Connecting to my shadow self

Tonight I was taken on a pathworking to find some resources to help me work with my emptiness. Throughout this pathworking I used the Taoist water breathing meditation, which helped put me in a deep head space.  The priestess who took me on this journey is someone I trust, who really knows her stuff and knows how to take a person into a deep space. Once she had me in the proper frame of mind, she had me do a pathworking where I was in a cavern and the cavern was full of the energy of abandonment. I got sucked into water and had to hold my breath for a time, then a green spot of light and oxygen. I swam to a place where I found this younger version of myself. This younger version of myself told me how I could heal the feeling of abandonment, the holes within me. He lead me to an altar and gave me some energy and an item...a scroll, with instructions. Then pink and purple energy was out into the holes, right down to the roots and my younger self glowed with energy and directed where the incoming energy went. He told me that he was my shadow self and that the emptiness could be an ally, if I was letting to let it be an ally. He told me he'd be my guide for some of that work, and that I could access him at anytime if I wanted to continue journeying further. I then was lead to the entrance of the cave and then came back into conscious awareness of the physical space I was in. The priestess and I talked for a bit and she provided some temporary shields to help me continue the healing in a protected space. We closed the circle down and afterwords chatted for a bit. I felt really comfortable working with this person in a spiritual way, partially because we've worked together some before, but also bcause she was willing to take me into some deep places and did so in an excellent manner with the necessary aftercare also provided.

Demons and social responsibility follow up

I've continued working with the five step process detailed in Feeding Your Demons. It's proven very helpful so far when I've had insecurities come up. It serves as an excellent complement to my Taoist breathing practices which are also focused on the dissolution of blockages. One issue that this process has helped me recognize is an awareness of focusing on how much time one spends with me as a way of recognizing my value. In recognizing this issue, it's helped me start reconsidering if that's a valid measurement of worth and also helped me further explore how to develop my own sense of worth more. I'm also writing about this process in my monthly report for the elemental working, so you'll see more information about it in two weeks. On magic and social responsibility, I've been delving further into Mencius and also just started reading Investment for Change, which examines the ethics of investing as a form of social responsibility. Mencius shares information that I find intriguing and useful for considering magic and social responsibility. One idea involves turning a vice into a virtue by sharing it with people. It argues that if you keep what you enjoy to yourself then it becomes a vice, because it's done primarily for selfish reasons, but if you share what you enjoy with others, the pleasure becomes a virtue because it is done with other people. In a sense, it also might be argued that by sharing what you enjoy with other people, you make it into a social activity where the activity can be enjoyed but also moderated by social boundaries and mores, whereas if you keep it to yourself, it may be done to excess and addiction. Also if you share your pleasure with others, perhaps you are helping to fulfill the needs those others have through the act of sharing. And how does that apply to magic? If magic is done primarily for self-gratification, is it a selfish act? If magic is shared with others as a means of empowering those others as well as yourself, does it then create social responsibility? While I don't think magic done for the self is always inherently selfish, I do think that exploring the concept of sharing magic with others is worth exploring in terms of fleshing out whether magic can have an aspect of social responsibility to it. The investment book I mentioned is focused on the idea of investing with an eye toward manifesting change into the world through your investments...while not inherently magic, it does fascinate me to explore finances in that way, and of course wealth magic provides an opportunity employ magic toward that purpose as well. Undoubtedly it is something I will explore further.

There's a few other projects, but they are not in a coherent form just yet...

Learning not to struggle with my demons

Since starting to read Tsultrim Allione's book, Feeding Your Demons, I've been re-learning something I've learned before, but from a Taoist perspective in Relaxing into your Being: Breathing, Chi, and Dissolving the Ego, by B. K. Frantzis. From the Taoist perspective you use breathing and energy work to dissolve blockages. With Tsultrim's work, you embody the bloackages or issues into demons you can interact with and then you dissolve them by feeding the demons what they need, as opposed to what they want. And what both books teach is that the more you actively resist or fight something, the stronger it gets, because you are letting it guide and control your strength. By relaxing, and also learning how to use your strength to guide the demon/blockage you can actually loosen up a lot of resistance and free your energy up. The last few weeks have been hard for me, because I've consciously realized just how much I've struggled against some of my demons, all the while making them stronger. When you observe behavior that you know is unhealthy and you know you should stop it, but you feel your efforts aren't working, it's like watching a train wreck happening. You can't stop it and you feel helpess and frustrated. That's how I've felt not even the just the last few weeks, but really the last few months, since the beginning of this emptiness working. And every bit of progress I've gained has been a struggle, a fight for even an inch...yet in fighting myself so much I have made it so much harder on myself than I needed to.

You might wonder, since I've had access and been doing the Taoist breathing, why that didn't just work, but I think that while it does work, there's also something to be said for how people sometimes box themselves in through their perceptions. It's been in reading and working with the exercises in Tsultrim's work that I've finally started to feel less resistance and less struggle. It's still there some, because I'm not used to interacting with my emptiness or abandonment issues without some form of struggle involved, but emboding my issue into the form of a demon, where I can interact with it has helped me actually put a face to my issues and so respond to them with more compassion than I would normally allow for myself. In fact, perhaps because I haven't previously embodied my issues in a form that was approacheable, it's been harder to feel compassion because it still on some levels feels like an abstract concept that I'm grappling with. The embodiment of an aspect of myself provides something that's more flesh and blood...and I've had access to techniques like this, but what's helping me GET this concept is the way Tsultrim words/explaisn the technique as well as the underlying issues that create these demons. I've read books on pathworking, explained from a Western Magical perspective, but the problem that has occurred is that the approach has often been worded in an abstract, intellectual manner, without a corresponding level of emotional/spiritual awareness that allows a person to feel the technique, as well as visualize it or read about it.

I'm still struggling with my demons, but each day it's a bit less and I find it makes what I'm doing a bit easier...it's easier to feel compassion for my struggles, for my weak moments, and for my failings than it ever was before. I can finally accept my failings and from that acceptance start toward a genuine path of change and growth.

The Emptiness Working Month 3: Rage

Dec 17 We've just moved into the new place and I have online connection again. The last half week has been hard. We got moved out quickly and right after it snowed in Portland, which pretty much brings this city to a crashing halt. Mainly though, I've been dealing with rage, with anger, and this makes perfect sense to me in context to emptiness, because one of the first emotions I learned to repress was rage. I had to repress it, because I wasn't really allowed to express it to anyone. And although I eventually did learn to express it, how I've expressed it hasn't always been healthy. The repression of rage is, I think, what first lead me to emptiness. I pushed my rage down and in pushing it down I also pushed my other emotions down. So I became empty, because emptiness was safer than feeling emotions. And yet that very emptiness was so haunting that I cut myself physically to feel something...it was a catch 22. I wasn't even really feeling emptiness so much as I was feeling the blockages I created in order to survive on a day by day basis. But feeling those blockages was enough to make me feel emotionally dead and so I cut myself back then to feel. It took me a long time to overcome that addiction to cutting.

The last few days put me on edge because of moving. I felt uprooted. Plus I've been dealing with past memories and current emotions in regards to some of my family. So rage has been close to the surface. Yesterday I felt so ready to just snap and I took the day to just get away from people in general. Some alone time to feel emotions, think and work through stuff.

Not surprising some of my thoughts turned to what I'd written about in the last update about emptiness. I thought back to times where I've sometimes emotionally led someone on or been less than forthcoming about my emotions and how I felt and realized that everyone, to some degree or another does this. I still felt ashamed though, because I realized just how much I have done the same behaviors that I experienced the last couple of months. It just provides me more motivation to change that to more genuine and authentic communication, because even if that communication hurts at the time, it's better than the eventual hurt that occurs down the line, which is usually worse because a person feels led on. And truth to tell I've experienced both sides of that equation before, but it's only now that I honestly can say I recognize how hurtful it can be to lead someone on out of fear of displeasing or whatever else motivates the action and how hurt one can feel when one realizes s/he is lead on. It's that conscious awareness which allows a person to make a genuine change, because you also see the consequences of the actions and can recognize the effect on you and others.

Feeling the rage I've felt lately hasn't been as intimidating as it used to be. It's something I feel, but I've been developing better coping strategies for it. I don't need to repress it, nor do I need to lash out and so I can find a way to manage it and express it that involves more communication and less reaction.

Dec 18. My mom is visiting for a week. She actually came in last night. I spoke with her at some length about my emptiness working and the feelings I was working through in regards to her and my family in general. It was a productive talk and when I drove home, I started to cry. I just felt something loosen up with me and that wounded child gave vent to some emotions that I hadn't realized needed that release. I felt less burdened afterwards. I'll be curious as to the rest of this week and what it brings.

I also got further confirmation that my decision at the end of last month is a good one, i.e. to just hold back from getting too involved with anyone, and focus on the internal work. People come into your life for a reason, I tend to think. Sometimes that reason is to show you what you're missing right in front of you. or within you, in my case. There's a part of me tempted to bury myself into a project that already is involving a lot of my time. I know better than to busy myself to avoid feeling something...it's a classic route to emptiness, but better to feel the pain and let it go then repress it and find it comes back with a vengeance later on.

Dec 19 A lot to write this month. Today my mom was telling me a story about an aunt and I ended up remembering something similar about my step mom. And I felt a surge of rage go through me toward this person who I've not see in years. Later tonight, Lupa and I had an argument about some stuff planned out. I was angry with myself for not thinking of her and thought about that pattern of anger as it had manifested over the last couple of weeks. Where does this self-anger come from?

