Tuesday, April 23, 2013

T is for Tyagi and Catherine

My original idea for the letter T was to write about (Pierre) Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), famed philosopher and theologian.  However, aside from having my mind gently expanded by reading a few bits of his writing, I really didn't know too much about him. It was feeling like more and more a chore to compose that post.

So, I didn't.  A week or so ago, I realized that there was a husband and wife pair whom would make a far more exciting subject for this post.  I've had a bit of interaction with them over the years, and I think their stories are completely and utterly charming.

So let me introduce you to Tyagi Morgoth Nagasiva and Catherine Yronwode.  They've been married for 13 years, which is easy to remember because their marriage ceremony straddled the millennial midnight from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000.

I think I've talked a bit about my early introduction to the modern-day occult scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  In short: Usenet!  I was amazed to see that the gathering places for alternate religions (alt.pagan, alt.magick) seemed just as popular as the places devoted to more traditional faiths.  In those early days, you couldn't go far in those circles without encountering Tyagi (who sometimes went by Tagi, Thuyagi, and a few other iterations).  A prolific writer of FAQ (frequently asked questions) documents and a tireless asker of Socratic questions, Tyagi knew how to get to the heart of the matter.  Many of his weird writings are archived online.

He was one of the first to realize, I think, that one can forge deeply personal connections online by being radically open with one's experiences.  We heard about the burgeoning relationship with his Holy Guardian Angel (who often took on the form of Hindu destroyer goddess Kali-Ma).  I also recall a story about a time his bicycle was stolen, and he put a curse on whoever stole it.  However, he asked the spirits that whatever punishment was effected against the thief would also be enacted on him, too.  In the big scheme of things, he thought, that's only fair.

Catherine Yronwode (pronounced "ironwood") has been writing in various counter-cultural venues since the late 1960s -- Rolling Stone, Whole Earth Catalog, etc. -- and since the 1970s has been a major player in the comic book industry.  Always iconoclastic, she famously advocated for the liberated 70s version of Wonder Woman to go back to her more traditional (mythic, yet BDSM-inspired) roots.  I first encountered her writing in the editorial pages of the mid-1980s series Miracleman; she was a co-founder of the indie publisher Eclipse Comics that took on Alan Moore's other controversial deconstruction of the superhero genre.  Those editorials were sometimes simple slices of life -- expressing worries about deadlines getting met, for example -- and sometimes they were venom-filled invectives.  Consistently, they put an intensely personal face on the business of how comics get published.

You see where this is going, of course.  Catherine and Tyagi met online around 1994 (quite early in the history of internet romance, I think) then met in person a few years later.  The rest is history!  :-)

10 comments:

  1. You can always save Pierre for another year.

    Nice post. It would seem they had both already followed very interesting paths before meeting each other.

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    1. Seeing "another year" made my eyes pop out a bit... Not sure if I'll be up for it... :-)

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  2. Interesting. I new of Yronwode from Eclipse, but I didn't know much else about her.

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    1. Going by the internet, she's been quite controversial. I'm just charmed by their story.

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  3. 'Always iconoclastic, she famously advocated for the liberated 70s version of Wonder Woman to go back to her more traditional (mythic, yet BDSM-inspired) roots.'


    Wait, wait, wait, wait. What? What is BDSM? Did I move too quickly and miss something? That is some tiny-ass print in the link you supplied, too. Too early for me to hunch and squint over the screen. Wilt thou elaborate in a thread, here?

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    1. Nothing missed... I was too brief. And yes, I did mean the most common usage of that four-letter acronym.

      Maybe I should have picked Wonder Woman's creator William Moulton Marston as one of my A-Z's of creative weirdness. He certainly applies! There's a lot about his, erm, psychological influences in his wikipedia bio article. For right now, I'll let that do the talking.

      Suffice to say, though, that WW has become much more than what her creator had in mind. Her ongoing evolution in the 60s, 70s, and 80s (only part of which was discussed in Yronwode's article) attests to that. I'll try to find some other articles on this...

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    2. Well, this is upsetting. In the past, I have gotten too furious to formulate an appropriate response. At the moment, I am feeling like I need to take the time to do so.

      Well, I've been sitting for a while typing and deleting so, I don't know what to write, here. But, yes, in the past, I've just let fury and no words be my response because my circuits get scrambled. I do need to, maybe, move through it all with words. It probably won't happen in a comment box in a blog post, though.

      I'm upset enough to take Wonder Woman out of my manuscript, though. Need time to think things through. The Wonder Woman of my youth in the late seventies and early eighties was a Super Friend, so any intimations of those roots were completely absent.

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    3. Oh, of course! The number of people who would see WW and think of her weird 1940s origins is TINY. For all practical purposes, she is 100% Lynda Carter and a super friend.

      Around 1987, the Wonder Woman comic was "rebooted" by George Perez. That iteration, especially the first dozen or so issues, was probably the best -- most honorable, most heroic, best characterized, and most true to the Greek myths -- version out there. I think this paperback collects the ones that I remember, but I can't tell which issues are in there. I'm tempted to box up my copies of the original issues and send them to you, so you can see WW done right.

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    4. I read the reviews in the link you supplied and have to say that my curiosity if piqued.

      One of my granddads had a huge crush on Lynda Carter. :)

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