Space is the Place part 3

Two weeks ago, I found out I was getting a divorce. Needless to say that kind of threw me off when it came to magical work, but in truth it also lent itself to my work with space. We still live together but I moved into my own room. Getting used to having my own sleeping space has been rather interesting, especially since it's not something I've had for the last four years. Tonight I finally did my third working to Thiede, in this case to claim my new space as my ritual space. I pulled out nine stone eggs and arranged them in a circle around me, pulled out the memory box and got elephant's permission to open the gate of space/time. Then I evoked Thiede, and placed my hands on the memory box and let him guide me on a journey to claim my space.

He asked me what had changed in my space, and I told him my perspective, my sense of freedom, my place with different people. Then he showed me how to take the spatial awareness that we'd been cultivating and apply it to the room I was in. The room become a dome, like a bucky dome actually, with different matrices forming and in each matrix was a perspective, a place of awareness about not only the physical space I was in, but also the space of my life. Thiede asked me if I was really ready to claim my space, not just the room, but my space as a person. Was I ready, he asked, to be true to myself about what I wanted in that space.

And I thought that for the first time in my life I can be honest with myself about what I really want...or more honest than I have been, because I'm through with buying into certain societal expectations about what I should want in my space, from another person, etc. I realized that I don't want to compromise my sense of space for someone else, not if that means I'm unhappy as a result.

I claimed my physical space, but also my metaphysical identity space, to be true to what I want in that space, so I can be true as well to who I allow into that space. And I recognize as well that every other person has his/her own space and so each person must respect his/her own space...I claimed my space, and my awareness of that space. Thiede told me than to do another working with Elephant and get ready for Purson...

In other news...

Panthea-con schedule is up. I'll be teaching the class on Space/Time magic on Saturday morning at nine.

Travels into time

I went into my ritual room day. I'd fully cleaned it yesterday, and I was ready to get started. I place different pictures and statues of Elephant around the room, including a poster of Elephant made by Ravenari that Lupa got me as a Christmas gift. I dressed in my ritual garb, including a necklace for elephant and a bracelet of elephant hair. I put on my robe and ritual pants I have. I placed all my time magic tools in the center of the room and then sat down and when ready touched each painting for each of the time and space entities I'm working with and asked for an audience with them. I then unlocked my memory box and used it to travel into the spider web of time and meet Elephant, Thiede, Purson, and the Spider Goddess of Time.

First I apologized to each of the entities in turn. I haven't done much in the last with this working, partially because of having a house guest in my ritual room, but in some ways moreso because of ongoing business busyness. Needless to say something I've realized is that I don't want to sacrifice my spiritual life to my business life so I'm working on trying to get a better work-life balance into place.

After that the spider goddess directed me to look into a window she presented me. When I looked into it, I saw images of the coming year, different moments that could occur. She told me she was giving me some information that would be useful for specific moments coming up, and that I'd have access to it when I needed it.

After that I did a meditation with Elephant, a recap of what we'd been working on before, i.e. learning to be present in the present, but also some further direction in terms of some personal issues I'm working with right now that have illustrated to me how much I sometimes invest my attention into possible futures. The direction boils down to a realization I had earlier today about the awareness of an energetic blockage and how I could stop feeding that blockage by learning to see how it showed up in my behavior to encourage situations that I didn't necessarily want to deal with. If I could dissolve the sensation of the blockage it could help me with the tension I was feeling. Elephant explained that the same awareness of that tension could be used to also get focused on the present moment...so we'll see what happens with it.

In other news, here's a couple of links to a podcast interview of me and Lupa and a book review of Multi-Media Magic

Interview with Erotic Awakenings about Kink Magic

A very good and balanced review of Multi-Media Magic.

Paratheatre Working with Elephant

Another working with Elephant tonight, using the paratheatre techniques I learned about. First I did stretches and exercises to get me warmed up and slipped out of mundane thinking, then transitional jogging to put me into a liminal space. As a side note, being so engaged in physical exertions was quite useful...it's something I'll be employing further. After I did the transitional jogging I got down on all fours and pretty much channeled Elephant. The focus of this working has been similar to the past ones, a continued realization of how obsessions can obscure the present awareness of time, of possibilities. What stands out to me the most is a sense of just how constructed my understanding of time is around desires, around needs around wants. Elephant pointed out that the need or desire a person experiences creates the perception and awareness of time that person has. Sure we have 24 hour days, but time is also constructed in terms of how long it takes to accomplish goals. We artificially construct time around the needs we have, as well as the fulfillment. It makes an interesting kind of sense. And Elephant's point in showing me all of this is really to help me see how constructed time can be, so that as I really begin working with the silver web, I recognize where my desires could interfere with my workings in it. It's definitely useful for me to consider all of this and I know my understanding of time is changing as a result.

