My Altar to Elephant

 

I've always been fascinated with Elephants. Even as a young child, they were my favorite animal and still are to this day. Over the years, I've collected elephant statues, read up on elephants to learn more about how they act, and supported non-profits focused on helping Elephants. An acquaintance gifted me Elephant skin that she'd somehow found as well as bracelets made of Elephant hair. I use both in my magical workings.

In my system of Space/Time Magic, Elephant is one of the spirit guides I work with. He is the guardian of the gates of time and space, the guardian of the crossroads. Before I work with the web, I always ask his permission.

Today, Elephant asked me for his own altar and told me that if I visited the Goodwill store up the street, I'd find what I needed. So I drove up to the goodwill store, and I found a foldable bookshelf and he indicated that the top shelf was for him and anything associated with him. I brought it home, dusted it and prepped it for Elephant. The picture above contains everything related to Elephant that I have, other than the necklaces that I wear on occasion.  I also have a painting I did, as well as a picture of Elephant from an artist. I have a mask of Elephant also, which hangs in my office.

I don't know that I'd call Elephant my totem spirit (perhaps he is). I do know that Elephant is a presence in my life that I strongly resonate with. Someday I plan to get a tattoo of Elephant on my body as another way to honor his presence in my life, but this altar is a good start.

My changing relationship with movement

As I've been working with movement as an elemental force for the last year, my understanding of it has changed. And I have no doubt it'll continue to change as I work with it for another year. When I first began contemplating movement as an elemental force, I thought of it purely in the sense of physical movement, but as I continued to work with Eros as an avatar of movement, and worked with movement as an element overall, I came to realize that there was a lot more to movement than just the obvious physical movement a person can do.

First there's the recognition of what you are moving around and through. Movement of any type takes place in an environment where other factors need to be considered. You might never consider them consciously, but they nonetheless are something that effects how you can move. For example, if you walk into a room you need to consider what's in the room and how you will move around it. Even when you are moving around outside, you still need to move around objects. And an additional factor is navigation. Where are you going and how will you move there?

But movement is more than just physical. When you want to manifest a possibility into reality, it involves movement. You may need to take certain actions, or do a working to align variables that effect the realization of the possibility. When you understand movement plays a role, you can utilize it as a principle of magic that aids you in your workings. Movement as a metaphysical force isn't just the alignment of variables, but also an awareness of how everything fits together. When you move, you aren't just moving one part, but rather everything. This may not be readily apparent, but I find that movement is really a pattern in a way. What's being moved is the pattern of reality, the entirety. A movement may occur in one area and spread out like a ripple. Understanding this about movement can change your awareness of what movement is and how it works in your life.

My work with movement has also helped me appreciate its relationship with stillness. I'll eventually be working with stillness in more depth, but I see how movement leads into stillness, and how constant movement is not necessarily as good for a person as one might think. Movement has its place, but so does stillness, and stillness sets movement up. Both interact with each other to support what each element can provide.

The reason I'm working with movement for another year is that I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. So much of the initial work has centered around my own issues and so there is a need to explore movement further in detail as it applies to the metaphysical and physical realities that I'm engaged in. And I feel that there's a lot to learn as it applies to space/time magic. I've shared some of my realizations along those lines, but there is more to come and I'm open to discovering what it is.

How being great defines my spirituality

I recently finished reading Good to Great (review below). It's a book about what makes some businesses great, but as with anything else you can apply the principles in the book to your spiritual work. As I've been reading this book, I've been thinking a lot about what I'm great at, about what I can do that not just anyone else can do and I recommend reading the book and asking yourself the same question, because you may find that it changes your life, work, and spiritual practices...or it may just confirm something you already know, but give you a different perspective on it.

I think that asking yourself what you can be great at can define your spiritual work as well as your practical life. When you ask yourself what you can be great at spiritually what you are really doing is focusing on what brings you to life, when it comes to spiritual matters. For example if you identify as a reconstructionist, perhaps what you are great at is identifying with, researching, and implementing practices from a spiritual tradition that speaks to you with its values and practices. I'd argue that what you identify with, what you feel called to defines what you can be great at.

I feel called to experiment. I identify myself as an experimenter, and for me its what brings the greatest joy to my spiritual practice. It's what makes great as a magician, because I've recognized that my identification with experimentation makes me great. It's what makes my spiritual path thrive, and it provides me a deep seated sense of connection to magic because I recognize how it fits in with my passion and my curiosity. Reading Good to Great just helped me understand that even more because I recognize that what I am great at is experimenting with magic, experimenting with different perspectives, methodologies, etc. What makes you great with your spiritual practice?

Book Review: Good to Great by Jim Collins

This is a must read book that will change more tan just how you run your business. It will change your life, because it will ask you a tough question: What can you be great at? In this book the author explores what makes some businesses "good" and makes other businesses great. What he reveals is that businesses who know what they are great at and focus on that to the exclusion of everything else are the businesses that become great because they understand their core value and culture. They make themselves great because they are so focused on what they can be great at, that they make it the entire purpose of their work and lives. They define their core values and let those values inform everything they do. This is a book that will help you understand how to be great at your business or your life for that matter. The case studies and principles they explore show how some businesses become great and why they stay great. Buy this book and read it because it will change your perspective on business and life.

Some Thoughts about Oaths and Offerings

This last weekend I attended a weekend workshop by RJ Stewart and Anastacia Nutt which is the Oak, Ash, and Thorn workshop for Faery work. I highly recommend their classes if you are wanting to learn more about magic in general as well about working with the Faery. In any case, they made some interesting points about oaths and offerings, which I want to share, as well as my own considerations of what was said. I've included pictures of my finished dragon tattoo, which is an offering I made to Dragon to honor his role in my life.

In regards to oaths, RJ noted that the stereotypical treatment of oaths is that when an oath is made, if its broken dire consequences occur and that it's implied its entirely on you to honor the oath. However he offered a different perspective on oaths, wherein an oath should be made in good faith, but that both parties need to do their part to honor the oath. In other words, if I make an oath to a particular spirit or deity, it's both on me and the deity to honor the oath. He said that the effort should be 50% from both sides. Not only did I find this to be a much more sensible explanation of oaths, but I also think there's some value to approaching oaths in that way. If an oath is entirely on the head of the person giving the oath, then there is an imbalance already involved because who or whatever the oath is being made to is expecting everything and providing nothing. On the other hand if the deity is also contributing to the upholding of the oath, then what occurs is a genuine relationship. I don't think I've come across an explicit explanation such as what RJ offers, but I find his explanation to make the most sense and certainly to be a better one than the stereotypical definition offered about oaths.