And I meditated tonight and traced it to the root which was, of course, my childhood...remembering how I'd try and do everything as perfect as possible to avoid getting punished or yelled at or shaken. And how when I didn't do it just right, I'd get angry at myself, as a way to show someone else, usually my step mom, that I knew I had done something wrong and was punishing myself (not that it ever stopped her from punishing me anyway). And that's the root of my self anger...an attempt to punish myself to avoid punishment from someone else and I felt anger at her all over again. I wanted to shake her, yell at her, tell her what a disappointment and failure she was...all the things I'd been told when I was a child. I wanted to make her feel powerless. I never realized just how much my self-anger, and all of my approaches to anger came from this individual, or how toxic she was in my life until today. And feeling that today...was good, but it also did have me thinking about something I told my therapist: I want to learn how to manage my anger better, so I don't explode, so I express it safely, so I speak to how I feel, but respect myself and everyone else in how I speak. So I learn how to not repress my anger any longer, but also release it in a way that is ultimately healthy for all involved. I can do this and yes this is part of my challenge with emptiness.

Dec 22nd I found myself thinking about a recent situation and the other person involved in that situation last night. A sense of helplessness filled me, because I realized I had no sense of control or ability to do anything about the situation, except to accept it, and no idea if there would be further interaction with this person at all. Later that night I started re-reading Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart, and the following passage spoke perfectly to how I feel today and felt last night:

"Instructions on mindfulness or emptiness or working with energy all points to the same thing: Being right on the spot nails us right to the point of time and space that we are in. When we stop there and don't act out, don't repress, don't blame it on anyone else, and also don't blame it on ourselves, then we meet with an open-ended question that has no conceptual answer. We also encounter our heart."

I do feel right on the spot. And though I feel helpless, I don't have blame for this person, for asserting boundaries that needed to be asserted. On the other hand, I can't really blame myself for feeling what I do, because it's how I feel. So instead I'm in this place where I'm encountering my heart, encountering the emptiness and encountering a place where the only control I have is to let go of any control at all. It's not an easy place to be.

Dec 25 Due to the Snowpocalpyse I was not able to drop my mom off to the airport today. Instead I saw her one last time for lunch yesterday. We both felt frustrated that we didn't get to see each other more. This visit went really well and for me ended up bringing some closure to some feelings of anger I've held onto for way to long. Being able to talk with her, and tell her about how I felt and listening to her was a release for me. Given that I'm working on anger and its relationship to emptiness her visit came at just the right time and left me feeling more at peace with her myself, a needed feeling right now with the rigors of this emptiness working. Especially in the beginning of the elemental, having these triumphs can make all the difference.

I also, today, decided to finish letting go of someone from my life. I'd mainly kept the connection out of a sense of guilty, which is hardly healthy for either of us. That's not a reason to stay connected, not for me, and so today I finally felt I could let that guilt and the lingering anger go. I wish peace upon that person and more importantly I wish peace upon myself. I don't need to continue to weigh myself down with the mistakes I made in that connection. I think the biggest lesson for me today about emptiness is that it is about letting go of whatever is holding you back...

Dec 27 Over the last couple of days I've continued to sit with my feelings about being in situations where I've felt romantically thwarted, and/or have romantically thwarted someone else. The shame I have felt in the latter case, because of my actions has been quite revealing to me. I ask, "Is this the action of an authentic person?" and the answer I receive is, "No." Given how I have felt lately, in response to the last couple of months, I feel some empathy for how I may have hurt other people in the past. Nonetheless, as I've continued to process these feelings I came across another passage from Pema Chodron which is helping me put these feelings into perspective:

"The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last - that they don't disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security"

The attachment to an outcome is, I realize, what has caused me to feel these feelings. I've been so focused on the desired result, I forgot about the process. Yet having these feelings, this suffering, brings me back to the process, until I can learn to let go of that attachment to outcome and accept the moment as it manifests, with boundless potential and options waiting, if I am willing to be open to them. I'm still wrestling with my feelings about what's happened in the last couple months, but I do feel closer to releasing those feelings. They are attachment to a desired outcome which hadn't occurred. I can't make it occur as it is, so learning to let go could free me to experience it as it could be.

I'd said the other day that I was letting go of a connection with someone, but today I happened to look through old chat logs and felt such shame go through me again. Shame buried deep within me. That shame relates to my feelings of anger and also to some of what I've discussed above. I know feeling this shame is healthy for me, and that at some point I'll heal from what happened, but even a year later I feel haunted by what I did. Guess that's another reason to do this emptiness working.

12-28 Today I got some inspiration in the form of a friend who told me how she'd changed a particular behavior by tracing it back to the root of its expression in her body. I thought that was interesting and decided I might do something similar. As you might recall, last month's title was obsession and I thought I might look at that emotion today in my meditation. Tracing it back inevitably took me to to the feeling of abandonment, and my first memory. I am going to do some more intensive work with that memory to achieve a sense of closure with it, as well as the associated emotions that are rooted in it.

1-1-2009 My new years day involved me realizing that one way I've tried to fill my emptiness up has been through sexual activity. Not so much to enjoy sex, but to escape feeling empty. It explains some of my behavior when it comes to how I've handled people afterwards, the sometimes stringing along I've done has been a discomfort on my part with dealing with the reality of the person, as opposed to what I initially got, which was a temporary escape from feeling empty. When I realized just how much that feeling of emptiness has motivated my behaviors across a wide spectrum of activities, it was hard. Yet it's a good realization so long as I turn it into something more than just that.

1-5-2009: I've been spending the last few days meditating and working through my feelings about sex for escape vs sex for connection. There's definitely a difference for me in the acts. For escape isn't about anyone else than me, and mainly me using the sensations to get rid of the emptiness. Sex for connection is about letting the other person in, connecting and being with that person in that moment. Sex for escape doesn't leave much of a lasting impression...it doesn't have the same feeling as sex for connection, which does leave an impression. It's telling I've only realized this in the last few days though, because it's such a hidden part of the emptiness...the underbelly of my desire as it were.

In terms of emptiness and anger, I've lately been recognizing that my relationship with anger when I apply anger to myself has involved a lot of punishment, a tendency to turn the anger toward myself as a way of expiating my guilt. Yet that anger doesn't seem to serve a constructive purpose. The fact that I still feel guilty for what happened a year ago is a dysfunctional process in a way, though on the other hand I suppose it has motivated me to change. Still, at what point does the anger and guilt get let go of?

Today I asked someone, "Please be gentle with me." And thought sometime later, "I wonder if others thought that with me." Gentleness, for me, comes from compassion and awareness of suffering...The last couple of weeks of conscious awareness has made me want to be much more gentle with people.

1-8-09 It seems that in one form or another a lesson that seems to be particularly hard for me to learn is one I'm experiencing in different forms and manifestations. The attachment I've felt toward a particular result has in one way or another painfully been exposed in terms of the unhealthy aspects of it. I continually find obstacles and in those obstacles painfully see myself and my weaknesses in ways I have never wanted to. Yet in seeing those weaknesses I am given a moment of perspective and clarity about them. Chodron says the following:

"Perhaps there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched. Maybe the only enemy is that we don't  like the way reality is now and therefore wish it could go away fast. But what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know...It just keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves." (Chodron 1997, p. 66 from When Things Fall Apart).

I read those words above and I realize rationally that this describes exactly what I've been struggling with for the last few months in terms of my relationship to emptiness, to other people, and to the habits I've utilized to try and fill myself up. Emotionally I want to rebel again those words and shrink away and yell and pout and whatever else. I recognize emotionally I am too attached. I've been reminded of that this very evening in a correspondence with someone. I can clearly see how much of this is an issue of control with myself, a control an attachment to something, and yet I feel helpless in the face of the suffering that this attachment has caused me. I cannot seem to let go of the attachment, even though it causes more suffering. Chodron also said "We are killing the moment by controlling our experience". To the magician in me this is antithetical, strange, and fearsome. to the human in me, this is something scary to experience, this realization of control and the suffering it causes. For whatever affirmation control seems to give me, I am nonetheless faced as well with the realization that clinging to a desired outcome has lead me to a lot of suffering and even when fulfilled, not nearly as much satisfaction as one might think it would provide. That is such a hard lesson for me to learn is frustrating in itself. I'm reminded of what a friend of mine has said, "I just want it to be over with." Yet what Chodron writes above is undeniable...it won't be "over with" until I learn whatever I need to learn from it...and I've seen this repeated with various lessons in my life. I'll get there eventually, when I actually get it.

When a person tells you that s/he understands your suffering, that person is sympathizing. Suffering is not something which is understood. It is experienced. And that experience shapes and sculpts a person in ways that can be considered alchemical. The dross is burned off, purged, and otherwise destroyed. The left over remnants are purified through the rotting putrefaction of the person's agony. The refinement into alchemical gold is a process which involves a lot of destruction for the rebirth of a new creation, which is refined by all the lessons learned in the process toward that creation. But the suffering is a heavy price to pay for that refinement. I may very well be a "better" person after all this work I do, but sometimes I wonder if the cost is really worth it, and today is one of those days. I can't say I've ever understood anyone else's suffering, but I have and am suffering and it is an experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

1-10-09 The other night I gave vent to grief over really what these last few months have been like for me. I just allowed myself to feel something I needed to release. I didn't want to be touched by anyone, I didn't want anyone to give sympathy. I just wanted to feel my anger and grief and suffering from the last few months. The next day I caught myself acting passive aggressive about some stuff and talked about it at length with my therapist. We seemed to agree that the passive aggressiveness boils down to issues of authority with women and not always feeling capable of expressing the need for boundaries or just needs in a way that is straightforward. It's something I've been working on this month and even before that, but it's good I'm recognizing that the root of my passive aggressive behaviors goes back to what happened with my boundaries never really being respected in my early years. Recognizing all of this gives me hope in terms of changing the behavior...it's something, though right now, not enough (which is so appropriate to emptiness)

On a different note, in reading the notes on the Star wars wiki about the emperor, and specifically how the emperor approaches anger, the emperor notes that a person must balance anger with intelligence, using the intelligence to control the expression of anger. And sure I see the sociopathic potential with that, but otoh, there's also something to be said for stepping back from a situation and feeling your anger and then intelligently discussing it. Likely not what he would mean...but I'm not a sith lord.

