The Origin of Nox
Friday, April 10th, 2015We begin with a brief history – and a little context –
Date: Sunday, March 25, 2007; 2am.
Location: a diner in Bensalem, PA
Scene: Breakfast with a gathering of people I had spent the evening with at a BDSM club. None of the friends I knew well had gone that night so I went by myself, passing time with people I’d just met the week before. For someone with a history of social anxiety, this was a birth, the ensuing conversation was a homecoming:
Lady Dove: So “Nox Amicus” – what does that mean?
Nox: It’s a bastardized Latin, Amicus is friend, Nox is night – so Night Friend. I wanted a name that had weight and depth, but was still sincere. A Friend in the Night fit that.
Lady Dove: So basically “Booty Call”?
Everyone: Laughter, the ice is broken, and I am home.
My self-identity had always been mutable. Who I was had always been dependent on who I was with. What was hidden in my shadows had to remain there. Acknowledging the shadows in my sexuality – hell, acknowledging a sexuality at all – was a major step outside my comfort zone. That summer at Dark Side, and with the friends and lovers of that time, set the stage for who I would evolve into.
Life got in the way – as it often does. Vanilla relationships, career drama, undergrad work, grad school, emotional devastation & breakdown, until finally a dawn of redemption.
During the tumult of 2012-2013, I was walking with a close and spiritual friend who was telling me about her experiences in astral space. She used the phrase “aspect of myself”. Those words stuck with me until they revealed the question ‘if astral space can hold as aspect of the self, then who is the whole self – who am I?’
It was then I realized the answer lay in my Fetlife profile – the first place I felt truly comfortable describing what made me tick. The same friend and I made our way to CatalystCon East in 2014 and I felt like I’d found a community of people who either were, or had been, wrestling with the same issues of self-acceptance that I was. And it was a community I could feel comfortable being myself in.
My goal is for this site to be a place for me to reflect on my healing and self-discovery, including issues of spirituality and sexual freedom.
With regard to our freedom to be who we are, I have always believed that the first battles are fought on the fringes, and when the fringes lose, the battles inevitably move closer to center. Regardless of race, nationality, religious orientation, or sexual identity – there seems to always be a battle to ensure self-expression and self-determination. These battles apply to all of us – we all should have the peace and freedom to simply be who we are.