In regards to offerings, RJ noted that the reason spirits want food is because they get something back from our process of manifestation. The spirits can't cook food, are responsible for the initial growing process. However when we cook food we are doing something they can't do and changing the nature of the food, and this provides them a kind of sustenance or energy as a result. He recommends making an offering a week, and suggests moderation in this practice. Again this is something which makes sense to me and I like his approach to this particular practice. I have been integrating offerings into my daily work via the form of a prayer of thanks, but his suggestions about offerings are ones I'm also going to integrate.

I recognize that other people have their own perspectives on offerings and oaths, but I find that RJ's perspectives are what resonate with me, and I think it is important to discover and recognize how a given principle of magic manifests in your life. It may manifest differently for you than it would for others, or you may find that one definition makes more sense than another. Different people will have different perspectives on what works and why it works...the key is to find your own and understand and implement it.

Hanaliel Haliel

Hanaliel HalielEst ash lath mor! Est tash mine koros sava! Iat ies Jah More Tu! Toros Sime Yehs Jah Kor!

Hanaliel Haliel guard us as we seek the gates to the heart of the universe Open the doors of the crossroads

Hanaliel Haliel Est ash lath mor! Hanaliel Haliel Guardian Angel of the door six winged messenger and guardian sword your jeweled eyes see all see into our hearts and judge us if we are not worthy to open the doors to the crossroads of creation Open to us who are sincere in our words actions and goals to connect with the spirits of the other worlds

Hanaliel Haliel Est ash lath mor!

Definitions and sense of self as intersections of identity

I'm reading Thinking in New Boxes.  It's a good book, and I know this because it's gotten me thinking along some interesting vectors. In Thinking in New Boxes, the author explains how there's no such thing as thinking outside the box. He claims we all think in boxes and even if we get outside of one box, we're still thinking in another box, because of we use "boxes" to define and explain the world around us. Essentially, boxes are labels, definitions, models, etc., for helping us navigate and understand our experiences. He makes an interesting point when he notes, "To make sense of all these disparate inputs (stimuli, elements, events, etc.,) your mind either relies on preexisting categories that it has already created or, if none of those categories fits the present reality, it generates new ones." And what this prompted me to realize is that categorizations also can apply to a person's sense of self, and thus create intersections of identity.

Part of this realization also comes from something else the author said, namely that in order to deal with complicated aspects of real life we need to use "boxes" in order to compartmentalize those aspects. This compartmentalization creates an intersection of identity, where the "box" is used to shape an identity that handles what's in the box. So for example, you have a job identity, which is different from your romance identity. Both of these identities exist in you and can even come to the fore at the same time, but typically one will be more prevalent than another based on the environment you are in, as well as whatever stimuli you're dealing with at the time. The reason we come up with different identities is to handle the boxes, but also because it allows us to switch off when we go into another situation which calls for another identity to come to the fore.

So this is taking me in some interesting directions, because I'm also thinking about definitions and how they are used to define a perceived reality according to the agenda of the definer. When we add in the above idea, what we come up with as well is that definitions don't just define a perceived reality, but also the identity of the person using the definition. In other words, definitions define the person as much as they define whatever is being defined. This might seem like a bit of a stretch, but consider that part of the agenda for a definition is that it not only defines something, but also defines a person's interaction with that thing, and by extension the identity of the person. In this sense then a definition becomes an intersection of identity, both the identity of the definer, and the identity of the people who use the definition, as well as the definition in and of itself.

For magical work, this intersection of identity and definition can be useful for exploring how particular identities are formed and sustained as well as how they can be modified. If we can consider that definitions are a categorization of not only ideas, but also identity, then whatever definitions we use need to be chose carefully, and in fact this may be why it's better to develop our own definitions. At the same time, we can also explore the identity of the person or people who developed the definitions and better understand why they chose to define something in the way they did. This understanding can help us in the formation of our own identities as well as the definitions we use, and make the magical work more meaningful.

Why Service to your community is an integral part of spiritual work

When we talk about magic and spiritual work, most of the time the focus is on a person's journey into his/her spirituality, but I think that another component of a person's spiritual work is the service you engage in with the community around you. That service can involve the Pagan community you are apart of, but I also think it should include service to the larger community that you are apart of. Service to the community is an integral part of your spiritual work because it provides you a way to give to the community. And service doesn't need to be complicated. It could involve working at a soup kitchen or donating some time to a nonprofit that you believe in, but regardless of what you, why you are doing it is because you feel a call to serve your community.

I also think that this call to be of service can be applied to your profession. As the managing non fiction editor of Immanion Press, one of the things I've focused on is how I can use the press to serve the community. One of the missions that I've set for Immanion Press is that we publish books on issues that need to be addressed in the Pagan community, but aren't being addressed overtly. For example Women's Voices in Magic was published because I felt it important to have an anthology that strictly represented what women had to offer on magic. Similarly Shades of Faith is anthology which focuses on Pagans of color speaking about their experiences in the Pagan community. Immanion Press will be publishing  new anthology called Rooted in the Body, Seeking the Spirit later this year which focuses on people with disabilities sharing their experiences in the Pagan community. Each of these anthologies were put together because I saw a need to focus on these topics.

In each case, I found someone to edit the anthology who was qualified to edit it and could do an excellent job of reaching out to their respective communities. I recognized as a white male that while I saw a need for each of these anthologies and could hep them get published, I wasn't the one to edit them. Instead as part of my service to the community I needed to find the right person who could edit the anthology and who would feel a similar passion for the anthology that I felt. I also recognized that I could help set up the circumstances, but I needed to step away, provide enough support to help each editor, but also let them run the project their way. This showed them that I respected their work and the work with the people they were working with. I think that Brandy Williams, Crystal Blanton, and Tara Masery Miller all demonstrate that passion in their respective anthologies.

What I love the most is hearing how each of these anthologies empowered the people who wrote for them and helped to facilitate and promote much needed conversations in the Pagan community. The anthologies are a way that Immanion Press can serve the community, and it has even helped to get some of the people to continue writing and sharing. To me, while Immanion Press is a publisher that publishes books, it's also a publisher willing to publish work that might be edgy and controversial because it gets conversations to happen and raises awareness about issues that the Pagan community needs to address to continue to evolve.

Publishing is a passion of mine, but part of that passion is informed by my desire to serve the community I am apart of. For me, one the best ways I can serve the Pagan community is no only publish my own work, but empower other people to write their books, in their voice, to their audience. And what really excites me is helping to publish the anthologies and other works that promote discussion about issues in our community that might otherwise not be focused on as overtly. Publishing is part of my spiritual work, because the books we publish are for the Pagan community, and so I see it as a form of service. I don't make a salary for the work I do for Immanion Press, and what little I do get paid amounts to pennies for hours of work, but why I'm doing isn't for the pay, but rather for the opportunity to help people share their words with the audience that needs to read them. In doing so I serve a part of my spiritual calling. And I think that informs a lot of my approach to magic as a result, because it's not just about my journey, but other people's journeys.