1-12-09 The quote below is from a character called Darth Plagueis from the Star Wars universe

Tell me what you regard as your greatest strength, so I will know how best to undermine you; tell me of your greatest fear, so I will know which I must force you to face; tell me what you cherish most, so I will know what to take from you; and tell me what you crave, so that I might deny you.

It is, I think, the embodiment of what I might consider the more demanding aspects of emptiness. This month, and the last two months has put me in a place where this quote is so accurate, because it has pushed me to my edge and forced me to really face my fears, while being denied my desires. It's fitting really that it's happened, and so fitting that the Emperor has taken such a prominent role in this working.Whenever something has occurred this month or the last couple, I've heard his gravelly voice, and felt his hands on my shoulder. He berates, admonishes, threatens, and occasionally praises me, telling me that I am being shaped by all of these experiences and learning not only the power of my emotions, but what it is really like to fully feel them. And of course he's teaching me something about how to work with the emotional energies in a way which I know will be helpful for a variety of experiments.  All the same reading those words now has really brought home the full force of this emptiness working. This is what I invoked into my life for the last three months and for the next nine months as well, at least to some degree. It isn't the entirety of emptiness, but it is a big part of it nonetheless.

I do feel Xah in the background. He's occasionally come up and reminded to go at my own pace and to respect the pace of others as well. He's teaching me, slowly but surely a lot about pace and what pace means when it comes to interactions with myself and others. His is a much more subtle undercurrent in this emptiness working. He leads me on, a mocking smile on his face, but also the occasional gentle prod.

1-13-09 Talked with a friend today about events that occurred last week. At one point he stopped me and said, "You're still holding so much anger in. Just let it out and vent." I realized he was right and just started yelling and venting about what had occurred and how angry I felt over feeling disempowered in the situation I'd been in. He said afterwards that he holds back sometimes as well because of the fire inside him, a fire he noticied in me as well. I am a fiery and passionate person and I do leash my anger around people I'm close to, even when I'm angry at those people, which speaks to the repression cycle. Yet today just venting and letting lose felt really good. It helped that the person I'm angry at wasn't there, but I wonder how healthy it is to hold back my expression of anger. The repression eventually leads to a volcanic eruption of anger, which certainly isn't helpful either. Finding a balance point would be helpful. At the beginning of this month, I recognized that rage was going to be the theme of this month and so much has played out in my interaction with this feeling. I feel simultaneously wiser about how I handle anger, and less empowered because I feel that anger and am in a way intimidated by feeling it and expressing it. Given how destructive anger is, I suppose some warieness is wise to feel, but part of me wonders if I'm just running from myself. Given that I wrote at the beginning of this month that I feel less intimidated by my anger, I feel humbled in realizing that this isn't really the case. The illusions we give ourselves are quickly destroyed in the face of this kind of work.

1-14-09 Sometimes surrender is the best option to take. I have been fighting my feelings of emptiness all my life. this month has embodied that fight with the rage and helplessness I have felt. I was told today that instead of trying to fill my emptiness up, that I should see if that desire to fill it up is the dysfunction. I suppose it's as clear a message as any this last month. Stop trying to distract yourself. Give in, surrender, submit. That is simultaneously the hardest and easiest act to do. I've tried filling up the emptiness. Now I'm just going to give in...surrender, and see what happens. Let go of attachment to what you think you want...or maybe just recognize how much that attachment leads to suffering and ask yourself if it's worth it. I'm told if you can't find it within, you won't find it without. Pretty words, but it doesn't solve anything for me. It's easy to offer such words, but the action is mine to take, and giving up, surrendering runs counter to so much of how I lived my life. But if life is a conflict that hurts so much, trying something new can actually be worth it. So...I'm giving up...I just don't know what I'm giving up...how terrifying. See you next month.

Researching the Emperor

Reprint of an article I wrote on doing internal work back in 2007. So I mentioned in the first month of the emptiness working that one entity that I ended up working with was The Emperor or Darth Sidious. He's an excellent embodiment of the negative emotions associated with emptiness. Tonight, a friend had linked to a wiki that's exclusively focused on Star Wars and it was quite fascinating to read the character biography of this character. Intriguingly enough the character had apparently written a book called the book of anger. What I found so intriguing was the focus on how the core centers of the body process emotional energies. Given that in some of my meditations the emperor has spoken at great length about anger and how to balance it, it was pleasing to verify that in the creation of this character some work had been put toward how the character conceives of and handles feelings of anger.

Over the years, and even recently I've got a lot of criticism about pop culture characters and how realistic it is to work with said characters. But when I find independent verification of concepts that I'm learning from a pop culture character, it's also verification that there's more to pop culture and it's integration into magic than people realize or may be willing to concede. The disdain and disapproval I have sometimes received is ultimately a reaction to the efficacy of what is being worked with. That I choose to find value and meaning in something many other occultists might never touch has increasingly become a source of strength for me, for it shows me that what other people are willing to close their minds to can be a great source of inspiration if one is willing to allow it to be that. Certainly, my work with anger and its relationship to emptiness has profited by working with the emperor.

Some thoughts on attachment, hope, and fear

I've been re-reading Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart, and while I'm chonicling most of what I'm getting out of reading this book in my entry for the emptiness work, I read a passage that I thought I might share now: For those who want something to hold on to, life is even more inconvenient. From this point of view, theism is an addiction. We're all addicted to hope-hope that the doubt and mystery will go away...The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn't mean something is wrong...suffering is part of life, and we don't have to feel it's happening because we personally made the wrong move. In reality, however, when we feel suffering, we think that something is wrong. As long as we're addicted to hope, we feel that we can tone our experience down or liven it up or change it somehow, and we continue to suffer a lot.

and

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can't simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what's going on, but that there's something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.

When reading this you might think she's incredibly negative, but I actually found what she said to be very helpful in terms of recognizing how my own feelings of hope have many times lead me into some fairly unhappy places because once they weren't realized, I had to deal with the resultant unhappiness of not having them work out. Recently I've been dealing with this persistent feeling of hope about a situation in my life, and yet I realize that feeling is an attachment to a specific outcome that more than likely will not occur. Reading this passage earlier today was like peeling away another layer of onion on that feeling of hope. It's not completely gone, but it is less in strength than before, because I acknowledge on a deeper level that the feeling is doing me no good, and actually causing a lot of suffering.

I think it's incredibly hard to learn to let go of attachment in any form. A person can cling to it, despite the suffering, because there is an odd kind of comfort in the familiar pain the suffering causes. And letting go has a lot of unknowns to it. There is no definite reality, no result, no known...so initially it can be quite scary. Where will I be, where will I go? Better to say here with the familiar, even if it does hurt me. I've thought those very thoughts in the past many a time, and yet each time have found myself liberated and more at peace when I let go and stopped expecting anything. That's one of my current challenges right now and while I haven't quite let go yet, I can feel my grip loosening.

Seems like if you can approach a situation without attachment to an outcome, then that feeling of hope doesn't hold you back as much. I never really thought of hope as attachment until re-reading this section of her writing, but it makes sense, and I can appreciate that now, because I understand how it's held me back from just experiencing the present. So can I apply it now? Inevitably I will.

Tea Time

My mom is visiting me for this week and today we drove down to Stash Tea to check out their store there. There are a wide variety of teas there. I plan on going back there some time and picking some up, but my mom was kind enough to pick me up some today called Pu-Erh, which is a Chinese Tea. apparently it's a tea which helps the digestion of fatty foods and helps people lose weight. I found that intriguing from a purification perspective and thought I might pick it up. I'm contemplating adding tea to some of my rituals, in terms of setting tone and also as a ritual fluid of sorts. I've used some teas and other liquids before as a way of setting the tone of a meditation, so there's no reason I couldn't do so now. Plus with the wide variety of teas at the store, there's a chance to sample different substances and see how they effect one's sense of physiology.

On a completely different, I find it intriguing that I can tell my mom about some of my spiritual practices without any rancor occurring. I told her about my elemental year long workings in some depth and it felt good to be able to talk with her and share some of my spiritual journeys with her. That's something I've never been able to do before.

The Emptiness Working Month 2: Obsession

I was watching the movie Aviator recently. It's a bio film about Howard Hughes. Watching that film is always fascinating to me, because it displays the life of someone who was clearly innovative and inventive and yet also suffered from a mental affliction, OCD. His attention to detail in his inventiveness was another sign of that OCD. I thankfully don't have OCD myself, but I've always found the balance between genius and madness to be fascinating to both watch and to experience in my own work. My own inventiveness has primarily occurred in the context of magic, both in its theory and its practice and knowing beyond doubt what could be possible. My interest in other disciplines has also contributed to that inventiveness. And yet in doing a lot of the magical work that I've pursued there has definitely been an element of risk involved in terms of how far I'm willing to push myself to achieve my goals.

