About Sex, Gods, and Rock Stars

Del is a shaman, spirit worker, sex/kink educator, professional pervert, and author. He travels around the East Coast teaching classes on all that and more. This blog is his place to discuss these things, as well as kink politics, identity, queer issues, gender identity, and whatever else he thinks fits his intention. He maintains Dying for a Diagnosis as well, a blog dedicated to the his medical/disability journey and the spirituality of illness, death, and dying.

Below is only part of his story. Enjoy.

In 2003, everything changed.

Up until then, I was a gamer geek girl, having lived in and around the Hudson Valley, NY, for most of my life. I was somewhat directionless, working general jobs and hanging out with my friends. I was pretty complacent with life; I didn’t question a whole lot or examine things in any sort of depth. I went with the flow often, and let the waves overwhelm me more than I care to admit.

It’s a long and sordid story that gets us from there to here, but let’s skip to the good parts (like any good piece of fiction). I was lying in my friend’s guest room, working up the desire to kill myself. My life was ending, or at least that’s what I thought. I didn’t necessarily want to die, I just didn’t want the life I had in my hands anymore. I laid there for quite some time, and then I started to hear a familiar yet unidentified voice. He told me that he had plans for me yet, and that now was as good a time as any to get started on those plans. But in order to things to work right, I had to fully surrender this life to him. That is, I would no longer make my own choices in regards to my fate. Everything (and later I learned he meant everything) would be his to control and managed as he saw fit. As I was unsure if I really wanted to die, and I had done a fine job of fucking up my life to this point, I saw no reason to fight it. He told me to do some magicky type stuff, including surrendering my Sacred Name, and thus the contract was set.

He, however, forgot to introduce himself. Oops.

I got up from the bed and wandered over to the computer. I wanted to write an email to a friend about what had just happened, but lacked words that wouldn’t make me sound crazy. In the meantime, some dude I had met via LJ and had chatted with a few times popped on. He lived in Maryland and was a Heathen. I told him about my situation (not about Mr. Takin’ Over, but about my life in general) and he made an odd offer – I could come live in his house until I got a job and got my own digs. He didn’t know me from Adam. I didn’t know him from Jeffery Dahmer. And yet I agreed. And Mr. Takin’ Over said this was the first gift from my surrender.

So that’s the story. I mean, there’s more to it, about how I became a guy, and met some intersex transsexual who changed my life in the best of ways, and became a shaman, and found out who was talking to me, and what I was meant to do with the rest of my life, but that’s the good stuff, and I’ll likely want to blog about it some day.

You can email me at awesome.del@gmail dot com, or you can add me on social media. I am “Del Tashlin” on Facebook, “Wylddelirium” on Twitter, and “Del” on FetLife.