2-21-13 I've been meditating on movement in terms of subtle movement, both mentally and physically. For example, when I meditate, how does my mind move, and what does it move to or away from? Or when I am walking or breathing what am I noticing when I move my body? How aware am I of the movement? These are good questions to ask and they are getting me to pay more attention to movements I have taken for granted. I am going over older practices and re-doing them with a conscious focus on the movement, physical or otherwise that is involved. In turn that is allowing me to experience those practices in a deeper way than I had previously done.
2-24-13 One of the realizations around grievance that I've had is the acknowledgement that I may not get the closure I want from people. This is a hard realization because it essentially involves recognizing that those people will not take responsibility in a way that I feel provides closure. I think that in and of itself this is a wound that can haunt people. I've felt that wound and I've seen it in other people. So how do you heal that wound? You know the person or people that you want closure from won't help you heal it. They don't feel any obligation to and likely don't even fully recognize what you are hurting over. In some cases they probably even take malicious joy from it. And ultimately it's not about them, it's about you and finding closure.
The best solution I have found is one where I first acknowledge the grievance for what it is and then acknowledge that I won't get the closure want from someone else. I then focus on providing myself closure by working with the grievance, allowing myself to feel it, but also to address it and my part in it. I forgive myself, which helps because I recognize that the grievance isn't just what the other person did, but also what I did and that in one sense it is a judgment I have made about myself. It is a judgment that comes from a place of unlove, and to resolve it I need to address that judgment I have made about myself. The judgment is usually a feeling of "This person was right. What they did to me/made me feel is confirmation that I am not a good person." So when I look at it in that way I recognize that I am sustaining the grievance and that ultimately I am responsible for it. What I want from the other person I can provide by providing myself closure, by recognizing that whatever the other person did wasn't a confirmation of my judgment and that my judgment comes from a place of hurt and unlove within myself.
Doing that helps provide closure. But even so there are times where you will still hurt and angry with the person. Ask yourself if you want to really continue to give that person that much power in your life. You'll likely discover that you don't want to give that person that much power and that can be motivation to continue working on the grievance you feel.
3-02-13 Took an entire day off from my businesses. It felt good to just not work on something for a while. When you are a business owner there is this sense of always needing to be on with your business, always working on it. Actually I think that's true of adults in general because just about every adult I know is always on, always working. It's like we've forgotten how to relax and just be ourselves. And maybe we really have. That's one reason I play games...it reminds me to have fun, reminds me not to always be serious or be an adult. I don't want to work all the time, and taking a day off from work is my way of preserving my sanity I love owning a business (well businesses) but working on them all the time can get a little dull. The work needs to be done and some of it can be farmed out, but how refreshing really to just step away from being responsible for one day, just to be a kid again for a while. And when I come back, the work will be there, but I will feel refreshed and ready to do it.
Beyond that, certain situations do seem to be resolving nicely. A wealth magic working I did via a sigil game is coming together nicely with multiple favorable outcomes. The one outcome that may have changed is where the Wealth magic book gets published. I'm not even done with the first draft, so I'm not really worried about it, but I've been mulling over just how different Immanion is from the larger publishers. Pantheacon showed me that when I went to a panel for one of those publishers. Maybe I'm just too idealistic or too controlling when it comes to my writing and how I think it should be presented and how I think my target audience wants it presented, but nonetheless I think there is something to be said for the presentation and what that presentation conveys to someone.
3-08-13 I wrote a long post last night about Immanion Press and what it means to me. I think it really clarified where my occult writing needs to be and why it needs to be there. As an author I recognize that choosing to stick with a small publisher may not be the best business choice, but as a writer I recognize that it is the best choice for the pursuit of my message. But beyond that I've been thinking about movement and how the movements we choose, if chosen with an open mind, can lead us to unexpected movement. For example, I've been doing some cold calling lately. I've found that going into stores is something I'm more comfortable with, because its more face to face. As I do this movement, I sit with it, get more comfortable with it and allow myself to be present with how it makes me feel but also what it opens for me. If nothing else, I'm improving my presentation skills by giving it a try.
I recently finished reading S. M. Stirlings Change series. It's a fun post apocalyptic read, but there was a point he made that got me thinking. In his dystopic world, humanity has lost modern technology and the generation after the generation that lost the tech are called changelings. The older generation doesn't know what to make of the changelings and the changelings in turn think of the older generation as one that seems more focused on observing itself as opposed to just being and doing. And that insight interests me because I think there is some truth to it. Technology makes life easier, but it also makes life much more distant. People can hide behind screens and watch the world go by without really interacting with it. I write that with a sense of irony as I'm typing this message into a screen, but I do think that just watching the world go by, getting sucked into T.V., computers, and mobile devices isn't doing us any favors. It makes avoiding living easier. It's probably why I am so resistant to technology overall. I see it as an intrusion of sorts, even as I ironically rely on it.