In the movie, Hughes is portrayed as a very driven and passionate person when it comes to his pursuits. I can appreciate that drive, even as I acknowledge that it is a two-edged sword and indeed you see that Hughes, because that drive certainly tests his sanity. My wife tells me that I drive myself too hard, and has asked me where it comes from. When I watched Aviator, I thought about that. I can't speak to any motivation that Hughes felt, but my own motivation is rooted to some degree in my emptiness, and it always has been.

I've always had a fascination with people who were geniuses and also dealt with madness. Some of that fascination is rooted in my own struggle with an electrochemical predisposition toward depression and finding a way to cure that depression instead of letting it rule me...Some of it seeing those people struggle with something within themselves and yet still be able triumph in some form or another despite it.

When I was young, I grew up in a situation where no matter what I accomplished, it was never enough for the people in my life. I eventually realized that any accomplishments I did make in my life had to be for myself, and consequently I pushed myself much harder than anyone else might have. I think, in part, that is why the ph.d didn't work out. I was research, experimenting and writing books while also pursuing graduate work full time. My pushing myself has often been a response to my emptiness to try and fill it up. My's observations about that has lately had me considering the value of not pushing myself so hard, especially when I consider that those who push themselves so hard may make a lot of change, but also end up pushing themselves into places where they can't recover. I, for a time, danced with madness while in grad school, resulting in several mental breakdowns as well as becoming a recluse...it's not a fun place to be. The emptiness might motivate my drive and indeed I still want to be driven, but moderating it some may be just as important, in order to live a life where I am happy as well as driven. Some of this emptiness working is focused on finding that balance.

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I've lately been dealing with the root of my feelings about abandonment and neglect. Since these feelings are related to my sense of emptiness it makes a lot of sense to me to deal with them. The root of it all is in my childhood, in the experience of not really having a strong set of parents or friends to turn to. I mostly was either neglected or when I did get attention it wasn't favorable. I talked about it in therapy on the 21st of November, and it was surprising for me to acknowledge just how hurt I still feel so many years later. And this really is where my fear of bring shunted aside for someone else comes from, because so often I saw my half-sister given much more positive attention and interest than I received. She could get away with anything, while I was more often than not scapegoated anything she did. Then too there were all the times I was told to go outside, because I wasn't wanted in the house. If I was outside that was good, that was wanted. I never felt wanted.

Recognizing these feelings as the root of my emptiness is good for me. Yes, it's painful, yes it hurts, and yet it is a healing hurt. It is choosing to feel that pain instead of just analyzing it . It is hopefully letting it go so I can move on with my life in better directions than where I was previously.

An interesting realization I had. I am a very territorial person with certain people because I think of them as mine, as part of my pack, as people who belong to me. I can think of a few people this applies to in my life, close friends and lovers, and yes my immediate family as well in an odd way. I say that last because while I do love my family, I also recognize that there are certain things I can never fully share with them that I could share with the others by virtue of choices made by those others...but my immediate family is part of my pack as well.

With my friends and lovers that dimension of territoriality extends in subtle ways. I am possessive of them, but also protective of them. They are mine because I love them in such a deep way, yet really I can't fully possess...I can only possess my feelings for them; those same feelings cause me to feel vulnerable with those people. They touch me so deeply, and so they touch my emptiness and in touching that simultaneously show me a feeling of love and warmth and also remind me of that emptiness. As I learned this last year, love is a terrible force...this added layer of recent realization shows me how incredibly vulnerable I am in my choice to genuinely love someone.

Emptiness is finding something or someone who speaks you to on a very deep level, touching those places where you feel empty and bringing something to those places, while also emphasizing that same emptiness in a subtle way. Or it is finding someone who speaks so deeply to values that you have and realizing profound joy and gratitude in finding this person while also working on accepting that how often you physically share space with this person could be very limited? Emptiness contains fullness even as it embodies emptiness.

I meditated tonight (Nov 25) on my territoriality and my tendency to give up if I feel I/that territory isn't valued. It was a meditation on emptiness as well. My tendency to give up is that emptiness, the painful resounding feeling of being rejected again in some form or manner and so withdrawing myself away from that rejection. If s/he/it doesn't want me, then why should I continue to show effort? I want to be wanted, as much as I as also want to show my own desire for someone. I recently noted how I never really felt I'd had anyone fall in love with me, anyone show a level of desire FOR me that hadn't already been shown significantly in advance by myself for that person. I can think of one exception, but given how that turned out...Ironically this is the way of all relationships...one person shows more interest initially than the other does. Rationally I know this. Emotionally, I am still that child with the sunken eyes who watched as others were more valued than he was. This feeling of having to give more in order to receive; it seems like generosity, but it masks one of my deepest wounds: That I am somehow not worthy enough of the love, friendship, etc. that I want. And it's only now that I can consciously admit I feel this wound in me, this wound which is part of the emptiness in my life. I am that wounded child that cries to the moon for solace in the night. I see that wounded child in my eyes. His fear is so tangible. He is so tired, and yet he has no trust of anyone. I think one of my favorite musician's John Terlazzo sums this child up:

I am the loss antagonized child who finds no vision in the street. There are no shelters, no places of refuge. there's no protection. There is no Priest. So I yell at the moon, "I won't be this child!" and I yell at the sky, "I give up this child tonight!"

But I can't give that child up. I must enfold in my arms, give him sanctuary, warmth, love, and an opportunity to heal. So my arms are open. I enfold him in my torn white robes and I tell him to tell me how he feels and I listen...I listen so that I can heal his wounds and mine and find succor and peace with my emptiness instead of continuing to try and give it up.

We had Thanksgiving...Even after eating so much, I feel so empty. I feel the emperor stir and put his hand on my shoulder and he whispers to me about feeling unloved. I spent a year on this emotion love, and what it revealed is the great emptiness within. In some ways this elemental working is an extension of last year's love working, which is quite natural given that this emptiness was born out of the feeling of not having love when I was so young. I feel incredibly needy sometimes for attention and I realize it is something I've felt most of my life...A child's desire to be loved and accepted unconditionally, and even now that child is within me. There's a theme of a child in this month's working...that's another direction to go in.

Nov 28th: A discussion with my therapist and some thinking about my interactions with my mom helped me realize some fundamental issues in regards to my emptiness as well as some of what I mentioned above. I realized I'm angry at her because of feeling micro-managed and smothered and controlled, but also angry because I got her bad habits. I got the micromanagement (to a degree), the money paranoid issues, etc. And I'm like, "Dammit, how'd I get those from you when I didn't come to live with you until I was 15"

Just goes to show that a person is susceptible to emotion/thought viruses at any age. It was actually really good for me to realize I felt anger toward this person, but also compassion and a desire to mediate my anger in a way that could actually help us heal our wounds as opposed to prolonging them through senseless fighting. Recognizing behaviors I didn't like from her, that I sometimes do has actually given me some food for thought on how to change those behaviors in myself, as well as recognizing how others might feel when I do act on those behaviors. I feel empowered...I also actually feel pleased with myself, because one of those behaviors, advice giving without asking is one I've cut down on a lot, because of the life coaching training I received. I can still improve, but I realize just how much I have changed and it feels really good to say, yes I can change! It's a little triumph and yet one that shows me I'm on the right track with this emptiness working.

Dec 5th. Every time I meditate on emptiness I feel irritable afterwards. The wounds have been picked I suppose. Emptiness is an ugly feeling tonight. Part of me wants to take up the knife and carve myself open, creating a display of art and magic with the bloody trails I leave on my skin. Naturally some of this is brought on by the digging I'm doing into this feeling of emptiness.

For instance, realizing that the reason I observe people so closely has much less to do with interest and alot more to do with survival. When you grow up in a situation where the people around you are unpredictable in their actions and treatment of you, you try and find patterns and predictions so that you can, as best possible, avoid the worse consequences. There is some part of me that feels so angry with certain people in my life for realizing just how deeply they affected me. I watch everyone I know closely, waiting for what I would consider the inevitable betrayal. Hardly a way I want to live life, but realizing just how subtle that particular behavior is, and how much it's informed how I deal with people.

And dealing as well with the awkwardness of being direct, to a point which can sometimes work against me, because even in a culture where supposedly people are direct there's a lot more subtleties going on than what I care for dealing with. I'm not a subtle person, and I have no desire to be a subtle person, because of all the games that seem to go with such subtleties. I'd much rather just put it all out on the table. Problem with that is, when you deal with people who look for subtleties, they can't really believe that you are that direct. They look for the hidden dagger you are waiting to plant in them. How ironic that last sentence though, because one could interpret my watching of others so carefully as what I just described above. Good things to recognize, but recognizing them right now just makes me feel irritable with everyone and myself.

12-09 We are getting ready to move. I've been doing most of the packing and I feel uprooted, liminal, neither here nor there, nor anywhere. I feel alone. I know once we move and get settled in that I'll be fine, but moving is a strange activity.

On top of that my adventures in hopeless romance have continued from last month, leaving me still feeling unsatisfied and a little bitter. I confessed to my wife that I felt I'd been given emotional blueballs, earlier this month because of different situations with different people. Yet I have no one to blame really, other than myself. It is I who puts myself in these situations. It is I who chooses to foster some hope that this time said person will actually feel interest and want to reciprocate. It is also I who is too direct, perhaps, for my own good. And there's still just a bit of guilt from last year and some secret part of me which says, "Don't you deserve it after what you did?" That guilt still lingers. It's becoming less. I'm forgiving myself more, but there's still that part of me which is angry at myself. And so perhaps that part is both masochistic and sadistic and enjoys putting me into a situation where I twist in the wind of longing, wanting some connection that seems, at the moment, to be denied. And yet I can't help but think that this isn't just on me. In only one case was the person I was interested in able to be direct and upfront and explain that she couldn't reciprocate. That act of kindness (and it was kind of her) means so much to me...it helped me see a new level with her and appreciate her further because she didn't feel need to play a game and see how long I'd twist...

