Intro

I'm Liryen. Although I've been on the very fringes or peripheral edges of this community for some time, it's been a very long time now since I have been "active" in any meaningful sense of the word. Life has been keeping me busy, and my life has also changed a great deal. 

About 15 years ago (!), I was on Tumblr, where I had a personal microblog. Prior to that, I was a semi-regular attendee for several years at the North Houston Otherkin Meetup, and associated gatherings. And even longer ago, I was a member of Yahoo groups like Space Elves. 

Like a lot of people in the Elfae community, I was originally introduced to elves through Tolkien. That makes me feel kind of old now - I remember being 12 years old and playing my CDs of the Two Towers and Fellowship of the Ring soundtracks on my little boombox, before the days of things like iPods, streaming services, or social media. I read a lot of fanfic. I was completely obsessed.

But that was a long time ago. Now the girl is gone, and a woman is in her place, a woman who I've been trying to understand better and develop more. 

In the interim, I did a variety of things - held different jobs, became chronically ill, studied traditional Wicca with a coven. But growing older hasn't made me more certain of what I believe to be true about myself, or the spiritual dimension of life - quite the opposite, in fact. I often feel as if the more I learn, the less I really know. In a way, I have drifted farther from labels, perhaps. 

Is reincarnation really real? I couldn't tell you. Maybe at one time, when I was a very small child, I had some inkling of a time before this life now. But with age, and growing more into this incarnation, I have become more focused on the present. Maybe this lifetime and its tasks are so important for me to focus on, that all of my attention has been brought to this and this alone. 

I have found myself becoming less afraid of the possibility that I could be wrong. That perhaps there is no soul, and no afterlife. Maybe this is all there is, and this is all I am. 

Still, I will always have a place in my heart for the legends of the Elenari, and elvish things...maybe I will find that my interest rekindles someday from a flame to a full, bright fire.