No matter where you are, there you are

This morning, ever time my mind started to wander or fantasize, Elephant would speak up and say, "You're wandering." And it happened a lot. When I think about it, it's happened most of my life. I started fantasizing a lot when I was young. It was one of my defenses, one of my ways of escaping a situation I didn't want to be in. And it worked quite well. My imagination has always been vivid, and I could easily create what I needed in my daydreams. But as with anything, indulging in it too much can ultimately lead to a place of excess. So today Elephant made that abundantly clear to me. Every time my mind wandered, Elephant would call me out on it, and each time it happened, it forced me to realize just how much I have a tendency to let myself escape from the present into some past or future imagining, instead of sitting with the present moment and letting myself exist in that moment.

I like my imagination, but I also recognize a real need to stop imagining so much, to be able to sit in the present and recognize the opportunities around me in the moment. I'm glad Elephant is calling me on this, even as I'll admit, I'm frustrated that it happens so much. Then again, would I even be doing what I'm doing, if I didn't recognize some need to change?

Changes in my energy since the elemental switchover

Since I switched over from the element of Emptiness to the element of Time, its been interesting to track other people's awareness of that switchover, as well as starting up a new program of energy work. When I was doing the Emptiness working, my energy was heavy, depressive...I was busy working through all of the blockages and issues in my life. Toward the end of the emptiness working, my energy began to change. I was cleaned out. When I switched to Time, my energy felt different. Different people told me I felt lighter, and I was also a lot happier (and have been since then). Lupa said she noticed a webbing of sorts emanating from me. At the same time, because the emptiness working had cleaned me out, it'd also cleaned up a lot of energetic structures in me. The Spider Goddess of Time told me that I needed to stop using the old daily meditations I was doing and switch to the Elemental fusion system that Mantak Chia has written about. The old practices worked with an energetic body that had been there prior to the culmination of the emptiness working, but with my energy changes so much, I needed to develop a new practice that accounted for that.

For the last couple weeks I've been working the elemental fusion technique each day. I'd tried it before and used it for a little while, but the difference now is that I really don't have any energetic blockages getting in my way. The energy moves differently, but I also realize why the Spider Goddess wants me to bring this technique into my daily workings...it'll keep me cleaned out, because that is its purpose, while also helping me build a new and different energetic body.

Energetically I feel different...I feel so clean. There's no weight on me, no feeling of emptiness that comes across in a way that is hurtful to me. I can still feel some emptiness, but I'm at peace with it. The elemental fusion work, in the meantime, will allow me to continue with my inner alchemical workings, without the baggage that was previously attached.

Walking the web with Elephant

Tonight I decided to do some work with Elephant and time. I went into my ritual room and put on the necklace I associate with Elephant and the bracelet of Elephant hair and then pulled out the statue which wears the other bracelet of Elephant hair, as well as my painting for elephant. then I turned out the lines and sat in front of the statue and centered myself, so I could get focused on Elephant's presence. When I was ready, I laid down and keeping a hand on the statue, allowed myself to travel to the silver web. Once there, Elephant started discussing memory, not so much as a stable picture of the past, but rather as an active re-imagining of it, as well as an influencer of the present, and a dream of the future. He then talked about how being aware of your present circumstances was very important to really working with time.

"You are too focused on the future...not just you, but so many others as well"

He showed me several incidents, including one from today where I'd gotten caught up in future imagining of wishful dreams, while ignoring information in the present that could've told me that such an imagining was just a diversion of energy and thought better put elsewhere. The information was there all along...I'd intuitively acknowledged it, but still ignored it with my conscious mind, until I couldn't ignore it because information was presented that showed me that what I hoped for wasn't going to happen.

"Pay more attention to the present moments and the information in them...that will show you what paths you can take, and there are always multiple paths."

So then he also pointed out how elephants always have to be aware of a lot of information happening around them all the time. They can't just blindly look ahead. They need to listen to the vibrations and communication from other elephants, but also the land, as well as pay attention to their memory of a place, so they can find their way. Elephant said that the silver web has it's own vibrations and even as I can create my own paths, it's a wise idea to pay attention those vibrations as I navigate through time's possibilities.

"The more aware you are of the information available to you, the easier it is to pick out the possibilities that are most available to you, or find your way around obstacles that'd hold you back from a possibility you want to work with."

So I'm coming away from all of this with a realization that yes, sometimes I do live too much in the future, and I want to focus more on what's around me that I'm not noticing as much, and use that awareness to help me with my time work.

After I finished the work with elephant, I did a fan dance as a way to close the the sacred space and thank elephant. I have a fan, one of those ones you can hold open with one hand, that spreads out in a half circle, and I started dancing with it, using it to express my thanks. It was fun to close the ritual that way, and allow myself some artistic creativity with using the fan as a ritual tool. I plan on working with it more, in the future.

