Update on my work with Elephant

It's been a while since I've written about my work with Elephant, mainly because there's been nothing to write about. I've been busy reading and researching more about Elephants and their relationship with humans, per Elephant's request. What I've learned, particularly in reading The Astonishing Elephant by Shana Alexander has been really eye opening in terms of how intelligent Elephants are, the uneasy relationship they have with humans, the abuse and poaching, and the uncertain future for elephants. After reading up on Elephant, Monday night I was allowed to take my next step in working with Elephant. I put on a bracelet of elephant hair, given to me by a friend and then meditated with a statue of elephant, which had a similar bracelet place around its neck. The meditation lasted over an hour and involved a long conversation about what I had learned, how it made me feel about Elephant and what my relationship with elephant could possibly be. What I really remember from it was facing the full force of elephant as a being that could easily kill me as a human, and recognizing in that experience a certain awareness that I think many people never experience, namely the recognition that in the right circumstances I could easily be killed by an animal regardless of my "superior" reasoning, etc. In fact, Elephant pointed out that the image that humanity had cultivated for itself has lead to so many of the problems that humanity faces as a result.

I did a similar meditation today and Elephant asked me to wear the bracelet for part of the day.  This time we focused on what we could offer to each other. Elephant pointed out that I could help out by looking into contributing in some form or another to efforts being made to help elephants. In turn Elephant told me that it could help me with some memory and spatial awareness concepts. Wearing the bracelet for a good part of the day was interesting...a distinctly different feeling and energy than my own.

I'm not sure where I'll go with this yet, but I do feel that working with Elephant is providing me some unique experiences for me.

Review of The Astonishing Elephant by Shana Alexander

This was an interesting exploration of the history of the elephant in America, from the circus days to the most recent times. The author also covers the history of the elephant in other cultures and then discusses at length the current fate of the elephant. What surprised me the most was just how violent elephants and humans have been to each other, as well as just how much we don't really know about Elephants. The method of communication that elephants have fror instance is much more sophisticated than many people would attribute to animals.

I found this book to be the most useful in my continued studies of Elephant as a spirit animal to work with. I definitely feel I know more about the issues surround Elephant survival and treatment, than I'd previously known about before I'd read this book.

five out five.

Cultural identity shifts

I talked about family identity and  individual identity patterns in my last post, but in Outliers, Gladwell also discusses cultural patterns and heritage and how it can impact the way people work together, how well they learn particular subjects. Of course this has all been written about elsewhere as well, but the focus in Gladwell's work is particularly relevant to my own identity work, because he discusses how cultural patterns of identity can be shifted by introducing alternate cultural patterns of identity, especially through language. The case study he provides, where Korean pilots were trained to speak English as the first part of a rigorous change in how they flew airplanes is really interesting, because it shows how the introduction of a different language successfully allowed the pilots to, while flying the airplane, get away from cultural memes that actually hindered their communication when flying the planes before. Basically written within any language is the cultural memes that accompany the language. If you want to change those cultural memes, or cultural identity, introducing another language, with its cultural identity can be a useful way to do so. Language is the obvious route for this kind of identity work, but from personal experience, I've also found that studying another culture's practices and integrating those practices (spiritual in my case) into your life can be a useful method of shifting your cultural identity. This is also true with subculture identities as well, and even "class" identities, though social class is just another form of subculture identity. If you can successfully integrate cultural practices from a different subculture identity than your own, you can use those practices to break out of your cultural identities. In fact, I think they could also be useful for helping you break out of family identity patterns. Certainly some of the wealth magic work has involved utilizing different cultural identity patterns from other subcultures outside of the ones I'm familiar with. Those identity patterns have been useful for changing many of my beliefs about finances, networking, small business development etc. Of course by using different cultural identities, I end up assuming those identities...but it's also made it easier to resist family identity patterns that continue to believe in identity structures that are less healthy for my entrepreneurial work.

The cultural identity shift is a larger identity shift, a backdrop against which family and individual identity shifts also occur. They are easier to enact on a personal level than family identity shifts, because they don't have the same type of history on a personal level. But I suspect they can help create momentum to enable family identity shifts as well. Unfortunately to prove some of that would ultimately involve several generations of family after myself and since I don't plan to have kids, it may not be so easily proven. Regardless, I can at least continue to explore how my own integration of entrepreneurial cultural practices as well as Taoist and Buddhist cultural practices contributes to the shifting of identity patterns I desire to change.

Outliers, patterns of success and identity

I'm reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a very interesting book, as all of his books are, and in this particular case has prompted some thoughts on identity, based off of what he's writing about. Outliers are people who are significantly different, in terms of how they succeeded, from the usual cases of success. However, these are not self-made people (if there is such a thing). Rather Gladwell argues that examining their cultural and family background can provide clues as to how these people achieved success. He makes a very convincing case, from what I've read so far, and most importantly shown what I think is another facet of identity in the process. That facet of identity is the cultural and familial models of behavior and practice that inform how a person handles situations that occur in life. These models or patterns of behavior are displayed to a person from early childhood on and they influence how a person makes choices from careers and finances to love and friendship. These patterns can be changed, but changing them involves challenging not just the immediate familial and cultural beliefs and practices, but also a history of them that has influenced previous generations in their choices and actions.

I was reminded of that today, when I was talking with dad about another family member and made the remark that her problems with finances were a direct result of a pattern of belief that a person had to struggle in order to be happy and that she should just focus on her business and not worry about what could happen. My wife, listening to this conversation, accurately pointed out that I participated in this same pattenr of behavior fairly recently myelf...and she's right. And I've been working on changing this pattern, but I realized that this pattern isn't just part of my identity,  but also part of one side of my family's pattern of identity. And that pattern of identity reaches down through the generations to influence the current generation, in this case me. Which isn't to say it can't be changed, because in yet another synchronous conversation with a distant relative I just met today, there was discussion about how a couple of generations ago there was a shift toward getting a college degree by the different members of the family. At some point the gene-erational patterns for the family identity shifted into a different identity for the majority of the family and that pattern is now accepted as something essential to the family identity (if they wouldn't look at it in quite that way).

In Outliers, it's suggested that the identity of success is best realized through patterns of behavior that encourage that identity in the overall family. I would posit that this also applies to other patterns of behavior exhibited in a family and that the sense of identity a person cultivates is partially informed by the family identities that s/he is a part of. When a person wants to change his/her identity, change a pattern of identity/behavior s/he probably does need to account for the weight of the family identity and how it will either provide momentum or resistance to the change. For example, my desire to change my financial patterns and identity is an ongoing process of not only changing that part of my identity in myself, but also starting to change that identity within my family's identity of it (or at least one side of my family). Indeed, I would suspect that for my change in identity to be fully successful, it could be useful to interact with the spirits of my family and show them the benefit of that change, so that they could retroactively start the change in previous generations, providing more momentum behind the changes of identity I'm currently engaged in. Hmmm...now there's an idea for an experiment. I need to give it a try and see what happens.

A review of the Art of Magic series

I haven't written much on here lately, other than my most recent emptiness working posting. Life has been fairly busy, in a good way, with my business. A lot of my my efforts, magical and otherwise are going toward creating and sustaining my business, and the rest is going to the emptiness working, with a few parcels going to projects as and when I can get to them. Today I thought I'd provide a commentary on a series of videos I found on youtube about the art of magic. First a couple of links:

Lupa's article for the wild hunt blog, focuses on community building and hyper individuation.

A Facing North review of Pop Culture Magick.

And now on to the show:

There's a series of videos on youtube that I came across because someone in my twitter list happened to mention a video that focused on defining magic. I was curious and decided to check it out. Needless to say what I found was a series of videos that wasn't all that good because of how narrow the focus was and how sensationalistic the examples were.

The narrator of the video only used Crowley's definition for magic and applied only a psychological approach to magic, claiming at various times that magic wasn't supernatural. Whenever she talked about sex magic, she talked about how Crowley did sex magic as well as Anton Lavey, i.e. Satanists, but didn't focus on any other perspectives or approaches to sex magic. Her examples of magic usually focused on people trying to get laid or or trying to harm someone, essentially advocating an unethical approach to magic, without any real consideration on possible consequences or demonstration of whether magic can be used for anything beyond self-gratification. She also claimed that what the bleep do we know and the secret are examples of magic.