Looking at this from the perspective of emptiness, I ask myself: What will finding "love" with any of these people do for you? What need does it fulfill? What does it block? How much does this need cause you to limit yourself because you perceive these people in a particular way?" All very rational, good questions. Emotionally working toward the answer however is a bitch. However, I think working to that answer will pay off, both for myself and my relationship with myself, and for future relationships with other people.

Dec 11 In thinking about what I wrote above earlier, and actually feeling it as well, there seems to be a need to find some kind of acceptance, some place where it's always warm, filled up, perfect. A need to perfection, which is unrealistic, and yet there, because if you had a very imperfect childhood, like I did, you want to find the opposite the rest of your life. I've looked for it from other people, but I also need to look for it in myself. Last year's love working helped some with it...perhaps this year will do even more.

Dec 12 I figured out what the title is for this month: Obsession. Really commenting on Aviator should've told me that, but it was made fully aware to me today until I stopped over at the place of someone I like, because I hadn't heard from them in a while and pretty much made a fool of myself. Something she said really stood out to me: "It's great that you know what you want and that you're so in touch with it, but you don't know yet what I want and where what we have between us will go." And she's right...and I realized that I had, once again, let my emotions get the better of me. I let myself become obsessed with a particular desired reality, over being open to what could occur. A lust for a result, big no-no in magic, and here I am doing it. I can tell you why, but it doesn't excuse it...It does illuminate into the emptiness though.

I was thinking about it on the way back. If my emotions are gateways into emptiness, they are also gateways for emptiness to express itself and obsession, to me, is an expression of emptiness. If you've watched Smallville, you've probably noticed that as Lex becomes the "evil villain" that he becomes, he also grows more and more obsessed. That obsession is what leads him down the dark path he goes. He can't control his emotions or desires...they rule him. And I can sometimes be obsessive myself. Anyone can, but since this is about my magical journey, I'll focus on me. To me obsession is the loss of control to emotion...it's where emotion takes over. When I was young I didn't feel emotions. I repressed them. It wasn't until my late teens and twenties that I really began to feel emotions and then they overwhelmed me. Even to this day, as is obvious by what occurred, I still get overwhelmed by those emotions. I've learned how to feel them and yet control the expression of them to some degree, but today illustrates a way to go.

In playing Kingdom Hearts again, I see a similar vector to Lex and myself. The villains become heartless when they let their emotions control them. They allow the emotions to take control to such a degree that they lose perspective. The heartless is really an embodiment of raw emotion, while the nobody is an embodiment of intellect.

So where does this leave me? Besides feeling humiliated and unhappy with myself, it was a good cosmic slap upside the head today that I'm still looking to much to the external. Don't get me wrong I didn't think this person was going to take away my emptiness, and yet on an emotional level my feelings came out of this desire, this need, this whatever. I've spent the last two months trying to get involved with someone or another...it's been a fairly mindless activity for me, benign in a way, but at the same time not so much because I am hurting. But that hurt has really been caused by myself, by trying to find something with someone.

It's time to shift focus. No more looking for other relationships until I can get a better handle on my emptiness. It's time to start some other meditation techniques I have access to. Do that, work through this feeling of need and desire and go from there. It takes a while, but yes I really do learn lessons eventually. We are moving tomorrow. I'm going to post this today and start the new month off when we get internet access again. And please wish me luck with this emptiness working...it's just as hard as the love working was. This month really kicked me ass.

Pantheacon 2009

Tonight I received notice that my workshop on how to do elemental balancing work has been accepted for Pantheacon 2009. Pantheacon is a big pagan festival that occurs in February that occurs in California. If any of my readers happen to attend the event, please come up and say hello or feel free to come to the class (I'll post specific details when I know more). Also if you're curious about how the elemental balancing ritual works, and you've read some of my entries on this blog about it, that workshop will present an excellent opportunity to ask questions. Additionally, I and other fellow Immanion Press authors will be doing a panel about Immanion Press, where people are welcome to come and ask questions about our books, publishing, and other details. More details when I get them, but it should be a fun event.

Some thoughts on physiology, entheogens, and awareness of time.

I've just started reading Sex, Sleep, Eat, Drink, Dream: a day in the life of your body by Jennifer Ackerman. I'm already intrigued by what I've read, but in the first chapter she notes that there is a set of neurons that comprise the master clock in your brain, which basically dictates the rhythms of time for the body. Last night when I was having my entheogen experience, my perception of time changed drastically. Time felt elongated, slowed down, stretched out. Even my perception of light was stretched so that the light moved much differently than it normally would. My circadian rhythm had been changed by the entheogen. And this interests me, because how one's physiology reacts to any substance can dictate not only the health of a person, or the awareness of time, but also the rhythm of that person. My awareness of time admittedly also might've changed because that was what I brought into my inner journey, but nonetheless I have to acknowledge that my internal rhythms were influenced. This same distortion of time has happened with magical workings and meditation. While not necessarily as visually stimulating as my trip, my awareness of time changes a lot when I meditate. I will sometimes think I have been under for hours, only to find out I've been under for twenty minutes or a half hour. This recent experience as well as comparing notes with my meditations has made me wonder just how much our perception of linear time interferes with the awareness of biological time. When I measure time from a biological perspective, from a rhythmic awareness it seems to be much different from the ticking of minutes and seconds that tells me what time it is on my computer. It's a possible angle for further experimentation.

Speaking of possible angles for experimentation, watching a friend and former student doing her work with with the element of darkness and specifically with Sora from Kingdom Hearts decided me on utilizing the Kingdom Hearts Video games as part of my work with emptiness. Yes, I know quite profane, but also quite useful...the metaphysical aspects of the Heartless and nobodies is untapped as yet, and it could also be an excellent exploration of projective identity and personal narrative as a pathworking, similar to what The force unleashed inspired in me for working with the Emperor as an aspect of emptiness.

The Emptiness Working Month 1: Rotting

In the first three weeks of getting involved in the emptiness working, I've already had so much come up. Just as the elemental love working was intense from the get go, this working has also been intense from day one. A lot of this first month has involved dealing with insecurities. Insecurities about myself, insecurities about my relationships...The gateways into emptiness. In this first month, I've suddenly found myself surrounded by potential love interests and yet none of them really manifested into anything concrete. It was if I was given a tiny taste, a few drops of water, but then it was taken away. And the ache, after it was taken away was sharp and discordant because it emphasized what was not there. In each case I met people who I could be very interested in, even feel a bit of NRE for and yet there would be something which just didn't quite work...something about each person or situation which said, "This can't happen right now." And I felt each time a sense of loss, a sense of emptiness, because I would get excited, get a taste, and then...There's a pattern there, and yes there is emptiness in that pattern.

Another way emptiness manifested into my life was through realizing just how much the guilt over last year has changed how I approach situations with people. When I was told by someone how much my actions had hurt that person, my wife, and I...and when I saw some of those same patterns repeat themselves, I realized on some level that my focus on my own desires, without any real sense of awareness for how others felt or would be effected, had caused the pain that the people. And when I looked back at not just my recent past, but also much further back, I saw that same pattern and it really hit me how much I had hurt other people because of my selfishness. I carried that guilt with me through most of this last year's elemental working...and I've carried it into this year's working as well. In an argument with my wife, it came out in a way I didn't expect...it came to my awareness, when I realized how much I didn't want to see someone else carry a similar load of guilt. And I see it in how much my actions have changed now, when it comes to people coming into my life...how much more cautious I am. But realizing how much that guilt has changed has left me feeling very sad and alone as well. We bear the weight of our crimes, but sometimes that weight sinks us, and I have sunk further into my emptiness.

And then there was the car accident, which while not horrible, nonetheless brought a sense of mortality with it, and a reminder of a much younger time and a much worse accident.

Finally, to some degree everything has lost some of it's lustre for me. At the core of myself, I feel a dull pain, a haggard kind of awareness. I feel all the cuts I've ever given myself over the course of the years. I feel all these emotions, the anger, the fear, the hunger...all of these emotions which has lead to an experience of emptiness and I realize I need to feel these, feel how I get into the emptiness before I can let go of those triggers. And some part of me feels as if it is rotting...I am in the putrefaction stage of alchemy...desiccating, decomposing, returning to the rich hummus of the Earth...part of the cycle of life, where something falls apart, in order for something else to replace it. Occasionally I look at myself and all I see is what is falling apart...The illusions feel away and what was underneath is not so pretty. I feel like one of the dragon snakes...bloated with all these emotions, growing fat on my own fear, only to have it fall away to revel the rotting core underneath.

And throughout all of this I have felt the Emperor's hand on one shoulder and Xah on the other, one whispering of how to use my emptiness, how to use my emotions and feelings to go and further into a state of mind that while very observant, is also very empty, very dark, and very alone. And XAH tells me, that the fox is about illusion but also uncovering the truth beneath the illusion. Both tempt me...both are dangerous to me in their own way...but the emptiness itself is it's own temptation. the gateway is open, and as I work through these feelings that lead to emptiness, it beckons to me...

Occasionally, I've felt moments of oneness with the emptiness, of a kind of peace. It's a rare feeling. And when I feel that way, the energy of emptiness has interwoven itself into my own energy...my hands have grown very warm, warmer than other times I do energy work, and the world has actually become crystalline...everything stands out in sharp relief...perfect.

