Family

My family is important to me. Very much so. This is the family of the heart, the ones truly loved.

She's taking her time making up the reasons
To justify all the hurt inside
Guess she knows from the smiles and the look in their eyes
Everyone's got a theory about the bitter one
They're saying, "Mamma never loved her much"
And, "Daddy never keeps in touch
That's why she shies away from human affection."
But somewhere in a private place, she packs her bags for outer space
And now she's waiting for the right kind of pilot to come
And she'll say to him

I would fly to the moon and back if you'll be...
If you'll be my baby
Got a ticket for a world where we belong....

- Savage Garden, "To the Moon & Back"

These are the people who have the right - whether chosen or not - to hold my True Name, which is, to my mind, the reflection of my deepest heart. To certain of the mystically inclined, the Truename is the name to which the soul answers, and the holder of that name holds a great power and a great gift.

I have others who I love, of course, and many of them deeply. But they are preserved, perhaps, from this interior darkness which is my name, and from a little bit of the beauty as well, I imagine. But this key only has a very few copies which I am willing to share.

• Kevin Marsh - Long my love, now my husband, though we have been more and beyond that in our own eyes and the eyes of the gods for some time now. My strength, my heart, my other self. Here is my voice of sanity, the warmth in the darkness, the one who keeps the nightmares of the deepest, harshest parts of my mind from becoming more of a reality than the wraiths that they are.
• Brooks Moses - I can't explain it. But I know it when I see it. For the sake of all the densely packed concepts and things that [may][will][cannot] be, for words and the times that there cannot be words, for gorillas and differential equations, and most of all to faith the wings.
• Jerrod Wiesman - Dear friend, very, beloved. As always, there are few words for those who are loved in a way atypical for the world. Freedom and gentle friendship and so many other things in a complexity beautiful to see. Trust, as well, for two who do not find it readily.
• Ben Stern - first of my brothers of Oath. It truly will be all right in the end. We have been through much together, my brother and I, and I hope that his years are more happy to come than they have been in the past. My strength is his, by gift and by oath, should he need to call upon it.
• Peter Ralph - he to whom I truly owe a large portion of my sanity, and who will forever remain beloved in my heart. Though distance and time separate us, he holds my Name and my feather.
• Marian Collentine - the only other woman I know whose mind works a bit like mine. Ah, for something akin to sanity. Ah, for the chainmail and men in loincloths on leashes....
• Suzanne Kirby Moses - Because this is true, too. And she Understands, and I Understand, and of such Understandings are built great things.