In the end I was decidedly unimpressed by this series of videos. Relying on on only one definition of magic and the psychological model of magic as well as a variety of poor examples, all it really portrayed was a lot of negative stereotypes about magic, and a rather simplistic understanding of how it worked. The lack of awareness about consequences, as well as narrowly exploring magic shows an unsophisticated awareness of the principles that inform magic, and also rather casually discarded alternative perspectives, cultural systems, and processes for how magic works.

Element Emptiness Month 9: Craving and Desire pt. 2

6-19-09 I'm feeling out of sorts today. This is one of those days where there's missed connections, where everything feels slightly off. It's a day where I feel the craving to be filled a bit more sharply. A day where nothing I do really satisfies and underlying everything is a feeling of loss. I hate those days. They don't happen often, but when they do occur, no matter what I do that day, it feels like nothing got done. Sad though, measuring the day by what got done or didn't...yet I do it all the time. There can be benefits for doing it, but is that really the only way I find worth? 6-22-09 Envy is one of the shadows of desire. Feeling envy is like feeling pointy, sharp knives being stabbed into you...Each stab is a fresh reminder of the pain you feel. Just one of those nights.

6-27-09 I'm alone this weekend. My wife is off with her boyfriend and I have our home to myself. In someways, though, I've felt fairly alone lately, because the emptiness working is intensifying and I've also been letting go of a lot of my cravings when it comes to wanting other relationships...letting go, but also feeling.

It is the act of feeling which allows for the letting go. I've never realized as much as I do now how much I sometimes have found value in myself through the relationships I have with others. I think some of that can be healthy, but can get unhealthy if the value is only because of those relationships.

I want to be involved with someone new...be dating someone...and I acknowledge that. But I also accept that if and when it happens, it will occur because it's the right moment...which doesn't mean I'm not looking...just means I'm less frantic about it.

And more appreciative of the relationships I do have with wife, family, and friends. It's wonderful to have people hwo genuinely care about you and love you and want you in their lives. I appreciate that more than ever because having those relationships is what's helping me get through this emptiness working.

6-29-09 As I've continued doing this emptiness working, something which has come into my consciousness more has been an awareness of other peoples' emptiness. It's consequently made me more aware of what I am comfortable dealing with and what I'm not comfortable dealing with. I think every person has some degree of emptiness in them and I think it's not unhealthy to have it, but how it's expressed can be unhealthy. When I'm around someone and that person wants something from me, in a way that tries to fill that person up, I know it's a case of trying to fill up the emptiness. In some ways, it's a kind of psychic vampirism. And until people get comfortable with their emptiness, and understand how they are reacting to it, it will cause them to act out in ways that involve trying to fill themselves up. I know this, because it's been that way with me, most of my life. Only recently have I come to a place where I'm not acting out that emptiness...but because I'm aware of that emptiness in myself, I can also feel it in others, and see it in the behaviors they exhibit.

7-01-09 Sometimes an event will occur, which triggers issues for me from the past. Frex I give someone a gift and that person doesn't exhibit as much enthusiasm or interest in said gift as I hoped (expected) s/he would. On the one hand, Lupa's pointed out that I tend to build up some expectations as to how someone will act when I give that person something. And there's some truth to her observation. I do sometimes build up an expectation on how I think someone will act or react to something I do and that can lead to disappointment and isn't fair to the person either.

But in thinking about it, the root of this issue is in feelings of neglect. My honest feeling wasn't so much disappointment, as a feeling of neglect, of not being noticeable enough, worth enough to be shown consideration to. And yes that issue can lead to high expectations, but when I trace it back to myp ast, I trace it to my childhood, where I was essentially an indentured servant. I was expected to do a lot of chores, and was rarely, if at all thanked for what I did. In fact, I was usually only acknowledged when I did something bad. Everything good I did wasn't worth noticing or paying attention to. And sometimes...I still feel that way. Now, that isn't the fault of anyone I know. It's my issue to deal wih, my issue to own, but part of owning it is acknowledging it, being honest about it, and recognizing what triggers it. And also recognizing what I need to do, to decondition that trigger.

7-3-09 I recently added a new business to my entrepreneurial gig and in the midst of doing that got some real gems for my emptiness work: Humility is believing in yourself and in abundance. It's believing you have everything in the world to offer and also believing that everyone else does too." It's an interesting definition of humility, and one I find compelling. And what does it have to with emptiness...Simply recognizing that everyone does have something to offer. It's a shift in thinking that focuses on recognizing the value that each person has. And for me, this is a shift which has been occurring for a while, since the advent of my entreprenurial focus. And when I've come to this view, it's changed some of my feelings about emptiness, because I recognize more and more what it has to offer to me as well.

7-03-09 There are times where I still find myself struggling with being completely open and upfront. I want to be open...but there's also that part, which doesn't want to be open. That part is the part that learned early on that being open was a bad idea, that it would be used against me.  And rationally I know I'm not in that place anymore...I'm not that child anymore, but emotionally my issues with the authority that someone could have with my life is one that makes me feel uneasy. That uneasiness brings its own contributions to how I handle situations where I want something, but might have to get someone else's approval to get it. Sometimes I really have to muster up my courage to bring something up, because of that uneasiness. It's gotten easier to deal with over the last year, but its still something I have trouble with occasionally.

7-06-09 This month so far has been quieter than all the other months. Sure some stuff has come up, and there is still an awareness of emptiness, but at the same time there's also a quietness, a kind of calmness...and not the calmness before a storm, but more like a calm centeredness of knowing myself and knowing emptiness and feeling collected and grounded with both.

7-10-09 Sometimes I will catch myself in a stream of thought that is focused around desire and in that moment acknowledge just how much that desire occupies my thoughts. It's useful for recognizing just how much I want something, as well as asking whether that focus is really helping or not. It's showing me as well the place desire has in my internal landscape, and now I'm learning how to sit with that comfortably. It's not always easy, because sometimes I feel overwhelmed by how much my thoughts can sometimes go toward desire, but learning to sit with it is teaching me a lot about how I feel when I feel desire and can't act on it. I'm seeing what underlies desire, which sometimes is a feeling of emptiness and fear, and sometimes is a desire to connect.

Some further realizations. Some of my desires deal with taboo, the desire to do something forbidden. When I thought about that and traced it back, I found the root, of course, in my past. Because I lived in a very disciplined household, one of the things I did to get power in those situations was to go behind my parents back and to lie to them. If I could get away with something, I took it as a triumph. And I see that same behavior in my life, over and over again through my twenties, and to a lesser degree my early thirties. Never mind that the root situation is gone...there's still this desire to do something forbidden, and the pleasure of getting away with it. I'm not acting on that desire now, but it doesn't mean I don't have fantasies about it. Today when I had such a fantasy, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, sitting with it, and figuring out where the desire originated from. And having done that, I can say that it makes a lot of sense to me, but it's no longer needed. I'm not in a situation where I'm dealing with some authority over me restricting me from enjoying what I like. I'm in a situation where I have that authority and ultimately responsibility for what I do. Needless to say, that gives me a lot of incentive to continue working on this stuff, instead of acting out on it.

7-12-09 I've been re-reading Epstein's works on Buddhism and psychotherapy. Seemed appropriate for the emptiness working. In one of the books, Epstein talks about realizing that the pain, anger etc., isn't something you can remove, that instead you've got to sit with it and work through it. The same is true of desire. You can't remove it, and you do need to work through it. It's something which needs to be experienced, but in a manner that allows you to know that you are truly at peace with how it makes you feel. You can't eliminate the emptiness, the desire, the anger, because it's something which is part of you. We treat it as the other, because we don't want to deal with it. But it's only in sitting with those feelings, that we can find peace with them.

7-13-09 I am simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable with my desires. I am comfortable in the moments I express them, but uncomfortable with having them...and it's fairly easy for me to figure out the root and where it all came from...but sitting with it and being present with is something else I'm still learning to do.

