8-23-14 My mom has arrived from PA and is visiting for the week. We picked her up last night from the airport and when we got back I caught up with her for a while. We ended up talking about some past history and I got some validation about some feelings I was working through. So did she. It helped me a bit with the funk I've been in. Though I actually figured out something else about that feeling of depression. It's not so much a feeling of depression as it's a recognition of the transition from movement to stillness. Stillness feels disquieting, weird, and off to me right now, and I think part of how I've dealt with that has involved translating it into a feeling of depression. There's other factors too, but it is part of what's going on. That's the challenge with doing this kind of elemental work...you change from one element to another and it shifts your energy and experience accordingly.
8-26-14 So much on my mind right now as I write this. I feel a different sense of appreciation for my mom than I've ever really felt before. Having become a step-parent, I have some sense of the commitment, sacrifice, and responsibility involved in being a parent and it makes me appreciate my mom in a way I never did before. I see a lot of the choices she made in a very different light now, and while there's still a couple decisions she made that I disagree with, I find myself recognizing her as a parent through some of my own challenges around being a step-parent.
Part of what I'm also feeling is some sadness about her leaving. She's not leaving for a few more days and Kat pointed out that I seem to be front loading my sadness before the actual event. The truth is that I've always done this since I was a little kid. I found I had to do it to prepare myself for leaving her. I would only see her every other holiday and for six weeks out of the summer. It was hard to leave her and I always had to prepare myself emotionally by front loading that grieving so that when I got back to my dad's I could distance myself from it. In some ways, I think it was expected in his household, for I remember only crying at night, in the privacy of my own room, knowing I shouldn't show such emotion anywhere else.
This visit, just like the previous visit from my dad, has shown me some deeper parts of my mom, helping me to see her more authentically as the person she is. I feel its all related to this current work I'm doing, transitioning from movement to stillness and finding balance with these respective energies. It's also an iterative process of contextualizing people in my life in such a way that it allows me to process and understand them better because of this internal work I'm doing. I find that by doing this work it helps me continue to understand and work through my relationships with those people, as well as the internal blockages that come up as a result. It also demonstrates, to me, how internal blockages can show up in relationships you have and thus need to be worked through in order to come to a better place with the other person.
8-27-14 I've been reflecting further on my relationship with my mom, while she's here. I realize that my cooking and cleaning skills as well as my awareness of when to chip in and help out at home really originates from her and what she taught me. I feel this deeper sense of appreciation for her as a result, because I feel I have certain skills I might not have had otherwise. Because of those skills, I'm able to help out around the house in a way that isn't typical when it comes to men. I hear many stories about men who don't help out, who expect their wives to do everything and its likely because they learned that from their mothers. My mom taught me to help out, taught me to recognize that where I'm living is something I need to invest in, with my own efforts. She taught me not to expect to be waited on and for that I am so grateful. I feel a lot of resentment falling away in light of this visit, because I'm appreciating her in a new light, appreciating how she set me up to be an adult.
8-29-14 Today my mom headed home. Yesterday we played a couple games of Sorry. Before that I opened up to her and asked her if she loved all of me. She's never agreed with some of my choices, but I'd internalized that as a rejection of me and hearing her tell me that she loves all of me made a difference. I feel that this visit with her and the visit I had with my dad showed me certain things about both of them that I needed to see, which I feel is relevant to this work I'm doing. As I continue this transition into stillness, the movement I'm engaged in nonetheless sets the stage for the stillness work so that I can go deeper, as well as even setting the stage for further work down the line.
9-5-14 I've been doing a lot of work around Geburah. This is definitely a sephiroth that can kick your butt because it represents the forces of judgement. In my encounters with the Seraphim and Khamael, I was called out by each in respect to some of my choices and what I tell myself about those choices. Such judgment isn't easy to face, but it can burn away what you tell yourself and I think that's really useful. The magician needs to be honest with themselves, and if that doesn't happen, it inevitably stops the progression of the work you are doing. I spent a lot of time with this sephiroth working with that current for that reason.
I also got a new tattoo or rather a revision to an old tattoo. I've been feeling like I'm transitioning from Movement to Stillness, and so I got a script on my right forearm, which says "From 1 to 0" which is really a channeling of that transition, but also a comment in its own way on my work with emptiness and identity. The work doesn't stop...it just evolves and continues to change, but it is still and iterative process that allows the person to refine themselves.
9-10-14. I've been working with Chesed lately, particularly with the Chasmalim, which have shown up and communicated via light frequencies. It's quite an odd experience, but one I've opened myself to, recognizing that it is also representative of going higher up the tree from reality to concept. The different light frequencies seem to inspire emotional and feeling related responses from me.
Something else I've been doing is paying close attention to how I label myself and my behavior in relationship to other people. For example, I've found that I label myself as not very personable and I ask myself where that label comes from and I find that it shows up in my interactions with people...but is it accurate or just self-fulfilling. I'm not sure, but in paying attention to such labels, it also provides me the opportunity to change them if I so desire or understand them better. I'll admit I tend to look at situations with other people in terms of function and do consequently find it harder to sometimes relate to people, but I also know that can be worked with if I choose.
9-12-14 Yesterday and today I encounter Tzadkiel in my meditations on Chesed. He noted that compassion and Mercy can actually be harder than judgment, because judgment enables us to punish ourselves, but compassion forces us to face and recognize the truth of our actions and their consequences. I really sat with that and found myself agreeing. You can feel compassion for someone or yourself, buy you nonetheless know what the person has done and that person knows you know as well. It seems kinder and gentler, but maybe it really isn't.
9-15-14 Something which has come up this year, or at least has made itself much more known to me is the travel anxiety I feel. It ended up coming out in a big way last night. I think I feel it so much more because I'm doing so much more of it, and while the travel is a good thing, there's also that feeling of ungroundedness and of course the concern as to whether I can keep up with all the demands and needs of my business efforts and other projects. Nonetheless the root of it is also found in the traveling I had to do as a child, when I'd fly back and forth between my parents. I need to come to grips with it, because I know I'll be doing more travel as I continue to reach out and connect with my target audiences.
I've also been thinking about how important it is to do your own thing and not worry about what other people think or do in response to what you are doing. There will always be that crowd of people you look in on and realize you don't belong with, but there will also be the people around you that accept you and know you and want to enjoy your company. It's important to appreciate what you have instead of lookingly longingly toward some perceived "cool kid" crowd, which likely has people feeling a similar way about some of the people you know or even you.
9-16-14 I've started work with Binah and the associated planet of Saturn. The interesting thing about Binah is that it seems to be where limitation begins in the Tree of Life. Or perhaps its better to say its where limitation is given birth to. So it's interesting to contemplate that and understand Binah from that perspective. I've also been thinking a bit more about how I label myself. I realize that I don't feel personable to most people and its because I go deep. I'm intense and that intensity is what drives my interactions. As a colleague observed earlier today, I tend to be business focused and objective. I'm ok with that because its who I am and how I function.
9-23-14 Work with Binah was fairly abstract. It gave me a lot to think about in regards to limitations and how limitations can be used in magical work. In one sense its really more about being aware of limits in your life and recognizing them for what they are, as well as what you invest in them. Beyond that, I'm getting ready for my first weekend intensive and I feel excited and nervous about it. I figure once you do something you make it part of your reality and that's finally happening with this one happening in Minneapolis.