Month 11 Elemental Balancing Ritual Movement: Resistance

8-23-13 Today I meditated on some advice a student provided me and had a breakthrough of sorts in regards to some offerings I can make. It's a combined breakthrough because I'm also taking a class on how to market classes, and so it fit right in line with that...synchronicity aligning the information to crystallize possibilities into reality.

I've also been in a bit of a funk. Although that's likely been obvious. Working with the element of movement and working through this Pluto cycle is kicking my ass in good ways, but it doesn't mean it's always fun (is it ever fun to get your ass kicked?) Still all this work, all these realizations, all of it is something that can be faced. Admiral Stockdale said "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality." The choice to be persistent while facing the realities of a given situation is a trait that is worth cultivating because its what helps you survive and beat the odds. Doing internal work calls on you to face the brutal realities of yourself, but at the same time requires persistence to see the work through, because if you really do the work you will change, and how you change will more than likely make you a better person. It just won't seem like it when you're doing the actual work because you'll be facing particular issues you didn't want to face. Persistence will carry you through.

8-24-13 Today Kat and I were talking about my creativity and she said to me that my current creativity wasn't just a period of time, but that it would be with me for the rest of my life...that she'd make sure I had the necessary support and space to continue doing the creative work I've been doing. It meant a lot to hear that...to really let it sink in that my current creative period doesn't have to end or stop. Having support like that is so important to me, so essential to my well-being and sense of satisfaction.

8-27-13 Maryhill was an interesting adventure. The museum was kind of bizarre because there was no specific theme to it. You had art, royal jewels, dolls, etc...Perhaps what was most interesting to me was how the place felt. There was this one room full of Christian icons that made me feel nauseous. It did not like non-believers. And there was another room where there were six corridors spreading out from a hub. It was disorienting whenever I came out of one of those corridors. I'm not sure I'd go back, but I liked having the adventure just for the sake of doing it.

8-29-13 One of my fears as an author and publisher is that my work is irrelevant. Sounds odd, doesn't it? But in all honesty I think every artist, musician, author, etc., has that fear. I'm just being honest about it. I was going through my meditations today and Eros suggested that before I continue, I should stop and write about what I'm feeling around this issue, so here I am. I've stopped myself from writing about it before, because I don't want to be labeled as a drama queen or or a conspiracy nut for noting how irrelevant I feel sometimes in the occult world, but what the hell...why not? Will anyone notice or care anyway? Perhaps some critic or hater of mine who will take joy out of my admission of feeling irrelevant. I do feel irrelevant sometimes. What I do doesn't quite fit in any particular schema of the Pagan Occult world, which then makes it hard to determine if there is relevance in my work. I was recently told by the publisher of a magazine that the interview I'd done for that magazine was going to be pushed back because my interview doesn't fit any of the forthcoming themes of the magazine. She wants to publish it, but she isn't sure were it fits because what I talk about is so different. I expressed understanding, but some part of me feels crushed. Is what I do really so different that it can't be placed within an issue?

And then I look at other authors who get a fair amount of publicity on a regular basis and I feel a bit envious of them. They'll get quoted about their take on magic on well known Pagan media blogs, and me...not at all. Is what I write just not that interesting? Maybe. I know I'll keep writing it anyway because there is an audience there...a slowly emerging audience, but one that nonetheless is there. I'll be persistent, because persistence wins out. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I want my writing to be relevant. I want it to mean something to other people beyond me. I want it to be something that people notice. I didn't write any of my books just to write. I write them because I have a message to convey to people. And I don't think its egotistical to want to be relevant, to want to know that the message has some meaning to someone besides myself.

I know that my writing doesn't necessarily fit conventional themes of Paganism or occultism. I don't know that it ever will. I'm not interested in commenting on the Golden Dawn or some magical tradition. And I don't feel that should be the measuring stick of what makes something relevant. But sometimes it seems like what is relevant is what's already established. If it's old we like it, and if its new, forget it.

Well enough of my pity party. Yes I feel irrelevant in this moment, and it sucks. But I'm not going to let it keep me down, because regardless of how relevant I am or am not, I've got work to do and things I want to share and someone's bound to come across all this and find it meaningful, but only if I keep putting it out there.

9-1-13 Today we drove to the Ape Caves in Washington. On the way there I was reading Wonders of the Natural Mind by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, where he discusses the three layers of reality. Afterwards I meditated and Eros came to visit and discussed movement in relationship to the three layers of reality. He explained movement as a principle of reality and how changes made on one level needed to be factored into the other levels as well. He used an example of a magical working I'm currently doing to demonstrate all of the factors that needed to be considered and how movement as a principle could be applied to consider those factors. It's something that I'm going to do more meditating on. I understood it in one sense and in another sense, I know that I don't quite get it. Nonetheless  it intrigues me because of how movement is explored as a principle of magic, and really of change.

9-6-2013 Further meditations on movement have been in the same as what I mentioned in the entry just above this one. I "see" how everything that is part of the movement fits together and causes the movement to happen. It makes me appreciate that there are a variety of factors with movement of any type that may not be considered, but nonetheless are relevant to making movement occur. This seems to be true with physical movement, but also the movement of events, ideas, magic, what have you. A recognition of these factors is useful for fully connecting with what is being moved, and being able to move it toward the result you want to manifest. I'm sure continued meditation and work with the element will provide more enlightenment on this topic.

9-9-2013 Further meditation on movement has involved examining a given situation, event, etc., and looking at the role of movement in that situation and event, specifically in terms of understanding how movement manifests in a given situation, why it manifests the way it does, and how it can be changed (if it can be changed). I was watching a video with Kat about networks of people. The guy in the video was talking about he studied a network of people over ten or twenty years to see how obesity could be linked to the network and it was fascinating to observe how the network moved and changed in regards to that variable. It made me see how movement can be such a subtle force in our lives, and yet how interconnected it is, and what is moved into our lives. What's really fascinating to consider is that the people you are connected to all have a degree of influence on your life that you may not even be aware of. When you're certain food or doing certain activities, it may in part be related to the people in your life and how they are influencing your actions.

9-13-13 I attended a presentation on Quantum Mechanics and Business. What I found interesting was how relevant it was to describing magic as a process. The presenter did a credible job of explaining the principles, specifically why you need to define an outcome and believe in the outcome in order to turn it from a possibility into a reality. He acknowledged there is more involved than just believing in the outcome, but the belief and having a defined outcome is essential, which makes sense to me.