7-17-09 Sitting with my desires today, I realized just how important it is sit with them and be silent in that sitting. And by silence, I don't mean not talking, so much as I mean really listening. I still don't feel any more comfortable with it, but I do feel like I'm finally ready to listen as opposed to frenetically acting.

First part of a new time magic experiment

It's nothing too glamorous though. I looked through the Goetia and found each Goetic Daimon that has some relationship to time magic. I've already been working with Purson for a while, but I thought it might be useful to expand my horizons and work with other goetia that focus on time work as well. My first step was simply to read up on them, and then transcribe their seals onto pieces of paper. After that was done, I put them in my memory box. Later on this week, with the help of Purson, I'll start making contact and see what develops from there.

The act of transcription is the first connection, the first interaction. It's not very overt or dramatic, but it is focused and it serves as a knock on the door as it were.

Changes in identity

So as some of you may know, my next solo work is focusing on the concept of identity and how it fits into magic. It's rather fitting then that the last year and 3/4ths has been focused on changing my own identity in a variety of different contexts from my relationships with lovers and friends, to my relationship with my self, and how I've chosen to engage in meaningful activities that allow me to fully live, as opposed to just getting by. To me, success in magic is driven far more by a targeted proactive approach toward manifesting the kind of person you want to be, and much less toward obtaining specific results for specific situations. At one time, for most of my magical career it was the latter paradigm that I was focused on. It was a reactive approach I took, and I sometimes didn't understand why I needed to do it so much.

I think that as a person consciously changes his/her identity and figures out what s/he wants, the less there is a need for reactive acts of magic. Magic becomes a process, as opposed to an act. It becomes a way of life as opposed to a tool used to handle a situation. It becomes a conscious agreement with the universe about the pathv a person is taking through the universe, and becomes less of a stumbling around in the dark.

Of course that's my take on magic, in large part generated by very specific and targeted changes in my life, lifestyle choices, and overall focus. The change in my identity has so far been one of the most involved experiments I've done and has pretty much involved challenging every single assumption I've held about not only magic but all the other facets of my life. The uprooting it's caused in my life has been significant and yet that significance is based far more in taking such a proactive approach to identity, by recognizing what no longer worked and actively focusing on changing it, while discovering what definitely works and enhancing it.

When I finally get around to writing my next solo book, it will be interesting to see what I do with it...but I'm in no hurry on this one. I've already got so much going on and it's far more exciting to be living it.

An art recommendation and a minor update on my work with elephant

Check out Acrylick Alchemy. It's really fantastic, magical art by gifted artist and occultist Acrylick. I've liked her art from the beginning. I find to be very evocative. You can tell she's tapped into the spirit of what she is working with. I've sometimes felt that the paintings could come alive... I haven't posted an update on my work with elephant, mainly because I'm still doing some reading and research about the elephant. Here's a review of one of the books I just finished. I'll note that doing the research is really helping me understand more about elephants and will be helpful when I begin doing more work with elephant.

Book Review: The Life and Lore of the Elephant

This was a relatively quick read, which managed to succinctly speak to the history of the relationship between elephants and humans. I found it to be  a useful book in deepening my understanding of how elephants have been treated by humans. Overall a very informative read. I particularly liked the inclusion of the historical documents.

4 out of 5 elephants

Time Experiments, Ethics part 2

On Friday, my group and I did some work with time magic. The first two experiments we did were based off of Jean Houston's book The Possible Human. We did one experiment, where we would experience our consciousness as a unit of time, such as a second, minute, year, 100 years etc. Eventually you lose track of the units of time and enter into a non-linear state of experience with time. Each of us who did this exercise experienced a very similar state of mind.

The second experiment was one where we worked with three segments of time on a yardstick, as it were, but altered which segment of time (past, present, or future) was more prevalent during the meditation. It was an interesting experiment, again because of the state of mind it put us in, moving us out of a linear state of mind and into a non-linear state of mind.

Both of these exercises are useful ones to do, to put you into a very receptive state of mind for doing time magic. They don't take very long to do, but they condition your mind to push itself outside of the constraints of linear time.

The final exercise was done with the Goetic Daimon Purson. In the mythology I've created around my own use of time magic, Purson is a guide on the silver strands of time. I introduced him to my group last night, partially as a way of thanking him for his services and patronage and partially as a way of helping the people I work with learn a bit more about my own approaches to time magic. We used the tesseract board to evoke him and my experience with was of two trees twisted together. I thought that rather odd until late that evening, I came across Ipos, another Goetic Daemon of time...so I'll be contacting him soon.

So an update on the Ethics book. I've started working on chapter one and it's coming together nicely. I got some responses on the first post, both from commenters on this blog and from a blog entry by Augogeides along the lines of arguing that magic is a technology and puzzlement that there's a need to write about ethics as it pertains to occult culture. It was also argued that ethics as they applied to magic boiled down to being able to determine if an action was ethical or not, regardless of whether it was a magical action or a non-magical action. That's the gist of it, or at least what I got from what was said.

When I talk about ethics and magic, I'm talking about taking a proactive approach to ethics, which incorporates practical magical techniques into how one approaches ethics in his/her life. However, I don't think merely determining if an action is ethical or non-ethical, and then making your choice to follow through on that action or not, is really ethics...or rather I think of that as reactive or cover your ass ethics, ethics utilized as a way of making sure you aren't doing anything wrong (or aren't getting caught). I don't really think of that as a useful approach to integrating ethics into one's life because it doesn't make ethics part of your life process and growth. Instead it's just a convenient code to check on occasionally to make sure you are in the clear. I have a lot more to say about this, but I'll save it for the book. Suffice to say my and Vince's approach and outlook on ethics and their role/integration in magic is decidely different from what I've usually encountered in the occult community.

Book Review: The Evolving Self by Mihayli Csikzentmihayli

I wish I could say this book really represented an evolution in psychology or how we conceive of the self, but the truth is, it really doesn't. If you read this author's other works, then this work can be thought of as half a step beyond those works. At times the author is judgmental, condescending, and whiny, and he doesn't offer much in the way of a concrete definition of self. The final few chapters predictably focus on flow, but don't  provide anything significantly new to the theory that he hasn't offered anywhere else.

Two out of five

Elemental Emptiness Month 8: Craving and Desire pt. 1

5-18-09 I think sometimes what I find so difficult about desire is that desire brings some sense of vulnerability with it. I can express a desire, but that expression leaves me vulnerable. And sometimes the expression has left me in places where I've felt very...hung out to dry. I've expressed interest and then been left dangling, wondering what happened when I don't get a response. And some of that is ultimately on me and how I express desire, but nonetheless the vulnerability that arises with all of that is something I've never sat with or really spent time being around. It's an interesting insight for me to realize.

5-19-09 Therapy does a wonderful job of getting right to the heart of the matter for me, with the fear I've been feeling about my desire. Well several of them. One realization being that some of the ways I act out omy desire is useful because it removes the element of rejection. No one likes rejection, so how handy is it to just not have that included...problem is fantasy land is not the real thing, and rejection is a real part of life. Realization #2, the much bigger realization really is what I'm really afraid of: I realize that almost every single interaction in my life has involved, to some degree, the attempt to fill myself up. My desire has ultimately been based around filling up my emptiness. And what's so scary is that when you realize that's what that is, you second guess every relationship you've had and even have now.

"We are what we repeatedly do." Aristotle. So what am I? Am I just some kind of vampire just trying to get whatever I can from anything and everything. Feels that way today. I feel ashamed of how much my desire for any kind of interaction seems to based on trying to escape how empty I feel. And also just how much I've objectified myself and other people in that process due to what I might consider to be very primal urges. It's pretty sad to think that most of the interactions I've had haven't come from a place of genuine connection, so much as from a place of wanting to get something from other people. Sure, I can be generous, but still how much of even that is genuine? That's the kind of questions I've had to ask myself when it comes to this emptiness working. Everything I don't like about myself stands revealed, and since a lot of what I don't like about myself is actually tied to my desires, it hits home even more, even as part of me wants to run screaming for the hills, or indulge in those same desires, to escape for even a few moments, from what I see about myself. Yet, it is my choice if I do walk away or indulge and the consequences are also mine, and before I wouldn't have looked at that reality. But in looking at it, I have another choice. I can deal with how I'm feeling in this moment, really sit with this part of me, my shadow self, and all the feelings it brings up, and try to see it for what it is...not some terrifying monster, but rather it's a part of me, which I've repressed and tried to ignore as best I could. When I shine the light on it...I see a person who just wants some comfort and love. And no one else can give to him.