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I went to a fetish event tonight. What waste of time. I've actually noticed that such events tend to enhance my feeling of emptiness and aloneness. I think it's because what I see is something I would enjoy, but it lacks something I'm looking for and so consequently all I really see are people going through the motions. Or perhaps I'm just consoling myself by saying that and really not admitting that what I feel is a terrible sense of loneliness that these events evoke. I see what is had and yet I cannot seem to have any of it. I look at these people and I have nothing to say or to offer. I realized something very important about how I handle social situations. Unless there is a very specific purpose to the event, it's hard for me to feel comfortable enough to initiate conversation. I'm great at in-person networking where I ask what do you do? But asking that at a fetish event does not exactly make one interesting...maybe I should start asking: What fetish do you do?

A friend of mine said, tonight, that she rarely feels the emptiness because as a priestess she is a vessel for whatever she works with. I'm not a priest. I'm a magician. I occasionally with entities or deities, but I am not filled by those deities. I'm not sure which of us is better off: Her being filled with whatever, good, bad, or otherwise, or me, empty, a person stumbling around, looking for something to fill that emptiness, which never quite gets filled.

At some point though (and this point incidentally is like now) you realize you can't fill it...that in fact maybe the point isn't to fill it. Emptiness can be about acceptance, as much as it can be about what is lacking. I can look at what I don't have and be filled with bitterness, anger, and fear, or I can accept what I don't have and let it go into that emptiness.

I've been experimenting with several meditation techniques in regards to emptiness. One I've done at fetish events, is to simply sit down and start meditating using Taoist breathing techniques and circulating the energy. This can lead to a very observant and mindful state of mind, and the emptiness ends up being channeled into energy I can feel...it becomes a current.

The second technique is one I've started adopting in the last couple of days. I go upstairs with a pillow. I have a blanket there...no heat on. I lay down initially in a pose which resembles the hanged man. One leg extended, the other bent, with the foot, placed beneath the other leg, arms outstretched, one eye open and one eye closed, One looking to the future, the other eye looking to the past. I eventually have to shift my legs...I'm still very flexible, but I can feel my age and it is uncomfortable to keep my one leg bent for a long period of time. This meditation can easily last an hour minimum, as it is very much a fluid state of being and one spread across time. Incidentally if you do this meditation, make sure no one disturbs you. The consequences can be unnerving as your sense of time is stretched out all over the place.

You basically end up drifting across time during this meditation. At the same time, all those feelings of emptiness just end up getting accepted and flow away into the river of time. I not only come away with an altered state of mind and a subconscious awareness of what to do next, and even some conscious manipulations of time, but I also come away a sense of great calm. Undoubtedly I'll be doing this meditation more, so keep your reader eyes peeled. I look into the past and the future. I am not present, because present doesn't exist, yet I have presence in all things and none, everything and nothing.

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The last week has continued in a similar vein to the rest of this month. As I work with this element the past has been dug up. That's where the emptiness began, so it's fitting I go to the root of it in my explorations of this element. I use my meditation technique on days when the emptiness particularly feels present, so that I can work with that feeling, even as I extend my mind across time into memories of future and past.

Meeting the Spider Goddess of Time

My grandmother died on Veteran's day. I never really knew her. I met her maybe half a dozen times in my life. But I did feel sad for my father, who even though prepared for it, is still sad. I don't attribute any special significance to her death in regards to emptiness itself, so much as I recognize that death is an ending, and emptiness is about endings and beginnings. She's left one form of life and rejoined the cycle of life. After I found out she died, I decided to try and use my new meditation to try and make one last connection out of respect for her presence in my life, and also a bit of sorrow for missed opportunities. I wanted to pay my respects to her in some form or manner that would let me connect with her, even though she is now gone from this plane of existence. I used my special meditation for emptiness, arms outstretched, one eye open, the other closed, my mind drifting across all time and space. The eye that is open is only partially open, with the eye-lid half closed, so that you only see partially out of one eyelid and there isn't much focusing. The focus of the eye shifts inward, so you're looking across time and space. I called the name of her once, out load, letting the vibrations carry out across the spiral rhythm of time, onto the web of the spider time goddess. I found her in memories, I found her ready to join the dead, and she asked, "Why have you come after me, my grandson?" And I said, "To help you on your way to the land of the dead, she who was and will be..." We walked, nothing said, just walking across the silken strands of time, visiting moments of intersection in my memory briefly and then coming to a river, my ancestors across the way waving to her. She turned to me and said, "This is goodbye". I said, "Goodbye my grandmother, goodbye she who was and will be..." We embraced one time, then she flowed on to the land of the dead, back into the cycle of life.

As I came back from the land of the dead, I met the spider goddess of time, weaving her web of wyrds and fate and destiny. She looked at me and said, "You are one of mine, even as you belong to the other time gods. The emptiness you seek is the doorway to our domain, to the infinity of time and space, all things and none. Use your guide and the infinity sign to keep finding us. In them is the eternal beat of the spiral rhythm of time, the silken vibrations of my web, the pulsing red star light of Thiede, Purson's promise of all secrets revealed and more. We named you ours early on, and we're coming to take our due. Seek us in the emptiness, seek us in the depths of all and none, the zero and one through which you've seen the crystalline perfection and the star eyed one who is you, as you are hir."

I bowed to her and thanked her, and she said, "Thank the one who departed. It's her gift to you." I thanked my departed grandmother for her gift of this journey that allowed me to meet the spider goddess of time.

Everything is perfect in the moment when you have no control over anything. When you surrender and let it all overwhelm you and take you somewhere no one else can go. Tonight, I surrendered to the current of time and let it sweep me somewhere I'd never gone...perfection. I lose myself in that current sometimes, whether in a meditation like tonight, or in the rapidly turning pages of a book, where I'm caught up in the creation of the time and space in the pages that turn and the words that burn into my mind a different world and place. My awareness of time slips out of linear and into a place where time is very circular, spiral, all over the place. Times' always been something very mutable and malleable. One moment shifts into another, but a moment can last for an infinity or it can be gone in the blink of an eye, which is one reason I'm fascinated with time as an expression of reality. The spider goddess of time, as grokked from Oryelle's writing and met tonight on my trance passage is enough another expression of temporal slippages. I've walked on her silver silken strands before, but this time I met her. I'm sure we will meet again.

Emptiness and Time

Since I've started reading Oryelle's A Brief Hirstory of Time, and also because of a conversation with a fellow practitioner, I've been thinking a lot about time's role within emptiness. It strikes me that time has a very prevalent role, both in emptiness itself, and in what comes after emptiness. Within emptiness time is representative of all the possibilities that could exist. Time isn't static in emptiness, though it may seem like it would be. Rather everything is occurring all at once. Time is non-linear, indistinguishable from reality. Time occurs, but isn't defined into measurements or increments.

When emptiness changes, when possibility becomes reality, time can be linear or cyclical, depending on how one perceives the event occurring. Oryelle says time becomes emit, or time is emitted and that works as well for our purposes. Time is emitted from emptiness when possibility manifests into reality.

It's interesting to realize that emptiness is not a vaccuum...there is existence even within emptiness. It's fluid, constantly changing, almost entrophic and the only thing which makes it non-entrophic is that a choice can be made and when the choice is made, progression occurs, something comes out of nothing, 1 originates out of 0.

If you think about it making a choice is when time begins. Or at least a version of time related to that choice...or not because there's everything leading up to choice, at which it might be cyclical instead of linear.

So it seems like the element of emptiness is also the element of time. It makes sense to me. I'm actually developing a new meditation technique, using time and the element of emptiness, but I'll discuss that at a later date.

The Emperor

In the course of getting involved in the Emptiness working, I've had an intriguing encounter with another pop culture entity, namely the Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, aka Darth Sidious. It probably didn't help that until a couple weeks ago I was playing The Force Unleashed, wherein the character appears, but even so the appearance of this entity in the Emptiness working is appropriate since a lot of the emotions I'm dealing with would fall under the "Dark Side" of the spectrum. I am of course aware of just how treacherous and power hungry this particular entity is. Yet in dealing with the emotions I've encountered, he's been a quiet presence occasionally offering advice...though I have yet to shoot lightning from my hands. His advice has mainly consisted of allowing myself to feel the emotion and give it expression in the act of feeling it. For me the giving of expression to those emotions has involved some opening up, but also the dissolution of the meotion by feeling it, and the adding of that energy to the feeling of emptiness, which provides a sensation of a neutral mindset, with an enhanced awareness of my immediate environment as well as the patterns of behavior and action that people are involved in. Obviously this a bit different than how the Emperor is portrayed in Star Wars, and yet it seems appropriate. The emperor is a manipulator...to be an effective manipulator he needs to be able to observe others dispassionately...he needs to be able to be empty at times. While I don't intend to become a manipulator, I do know that learning to be comfortable with emptiness is learning to be comfortable with achieving a state of mind that flows with emotion, but doesn't let the emotion take control.

This has also lead into a new direction with my energy work: Learning how to dissolve my emotional energy without automatically cycling it via a Taoist technique. Instead, I'm dissolving the energ and settling it into the feeling of emptiness itself, which ends up actually infusing the energy into me. When working with energy like this, I feel the energy settle into a vast river or stream that is within the emptiness.

I am continuing to work with the Taoist styles of energetic work, but I also think there is some value toward what I'm exploring through the emptiness working. I'm also starting to realize just how much I need to make certain changes in some plans I have for the future...I have so much to share.

