Origin Story: The Coil Of Sihn

Original image from "the-coil.com" The Coil Of Sihn's original website.

The Coil Of Sihn was an idea that Sihn Starr Cartia invented while surviving her traumatic childhood. She suffered seventeen years of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. And was also exploited by her perpetrator in child prostitution and pornography. The central reason besides criminal enterprise for all of this evil? I was born female trapped in a body that did not match, had a CPU that is super smarty and my perpetrator parent was going to destroy all of that. While enduring these traumas, Cartia found respite in music, movies, television shows and especially books. She started reading voraciously at a very young age and was attracted to writers Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Sylvia Plath, Robert Heinlein, Madeleine L'Engle and others who created for the science fiction, fantasy and cyberpunk genres. Cartia kept(and still does) illustrated journals where she documented her trauma and also, her creative ideas, fantasies and dreams. She kept and worked on these journals in secret because of the consequences that would happen if her perpetrator found out. Cartia asked a question to herself, "If the cosmos holds all of us, what holds the cosmos?" From that question, Cartia invented an answer, "Existence holds the

cosmos. Therefore, a system for this existence may or must be in place." She continued to journal and form this idea. Worlds, multiple universes connected by "The Circuit", a race of beings she named "The Sentinels", a conlang known as "Bin'Reh" based upon advanced mathematics and the society of people who care for and form Existence itself. Within this society, there is a place of testing and trial named "The Coil". The Coil is intended to bring into focus the purpose of Existence and connection to one of the "Threads Of Truth", a lineage of Sentinels dedicated to the basic expressions of all that exists. Cartia discovered her future name, Sihn Starr, during these writing sessions which from that point became the central character in the monomyth. Sihn Starr was born to a triad of parents. All three were prominent members of a Thread who's syntax is responsible for exponential multiplication. This syntax of The Bin'Reh was never spoken but, harmonics intoned psychically. A member of Sihn's parental polycule rebelled against a taboo and left to explore a forbidden aspect of Existence, "The Null Of Chaos", a part of Existence where the Life that dwells there has no structure of rational. When Sihn's future parent returned to The Source and the society of Sentinels, they violently raped and tortured the other members of Sihn's polycule. After they were banished to The Null Of Chaos, Sihn's prime mother discovered she was carrying the polycule's child. The remaining parents kept the pregnancy a secret and sensing that the child would be born with Chaos, they used their syntax and a powerful substance, "The Milk Of Creation" to counteract the Chaos their child had absorbed. This mutated the child's body and her capacity to understand all syntaxes within the Threads Of Truth. Sihn Starr was born with skin that would change according to her moods or will. After she was born, Sihn Starr's first words were "Si`ehn, I", the word for "dark singularity". Her body matured at an unnatural rate and her power was dangerously strong, aggressive and chaotic. Upon the confession of the polycule to the ruling council of Sentinels about Sihn's birth, it was decided that Sihn Starr would be placed into The Coil until the age of ascension to prove if she was a member of the Sentinel race and a follower of Life or an abomination and creature of Chaos. When Sentinels are born, they are connected to other Sentinels who are born at the same moment. These connections form a Sentinel's polycule. The ruling council also placed those individuals into The Coil as it was determined that they were affected as well by the Chaos introduced by Sihn Starr's criminal parent. "Sweet cosmos, do ya think they are going to read all of this?", Samantha leans back in her chair with emery board in full skritch. That is Samantha Vail. She is a person who Lives inside my head and has been with me since childhood. She can come off as a bit of a sarcastic smart ass but, Sam is as loyal as a Gamgee to a Baggins. Also, I am not known for brevity. The creation of my reality was taken very seriously when I began it in 1975. I have never shared those writings fully published anywhere. Then, years passed. And in 1998, I found myself back at "Square One". I was in the midst of getting divorced, with a newborn child on my hip, back in my childhood room, with all that I had gathered in my twenty-three years of trying to find my place in this world. I was twenty-eight, heart sick, the revelation of my partner's two year infidelity still smarting my empathic cheeks.

Sihn Starr Cartia, circa 2003

I knew that my only choice and chance to give my child his best Life was to no longer keep my secret. When my criminal parent abandoned my family in 1987 and I graduated from high school, I came out for the first time. I had found community within the Saint Louis BDSM scene. I trained as a domme and was accepted as female. I attempted gender affirming hormone therapy but, I had terrible reactions physically and emotionally to those drugs of the time. I attempted to unalive myself. Thankfully, I failed, even though it would not be my last try.

There is much more story here of those eleven years between. I kept my domme Life separate from my "day job" Life. Went to California for a few years. Until I was forced back to the Midwest, another long story. Back to 1998... With my child, Alexander Rocco, in my arms, I knew that I had to have one Life. No more camouflage. And to use all my creative talents and intellectual powers to generate the income that we needed to have to be comfortably free. Not a Hollywood shill. Not a cellophane person. Not a brand, or a product. Just enough to experience all the joys of this world through the wonder of Alex's eyes. And pay the bills when I got around to it like all good anarcho-punks and goths do. The Coil Of Sihn was already a part of me. So, it seemed like the most logical place to build our starship. The Coil Of Sihn is not a persona, or a band per se, even though it does take on that form when performed live. The Coil Of Sihn is my Life laid bare before an unsympathetic, empathy-less, world of humans. Those who share similar scars and stripes already have build within themselves the receiver for my trans...mission.

Sihn Starr Cartia, circa 2024

At the time of this writing, it is 2025. The Coil Of Sihn has been operating since 2000. Twenty-five years of art, music, writing that will only stop when I take my last breath. Alex left this world on Mother's Day, May 9th, 2021. And from what others have told me, he had a magickal Life in those short twenty-three years. My Grief and my trauma block me from that perspective to agree or feel any sort of pride. The future is uncertain but, I am not going into that future without a fight. One day, I hope, that I will stand before a crowd of tens of thousands. In that moment, I will tell them about Alex. And with this music as the soundtrack, I lead them in a chant and dance that shakes this world as we cry out to the sky, "Alex ROCKS!" loud enough to be heard at the center of the cosmos. Hope and Love are always the best tools to heal, help and hold us together. "So sayeth, The Mxstress...", Sam smiles weeping.