5-20-09 I woke up this morning so horny, so hungry, so empty...I feel it even now.  It would be so easy to act on the impulse, but instead I'm just sitting with it. It's not easy to sit with it. And this isn't a case where sleeping with one of my partners would help, because it's really a case of wanting to find someone new and have some casual objectifying sex with that person. It doesn't mean I'll act on it, but there are days where it is really hard to not act on it. I want to dive into the anonymity of the sexual interaction...have sex, and then leave the person behind, never seeing that person again, and knowing that for a few moments that person fulfilled my emptiness and also ended up being one less person to sleep with. It's a fairly crass way to state all that, but some days it is how I feel. And the reality of it is that I really just want that person to somehow fill me up, to somehow complete me, but there is no completion, no filling up, no cessation of emptiness. I know this. And that is why I'm sitting with this feeling and talking with it, because acting on it hasn't met my underlying need...it's just caused more suffering.

5-25-09 Last few days I've been at Heartland, and it provided me a really good opportunity to sit with my desire, and really be conscious of what informed that desire, whether it was emptiness, a genuine desire to connect, or something else. I didn't find myself attracted to each and every person, but that's been true for the last six or so months...I did feel desire for a few different people, but I didn't do much to pursue it, and in fact opted, for the most part, to just chat and enjoy their company without looking for more. There was one person I was rather drawn to and I decided to trust in that feeling. We didn't sleep together, but we ended up chatting a lot and what it really helped me with, was just being comfortable feeling a fairly intense amount of desire for this person, expressing it even, but not having to fully act on it. I'd have acted on it, I'll admit, but it wasn't the right time and place and I accepted that. It was more...fun to not act on the desire immediately and just talk. I don't know if I will hear from this person or not, but even if I don't, I know I've been fortunate to have this encounter, for it placed me in a situation where I could really be present with my desire for someone and explore that desire at some length. And it was good to find myself not feeling a need to fill myself up. I'm very comfortable with feeling desire and knowing it can actually be about something other than trying to fill myself up. It was also nice to get confirmation from some old friends that yes indeed I have changed a lot, in a really positive direction.

05-27-09 While I was away on my trip, I was reading Mapping the Dharma by Paul Gerhards and he offered a gem of insight that I found useful in my work with emptiness: "Craving causes suffering because with craving comes attachment. The very nature of attachment is the inability to let go, which creates tension because of our desire to keep things from changing" When I read that statement, it crystallized so much of my issues with desire...the attachment to certain expectations, and out comes, which consequently created a lot of suffering for myself and others. My craving to have those outcomes met, and yet if they were met, the inability of that result to satisfy the craving...the attachment created an illusion of something I couldn't see through, which nonetheless held me back.

5-29-09 Desire ideally never compromises my sense of self-esteem. If it does compromise that, then I've become a slave to desire. I realized this earlier today, when I contemplated incidents of passive aggressive behavior and saw in that behavior an inability to clearly express how the person felt, without having to attack me on a personal level. Not the kind of energy I want in my life. I realized that allowing that kind of energy in my life was harmful. And when a desire is associated with someone who exhibits that behavior, it can become a choice of still seeking that desire and also dealing with the negative effects of the passive aggression, or it can be letting go of that desire but also the passive aggressiveness. The latter choice, while depriving a person of the fulfillment of the desire, nonetheless also frees one from being put in situations that are degrading to one's sense of self. An interesting lesson about desire is recognizing when you compromise yourself to fulfill a desire.

6-01-09 In talking matters over in therapy today, what I really came away with is that feeling desire is fine, having strategies to explore your desire is good, but letting your desire turn into craving is when addiction sets in. At the same time, learning to be comfortable with my desire, really comfortable with what it is, and how often I might wish to experience and explore those desires is equally important. I've not always been comfortable with my desires, despite acting on them...only now, am I really starting to get more comfortable with them.

6-05-09 Last night I went out dancing at a goth club. While there, I was aware of a familiar feeling of craving. I say craving, because it wasn't just a feeling of desire, but rather clinging to an attachment, to an expectation. I recognized it for what it was, and instead of acting on it, I paid attention to the feeling and acknowledged that it was an attempt to fill something up. The more I spend time in these situations being present with the emotions and feelings, which arise, the more aware I am of when it's a situation where I'm clinging to an attachment, versus a genuine appreciation of the desire I'm feeling at the time.

6-06-09 I got into some interesting headspaces sometimes and tonight was one where I was fairly submissive and quiet...and feeling a bit lonely for part of the evening. Actually I felt it earlier today. Some of it I think is a reaction to having broken up with someone I was seeing until last week, and some of it is also a kind of craving of some sorts, which I recognize for what it is: I want to feel whole, because of the hole...but I also know there's no one who can make me feel that way, except maybe myself It's a feeling which is faint. It's not an active hunger like it was before. And some what I feel is just genuine desire...like earlier today, where I was spending some time with a friend I care for and really appreciated her presence.

6-08-09  In re-reading Open to Desire, I'm struck by a tale the author tells about trying to close the distance between himself and his wife, and then realizing that in doing so he wasn't appreciating the intimacy of the distance between himself and his wife. I feel like I haven't really appreciated that either, in any of my relationships. I've learned to be better about giving space, but appreciating it? Sometimes I've been so intent on filling up my life with something, I haven't really appreciated the moment for what is, or the emptiness in that moment. And sometimes it's really eaten at me, because I've been too focused on trying to fill something up, that it's become a moment of craving. The author notes that a person's tendency when filled with craving, is to try and fix something, to try and somehow make it all fill up...yet if anything in those moments, all I feel is a kind of desperate weakness. That weakness is so hard to feel...I want to be strong, but strength doesn't necessarily involve beating something down or not feeling something. Strength, many times, is really feeling that weakness and acknowledging it as something that needs to be felt. I just wish it wasn't so hard to do.

6-09-09 There is something powerful about vocalizing feelings of vulnerability, anger, fear, etc., to someone, and knowing that person will listen and hold sacred space. with you. It's a shared power, a place of mutual connection that provides both or more people mutual resolution and satisfaction, or at least that's how it felt to me today, when I spoke to Lupa about my feelings of vulnerability about sharing my desire for her, with her. It was good to get some stuff said that I haven't said before, but what was even better was her willingness to really listen to what I had to say. That kind of support is priceless.

6-10-09 I had a dream of an ex-lover this morning, I was in a classroom and there was a TV. It turned on and showed her doing some of her different routines and I felt a wave of sadness go through me. It's been a long time since I've thought about her I wish her well, and I recognize wouldn't be where I am if she hadn't acted as a catalyst in my life.

6-13-09 There are some days when I feel so depressed, so empty, so filled with craving, and question what the hell I was thinking when I decided to do this working. There are days when I don't feel connected to anyone, or to the magic, and I feel so low energy, more low energy than I've ever felt. I've had a few of those moments today, and over the last couple of weeks. Desire and craving are hard issues for me, hard places to be with myself...I think the hardest I've encountered this entire working, and certainly the deepest of my core issues. I was told about a year ago that if I chose one path and became the messenger of a goddess that I would be filled with the essence of that goddess...but somehow I think even if I'd gone down that path, all of this still would be here to deal with.

As is I took the other choice, the other path, and was told there's rotting on that path...and then I took that particular prophecy and purposely fulfilled it by doing this emptiness working. If I was going to rot, I was going to do it on my terms. And you know...yeah I am dealing with my rot. I'm sitting in my shit, dealing with my issues, my dysfunctions, owning them, embracing them, understanding them, communicating them.