9-16-13 I'm reading Good to Great, which is a business book that some useful insights for why businesses are great. One thing he notes is that great businesses focus on what they can be great at. It got me to thinking about my magical practice and what I'm great at. I figure I'm great at experimenting with magic, at taking a system or process or technique apart, and understanding it, and then personalizing it. That's what I like to do and its what I'm great at. And I actually like that as a realization. Yes, I don't fit any convenient occult or pagan label, but I know what I'm at and I'd rather be doing what I'm great at, than anything else.

I've also been meditating further with Eros on movement and today we focused on resistance and movement. He notes that resistance can indicate several different ideas to consider. Resistance can indicate you are going in the wrong direction or doing something that isn't working, but it can also indicate that you are coming up against some problems that you need to be aware of. Resistance can be useful because it helps you understand what is or isn't working with what you're doing or where you want to move to. He also pointed out that the pat to least resistance isn't always the best path, because resistance can make you aware of what movement isn't doing for you.

9-19-13 In today's meditation with Eros, he showed me my creativity and how it lights my brain up and moves me. I saw larger flashes of synaptic light in a field of lights, and could feel my mind move with those flashes. He also told me that when I let myself be creative, I'm really letting myself be open to being moved by my creativity. He's right. When I'm creative I am moved by what I'm creating. I flow with it and give p some degree of control to allow it to manifest. Maybe control is the resistance I've been dealing with...what holds me and keeps me back because I'm not opening myself up to the process to let it flow. In Make Magic of your Life by T. Thorn Coyle, she notes of Eros the following: "The souls' longing to return to a state of pure connection is directed by eros...Eros is the sexual impulse that moves the planets around the sun, draws the drop of water to the river, and - more important for the Greeks, draws the soul back to its source." I find that fascinating because my work with Eros and Movement is about connection, as much as anything else. What moves me? What do I move? How does movement play a role in my life? These are the questions I'm asking and answering through the work with the element of movement, and wen I see independent confirmation of this work it tells me I've tapped into something deeper than just the work I'm doing. I'm connecting with the heart of the universe and moving to its rhythm.

Why doubt can be healthy for our spiritual work

Peter Dybing shared an intriguing post about Doubt and True Belief the other day. I think he makes a good point about doubt, namely that doubt is a healthy feeling to cultivate. I've always believed in cultivating doubt in my own practice, because I recognize that doubt can provide me the necessary skepticism needed to take apart whatever process I'm engaged in, to discover if that process is working or if I need to adjust it and improve on it.

When we don't cultivate doubt, but instead believe without question, what we lose is an awareness of the world around us. We become tunnel visioned, and embrace a very filtered reality, one which conforms to what we wish reality would be. The question is, is such a filtered reality good for us, and in my experience it isn't. The reason is because a filtered reality causes you to only see what you want to see, instead of truly being aware of what's around you.

It could be argued that magic presents person with a filtered reality, but I think that only applies when the magician is so fixated on the result that s/he fails to really examine what s/he is doing with critical awareness. Critical awareness is the ability to examine what you are doing or anything else and ask why. When we don't ask why, we are allowing ourselves to buy into with blind faith. With doubt, you can still have faith, but be able to critically examine it and acknowledge whether it is really working for you or against you. Cultivate doubt as a tool that keeps you sharp and focused with your magical work.

Book Review: Magical Knowledge Book 1 Foundations by Josephine McCarthy

This is a solid 101 book which provides sound advice about the realities of magic and some of the dangers that can occur whether you are new to magic or have been practicing it for years. While I occasionally disagreed with the author about experimentation or other such topics, I did agree overall with her points and cautions. The book has a few practical exercises in it, which are useful to practice, especially in terms of making contact with inner connections, but I'd really recommend this book as a must read before you even practice magic. If you still want to practice after you read this book and do the exercises in it, then at least you are forewarned and armed accordingly.

Why a regular practice trumps occasional reactive magic

Jason Miller recently shared a post about a taxonomy of his magical practice and made the point that regular magical practice is better than doing occasional magic. I agree with him, and find that if anything the occasional use of magic tends to be more reactive, done as a response to a situation, whereas a regular practice is a recognition that magic is lived, not just done for convenience. Magic is lived when you make it a regular part of your life. Jason's also correct in noting that a daily practice can remove a lot of the need for doing reactive magic. From my own experiences, the need to do reactive magic has significantly decreased because a daily practice has helped me recognize my own role in those situations and allowed me to work on those issue and fix so that problems don't arise as frequently.

Like Jason, I'd have to say that meditation is the foundation of my daily practice, and is essential for smoothing my life out, because meditation is what allows me to do the internal work that is used to grind the dross of my life into something better. I do meditation every day because it makes life better, focuses me, and allows me to recognize and work on the issues and baggage I bring to the table. By doing such work, the chaos in my life has decreased because I'm facing the root causes on my own end. Meditation has all been useful for strengthening connections with inner contacts and spirits that I work with.

However meditation may not be what you want to do. There's other practices you can do that can still be part of a daily practice. For example, you could recite a mantra or burn a candle and do some kind of magic with that. Or you could do a magical working like the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram each day. When I first started practicing I did magical workings, where I vocalized the names of God and later did energy work with the chakras. Jason also has some good suggestions for daily practice on his blog post.

You can also do more than one practice. I do meditation, but I also do energy work each day. The point is that you are doing something which focuses your magical work and opens you to experiencing the spiritual world each day as a regular part of your practice. By making magic a part of your everyday life you are making it a part of your life, as opposed to just doing it when you really need something. The problem with doing it when you really need something is that sometimes it won't work the way you hoped, because you don't necessarily have the spiritual oomph to make it happen. Daily practice, much like daily exercise is a building up and toning of your spiritual power and it teaches you how to focus it so that when you really need it, the magic comes through for you.

How to deal with depression in a spiritual community

Teo Bishop recently wrote a post where he discussed how he was dealing with some depression. He decided to take anti-depressants to help him deal with it, but noted how one of the issues that surrounds depression was one where the spiritual community itself argues that if you're spiritual enough you should be able to handle depression without needing anti-depressants. The problem with this argument is that it assumes that spirituality has the answer to depression and that by having it, you will be free of depression. It's similar to the law of attraction idea that if you don't think you'll get sick, you'll never get sick. It doesn't work. When spiritual communities argue that spirituality alone should be enough to handle depression or anything else along those lines, what they are arguing is that spirituality should somehow solve all problems. But that's not the function of spirituality, and it also ignores the simple fact that each person must develop their own solutions with all the resources they have available to them.

