Higher Power

i've spent much of my life searching for God. i've read about various religions and spiritual paths. i've practiced witchcraft and paganism. i became a militant atheist and anti-Christian for several years, only to become a post-Christian Satanist in my mid-20's. here i am as a member of 12-Step programs, constantly reminded to put my faith into a Higher Power of some kind, "God as I understand God," in order to find recovery. i've written about this before, here:
(an atheist walks out of a bar)

in a 12-Step context, my Higher Power can be anything that isn't me. as a Satanist, i'm expected to celebrate my own divinity and become more like a God every day through self-fulfillment. how am i supposed to balance between making myself my own Higher Power and relying on an outside source of Higher Power? there's a line in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that I often refer to: "With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves."

i have a nuanced take on this, of course. see, i don't believe i am a God. i believe i can be more "like God" by striving to live in a way that my Higher Power would have me be. but that would of course mean that i'd need to believe in, and according to AA, "turn my will and my life over to the care of," a Higher Power. some of you might be thinking, "she's gonna say Satan, isn't she?" well, yes, but actually no. i am going to refer to the figure of Lilith, the First Woman of the Bible (according to Old Testament), before Eve.

Lilith was the first feminist. according to the creation myth, God created Adam from the dirt and Lilith the same, as equals. when Adam insisted Lilith be subservient to him, she forsook the Garden of Eden and left. God cursed her to become a succubus, whereupon she met with the demon Samael and became Mother of Vampires. so where did Eve come from? God put Adam to sleep, used some of his rib marrow, and created Eve. from a scientific standpoint, we can say confidently this was an act of cloning. she would have had the same DNA as Adam, and therefore the same chromosomes (XY), meaning that Eve is Adam's daughter-sister-wife, and a Trans woman. that's just a fun derailment i love to take people on when i talk about Lilith. it's part of the lore!

i see Lilith as a subversive and radical character who sought to assert her bodily autonomy and reclaim her sexual energy. Christian lore would have her demonized (literally), but as a Satanist, this is the ideal icon for me to use as a Higher Power in a 12-Step sense, especially relating to SLAA. i believe that "turning my will and my life over to the care of" Lilith looks like reclaiming what i feel i've lost through trauma and failed relationship attempts of the past. doing so is about embodying the Divine Feminine within me and outside of me. i don't have to worship her in any way, i just acknowledge the Power she instills in me with the belief that her energy and character would want the best for me as one of her children (metaphorically). and i think, for now, that's good enough for me.

Hail Lilith