And it's not easy...it's so hard sometimes to do this working with emptiness. It's so hard to face my weaknesses and really see them for what they are and how they have pervaded my life and my choices. So I'm rotting...and somehow through all that rotting, I'm being stripped away of so many illusions. And what's left...whatever's left, when all this is through...it's the divine in me...it's the HGA, the all in one and one in all.

On the other hand...I've never felt more confident or more sure of myself in my life. And for the first time in three years, I'm feeling productive and wanting to write...really write. So I'm rotting...being stripped of whatever, but I'm also starting to see something underneath that rot. Just got to be patient and keep digging through the putrefaction.

6-14-09 I met a person I've been wanting to meet for a while and got to talk with her at some length yesterday. Last night, I took a purification bath and while in that bath was able to work through some blockages that came up while doing an exercise that the person taught at the workshop I attended. And I realized that I envied this person a bit. I envied her stillness, her centeredness. I felt scattered compared to this person (and in some ways I am scattered right now). And then I stopped myself and recognized that there was no need for comparison...That being so self-conscious really just showed me some places to keep working on in my life.

I also came up against the theme of respect and being desired. I want to be respected. I want to be desired. These are feelings I've had a long time, arising I realized out of never being a popular kid. I see someone else who is "popular" and I want what that person has. It was rather charged for me, this feeling, this recognition of wanting to be desired and respected. It's the wanting to be seen. And I went underneath it to the need and what I got was, I want to be accepted. And yeah that makes sense. Amazing how meeting someone can open you up to some issues in you, if you are receptive to realizing those issues.

6-16-09 Therapy highlighted to me how much progress I've made in this year's working. The therapist noted that pretty much every tool had come from me for dealing with situations. That was good to hear. Next week is my last session for at least a month as my therapist is about to give birth to a child. It will be a good litmus test for me in terms of seeing how I do with what I've learned from here out. I'm still doing a lot of work with desire and craving, but I also feel that I have some tools I can use to come to a better place with those emotions in my life.

Further thoughts on clothing and magic

Since my earlier post on clothing and magic, I've been doing some further thinking about it, and considering just how much the act of getting ready for the day can be incorporated into a purposeful ritual that allows a person to invoke a persona that enables him/her to go into the day's encounters and succeed. I've mentioned clothing of course, but even other acts such as putting on makeup, or deodorant, or shaving, tying hair back or otherwise prepping for the day can be construed as part of the magical act of creating the persona. Each action can be perceived as putting on part of the costume or ritual garb, which allows the person to assume the persona of a business person, entrepreneur, or whatever it is s/he needs to be in the moment.

For myself the various activities I do to get ready for my day have become ritualized. Putting on the business shirt and buttoning it, and then tucking it it into the business slacks and tying m hair back, before putting on the business coat and shoes and socks has become a ritual I use to put myself into the right mindset I need for public speaking, visiting with a client, and otherwise assuming the persona or godform of the successful entrepreneur. It's lead to some other results as well, which has been useful on other levels of my life.

Part of my fascination with this topic is born out of my recent decision to dive back into ceremonial magic further, albeit my own brand of ceremonial magic. If I can use my flair for outfits and fashion choices as magical act, it turns that into another tool and/or medium to exert my presence on a metaphysical front, as well as physical and mental front.

I'm even fascinated of late with the jewelry that one can wear. Putting a ring on can have symbolic importance, but having gotten some finger talons recently, it's been quite fascinating to not only feel a physical difference when wearing them, but to also note the change in mindset while wearing them. It speaks to a subtle shift that I think occurs far more often than many of us might realize, when it comes to what we wear and how it prepares us for social situations, but also how we can proactively utilize principles of magical invocation to create personas, which can adeptly navigate those social situations and create more favorable situations in the future.

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I'll actually be attending a talk by Thorn later this week at the Sekhem Maat lodge, on embracing the I am of selfhood, so this review is timely. Should be interesting.

Book Review: Kissing the Limitless by T. Thorn Coyle

This is one of those rare reviews where I would have to say that this book is an essential read for today's occultist. Taking a mystic's perspective to magic and it's integration into our lives, Coyle provides a model of attaining mindful awareness that isn't newagey and is something the occult culture sorely needs. She explores in depth the value of internal work and provides exercises that the reader can use to get in touch with his/her higher self. This book is a guide to internal work and what is refreshing about it is that it's written from a Western tradition of magical practice. Definitely put this book on your must read list this year.

five mystic sages out of five

Ethics and magic Pt the one

I've recently started work on another co-written book project, since the project with Bill W is temporarily at a lull and I've been meaning to get started on this new project for a while anyway. This new project is an interesting one for me as it deals primarily with ethics and magic. I'm working on the first chapter and poring over the very few books I know of that deal with questions of ethics and magic (including your work Gerald) to any degree of length. It's rather odd to realize just how few books there are on ethics and magic, and to note as well that most of what I have come across is rooted from a Wiccan perspective on ethics. I've found a couple other works that deal with ethics and magic from other perspectives, but the majority of western occult texts mainly seem to deal with practical applications of magic, with little concern as to the ethical ramifications of said practices. Chaos magic tends to take a fuck off attitude to ethics and magic, and a lot of ceremonial magic seems to be far more concerned with pomp and pageantry than examining the ethical underpinnings of what's being done by who. Even where I have found some focus on ethics, it's been written in a rather vague way, which speaks to a decision to abstract the issues, as opposed to dealing with them concretely.  It confirms quite a bit to me, in terms of some of the concerns I have about the occult subculture and where it is or rather isn't going in terms of evolving.

Is there such a thing as ethical magic? That's a rhetorical question by the way. I actually think there is such a thing as ethical magic...but how to define it or explain what it is...well that's the subject of a co-written book I and Vince Stevens are working on. Stay tuned for more information, as I'm sure I'll be posting more details and considerations as I continue this work.

Clothing magic

In Multi-Media Magic, I wrote about clothing and magic, but in a conversation with a friend, earlier tonight, I actually ended up talking a bit about my own approach to clothing in more depth. See I have specific outfits or clothing choices I make, when it comes to activating specific persona or role choices. For example, tonight Lupa and I went to a fet event at the conservatory. I was in a subby mood, so I got dressed in black harem pants and a black poets blouse, which perfectly evoked for that subby persona. If I'm in a toppish mood and feeling somewhat masculine, slashed up pants and a t-shirt will work or if I'm feeling more feminine in my gender choice, a mesh shirt, vest, and hakama pants will help.

Naturally I extend this kind of work outside of my fetish interests. When I meet with a client, I'm dressed in a business suit. I do make sure the pants are comfortable, and the shirt is colorful, and I always wear one of my trademark hats. I use the clothing to help me get into the role I need to perform. Something which really interested me is that my business persona changed as I added new apparel to it. The sports jacket, the black socks, etc, all created changes in the persona, to help it fit more into what I needed it to be.

Recently I bought a purple shirt and pants and that also has it's own association and role. In fact every outfit I have has specific purposes for creating and sustaining specific roles I need to be in. Each outfit is used to create a kind of space and place for the roles I want to inhabit. The clothing becomes ritual gear. When it is put on, I assume specific roles. The clothing acts as a trigger point, a way of assuming a specific mantle and preparing myself for specific types of interactions.

I've always treated clothing in that way. The clothes become the ritual costumes, by which I change myself into whatever I need to be for given situations.

Running energy with someone

The other night, I had a friend over and we did some energy work together. Her energy is very intense. She's done a lot of work with the Tantra system of energy work, which means it's got a fair amount of kundalini energy being packed, but her personal energy is also a very intense kind of energy. We ran energy together and I put a minimal amount of my own energy into the cycle, enough to contribute, but not so much that I was trying to vie with her energy. I wanted to feel her energy and how it works and also just flow into the cycle...gradually building up to a place of mutual comfort. I find when running energy with someone, it's good to flow with the energy. Don't fight the direction. Let it establish itself and then move with it. By doing so, you'll get a lot more out of the experience. Additionally, add energy gradually. Don't try and overwhelm someone. Finally, if after you've energy with someone, you feel a bit weird...meditate on it...work through the feeling and assimilate the energy or return it to the person.