One of my favorite books, Relaxing into Your Being by B. K. Frantzis, demonstrates this understanding. The author explains numerous times that meditation doesn't heal depression and that in fact it may end up causing more depression because of what you are dealing with. He suggests that meditation may not be the best solution for dealing with depression and that therapy and/or medication might be better and that if you are going to use meditation for dealing with internal issues, that you should do it in conjunction with therapy. And I've found, from my own experiences, that such advice is well worth following. Back when I was doing the emptiness working, it became apparent very quickly that I needed therapy as part of the necessary work in order to deal with all the issues that came up around emptiness.

The truth is that when you just turn to spirituality as the solution, you aren't using all the tools at your disposal and you aren't considering the impact it can have on people around you, when they have to deal with you and your issues on a regular basis. Spirituality isn't a universal salve or cure all. It can provide answers and tools for working through things, but its wise to recognize when you need to draw on other resources such as therapy or medication. I also think it's wise to examine your reaction to the feeling of depression. Unfortunately there is a stigma associated with depression that causes people to shy away from acknowledging that they feel depressed. I wonder how much easier it might be to simply acknowledge that you do feel a particular way.

I've had to deal with depression a lot in my life. As I wrote in Inner Alchemy, I did find a way to work with my neurotransmitters which helped me solve an electro chemical imbalance in my brain, but it doesn't mean depression just went away and I never experienced it again. It just means that I no longer had an electro chemical predisposition to being depressed all the time. Nonetheless I still feel depressed on occasion. Even on Friday of last week, I woke up and was in a bit of a funk initially. How I handled it involved first acknowledging that I did feel that way and that it was okay to feel that way. And that's an important first step, which I don't think many people take the time to do. It's ok that you're feeling depressed. There's nothing unnatural about it or wrong with feeling depressed. It can and does effect your functionality and productivity, but maybe that, in and of itself, is worth looking at instead of automatically trying to change it.

One of the problems that people face when it comes to emotions is learning how to sit with those emotions and feel them. We act them out a lot of times, but acting them out isn't necessarily the same as feeling them. Learning how to feel them involves learning to acknowledge that you are feeling the emotion and allowing yourself to feel it.  A lot of people will say, "I don't want to feel depressed" and I can certainly appreciate not wanting to feel that way, but I think so much of the approach to depression is focused on avoiding it that we don't always allow ourselves to fully recognize when we do feel it or consider what it might be trying to tell us.

There are different ways to handle depression. Anti-depressant meds are one way, as therapy is another. I think meditation can be helpful with depression provided some type of oversight is included in the process. I've also found that physical exercise helps me when I'm feeling down, because its causing me to do something that gets me out of whatever mental rut I'm in. Whatever you do to handle depression, just remember that it is okay to feel it, and that acknowledging that you feel it doesn't make you weak, but rather is the first step toward helping you work with those feelings. And don't be afraid to reach out to others who are qualified to help with such feelings, because they can help you make sense of what you are experiencing.

Vanity as a form of pop culture magic

One of the aspects of social media which really fascinates me is how much it appeals to the vanity that many people have. Facebook is a prime example, wherein people will post a variety of pictures of themselves, as well as various things associated with themselves such as pictures of the food they are eating, activities they are doing, etc., often for an audience of people who they don't even know in person. You see similar variants on sites such as Google + and Twitter. And what you'll also see is that a lot of people will end up feeding the vanity of a given person by liking the photos and/or commenting on them. You see this vanity occur also when people share text updates about activities they are doing. Other people will like the update and sometimes comment. And all of this activity creates a kind of vanity magic in my mind, where what people are interacting with is an idealized version of the person who's updates and pictures they are liking and commenting on. I say idealized because whatever is presented to people is purposely chosen and creates a filter. What we see and read is presented to us and craft's a particular image, which may not be "real" but nonetheless becomes a reality in and of itself, and an entity in its own right.

I've seen this principle of vanity employed over the years with celebrities and other authors. For that matter, in my own way I've used this principle as well, because the truth is that no matter what I present on here or else where, it will always be filtered and biased. Social media may offer an illusory belief that we can share an unfiltered perspectives of ourselves, but think carefully about your own social media interactions. What are you really presenting?

This principle of vanity has been in effect for far longer than social media, but social media makes it blatant. And consequently the magician can also experiment with such vanity. For example, I've purposely chosen to write fictitious status updates on my Facebook timeline for the purposes of creating a vanity narrative about myself. Recently I've observed someone else who has chosen to take pictures from her list of friends and use a picture of a friend as her Facebook avatar, again as a way of experimenting with the vanity principle.

I think you can take it even further. You can purposely create this persona of yourself with specific pictures chosen and text written that creates an alterego of sorts. It could be the creation of the person you wish you could be, or it could be something else altogether, with the comments and likes received used to not only fuel the existence of this alterego, but also it's connection with you and how you become it and vice versa. Then this vanity becomes an identity magic used to establish a new identity for yourself. In fact, I'd argue that what social media really presents to people is an opportunity to re-create their own identity within in an environment of participation, where other people's interactions help to shape the new identity being formed through social media actions. I see this kind of vanity as a form of pop culture magic, where technology and audience participation and interaction is used to create the social identity and reality of the person.

The picture I've included in this post is a picture of me circa 1998, at State College. I present it with a sense of amusement, as much of my image has changed and yet hasn't changed. The past presents its own vanity, its own persona, all of which feeds into this social identity/reality. In fact, when you think about it, what social media has really done is allowed us to connect our past and present images and commentary to the internet and injected all of that into the superconsciousness of humanity, in a much more conscious way than had previously occurred. The reality of our identities are mediated now as much by the audience all of us have as by our own attempts.

Want to actually do this, not just read about it?

Pop Culture Magic 2.0 is where I teach how to build a magic system out of the culture you already live in. Get the book →

Not ready to buy anything? Why Your Spells Don't Stick is a free guide to the most common reasons a working stalls, and where to start fixing it.

If you want help with a specific situation, work with me one to one.

Process of Magic Round 7 Starting October 2nd

 

Magic is a process that changes you and your relationship with the world, if you understand how the process works.

In this 24 lesson class, we will explore what the process of magic is and how it applies to you and your magical work. If you’re looking for a different perspective on magic that explores the underlying principles of how magic works, instead of focusing on the tools, ceremonies, and other optional features, this class is for you. I approach magic unconventionally and explore what really makes it work. What you’ll get, when you take this course, is a comprehensive understanding of how magic works, what you can change in order to enhance your magical workings, and a foundational approach to magic practice that consistently creates results. The end result of taking this class will be a dynamic reshaping of your magical practice into a personalized system that you will be able to use to consistently generate results for the betterment of your life.