"Go at your own pace"

When I hiked on Tuesday and later on Sunday, each time I hiked XAH was with me, loping alongside me. Everytime I felt the urge to speed up, he cautioned me, "Go at your own pace." I slowed down. I started to lope along at a pace that was easy on my body. The hike became much easier and I started to notice more details. Instead of trying to conquer the mountain, I was soaking in what was around me. I started to have a deeper appreciation for the way the light was filtered through the trees. The cold air kissed me as it never had before, and the Earth seemed to welcome as it's child. XAH grinned at me and said, "See, much easier. You're so busy trying to get somewhere you forget how to enjoy where you are." Relaxing into my own pace, I focused less on where I wanted to...I'm already where I need to be. When I think about that advice in my life, I appreciate anew something I've thought before: It will all be there tomorrow...Do what I can today, but relax and enjoy what I have as well. "Go at your own pace" means so much more than regulating my pace and in emptiness going at your own pace is what keeps you going on the road to everything and nothing

A sharp wrenching pain the feeling of claws scrabbling against my skin A muzzle coming forth from my chest blood dripping from the lolling tongue the golden eyes ablaze with life as the light from my own eyes begins to fade under a film of death.

He is reborn, he is reborn I am just the capsule for his expression Nine tails come out of the gap He's standing over my ruined body He grins down at my with gaping jaws, and then playfully seizes my face in his haws Delicately, delicately he could crush my face so easily, but he just swipes me with his tongue.

"Join me..." He swipes his tongue over my wounds the blood clots, the vessels repair, the skin closes. I stand up, with his help, my hand on his fur

"Destruction is birth Creativity is death Everything in nothing nothing becoming everything Join me"

We run, run, run into the void I am distant from everything and yet so close you could feel the fox-fire of my breath on your cheek if you knew how.

His eyes are infinity his breath is death I'm fading into him

So this is nothing I'm so empty I'm just a husk everything is gone and yet it's all so close.

"Join me..."

One week in

One week in to the Elemental Emptiness ritual working and I can already feel some definite differences. A lot of my insecurities have come forward a lot more. Some of it is just the nature of dealing with the emptiness and some of it is a personal situation I'm adjusting to. Regardless, these feelings have surfaced and I'm working on how they make me feel feel, because it's not just feeling the emotion, it's also feeling the hollowness these emotions provide. I've noticed that my enjoyment of different things has decreased a bit, while at the same time, the physical stimuli of light in particular stands out much more than before. What does the latter have to do with emptiness? I have no clue, not yet.

On Tuesday, when I hiked, I almost feel at one point. If I had fallen, I'd have likely tumbled down a cliff and hit a rocky area. I caught myself in time, but it was a reminder of my mortality. And on Friday I got into a car accident. Nothing too severe, no physical pain...but the spectre of emotional pain, the reminder of a car accident that was much worse again brought up that reminder of my mortality. Since emptiness or void is about nothingness, the reminder of mortality is a reminder of emptiness as well, in its own way.

For me, a lot of this vulnerability...it is liked being soaked with rain, trying to find even a hint of dryness and knowing you can't...you shudder, you try to bundle in, but the wet is there...that's how my vulnerability feels in the face of starting work with this element.

The dedication to the Element of Emptiness

On Saturday I finished my elemental love working and switched over to the element of emptiness. When Babalon took me and handed me off, she handed me to XAH, the fox lord. XAH is part of my personal mythology, the core of my being, a fox lord, and yet so much more as well...He is not a being I've ever written about before...I've kept him secret over the years. I suppose it's appropriate he comes out now when I'm doing this work at the very core of myself. As soon as I was handed to him, I felt him take me into the center of my being, into the emptiness, with lots of potential, but also an aching sense of nothing...this which has prompted so many of my choices. I painted the elemental symbol of emptiness on my chest and then I felt JAH possess my body. I hunched down on my four legs, one eye open, the other closed, my mouth a rictus snarl...I felt him speak:

"I am the emptiness you fear, the emptiness you seek.

I am the mote of light in the darkness that shows so bright and entices so much,

but leaves you always longing for more.

I am the fox-lord XAH, I am the core of your spirit...melded with you since you were seven...you are mine now...for this year we'll get to know each other well, and see if we can't find some peace with this emptiness.

We sat down and he took my hand and started painting, the painting to represent his face, to represent his presence:

Today, my birthday, I'd told Lupa that I'd be going on a solo hike. I normally spend my birthday with her, but since this the element of emptiness, I told her she was free to do as she pleased and she opted for getting together with a friend. As I saw her leave this morning, I felt a sensation of abandonment and XAH stirred and grinning told me, "Return to Source"

I headed out to the Multnomah Gorge, listening to Current 93 and as I sang along with the songs, I felt XAH stir again and the energy within me seemed to focus on feelings of abandonment, guilt etc...reminded me of something I was told on Sunday, to let go of the guilt others had put on me. The abandonment is a core emotion for me. My earliest memory was of being given away to my dad by my mom, sometime after they divorced, and the theme of abandonment has played out numerous other times in my life. Realizing how tied abandonment has been to my feeling of emptiness was enlightening for me...it's a gateway emotion, but also a distraction from the emptiness.

When I got to Multnomah falls, I got my gear and started to hike. I'd actually had someone recommend a place with caves for today, but I chose where a lot of people went, because many of my experiences with emptiness have happened around people, the feeling of not really belonging, of having no connection with those people...so it seemed appropiate that a contemplation of emptiness in my life start in a place with lots of people.

As I hiked, I felt empty, but also felt emotions come up. Emotions of abandonment, not fitting in, jealousy, guilt, anger, hunger...all the emotions that signal emptiness for me. And I acknowledged these emotions and let them fall away, because again they were distractions...something to acknowledge, but also something that sometimes only allowed me to experience a surface knowledge of emptiness. As I hiked further in and dealt with emotions that came up, I also felt more and more comfortable with the emptiness. I came to a point, where no one was hiking except for me and I was in a place I hadn't been and I felt a great sense of contentment sweep over me and I felt empty and it was good...it was a state of profound observation and awareness, with no mental chatter. I looked around at the way the light kissed the trees and the ground, the way the wetness permeated the air and I felt alive, at peace, empty and free. I realized emptiness itself has never been the issue...it's been the emotions leading to it, the focus on negative experiences and the association that arises as a result. I continued hiking. XAH would occasionally make himself known to me, offering bits of advice or suggestions about where I could go. The gentle humor he offered, as well as the integration of our respective energies was quite comforting. I came away with a greatly enhanced appreciation of what I was experiencing. The emptiness was a place where no thought needed to arise, no emotion needed to be felt. You just experienced. I don't think I've ever felt as close to nature as I did today. The place I was in had a twilight appearance.

I eventually turned around and came home, but I felt touched in a way that is so silent, so graceful, so different from so much of my life. I think I will learn a lot this year.

Elemental Love Work month 12

I wrote this poem on Thursday, in my live journal. I'm reposting it here, because it depicts part of the conclusion to the elemental Love work. The connection is what we want silver strands that glisten by the star light, whispering promises from the vibrations of the space/time wind The core opens to reveal the secret heart of the universe a path lit up by red lines of force the flames of the fox fire beckoning, and luring on those eager hunters of desire

Hourglass eyes witness the illusion of time, The spiderweb, wet with dew, promises a non linear story Truth, truth, truth...

Whirling fan over the light, a very tired person looks up spreads his arms, and journeys into the iridescent glow of promise. I see all possibilities in the quantum sea everything could, is, was, will do, but will any of it become?

I am also Empty...Reach in and pull the last out Everything is stripped away...she took me on she gave me surfeit her hand gentle on my cheek, while the other rips everything out.

Your illusions are gone, now what?

Now what indeed. It's month 12...The end of the year long elemental love work...The end of my working with Babalon, the sacred whore, the scarlet woman, she who takes on all, but demands the sacrifice of your illusions. Babalon has thoroughly fucked me this last year. At times she had been a gentle lover, at other times a demanding bitch. One hand has caressed me as a lover, while the other has ripped my heart out. And through it all, her scarlet eyes have looked into mine, holding me steady, urging me on, demanding the best from me.

I wouldn't recommend the element of love to just anyone. I think this year's work has been by far the most intense and demanding of all my magical workings. You have to be ready to sacrifice it all on the altar of love to experience the truths you will inevitably find about yourself, and if you get anything back, count yourself blessed, and recognize you also earned it.

This last month has been one of nostalgia, regret, and healing. I remember a year ago, I remember how desperate I was, how much I knew I needed to change, my patterns of love had grown very toxic indeed. I was a toxic bloom, everything on the surface, ready to be popped. I remember meeting a priestess of Babalon, and a relationship that didn't work out and being told, "This elemental love work has left bruises on my heart, your wife's heart, and your heart. Will it be worth it?" I remember bad communication on my part, an unwillingness to really be open or intimate and my journey throughout this year to learn how to do that, how to really open up, how to be vulnerable, how to be honest despite the fear. Honesty with others, but most importantly honesty with myself about my desires, my fears, and what has motivated so many of  my choices.

I remember other situations, other people, all the lies I told to myself, ripped away. And I remember a couple nights with Lupa, where I really opened up, where I told her things I had not told her or anyone else. I remember being honest with her in a way I have never been with anyone, and despite my fears, despite the ingrained responses and reactions that said to just hold it all in, to protect myself by never saying a thing...I spoke...I told her, I laid myself out and let her see the real me. And she accepted me...she showed me LOVE, even as Babalon has Shown me LOVE.

A couple weeks ago, I felt the weight of these regrets...My mind wandered through the past year, through the lessons earned, the people touched, the bruises left, especially the bruise in myself. And I felt Babalon stir beside me. She gave me a gentle look and parted the folds of my flesh, to the heart underneath, and instead of seizing it in her hand as she often has, she gently touched it, touched the bruise of my regrets, and she said,

"It's time to let this go. You've learned what you needed to from this. Let it go, so you can move on and let other people into your life and into your love when you're ready. You've learned the lessons I needed to teach you and I will always be here to remind you of them, and also support you as you continue your journey."