Assorted matters

I've been feeling a bit stagnant in my magical practice lately. I've been doing my daily rituals, my emptiness working, and even have been involved in a economic activism experiment I hope to post about soon, but being at Heartland did remind me of how important it can be to get out of the usual patterns and push yourself into some new places. I have to admit my emptiness working has perhaps caused some of this feeling of stagnation. To some degree everything in my life feels empty at times and it can be hard to face that.

At Heartland, I ended up doing a fair amount of energy work with one of the people I met there and it reminded me of some of the practices I've done in the past with energy work, so today while having a conversation with Lupa, I asked her to run energy with me. We both noted that the energy between us felt strong and steady, speaking to a strong connection between us. I'd run energy with other people and found different variations, which seemed to speak to the connections I felt with each person. I may be trying more of this as a way to ground my awareness into the connection I have with a given person.

Also at Heartland, I ended up picking up some clothing, which included Hakama pants and a black vest with colorful patterns on it. When I combined the vest and pants with a mesh shirt and my black hat I found I'd created a ritual garb for myself, which very much invoked my connection with Xah. I've already got some ideas on how I can enhance that ritual costume further, which I'll be trying out soon...both for magical work and also for another type of scene. I want to play to my roots as a ceremonial magician more, albeit with my own flair and imagination. It's been a while since I've used some of the more ceremonial aspects of my magical practice, but I think it will be a fun challenge for me.

Book Review: Mapping the Dharma by Paul Gerhard

I found this book to be very readable and easy to follow. I really appreciated how it was set up to explain Buddhism in a very approachable manner, with clear and concise explanations of what Buddhism is about. While I'm already familiar with Buddhism, the author's way of explaining the core concepts and different components of it really helped me understand a lot more about Buddhism. I came away with a much more solid understanding of Buddhism, its practices and how I could incorporate it into my life.

5 out of 5 meditators

When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by By Jeffery Masson and Susan McCarthy

This was a thought-provoking book about the emotional lives of animals and how much we take for granted by trying to assume that only humans can feel emotions. The authors provided a wide variety of anecdotes from their own experiences as well as the experiences of others. They show that animals can feel emotions and also interact in a variety of ways that go beyond traditional scientific reports on them. This book also raises some important questions about how we treat animals. My only complaint would be that at times the authors are very biased about how they feel, which consequently tones down some of what they attempt to convey to readers.

4 out of 5 animals

Heartland

Lupa and I just came back from Heartland, a pagan festival that occurs every year in Kansas. I had a very enjoyable time there. I got to co-present workshops with Lupa, as well as share the festival experience with her, and also got to meet a lot of wonderful people. I even got to reconnect with some old friends, which was a bonus as I haven't seen these people since 2005. It was quite pleasant to re-connect with them. It's definitely a festival I hope to present at again, and one I highly recommend going to, if you live near it or can easily drive to it. I enjoyed presenting the workshops a lot. We had great audiences...good questions, good comments, and a lot of interest....that and being back in the midwest...I have to admit I did feel a bit of homesickness for the midwest/East coast Festival scene. I don't really miss the midwest itself, but the festival scene out there is very dynamic and active, much more so than the festival scene in the pacific northwest. I reflected on that for a while...

Larger population, but also a population in a conservative area or this country. For many of the people who attend such events it's their only opportunity to really be in a place where they will be accepted unconditionally, whereas Portland, OR at least is so liberal that the subcultures don't really have a pressing need to gather together.  That's not to say they can't get together, but in general they don't have to hide that their pagan or worry that they'll lose their job if they get outed as poly (and I say that last remark  on the basis of a friend of mine who works in a corporate environment here who was told it was perfectly ok to be poly).

Now I know not all the pac NW is a liberal bastion. Go to the Oregon coast for example and you'll see a fairly conservative environment, depending on where you are on that coast, but having lived in the Midwest for a while, and now living in the PAC NW region, I still have to say that people here do have it a bit easier comparatively speaking, and consequently the cultural differences that show up are rather interesting to observe.

I remember a daughter telling her mother about she'd told kids at school about dragons and magic and her mother cautioning her not to tell the kids in school about her beliefs, because they might not understand and it could lead to some problems, and thought...in PDX, she wouldn't have to tell her kid that, more than likely. And honestly, it made me grateful for the fact that I live where I live now, but it also showed me once again why festivals, which occur in places where it's conservative, are so essential: It gives the people living there a place to be accepted and open about their beliefs, lifestyles, etc. and it can be an experience they only get for a limited time.

And then, in the end, I think it won't stop me from appreciating what I do have here, both in terms of festivals and communities I participate in...it just makes me appreciate all the more what I do have and where I live.

Elemental Emptiness month 7: Fear and Desire

4-18-09 I got a response to my last post report on the elemental emptiness working, where the person made some observations about my flaws as a person. It wasn't easy to read, but as I reflected on what had been noted, I realized that it was an observation as opposed to a judgment, but also realized how much fear I have around being judged for what I would consider to be my flaws. It's a fear of being seen for who I am...and actually it's come up a bit the last few days in different ways...yet obviously I have been seen for who I am by different people and am still in the lives of the different people I know. This fear of being seen though is an interesting fear to feel...there's a level of self-consciousness to it, but also a realization that in some ways I've focused on what I think of as deficiencies to the exclusion of appreciating my better qualities. Self-esteem issues...yeah, a fair amount and working with my fears is allowing me to really see those self-esteem issues for what they are. I did wonder today, if I'd been raised in a more "ideal" situation, would I be as fucked up as I sometimes feel I am? And when do I realize I'm "ok" or good, or whatever...when does it balance out?  The last few days, in different situations, definitely made me feel vulnerable...no one likes it when they are called on their shit, or seen in terms of their worst flaws. I'd like to run, but I don't think the hermit would let me, or honestly, I would let me. And while anyone can see those things about me I might not like, the only person who can choose to do anything about those things is me. And shying away from what I don't like about myself just leads to more dissatisfaction and unhappiness. So here I am, vulnerable, flawed, selfish, but also less angry, more compassionate, loving, and willing to sit with all of me instead of just the best face forward.

4-19-09 I talked to the moon goddess today about some of what I wrote above and she pointed out that it's important to keep a balanced perspective and that someone telling you about the good aspects of you can be equally as revealing as what one observes about you that s/he doesn't care for. And in thinking about that I realized that how you create equilibrium is maintaining an appreciation of what about you is good, while still working on your deficits. And that might seem obvious, but I think it's easily forgotten, because as a culture it seems more acceptable to focus on the dysfunctions and problems as opposed to what really works.

4-21-09 In therapy we talked more about fear as the emotional base for a lot of my decisions. Something interesting came up, because she mentioned how at one point last year when Lupa and I'd seen her together, I had mentioned how I didn't do anything unless there was a direct benefit for me. We talked about that statement and it's context to fear...the realization that fear for me has really operated from a place of scarcity, poverty, and trying to "get" something directly feeds into that kind of statement. As I find myself shifting toward being more giving without expectation, I find myself realizing that I don't always need to see a direct benefit from something, in order to do it. On the other hand, I also recognize that there's a lot of value in recognizing what the payoff is for doing something. Afterall, I can easily tell anyone what my payoff is for writing, coaching, or doing any of the other things I do. But being able to come into a situation without an expectation place on the other person can be incredibly liberating, and much less fear-oriented.

I also told her about a victory I've had in regards to my fear. I don't get as angry as I used to be...and I'm not as angry at myself either...and when I get angry I've put together strategies to help me express it constructively, while allowing myself a way out, in case I need to cool down. It's a big victory for me, and one I hope to continue capitalizing on.

April 23, 2009 - I don't think feeling anger is unhealthy. I think holding on to it is...The feeling of compassion isn't a substitute for feeling anger. You need to feel anger, to really allow yourself to feel it, in order to move on from it. Compassion that stymies anger just leads to more anger and unhappiness...compassion which comes after anger is felt and expressed, is the seed of forgiveness, which allows us to move on from what angered us, while also forgiving the people involved (though not necessarily forgetting). Forgiveness is not condoning what happened. Forgiveness is moving past what happened so you can heal.