Want to learn more about class? Visit this page to get more details and sign up for the class. Look below for an outline of the course:

Lesson 1: An overview of the process of magic

Lesson 2: You and Definitions of Magic

Lesson 3: Results, Change, and their respective roles in magic

Lesson 4: The anatomy of the process of magic

Lesson 5: Culture, Ethics and Ideology

Lesson 6: What isn't essential to the process of magic

Lesson 7: Connection and its role in the magical process

Lesson 8: Intention, Attention, and Magic

Lesson 9: Inhibitory Actions and Magic

Lesson 10: Excitatory Actions and Magic

Lesson 11: Internal Work

Lesson 12: Spiritual allies and the magical process

Lesson 13: Invocation 1

Lesson 14: Invocation 2

Lesson 15: Evocation 1

Lesson 16: Evocation 2

Lesson 17: Divination

Lesson 18: Enchantment

Lesson 19: Astral Projection

Lesson 20: Banishing

Lesson 21: Attunement with the land

Lesson 22: The Role of Limitation in the Process of Magic

Lesson 23: The role of Transformation in the Process of Magic

Lesson 24: The role of Mundane actions in the Process of Magic

Why I'm an idea generator

Every so often I look at the reviews people leave about my books. One of the comments that I see on occasion is that my work is great for idea generation. The reviewers, I think, wish my work wasn't so oriented toward idea generation, because I get the sense that the comment is not a compliment, so much as a criticism. Regardless of what the comment really is or isn't, I actually take it as a compliment. I've never wanted to write spellbooks or anything else that smacks of me holding the hand of someone else and walking them through how to do something. I didn't learn magic in that way. I learned it by reading, practicing what I learned, and then generating ideas about what I could do, and it's my hope that my work provides the same inspiration.

Now I realize some people want something different. They want someone to hold their hands and help them understand how to do something. And that's an expectation that readers should have for a 101 book on magic or Paganism. But when it comes to an intermediate to advanced book on magic (which I consider all of my work to be) the expectation should naturally change to one where its understood that the reader is reading the book to get ideas about where they can take their magical practice. While I always include exercises in my books for a person to do (and I hope they do them), what I'm really presenting is where my own work has taken me and providing suggestions on how someone can take my work and extend it further. I want to help people generate ideas, which is why I also emphasize the importance of experimenting with magic and being your own authority.

Even in classes I teach, while I certainly teach a technique, I want people to come away with ideas of their own about what they could do or how they could do something. Generating ideas for people allows them to make what they're learning something that becomes personalized. It becomes their own magical technique, instead of something taught to them by someone else. When you make something your own, you understand it in a way that is distinct from whatever you were taught. You learn it from your own experience, and without the filters and biases bring into whatever they are teaching.

I never had a magical teacher, beyond two very brief stints that didn't work out. I read books, but I was always reading them with an eye toward how I could take the concepts and make them my own. Perhaps if I'd been taught by someone my books would be less oriented toward idea generation, but I think my readers would be poorer for it. Idea generation is a good thing because it indicates that the real value you are finding in the writing is the ideas you are getting from it, as opposed to whatever instruction is provided. I say read to teach yourself. The writing is just a platform to bounce ideas off of.

My latest article on Pagansquare explains why the question of why is so important in magical work.

Other Places you can find me on the web

 

Did you know you can find me on some other places on the web? For instance I have an authors facebook page. If you haven't liked it, please consider liking it and if you feel comfortable doing it, please share it with your friends as well.

I'm also on Twitter and if you follow me, chances are good I'll follow you back.

I also have a guest blog on Pagansquare, where I post the occasional article which doesn't end up on here.

And I'm restarting my Radio show with a co-host, Erik Roth. Our first show will be on September 19th and I'll actually be interviewing him about Shamanic Astrology.

I also have a website focused on business, so if you own a business stop by and visit it for articles.

Why I'm careful about what I read

 

I've become very selective about what I read, both in terms of enjoyment and in more practical terms of inspiration. I was thinking that the other day as I was looking at a variety of blog posts from other people on the web. To be honest, I don't read many of the other blogs of other magicians, and even the few I do read, I read infrequently, because I'm selective about what I'm putting into my head. At a certain point, I think that if you oversaturate yourself with the thoughts and ideas of other people you cut yourself off from a very vital part of yourself, which is your own imagination and creativity.  Your imagination and creativity need some access to other material as a way of inspiring them, but too much ends up dulling them. That's true not just of books, but any form of media. At a certain point too much exposure dulls you because it fits you with preconceived ideas of how something ought to be done, as handed down by various "authorities."

One of the criticisms I received about Pop Culture Magick was that the examples I drew on didn't include any of Grant Morrison's works or Neal Gaiman's works. I thought it was a rather odd criticism, until I realized that the critics were applying their expectations of pop culture onto me. What they didn't realize is that I had never read any of Morrison's or Gaiman's work and I had no interest in reading their works. Yes, those works are popular to a good number of occultists, but for me they weren't of any interest. I've since read a bit of both authors' works and even now I don't find it that interesting for me to explore further because it's not where I draw my inspiration from. I recognize that other people are inspired by those authors, but what inspires me is different and that's fine by me.

Your inspiration is something which has to be cultivated carefully. A few years back I killed my inspiration, in part due to life situations, but also because I was reading far too much information and not giving myself time to process it or really appreciate its relevance. Eventually I did get that time and afterwards my inspiration came back, but it was because I took a break from reading the books I was reading. Even now I regularly take breaks from whatever I'm reading so that I can process what's already been read and consider its relevance in my life, particularly by applying it.

Feed your mind carefully with what really interests you, but don't let it get distracted by the minutiae of other people's ideas or approaches to that interest. They have their inspiration, and it's worthy of respect, but respect your own as well and choose carefully what you'll read. You want to draw on what's meaningful to you, but you also want to give yourself time to savor it and apply it. By giving yourself that gift you will better appreciate what you do read and you'll be more selective because whatever you draw on has to be something that is relevant to those interests. By extension, this same caveat also applies to what you do, specifically in terms of other people approaching you about participating in their projects. I get a fair amount of people who want me to weigh in on their ideas or participate in their projects and I tend to not get involved because I'm working on my own projects and have enough to do their, but also because I want to cultivate my own creativity and inspiration by focusing on what my own interests and projects are.

The value of irrational thinking

I've been playing the re-mastered version of Ducktales lately. It's a game which brings back fond memories of my childhood. On one of the levels, the miners are afraid of sounds coming from the mine, so they leave. Scrooge insists that there is a rational explanation and eventually gets to the bottom of the mine, where he discovers a race of underground dwellers who've been causing the noise. Afterwards he tells his nephews how there was a rational explanation for everything, at which point one of them dryly observes that a race of people in the Earth who don't like diamonds is a perfectly explanation. I thought it was an interesting point to make, especially as I'm currently reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, which explores just how prevalent irrational behavior is.