3-09-13 I had a dream last night, where Kat was dressed in a suit of armor, with a sword and shield and she was protecting me from a gaunt starved lion with a mangy mane. It was a vivid dream and on consideration of it this morning I realized it meant that I was feeling more comfortable with her feeling protective of me. I have to admit that I've struggled with feeling comfortable with someone feeling protective of me. I've always had to take care of myself, so allowing someone else to be protective is really me allowing myself to feel open and vulnerable enough to trust someone to protect me.
I also had some other realizations. I ask Kat a lot if she is happy, but I realize what I'm really asking is: Am I safe? I ask that because if I know she is happy then I can relax, and yet its not her. It's reactions to the past. It's the realization that I'm asking that question because I've had experiences where I have not felt safe and the way I've gauged such safety is the mood of the person. I'm going to sit with this realization and work through it carefully. I recognize that this has the potential to be a trip mine and if not handled carefully it could blow up in my face. When you deal with deeper issues like this it can be very important to work with it gradually. The point isn't to work through it in a day, but rather to work through it carefully and allow myself a way to heal.
The other realization I had was one of recognizing how a person's issues can be used as an excuse to justify behavior. I say that with the recognition that sometimes I've justified behavior because of my issues, but the truth it that we should never justify a behavior because of an issue. Instead we should use the behavior to identify and work with the issue so that it doesn't continue to cause problems in our lives and relationships. I've gotten better about it, but I know that I owe it to myself to be honest about whether I've used my behaviors around my issues to justify my behavior. And the same applies to other people. If you use your dysfunction to justify your behaviors, you aren't taking responsibility for them or their effect on others. It just continues the problem instead of solving it. Taking responsibility isn't easy. What it really involves is doing this careful internal work where you recognize how the dysfunctional issues are showing up in your behavior and then you work with the behavior and issues using meditation and therapy as needed to get to the root of the issue.
3-10-13 Relying on other people brings up a lot of mixed feelings in me. I've been self-sufficient for a long time because I learned early on that I needed to take care of me. Yet to some degree I've relied on other people as well. I've never been so self sufficient that I wasn't relying on someone else to some extent. And yet purposely relying on someone does bring up both a feeling of being loved and supported and a feeling of fear. As I sit with it, I realize that it's as much an issue of trusting myself to trust someone else as it is to trust someone else.
3-19-13 I haven't had a chance to update this entry recently, but a lot has happened in the week or so. I've been having some more vivid dreams, all of which have dealt with people in my life, but all of which have also been representative of something deeper, a sense of conflict in myself which seems to be coming to the surface more. Some of the conflict is around receiving from other people, and some of it is around my spiritual work. I've realized lately that I just haven't felt as deeply connected to it. That's hard to admit, but at the same time I can't not be honest with myself. So I've been revisiting techniques that I've been practicing for a while from the perspective of a beginner, rereading the books and redoing the exercises more methodically. And its helping me realize how easy it can be to take one's spiritual work for granted.
Recently, I got a shamanic astrology reading from a friend of mine. I've had a couple of astrological readings in the past and they've always been accurate. His were accurate as well in terms of certain trends, behaviors, and challenges I've experienced or am experiencing as well as describing certain life patterns I'm working on that are more of a lifetime focus. He indicated to me that I'm about to go into the dark night of the soul. I laughed and half jokingly said, "Haven't I done enough of those?" He told me of a couple of other cycles as well that I'll be experiencing around the same time. The DNS lasts a year and a half, and it was interesting to me because I'd actually decided that I needed to extend my work with this element for another year after this October. I want to deepen my work with movement, and I've already begun thinking how I could factor in this cycle and the others into that work, as well as into the work of the next element after movement.
I'd felt some apprehension after he did the reading, but in thinking it over, I'm looking forward to whatever internal work comes my way. There's nothing inherently challenging about any cycle...and there is something to be said for the attitude that a person brings into the work s/he is doing. As I re-examine my attitude and my practices, I feel like I'm gearing up to go deeper and come out wiser on the other side.
And recently Eros has been coming into my meditations more. He has told me to meditate on the relationship between stillness and movement and suggested that it might prove beneficial to examine how the two work together and feed into each other. There's some Taoist and Western esoterica that discusses these two elements in conjunction with each other and my own meditations have gotten me thinking about how movement is sometimes used to avoid stillness, but also how stillness is at the heart of movement and an attractor of it. More next month...
A little while back I got a reading done by my friend Erik Roth. He does shamanic astrology, and I highly recommend his services. I've gotten my astrological reading done in the past, and each time what has struck me about the readings has been the accuracy of the description of patterns in my life. It's not so much that the person has read my future but rather has shown me some existing patterns as well as other ones to be aware of. I've found the same to be true with Tarot readings and other forms of divination. What is being read are patterns of information and behavior and from that a person can get a good idea of what s/he needs to anticipate in the future.