and lit my God/dess candle from my altar, the process went as follows:

The exercise asks the reader to reflect. This is a gist of what is to be reflected on, paraphrased: Journal on a little about sexual wounding as I see it from a history and social perspective. Do I think people’s experiences and attitudes have changed throughout time? How has society dealt or failed to deal with this? Think for a moment how my parents and grandparents would have dealt with this. Consider different types of sexual wounding – emotional, psychic, and physical. There is more, but this is where my spirit takes me….

What I wrote in reflection – History – slaves were subservient and property, corresponding to man’s greed and inflated ego. Women and even effeminate men were looked at as property or inferior under the construct of the patriarchy. Men ruled by strength and power; those inferior were held in contempt. Contempt leads to disgust which then leads to dehumanization; next perversion sets in as inequality dehumanizes races, women, and even men not measuring up the corrupted society standard, to a point where violations of another’s human body is accepted and permissible, because human desire holds place and power over those considered sub-human (slaves/property, outcasts, marginalized peoples). Response to this is internalized shame and hiding. In a world where heterosexuality is super-normalized and even sanctified due to ignorance of Nature, anything not falling into the constructs of heterosexuality is pushed underground, shamed, and ignored. No voice. A lot has changed, but the travesty against sexuality still exists. Women can vote and hold power, but they are paid less. People of color have to fight beyond the normas of white society to get where they are. Cultures are feared. The LGBTQ+ remains marginalized as we have to power through fear to share our truths and merely exist, instead of walking bedside heterosexuals in peace, harmony, and respect.

In reference to my family going back through history and how they would have handled my sexuality – My sexuality (homosexuality) would have been swept completely under the rug, or I would have been sent to a conversion camp. Whether or not anything would have physically happened, it would have still been demonized. I think supporting that claim is the reality that my confused, scared, inner child chose to remain hidden in silence for so many developmental years, until it was safe to come out; but even then self-knowledge and acceptance was a process for several years.

Under the Christian narrative, I was “abnormal” and an “abomination.” And for the duration of my hiding, sexual escapades, and exploring, giving into my nature and feeling ashamed for it due to that internalized “something is wrong with me”… I thought I might have caused it. Why? Because I like girls (or so I thought I did) up till my first sexual experiences which happened to be with a boy best friend which continued on for a few years. Comparison – he remained “straight” and I was/am “gay” and just didn’t know it at the time. Praying the gay away for years without dare speaking a word of it. But that level of hiding, self-esteem crushing, confidence silencing, was learned by internalizing the patriarchal emotional model of “don’t trust, don’t feel, and keep silent” as exemplified by my father who suffered his own traumas of what his fathers said, didn’t say, did or didn’t do, or weren’t there for. This with my mother driving him and trying to “fix” him in their codependent relationship trickled down to me – a boy living in a Christian world, not knowing I was gay. Hush, hide, and change the abomination in me was a theme of adolescent youth. Courage and confidence were and still are things I struggle with today, though my fears are limited to a few, some silly, but rooted in a damaged inner child. Years of maladjustment naturally led to drowning myself in addiction.

The acknowledgement portion of the exercise – the why. – I’m doing this (this work through the Iron Pentacle) to get back to myself and my truth. To find myself and embrace all the parts of me that were ridiculed and pushed into hiding; to re-empower them, because Something Greater than myself had the faith in me to endure that and the confidence in my gifts and success I have achieved, to hell and back.

In the Iron Pentacle sex is the creation power of the universe. My life has been created in both light and shadow, and I call back the pieces I surrendered to Shadow. I call them back to the Light within the star that I am.

The Process – visiting a trauma and soothing the pain. The original exercise is geared toward sexual trauma, and I adapted it to the hiding of my sexuality for years at a young age. I visited the moments of “praying the gay away,” the secret escapades and exploring, and my moments of being angry at God. I used the chant in the book “My body is my own, beautiful and sacred.” I also adapted the chant into a new one – “My sex is my own, beautiful and sacred,” which I found to be powerful in the process of healing the inner child…

During the process, I went back to childhood, I found him – my inner child, held him, and replayed pivitol moments during those dark ages of sexual growth. As I envisioned all this, I channeled healing energy and placed my healing hands upon the lower portion of my belly (the seat of the inner child – sacral chakra), and I chanted “My body is my own beautiful and sacred” numerous times and also chanted “my sex is my own, beautiful and sacred.” After a while of doing this, and seeing myself in a handful of excluded places, some seedy, I began to see I was just using them, the people I was with. How? Why? The truth was in the hiding. I certainly couldn’t share this love and finding of self with the world, I was “straight!” But nonetheless they were used for the benefit of desire and pleasure; their humanness and personhood never embraced because I was there all the while hiding mine. Very few times was I “truly” with someone and not using them sexually. The word fish love comes to mind – it’s when you love someone because what he or she provides for you and your life; it’s a common misconception to love and what it is. Fish love isn’t true love. I then revisited many of these moments, and my intuition nudged at me to change my chant to “your body is your own, beautiful and sacred; your sex is your own, beautiful and sacred. In those following moments I began to see them as their own sovereign selves, and not just occurrences, or mishaps in my life. I SAW THEM, for in honoring the moments and them, I’m honoring myself for the moments we shared; the energy shifts from objectification to being with the person. I think only once did I ever do that before and I didn’t need a magickal healing modality to provide it; it just came naturally and innocently.

Debriefing in completion – journaling. Going back to that inner child, I examined the turns my life would take. There was love, laughter, and much tragedy. I was neither graceful nor diplomatic in facing the expectations I had of myself, and in response to that (as my inner child emerges to put his 2 cents in) – I raged war! I RAGED WAR! I RAGED WAR!!!!! The exercise mentioned drawing a picture to represent the theme of this exercise. Being rather tired after this exercise, I half-assed it by drawing a stick figured, angry boy with pitch forks in his hands screaming “I raged war!” Due to the exercises content on sexuality and identity, my inner child thought it appropriate to draw rather pronounced genitalia on my angry inner child. It all does in fact look like a 6 year old drew this, and it’s hilarious. Underneath it, I wrote “Angry Inner Child, Beautiful and Sacred, DARE TO RAGE WAR!!!” I think it’s important to add that it’s To Wage War, not rage war. I’m not sure if this is was a mistake in my adult mind, or an anecdote from my inner child. Oh, out of nowhere after doing all this, the words came on their own, out of no where, from my mouth – “My dad sacrificed everything for me.” Which he did. When I came out, he didn’t understand, but he was and is completely supportive of who I am. Even though for a little while my mother said that he didn’t accept it, it didn’t matter, because even if that were true, he put it aside for his love and support of me; and the same goes for my life as a witch. He did in fact go up and beyond his fathers in being a father to me. For that I’m immensely grateful.

Finally – What was discovered during the process wasn’t anticipated. I didn’t expect the empathy and compassion that came through. And I’m grateful for the understanding my inner child and ego are beginning to have.