Rational thinking is a bit overblown in my opinion. We use rational thinking to explain why we've chosen to undertake a particular action or made a decision, and conveniently ignore the emotional, irrational factors that play a role in our decision making process. And while there might be a rational explanation for everything, it doesn't necessarily mean that explanation is the best explanation out there. There's a presumption that being irrational is bad or that it makes you less in control of a given situation, but I'd argue that what irrationality can provide are alternative explanations that may not overtly make sense, but nonetheless provide a different way to view a given situation and can actually help you find solutions to your problems. It may not be a rational solution, but why stick with rationality?

In one sense, I think the reason rationality is so prized is because it's perceived as a negation of everything that doesn't conform to a neat little package of the universe. Rational thinking has an explanation for everything, or promises that it will, and those explanations will be packaged in a nice safe way that makes sense to everyone. Irrationality isn't necessarily safe. It embraces the unknown and explores the possibilities that the answers may not be known or may not fit conventional thinking. Irrational thinking embraces the validity of believing in spirits as being a reasonable (if not rational) explanation.

I'm not much for rational thinking because I've never found it to be as useful as some people portray it. A lot of my work has come from being deliberately irrational and using the irrational perspectives to gain insight into what I'm working on. I think rational thinking has its time and place, but so does irrational thinking! Embrace irrationality for the possibility of unusual perspectives and non-rational solutions. And explore irrational thinking so that you can understand how you already engage in it, and thus can makes changes in that thinking, if you so desire.

Month 10 Elemental Balancing Ritual - Movement grains of sand

7-25-2013 I had a realization this morning, as I was driving to a business meeting. I felt this profound sense of being loved by Kat, and allowing myself to feel comfortable with being loved by Kat. I realized I'd never been comfortable with being loved. Being loved was a surrender of control, a surrender to being vulnerable, a surrender to allowing someone else to touch me deeply. It's not something I've ever been comfortable with from anyone, but today as I drove to this meeting, I felt comfortable with being loved, and accepting that someone could love me as deeply as Kat does. It was so moving and yet so still. I am loved and I can accept that love.

7-30-2013 Something I've always struggled with is expressing what I'm feeling. Early on, I learned to keep what I felt to myself, because if I expressed it, I got punished for it. By keeping it to myself, I shut myself off from my emotions, and even though I've gotten better about expressing what I'm feeling, it's still a challenge, especially if I'm expressing something which I know will make someone unhappy. I've learned though that it's better to express myself and deal with the emotions, instead of pretending that they aren't there. While the immediate response may not be one where the person is thrilled with me, if they are willing to communicate with me, eventually will reach a place of resolution. Reminding myself of that is what gives me the courage to open up and express myself instead of continuing to keep myself locked down.

7-31-13 I saw the film Kon Tiki tonight, which is a biographical film about the Kon Tiki expedition. I was inspired, touched, motivated by this film, by this simple truth that just because something is controversial doesn't mean you should give up or stop believing in what you are doing. Too often people are willing to settle for mediocrity, for whatever is taken for granted and not challenged. And yet it is only when we are willing to challenge what is established that we can determine if it even still has value or is just dragging us back. I suppose this is one reason I've always bucked dogma, because if you hold to dogma and never question it, it becomes rote doctrine, which leads to close minded fanaticism. Such fanaticism does little to benefit the world, and much more to harm it.

8-2-13 I'm seeing a lot of clearing away in my business coaching practice. Clients are wrapping up and I'm getting some movement, time, etc., just cleared away for me. Part of me worries. The rest of me sees it as an opportunity to work on the writing, while also training myself to be better at what I love to do.

8-6-13 With internal work you go through cycles and cycles of work. You have realizations about yourself or the world only to cycle down further into the mental strata and have deeper realizations that nonetheless are the same. This is part of doing the work and part of realizing that such work isn't automatically done, but instead is experienced as a recurring process that gradually leads you to a place of greater awareness and conscious change. You can have the same realization several times over and yet it can be something which speaks to you in a different way each time.

8-8-13 Lately I've been having some memories come up, sensations really, but ones that are triggering in an unpleasant way. I've been doing some internal work around these sensations. It's not that I necessarily want to feel the sensations, but rather that I want to understand why they are even coming up in the first place. The answer, so far, is that likely I'm experiencing a partially blocked memory from my early childhood (I think) of possible molestation. I'm continuing to work with it, because while it might be easier to just let it remained block, it also ends up creating an energetic blockage that I don't want to sustain. It's hard work because what I'm facing as a result are sensations and experiences that I don't think anyone would want to experience, and yet I feel it is essential for true healing to occur. Part of me doesn't want to face whatever is behind that block, so I'm going slow and carefully with the work and I may stop if I feel its too much, but I would like to dissolve the blockage associated with the sensations, as I think it would help me immensely.

8-11-13 I had this dream last night where I had signed up to go to this space station and mine an asteroid for a couple years, and then I'd come back with money (I'm sure this will be a reality some day). However what happened was that I was stuck in this program, and there was a robot double being created that would go back after two years and then die within a year, while they kept using my body for whatever they wanted to use it for. And so I started to rebel against the system I was in, and eventually found a way to disconnect myself from the virtual world, as did the other people and we started to disconnecting other people and fighting the administrators who were maintaining the system. Then I became someone else, this dying woman that this virtual world had been created for and she was a princess in this virtual world, but she also found out how it was sustained and started helping the rebellion from the inside.

8-12-13 Today's meditation work has been hard for me, and I've had a low level of functionality as a result. During my meditation I ended up flashing back to that sensation of being molested. When I have these flashbacks, its not visual. Instead it is tactile, which makes it worse, because I can't really distance myself from what I'm feeling. It's a very raw experience, and I feel fragile today because of processing those feelings. I could feel, as I meditated, that the level of distress my body felt continued to rise as I meditated on and dissolved the blockage. It's hard work because it's calling on me to remember and face something that I'm only recalling now at the age of 36. Clearly it was a traumatic experience then, and it certainly is now. As a result I haven't felt very productive today. I've been in a funk and that has bothered me as well, because I certainly have enough to do, but whether I'm capable of doing it is something else altogether.

