I learned something adorable from my parents while I was growing up: pets all have their own purpose.

Dogs are for companionship. Cats are for protection.

Most people think it is the other way around. Yes, dogs protect the house while you are away. And yes, even a Chihuahua will try his very best to scare someone off.

My parents’ Chihuahua tried to scare me away from them. I picked him up and told him, “You are here to keep them company and safe. Protecting them is my responsibility. I am their child.”

And somehow, he calmed down.

Maybe that is why no one really knows me. No one ever fully will. People think they do. Maybe they did once. Maybe we were friends. Maybe we share people, places, memories, or pieces of the same past.

But the reality of life is that no one ever completely knows another person.

I could take on the name of the goddess I invoked last night, and some people would hear a flower. Others would hear violence. Neither would be correct. So I will keep using the name I have been using while I continue living in devotion to someone far more powerful than the version of myself I am becoming.

One day, I will write a book about her and her partner. I will write it like it is about me and mine, because when stories about gods and goddesses are told in the first person, people can feel themselves inside them.

My dog tells me who loves animals. He tells me who has gentleness in them. My cat does the same in her own way, though she is still learning. First, she has to figure out how to catch mice. She is still a baby. Her best friend is the dog.

Since the first day of every month feels sacred to me, I knew I needed to do a ritual. This time, I did it with my special friend there to witness it.

He has wanted to see me practice magic, and I have told him before that I do practice magic. It just looks so ordinary that most people would never notice unless I pointed it out.

So this time, I pointed it out.

I slowed down. I showed him every step. I brought his attention to the way I bent backward for my goddess, because I wanted her to know I am in service to her. I fell the first time, and when I saw the scratches, I accepted them as part of the ritual. I gave a few drops back as an offering.

I understand my gods and goddesses in my own way.

I also had two scratch-offs that I used as my financial offering, because I believe you have to give freely what you hope to receive. If I want to become financially free, I have to learn how to release money without fear.

I sang. I danced. I lit candles. I taught someone how I practice magic. I explained my way without needing to over-explain that most of what I know came through intuition.

I know I look silly sometimes.

I also know I am breaking generational trauma. I am trying to heal my own soul. I am trying to become the person I was always meant to become.

If others need to see me as Isis and my best friend as Ra, I am okay with that.

I hope he is okay with it too.

He is such an amazing human.

I still cannot believe we found each other.