4-26-09 Something I've been trying to do more, with varied levels of success is just being quiet and present with my fear. Sometimes it works...and sometimes it doesn't. when it does work, I can quiet the tapes and when it doesn't work, I have to find a distraction for those tapes. When it works, I'm finding a way to meet the underlying need, and consequently, I feel more present and involved in my life, because that need isn't defining the situation I'm in.

5-01-09 I haven't been writing as much this month, but the last two days provided ample fodder, as it were, for this month's working. I went camping, and went to a radical faerie Beltaine, by myself, as much to get away from my really busy schedule of late, as for the opportunity to meet someone I know online who was going to be there. This person is going through a lot of similar spiritual work with emptiness right now...in fact, I felt like I met my mirror...in terms of the fears and other issues we are dealing with.

Going to this event, I realized I was likely one of the few straight people there, if not the only one and the entire time I was there, I felt out of place...It was a good reminder to me of the fact that people at the event, that people of skin colors and ethnicities which aren't Caucasian deal with this feeling of out of placedness, or marginalization, or whatever on a daily basis. I only had to deal with it for a day and then I could go back into the world and not think about it. It reminds me of how easy it is to take for granted how, in some ways, I don't have to think about or worry about what others will think. Honestly, if I'm conscious of anything, it's my gender. I'm male, and being male, I recognize that what I say or do can be taken in a variety of ways...but even that awareness is something I had to learn.

And going to this event reinforced that that I don't identify with the pagan subculture that much...I haven't identified as such for a while, but it comes home to me occasionally that as I continue to make some fairly comprehensive lifestyle changes, my identity changes as well. And while I will always practice magic, that practice doesn't automatically confer onto me a label of being a pagan, occultist, or whatever. Well it may for some people viewing me, but not necessarily my own perception of it.

Actually, I realized that in a lot of ways, my emptiness work is really about purging myself of what is holding me back identity wise...what I've been clinging to out of fear, anger, lust, whatever else...all as a desire to fill myself up with whatever, so I wouldn't have to face myself. In choosing emptiness, choosing to sit with emptiness, I'm also seeing all the rot in myself...and as I clear out that rotting, what I'm left with is an awareness of what has held me back, both in my personal choices, my fears, and yes even my associations. I still plan on writing books about magic, because I have something to say about magic, even as I plan to continue running the nonfic line of immanion press, but as I mentioned to a friend recently, I'm not really in touch with the majority of people in the occult subculture anymore. I have a small group of friends I work with on a regular basis...a few others I talk shop with...and that's all I need and want. At one time, it would've been a different answer, but that answer was based from a place of fear...this one is based from a place of authenticity with myself. And it extends to the rest of my choices as well...This year's helping me prioritize my life choices, as much as it's helping me face and embrace myself.

5-4-09 "Once there was nothing that turned itself inside out and became something" - Sun Ra The path of emptiness isn't just about nothing...rather it is also about becoming. Emptiness strips away the delusions, lies, and falsehoods...the masks we give ourselves, but it also reveals the potential we have as well. It shows us the possibilities. I feel like I've started to swing around to the other side of emptiness, to that discovery of possibility. It's always been there to some degree, but I'm more open to it, because I'm living in the moment., and not letting my issues obscure the awareness of possibility. This is revealing to me...just how much my fear has stopped me from realizing my potential.

5-6-09 I've been reading Kissing the Limitless by T. Thorn Coyle, and in it she talks about the concept of self-possession, saying that self-possession is the process of becoming consciously aware and awake. And reading about it really speaks to my own realization that my own journey is one of self-possession and that lately I have felt a level of confidence and self-assuredness about myself and my interactions, which I'd never previously felt before. That isn't to say I still don't have my moments of insecurity, but I'm able to recognize those moments for what they are and sit with them much more than I'd previously done before.

At the same time, the moon goddess pointed out something, which I'm going to spend more time with. She said that while she definitely noted that I could be very open, she also noticed a guarded secretiveness as well. And I have to agree it is there...I'm aware of it, and I'm aware that it's roots go back to the abuse I experienced early on. Such guardedness is typical of situations where abuse has occurred, but in the here and now, do I need such guardedness?

5-09-09 I've been meditating further and doing some thinking about where I want my emptiness work and therapy work to go. I think I'm ready to untangle the guarded secretiveness I sometimes inhabit. I'm aware of it. I'm aware of some ideas for handling it. The first step is talking about it, opening up about it...not just with people I know, but really with myself. What are my reasons for doing it...do those reasons apply now? And I know some of those reasons go right back to growing up in a situation where keeping secrets was a way of staying out of trouble...the less they know, the less they can use to hurt you. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are other reasons. And what does all that have to do with emptiness...it's another dysfunctional outlet for the unhealthy relationship I have with it.

On a different note, I found myself in a situation where I realized how I felt about someone had shifted a bit. It wasn't a bad shift, but I also recognized that while it was good to acknowledge that shift, it didn't mean I had to act on it...and in fact perhaps it was best to just acknowledge the shift and leave it at that. No planning, no trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Just acknowledgment, acceptance, and letting it be...And that was really empowering.

5-10-09 Today found me in a situation where I needed to express feelings of hurt about behavior that my wife has sometimes exhibited toward me. I was upset, even a little angry, and yet I was able to express those emotions in a manner which was fairly straightforward, emotive, and yet not over the top. I didn't blow up or yell I did raise my voice a bit, which was fine. Most importantly I allowed myself to really feel my emotions and express those emotions, but I did so respectfully to her. And that, to me, is what all this meditation and other work is about. It's not denying the emotion, but it also isn't letting it control me. It's accepting it, acknowledging it, feeling it, and expressing it and also letting it go instead of holding on to it. This is a good approach to handling my anger, fear, and yes hurt. I'm also pleased because I could actually express how I felt, without trying to hide it. I'm getting better at speaking up, instead of holding things in.

5-11-09 I was talking with a friend today about the occult subculture and how nutty it can be sometimes. The power plays, the politics, and also depending on what groups you know of and are affiliated with, the racism as well. A year ago, even half a year ago, despite what disillusionment I might've felt, I wouldn't have imagined myself moving away from the occult subculture as much as I feel I have. And it's not that I've moved away from my magical practice or spiritual beliefs, because those are still very relevant to my life, but rather that I continue to move away from the occult subculture itself, as well as the baggage that goes with it. A person can have a spiritual practice and beliefs and yet limit participation in the subculture that the spirituality and beliefs are usually affiliated with. I don't think I'll ever completely leave the occult subculture, but the emptiness work continues to reveal what is and isn't relevant in my life, in this moment.

I'm also continuing to work with some of my desires and how those desires get expressed. I don't believe in denying desire, but I do believe in finding healthy ways to exercise it. In the past, one of my greatest challenges was exercising my desire in healthy ways. A lot of times I used my desire to avoid emptiness, and while I think I do that less now than I used to, I also know there are times when I still look to my desire to fill up my emptiness. old habits die hard. I know as I continue to work with this, it becomes less of a struggle, but this is a persistent work in progress for me.

5-13-09 In her book Kissing the Limitless, T Thorn Coyle talks about how sex is part of how we connect to the divine and that when we try to grasp at sex to fulfill a yawning void in our lives, we are actually moving away from the divine. That point and a realization that sometimes sexual activity has come from a place of anger and unhappiness with my main relationship really has shown me a lot more of the roots of the dysfunction in my relationship to sex. It's not easy to look at that or feel it. I feel weak today.

5-15-09 I've been pondering what I wrote above for the last two days. As I've sat with my sexual desires and where a lot of those desires originate from, I feel like I'm ready to move away from using them to try and fulfill my emptiness. I already know nothing can fill the emptiness. I'm also tired of struggling with these desires...and yes I've said that before, but just as I once struggled with cutting myself, and recognizing that cutting myself was an addiction, so do I realize that some of my other choices and behaviors also could be addictive...get hooked on a few seconds of bliss, makes all your problems go away...then you come back to Earth and you feel worse than before...or at least more empty. That's how it's always been. My fear, with my sexual desires, is a really a fear of of that emptiness, of letting myself fully feel it...just as I felt the same with my anger and fear...It's really being present, really being aware of what my sexual desires are and no longer trying to use them to run away from the emptiness I also need to be present with.

