It's 2012. When you look back on 2011, you might be thinking of everything you accomplished or everything you didn't do. Maybe you're also thinking of new year resolutions or how you'll do what you didn't get to in 2012.
Stop. Just stop for a moment. Those are all such automatic thoughts, such cultural promptings that its worthwhile to consider a different tact and step out of the automatic grind that is New Years.
Every day of the year signals a new year that is starting, because one year ago that day started and ended. But we only think of the new year a couple times out of the year. We think of it in January and you might think of it also around your birthday or around Samhain, if that's your thing, but in general people don't consider that a year can end on any day, and begin on any other day. It's all arbitrary.
So 2012 is here. What has really changed from yesterday or the day before? Nothing but numbers. Nothing but an arbitrary measurement of what time it is. Take that new year fervor you feel, that burning passion that you will make changes and ask yourself: "How can I sustain this each day of the year, every year, so I actually make the changes I want to make?"
Each day provides you an opportunity to change, to make a difference in your life or someone else's. Sustaining the momentum is what the real challenge is. People start out with resolutions and then they are ground away. Nothing feels new, everything lacks a certain luster. Sound familiar?
If you want a new you...if you want to keep those resolutions, develop a long term sustainable plan that you can hold yourself to, and if possible get some help with accountability by partnering up with someone else who wants to make changes.
Successful long term magical work is based on a systematic approach to what you are working on. Thus, for example, I have my year long elemental balancing rituals, which serve to focus my internal work on specific themes that I can use to measure my change or lack thereof over the course of the year.
I'm developing an online correspondence course for people who want to learn my approach to magic. It seem to be quite the rage right now...actually I think its been that way for a while. What sustains my approach to this particular project is the idea that once its completed, it'll be very easy to add changes onto it, while providing anyone who takes it a chance to experiment with my approach to magic. But the only way such a program will work is if the people taking the class actually have a sustainable model for integrating what they are learning into their daily lives.
It's 2012. What will you do to develop a sustainable process that you can use to create effective change in your life and maintain that change?
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Book Review Self Comes to Mind by Antonio Damasio
This is an interesting book that presents what I'd consider to be an ontological perspective on neuroscience, identity, and consciousness. The author presents some intriguing ideas about the intersection of these concepts, particularly where consciousness originates from. I'd highly recommend this book as one that will get you to think about your brain and body in a new way, as well as provide new perspectives on what self is and where consciousness fits into it all.