And she took those regrets away...the physical pain I felt in the hollow of my chest left me.

This last Monday, I was talking with Wes Unruh about language, magic, semiotics, and we got around to talking about Babalon and male magicians. He said that he didn't think a male magician came into his full power until he'd had an encounter with Babalon. He told me of his own experiences and mentioned that for about a year after his working with Babalon ended he had focused on the element of emptiness and on rebuilding himself...and I found great comfort in this, because it's another confirmation I made the right choices, and I'm on the right path.

I was asked earlier this year, if this elemental love work would be worth the bruises, and the pain. And my answer is yes. It is worth all the pain caused, all the pain felt. It is worth the pain I caused as well as the pain I felt. It's not that I wanted to cause that pain. It's not that I felt a secret delight. No...That pain is part of the process of life, of how you learn. I made mistakes, I came face to face with the reality of the effects of those mistakes. The regret I felt for the pain I caused was something that's haunted me for this last half year. And yet, that pain, for me, for them has the potential for growth. It's what we choose to make it...and so Babalon showed me I could let go, move on, heal...

Last year, I said to Lupa, I said to others, "All of the relationships I'm in now will be changed if I do this working." And everything changed for those relationships. Every single relationship I was involved in on a romantic level is now gone, accept the relationship with my wife, which has ended up stronger than ever before because we worked through our problems with each other and came to a deeper, more intimate relationship than any I've ever had, except for one. It's taken a lot of work and honesty on our parts, but here we stand together, stronger than ever...

And that one relationship which is deeper and more intimate...that's the relationship I have with myself. This year has forced me to know myself as I never did before, and this next year will take me even further, but I'm ready for that plunge. Babalon has shown me not just the truth of LOVE, but also that of Strength. The strength to forgive, the strength to let go, the strength to love, and the strength to learn. She showed me my strength, even as she took away all the delusions I'd told myself.

Babalon told me it would get harder before it got easier, and she was right. It got really hard somedays to wake up and face the reality of my motivations, my desires, my love or lack thereof. In April, when I walked around, desperately unhappy, desperate to fill something in me and instead walked home and told Lupa about my emptiness, about how empty I sometimes feel, that's when I started to really learn from this year's elemental working...that's when I came face to face with the underlying motivation for so much of my unhealthy behaviors. That's when I realized just how much my feeling of emptiness had so often motivated my choices to try and find something to fill it, instead of choosing to feel it. And now that I know that feeling...now I'm ready to accept it, to move into it and everything it has to teach me.

On Friday, I had some of my hair cut. Babalon spoke to me in a moment of shared love and lust, in a moment of ritual, a finishing touch. That night, Lupa massaged me, talked with me, reconnected with me about our love, about what we find so important and she cut my hair, part of my payment to Babalon. Below is a poem I wrote about Friday:

"You've still got to pay up the last bit for this year of companionship I gave you" She told me.

Her long black hair framed her face, cascading down her frame, hiding her body, leaving only the oval of her face her red eyes staring into mine a doorway into the abyss an invitation into Emptiness

As we fucked with wild abandon her hands touched my long hair and she said,

"Perhaps some of this... Cut some of it for me and also for the next element Cut it as an offering when you pass through the gateway within me and within you The gateway to the heart of the universe"

As we came to crescendo, She and I, My goddess of desire, her beast to ride, I felt myself swallowed into her. She whispered,

"Conjunctio, The joining of forces Your principle joined to mine, In combination we create the alchemical wedding Your sacrifice opens the gate that your seed might be consumed and you reborn in my dark womb of Emptiness Your potential realized in the joining of everything and nothing."

Later my body massaged with hands of gentle love and care, my hair brushed out, the scissors snap some is taken away "Taking a little, so a lot can grow back, so you can realize your potential" Caressed, loved, forgiven, your hands know my body I fall into the light of the quantum sea out of reality, into everything

Everything I am falling back to potential, In her hands I lay, in her womb I will be sacrificed The gateway is open, Conjunctio achieved Emptiness beckons It's a promise of potential I'll take.

"Your last price is paid, Your coin is accepted the gate is open, fly free my love fly free

When you come back reborn anew, you will really know me and my name.

And I whisper,

"Babalon, Great goddess, Sacred whore, scarlet woman, take me, take me, take my sacrifice and show me the door to conjunctio, show me the door to emptiness zero and one, everything and none, where potential awaits to sculpt, to show, to provide the pathway to the heart of the universe to the silver webs of time, and the purple halls of space"

And she rips away from me the last shred of illusion Her hand caresses my cheek one last time, her tears touch my face, She kisses my lips one last time, to steal my last breath Great Babalon has destroyed me.

And now... I'm free to arise. Elemental Emptiness show me the way, through the door

I am here, I am there I am everywhere, everywhen, all things and none, a whisper on the wind, the caress of a hand on your chin all realities within my eyes, I am reborn into emptiness... I am reborn to realize my potential.

Today, Saturday, I finished the Love working. I went upstairs, with the painting of the seal of Babalon, The beast dagger, the candle with her visage gracing it. I lit the sacred candle in my temple. I dedicated two posters of the mythos of Babalon as told by Oryelle Defenestate-Bascule to Her. I burned a bit of my cut off hair in the flame of the candle. I cut her seal into my flesh, her name into my skin with the tip of the dagger, tracing so delicately upon my skin the imprint of this goddess...

I sang her praise, I thanked her for her gifts, and then I asked her to take me through the portal to emptiness. I fucked her one last time, giving her my seed and then I was taken in hand by the entity who represents emptiness...But that story will not be told until Tuesday, when the dedication ritual is finished.

Farewell Babalon, sacred Goddess and sacred whore, my lover and destroyer.

The lyric below is from the song Here's to You by Lisbeth Scott. I removed a couple words, that aren't relevant to me, to this year's working...but the lyrics of this song, the song itself is a fitting end to the love working and the beginning of the work on the element of Emptiness:

Here's to you... Rest forever and ever... The last and final moment is yours. Agony's your triumph.

Here's to you, Rest forever here in our hearts. The last and final moment is yours. Agony's your triumph.

Elemental Love Working Month 11

This weekend is the one year anniversary of when Babalon indicated to me that I would be spending a year working with her and the element of love. This last month has been one of memories and regets, and I suppose that's fitting in some ways, because it's also been about me coming to terms with how much this year long working has changed me and is changing me.  And increasingly this last month I've also been coming face to face with the feeling of emptiness and hunger that has sometimes motivated my actions. Sitting with that feeling of emptiness and hunger has not been easy, but I recognize that it is something that has motivated my search for love. I think one of the deepest moments I had was when I was hiking with Lupa. She'd gone up the mountain trail a bit further and I was sitting and I began meditating about love and it's place in my life and I think I finally, really realized just how much I had treated love as a kind of cure all...a means of filling up that emptiness in my life, as if I could somehow find someone who would make it all better. I had, I realized, focused so much on filling that feeling of emptiness that any interaction in a romantic sense was ultimately based on that desire as opposed to being mindfully present with anyone. That's a hard realization to have because it calls into doubt any relationship I've had with a person. And yet by acknowledging that emptiness and just how much it's motivated my search for love, it's also helped me see who I am, as well as the cause for a lot of my behaviors. Later when I talked with Lupa I admitted to her just how much my desire to find particular characteristics in a person was motivated by trying to fill that emptiness...the realization that my relationship with her had been based on that and how hard it had been for me to accept that no relationship I could find would really address that feeling of emptiness. The responsibility for dealing with that emptiness ultimately falls on me...it only took me this long to realize that.

Throughout all of this I've felt Babalon's presence in a subtle way, though the other day it manifested a bit more directly when I ended up sitting beside someone involved in an organization focused on Babalon. I found it amusing, and also relevant...it's her showing me that she's here, that she's continuing to help me through this process. She took me on, and only required that I strip away all my illusions about myself. I have one more month with this year long element of love...Seems strange to think that this will be done in just a month.

The next element is...

Even though I have two months to go to finish up the elemental love working, last night I got definite confirmation on what the next element will be. I'd actually been getting some hints before this, but last night brought it to the fore quite nicely. I find with this kind of work that you usually do get notice a couple months beforehand. It's really a transition period. You move out of one element and into the other. So what's the element I'll be working with come Mid October?

Zero, Emptiness, the void.

Last night My wife and I went to the Deacon X Fetish night. We danced some. At some point though as I looked around at all the beautiful goth people decked out in their various costumes, I felt no connection. I could hear in my mind the hungry ghosts of desire as I watched some people involved in kink scenes...how much I yearned for certain experiences, as well as regrets about certain choices, thinking for a moment I could've had that...I felt empty and with that emptiness came up all those hungry ghosts, all of those desires. I looked at the various people and I felt empty because whatever they were experiencing wasn't something I could have in that one moment. So I sat and I watched the people in their play and dance. And at some point the voices of those hungry ghosts quieted and I felt just emptiness, nothing else, and there was peace. I felt a great calmness enter me. I began doing the Taoist dissolving breath and meditated while I watched those people. I still felt no connection to them, but I felt a great emptiness, a great circle of zero and I was content. There was nothing and with nothing the potential for everything. I sat there for a while and meditated.

Working with emptiness next makes sense to me, because a lot of the love working has involved revealing that emptiness to me. With my interests in Buddhism and Taoism, it will be interesting to see where this takes me, but for now I've got another two months for the love work.