5-16-09 Last night we went to a play party. I met several people there, flirted had fun, and later emailed them. I only heard back from one and it was evident that she'd responded more out of politeness than any genuine interest. I feel embarrassed and ashamed. While my emails were merely stating an interest in getting to know the people I'd met, I still feel as if I've somehow walked over boundaries I didn't know existed. And that right there has always been one of my fears and issues with my own desire. How do I balance the expression of my desire with the awareness of the boundaries of others. In the past, I'd tend to favor the expression of my desire over the awareness of others...In the last year and a half I've slowly, but surely changed that. My expression of my desire too often has come from a place of trying to fill up something within myself, with little or no regard for how it affected others. And sometimes it still does.

I sit with that sometimes and other times I fight it. If there has been one issue in this emptiness working which has been more difficult than the others, it is desire. Fear has been hard, anger as well, but desire is the underlying fuel for those emotions as well, because I've realized time and again that even my expressions of anger and fear have stemmed from a desire to fill myself up, to be whole, instead of feeling like an endless hole. Sex is one expression of my desire, but I've found other expressions via consumerism, need for attention, etc., which have spoken as insidiously to me of trying to fill something within myself.

I don't think experiencing desire is a bad thing, but I think the U.S. culture has an unhealthy relationship with desire...or maybe it's just me who has an unhealthy relationship with desire. It just seems to me that sometimes the achievement of desire is valued far more than the recognition of the consequences for achieving that desire. I have valued the achievement of desire more than I have recognized the impact that achievement has had on other people. Yet that achievement has lead to a lot of suffering for me. Satisfaction hasn't been achieved...if anything the opposite of it, dissatisfaction has been felt more keenly as the years have rolled on.

Conversely this year of emptiness has seen me happier and happier, partially because I've come to better grips with my anger and fear, and emptiness, but also because I've been been learning to sit with my desire more, instead of acting on it so much. I still feel torment about my desires. I still suffer, though at least that suffering isn't extending to people around me nearly so much as it did in the past. I'm still learning that delicate balance of enjoying my desire, while also recognizing when the expression of desire goes overboard and becomes an attempt to fill something up.

Fear taught me a lot...but desire...I've talked about it a lot throughout this working, but I haven't that much with it yet. And perhaps it took sitting with my fear to get to this point, because if there is something I can say I am afraid to face, it is my desires. I've expressed them, but have I really sat with them or talked to them, or just been present with them? No...because I have been afraid to do that. It is scary to sit with my desire and fully acknowledge it. But now is as good a time as any to start.

Pathworking, daydreaming, and meditation

I came across a really interesting article about daydreams, which explains that letting your mind daydream can actually activate the problem-solving capabilities of the brain. I definitely agree that this is the case. When I've been working on a diffuclt problem, I will stop and daydream and often have the answer afterwards, because I've essentially let my mind do a bit of creative thinking about the problem. Daydreaming is imagistic thinking...thinking in images, which is a very effective way of processing ideas and concepts. The other night I lead a friend through a pathworking, and noted a similar case, wherein she was able to process a lot of information and come to some conclusions, because the pathworking lead her through memories, but also employed imagistic thinking to solve the situation that she was dealing with. Granted a pathworking is a guided meditation, but it employs the same problem solving capacities of the brain.

Meditation works in a similar way. It allows you to vent the mind of all the information it's gotten, and then reorganize that information so that it makes more sense. It's one reason I meditate everyday. It allows me to effectively organize and understand the information I've encountered over the course of the day.

It's amazing to realize how something such as daydreaming or meditation or pathworking can actually help you approach the world in a manner that allows you to solve problems faster. When I meditate, and I've reorganized the information, I've also set myself up to effectively put only the needed energy toward what I wish to do with that information. Letting your mind wander for a bit, can be the best medicine for it...it provides you tangets to discover connections that allows you to understand whatever it is you are trying to solve.

Fame in the occult community

There's a really interesting post about fame in the pagan community, in which the author discusses the desire to be famous and how it is part of the Pagan identity, and that at the same time fame in such a context is associated with depth and wisdom, yet also speaks to a rather teenage fantasy of being respected because of being famous (which is not necessarily true at all...if anything fame leads to envy). It's an interesting post to read, and I see certain parallels in the occult community, which is not necessarily the pagan community, but isn't all that removed from the pagan community either. The question though is whether fame is all it's cracked up to be, and in my own response to her post, I mentioned that it isn't all its cracked up to be. Fame is a glamour...a kind of illusion, if you will. It shows off the persona of someone, but doesn't necessarily let anyone in underneath that persona.

At the same time, fame is a poison as well, at least for the really famous people who can never get away from the cameras or people wanting to know the sordid details of every single moment of the famous person's life.

I've never experienced the level of fame that say a movie star has experienced, but being an author, I've experienced some level of fame when I've presented at festivals and events. And more recently, because I've been getting more involved as a coach and public speaker outside of strictly occult topics, I've been experiencing some fame there. And I have to admit, I like my little taste of fame. It is nice to be recognized for your expertise and knowledge. But, it's equally important to recognize that why people recognize is because of that expertise and knowledge...its not because of some inherent specialness about you. And when you can remember that, then any sense of fame is grounded by a humble realization that for you to get to that point, you had to rely on what other people did in the past, as well as your own work. You realize that any sense of fame is also transitory. Fame only lasts as long as you are willing to put yourself out there. Even in Crowley's case, the main reason he's still famous has a lot more to do with his followers continuing to publish his books and also organize a belief system centered around his teachings. If they weren't there, would he still be famous...perhaps, but likely not nearly as famous as he still is.

The real question though is what the seeking of fame really brings someone. I think of fame seekers sometimes as people trying to build a sense of self-esteem based off what other people think of them...and that actually isn't much different from many a person...I don't know many people who don't, on some level, genuinely care about what at least one person thinks of them. And to be honest, it can be good for the self-esteem to know that someone genuinely thinks you are awesome. It only goes sour when we let it go to our heads, and when we forget to that self-esteem ultimately has to come from the self. You've got to possess your self, in order to really become yourself.

I like being an author and a publisher, and part of what makes it rewarding is the fame...but I think of the fame as icing on the cake...and the cake itself is really about the opportunity to share information, ideas, and also help others do the same (which is one reason why I love publishing). And in the end, all that aside, what really matters is the continuing journey through live...the living, learning, loving, experiencing of each moment as an a gift from the universe and also offering of yourself back to the universe.

Book Review: The Brain-Shaped Mind by Naomi Goldblum

This is an excellent beginner's book into neuroscience, and one I'd recommend for anyone who wants to understand how the brain works and how the mind is connected to the brain. The author presents the connectionist model and does a good job of also explaining how the neurons and synaptic processes of the brain work. The examples she uses are also very helpful. This is a short book, and an easy read. It's definitely the first book I recommend to someone new to neuroscience, because the author concisely introduces and explains the concepts, while keeping the reader grounded.

5 out 5 neurons

What do you think of...

when you think of magic? Is it some witchy person, complete with warts transforming people into frogs?

or some teenage kid wearing a pentagram and black so s/he can look cool?

or some hippie looking person who rants about the system?

Or are those just expressions of a subculture?

When I think of magic now, I don't really think of it in terms of subculutres, and I realize just how much thinking of it in those terms has previously limited my realization of what it could be...and it makes me wonder how, in an effort, to categorize and/or associate it with certain subcultures, we actually lose out on what it could be.

I haven't done a lot of rituals lately, or experiments. I've been continuing my meditation, but right now a lot of my magical work is focused in Malkuth, in making a lot happen right now with my business, and with some of my other passions...and it's not that ritual doesn't have a place...or that breaking out the ceremonial gear can't be useful, but it is realizing that magic can be found in any moment, in any person, in any circumstance. We only limit our perceptions of it when we try to categorize it.