4-23-2018 Today I was sitting with a feeling of embarrassment and humiliation that I felt and I read When Things Fall Apart and it was the right reading for the moment, because she talks about that moment of feeling squeezed, of feeling like a failure and that's the moment when your mind opens up, if we allow it to. And I felt that way, and yet in that moment of embracing it, I then felt this deeper acceptance of myself, this deeper sense of stability. Yes I'm feeling this way because of x, y, and z. And yes being in the moment can be hard, to feel a sense of shame is never easy, yet embracing that feeling is also liberation. You aren't bound to that shame, instead you use it to free yourself of the narrative.
4-30-2018 I went to a weekend intensive for the Hidden Spring. I found the work to be right up my alley, especially because I've been doing a lot of work with Underworld energies of late. Of particular interest was a connection with the goddess Sulis, who showed up in a dream, after the workshop ended and showed me how she evened the odds, but never really took sides. The workshop itself helped me connect deeper with the archangelic powers I've been working with. I'm still processing a lot of it.
But another takeaway I had was a conversation with the person running the workshop. He said he really didn't have much to do with the occult/pagan crowd...that his focus was really on the people he was working with and making his work available to the people of his tradition. It made sense to me, made me realize again that my work isn't for everyone, but is for the people that it speaks to.
5-3-2018 Sometimes you have to start to do something to realize you really don't want to do it. I'd been working my way through this course I paid for and I hit this realization: I don't want to do this. I don't want to put in the work. I know what I want to put the work in on...and this isn't it. So instead of pushing myself to continue doing it, I decided to stop. And its hard decision, but also a good decision. Because instead of wasting effort on something I don't want t do, I'm choosing to trust myself and the realization I've had. And for me that's huge. I'm not going to do something because I feel obligated. I'm going to do it because its the direction I truly want to go in.
5-6-2018 Since coming to the decision I made the other day I felt a sense of hope and contentment, direction and focus that I haven't felt in a while. And at the same time a sense of clarity that this path may be a long one, but its a good one for me to be walking. It's a path I've wanted to walk so much of my life, but I've always come up with reasons not to walk. Now there are no more reasons not to walk it and every reason to walk it.
5-8-2018 I've been reading Lessons Learned from Occult Letters by William G. Gray. In one of the commentaries he talks about how important it is to cultivate a sense of humor and use that sense of humor to help you with cultivating a sense of inner joy. It was pertinent advice because of late with the stability work I've been working on cultivating a deeper sense of contentment and joy. I think finding joy in the moment is one of the sources of strength that can carry a person through tough and good times and I've found that what's helped me in this period of my life has been finding those moments of joy and sharing them with other people, the ones who matter.
In some ways what I've really come to recognize about where I am right now is that I had to fall, to fail, to hit bottom in order to discover some fundamental things I was missing out on my life. When you fall everything you were becomes irrelevant, to you and everyone else. And you have this opportunity to figure out what's really important to you, to pick up the pieces that matter, while letting go of everything else. And to also rediscover who you are. And that's where I'm at. I'm rediscovering who I am, and picking out what's important and letting everything else go. Its hard because it hurts to see your own delusions stripped away, but its liberating because what you're left with is what really matters and that is what carries your forward. For me its writing and magic and Kat and the people who I consider to my chosen family. Everything else is optional.
5-10-2018 One experience which has been very healing for me has been re-encountering an acquaintance I met 8 years ago. At the time he worked at a print shop, and we only met briefly, but I found it to be synchronous that at the current job I'm working at, he also happens to work there. And why is it so healing? Not because of the person per se, but because it allowed me to get a different perspective on an event that happened a year ago. Knowing this person underwent a similar experience just as I did really helped me make sense of what happened and gave me some peace and closure. I feel like this was a case of the universe looking out for me by bringing me something I needed. And in the midst of so much change in my life to have something like that happen when I needed it just illustrates that no matter what happens, there can be alignments that occur which provide something in a given situation that you need.
5-15-2018 When you work with stability as an element, one of the realizations you have is that ego really doesn't have a place in the work with Stability. Ego gets in the way of stability, because it yearns for recognition, for acknowledgement. When I look at the last few years of my life, every mistake I've made has been rooted in ego, in wanting recognition of some type. It's pretty sobering to have that kind of realization because you realize what's really gotten in your way is you. I reflected today that I've been my best enemy. Yet none of that will stop me from continuing to live my life, make my mistakes, and try, try again. But what it will do is help me be more cautious and aware of how I could trip myself up in the future.
5-18-2018 I had some interesting realizations about recognition and what a trap it can be. I fell into trap, really lived in it for a long time. And I still struggle with it some days, but the further I get away from recognition, the more I see how much it contributed to my problems. Ironically continuing to write will always provide me the temptation of the recognition trap, but at least I see it for what it is.
5-21-2018 I've been reading The Shaman's Body by Arnold Mindell. In it he talks about a person's talent can become a trap or a demon in it own right. The identities we establish around the talent can be part of that trap as well. Gave me a lot to consider, especially in relationship to the recognition trap. I've held onto certain identities for so long and they've eventually become traps in their own right. In my pursuit of stability, its not surprising to me that some of the work I've done has involved shedding those identities and escaping from the traps they represent. You have to strip away whatever causes instability, whatever contains you and defines, but doesn't liberate you. I've been in so many traps that stepping out of each them is a both a moment of fear and a realization of liberty. I am no longer in this safe, uncomfortable thing...now what? Now what indeed. It's ironic that to discover stability is to set yourself free of the expectations built into the status quo. The status quo seems stable, until you discover how much it actually creates the problems in your life because you just accepted it instead of critically questioning why you settled.