Kat and I've also finished reading After the Affair, which has been a good read for me because it has helped me explore my history with infidelity, both in my family and in my own actions. I'm not proud of my past actions in my previous relationships and I've felt a deeper level of recognition, responsibility, and empathy toward people I've hurt in the past due to my own baggage. I can't change what's happened, but I see how much that behavior has impacted my life and how it has hurt other people and I am glad that I am continuing to change my standards of behavior, to become a better person. I don't want to leave the wake of chaos and pain that I have left in the past through my actions. I see now as well how the polyamory label allowed me to justify a lot of behaviors without examining them, though that's no fault of the label, but rather my own fault for not digging deeper and really examining what I wanted or needed. It's hard to sit with all of that, but I know that I can't genuinely change if I don't recognize the past and really understand where I've been, so that I can know where I can go.

8-15-2013 The other day, in my meditation on movement, I reached out to Eros and asked him why he hadn't shown up all that much and he said he didn't feel the need to show up if I was moving in the right direction. When I'm going someplace different, then he'll show up as a guide. I think also that as I've continued to do these elemental balancing workings, it's been easier for me to connect directly with the element. When I first started having a guide that mediated the element was helpful for conceptualization purposes, but now working with an elemental force directly isn't such a stretch.

8-17-13 There are occasions where I feel outside any and everything, where I feel like I don't belong. I think this is a feeling many people experience. I think of how that feeling can move a person in both positive and negative directions. That feeling has moved in both directions, and even now I feel it on occasion. It's a powerful feeling which speaks as much to the inadequate feelings a person has about him/herself as well as the longing to belong to something larger or bigger. The key, when you feel this way, isn't to try and fill yourself up with whatever or whoever you find, but rather to be present with the emotion and work through it.

8-21-13 The website has a different look because someone hacked the theme I was using and had some javascript running. I came up with a solution of sorts. I liked the old theme, and at some point I am going to get a different design made, but this will have to do for the meantime.

In other news, the last two days my meditation on the element of movement has taken a deeper turn. Yesterday as I as meditating Eros came to visit and he showed me a perspective of movement and myself where I felt like a tiny grain of sand among many, many other grains of sand, and what movement I could do was just a tiny movement, that might cause a ripple in the immediate area, but wasn't significant beyond that. I felt how small I really am in all that movement, recognizing in the process that everything else is also that small. Everything is moving or trying to move, but all of those movements, individually are small...yet put together you can find patterns and those patterns are created by the movement of each person, ting, etc., not because of one person, but because there is a agreement of some type when it comes to movement.

Today's meditation was a deep one, but in a similar vein of expression. I was a mote of light moving with other motes of light. My expressions of movement weren't original per se, but all part of this greater pattern that I'm a part of. I moved as part of a movement. Both experiences were humbling, but also beautiful and terrible at the same time. I'm not sure where its all going, but I'm going with it and I'm open to it because I know that I am moved as much if not more than what I move.

Some Musings on 0 and 1

Dyslexicon 8, which features an article I wrote on my work with the spider goddess of time is now available. Check it out! Speaking of time magic, the other day I began thinking about 0 and 1 which I associate with possibility and reality respectively in a similar manner which builds off the existing associations. 0 = transformation while 1 = manifestation.

In 0 there is endless possibilities and with that comes transformation. Transformation is integral to possibility, and could be argued to also be what bridges possibility and reality. For possibility to become reality, transformation needs to occur. Transformation is part of change. When we change something we are transforming it, connecting it with possibility in order to determine what it could be and how it could manifest.

In 1 there is focused and shaped action, which in turn creates reality. Action is a form of manifestation, which is fueled by transformation. Transformation provides the drive for possibility to turn into reality manifestation. Manifestation is the reduction of possibility into a reality of your choice. Manifestation is an expression of transformation that moves the chaos of endless possibility into the order of constructed reality.

Reality is a construct, a thin veneer of order that provides some level of stability to possibility, which nonetheless can be undone by the manifestation of other possibilities into reality. At the same time reality is only malleable to a point. There is consensus experience of reality that provides the baseline by which we experience reality that provides enough limitations to provide a specific type of experience. The more real a possibility becomes the more it conforms to the limitations of reality, which providing some variation on those same limitations.

0 and 1 are numbers with associations applied to them. The associations are only as meaningful as you allow them to be. What makes them useful is you apply those associations to your experiences of 0 and 1 as spiritual forces and make meaningful contact with something the speaks to the experience you are having...or if you practically use them to create change in your life. The practical application is the key...There's no reality without application.

When everything falls apart, pick yourself back up and start again

 

There are moments in your life where some part of your life, or perhaps all of your life seems to fall apart. Sometimes it may even seem to occur over a prolonged period of your life. Right now, I'm in the midst of a dark night of the soul, according to my astrological chart, and I've certainly experienced some of that feeling over the last few months. I've felt helpless, frustrated, and like parts of my life have fallen apart. I'm even feeling it right now, where I'm suddenly facing in my coaching business, a lack of clients, as all of them finished up all at once. It's a little terrifying when you feel like the bottom of your life or profession has dropped out from underneath you. And you can feel tempted to just give up when you experience those moments where everything seems to fall apart.

I'll admit that sometimes I've given up. I gave up when I left the Ph.D program at Kent State. There are times when giving up IS the best course of action you can take. When I left the Ph.d program I left it because I wasn't happy with what I was doing, and the future academic career looked like it would be even less fun and more oppressive than what I was already doing. It simply wasn't for me. So I gave up and walked away.

Other times you have to keep picking yourself up and pursuing what you know is right for you to be doing. My choices to be self-published and self-employed are examples of those particular decisions. Neither choice has always been easy to follow through on. It's tempting to just give up and find a job, or to stop writing because you wonder if it'll really find that audience that responds to your writing. Yet if you really want it, you have to keep going for it.

For me, magic and everything else I want is as much about persistence as anything else. Do you have the persistence to continue following through on what you want? Are you willing to pick yourself back up and keep trying because what you want is worth the effort. Magic, despite, how it's sometimes talked up is not really about cutting corners or getting to the fast track of what you want. Magic can help you get what you want, but there is a persistence and effort factor tat needs to be accounted for. Nothing ever just comes to you. You've got to be willing to give in order to get. And what you give is your effort, your sweat, your blood, but also what you give is your willingness to learn, to get smarter and wiser, and do whatever you are doing better than how you did it before.

I've had so much fall apart at different times in my life and yet in those down moments, what's kept me going has been this realization that at the end of the day the only thing that will pick me up is myself. Not the magic, not some deity, and not even some other person. What keeps me going is my choice to move forward, learn from my mistakes, and get better at what I'm doing. What helps me are the people who believe in me, the resources I can employ to help me resolve a given situation, and of course my own determination to not give up, unless its actually smarter to do so. Everything falls apart...pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep striving toward what you want. You'll get it right eventually or die trying.