Space/Time Connection Working

I've been getting pinged by the Spider Goddess of time quite a bit since I switched over from emptiness to Time to come and do a getting to now you ritual of sorts. It was that this evening, but also more than just that. I went to my ritual room and pulled out the voyager deck and from it constructed a circle and triangle for ceremonial work. I've decided that I'm no longer going to use the voyager deck for divinatory work...just for the ceremonial/experimental magic I've been using the deck for the majority of the time.

After I constructed the circle and triangle, I pulled out the paintings for Elephant, Purson, Thiede, and the Spider Goddess, as well as the memory box I use to access the silver web of time. I then first approached Elephant and asked for entrance through the gates of time. He said yes, and told me to also make some more time for him, so we could explore some facets he could show me in regards to time. I took the key from him, and fit it into the loc of the memory box, and opened the box.

I called out to Purson to be guide through time, to Thiede to be my guide through space and they both came, my guardians on journeys into the silver web. Then I reached out to the spider goddess and she told me that tonight we'd work on utilizing the silver web to make a particular connection happen. She told me to think about what connection I might like to make, and then told me to shuffle the rest of the Voyager deck to pull out th cards that represented me and the connection I wanted to make. First I pulled out the seeker card, for myself (how appropriate), but I had to do a lot of thinking about what I wanted to connect. I decided, in the end, not to connect with a specific person or entity, but rather to connect with an archetypal awareness that I could present some information to about the connection I wanted to make. The Spider Goddess thought this was a good idea, and I proceeded to shuffle and pull a card that represented that awareness.

I then activated the magical circle for connecting with that awareness and putting my own card into the memory box and setting it on the altar, proceeded to explain at length what I was looking for. Then I and that awareness shuffled the cards from the elemental hexagon deck and from that we pulled out what I would consider to be a confirmation of those attributes, but also an imprint of them into the archetype, so it could seek out what I was looking for. After that the spider goddess suggested that she and I shuffle the cards a second time. So we did that, and the second spread revealed/set the path by which the possibility I was seeking would manifest.

The spider goddess also pointed to a specific book on my shelf Fusion of the Five Elements by Mantak Chia, and said I should start doing the exercise in that book for my morning daily ritual. The emptiness working has deconstructed all of my former energetic structures and the Fusion of the five elements is a practice that creates a spiritual embryo (among other things)...she seemed to feel it would be useful for me, so I'll be starting that practice as of tomorrow. Then I closed it all down. Overall, an interesting working, with more to undoubtedly come.

Into Time and Space

After I finished my emptiness ritual and had cleansed myself of the paint, I moved right into the ritual to accept time as the new element. I put on the bracelet of elephant hair, and the elephant necklace and put before me the painting to elephant. I asked elephant if elephant would allow me to enter the gates of time and was told yes. Then I evoked Purson and Thiede as my guides through the silver web of time and space. I did an exercises of putting increments of time into each other until the increments become meaningless.

I opened the memory box, which is my gateway to the silver web and put both my hands on its sides. And I traveled along the silver web until I came to the center, where the Spider Goddess of Time awaited me. She held up the book of her mysteries and said, "It's good you have this back, now paint what I show you."

I pulled out my paintbrush and waters color and painted a web of time. Just one colors, lots of silver-gray...I asked her...was this really it? And she told me that my perceptions of time were too limited by human made standards of time. That what I painted wasn't even so much a symbol as a way of relating to time and space, a way of moving past the linear perceptions and measurements that mark time by human standards. She told me that this year would be a move away from the mystical path I've been on, back to more of a focus on magic, but also a focus on changing those limited perceptions on time...that all the material she'd put in my path the last couple of months was partial prep work for the workings ahead.

And with that, she stopped my hand, looked at my work and said, "Start with this and see what it teaches you."

Then I closed the gate to the silver web of time and gave my thanks to Thiede, Purson, and Elephant...and to her, the spider goddess of time. And so that's the beginning into the element of time.

Elemental Emptiness Month 12: From Zero to One

9-24-09 I haven't been able to update since the esoteric book convention. It highlights how busy my schedule has become and how problematic that can be at times. I'm not sure I like that, so I'm looking at what I can change in my life to give me a bit more time. As this elemental working winds down to a close, what I mostly feel is tired. This has been such an intense year, and the second intense year in a row. I need a break from intense years...and although it has been an intense year for me, I feel like I've drifted away from my spirituality to some degree in the process of doing this elemental work. And I guess that makes sense, because in some ways I've had to let go of everything important to me, to make this year's emptiness working work. The path of the abyss is one where everything is sacrificed as journey through it. At the same time, I feel a kind of anticipation about the end of this one. I know all the work I've put in is going to payoff and that the payoff, for me, is really being able to move past so many conditioned responses and behaviors that used to hold me back. I'm tired, but I'm also at that last part of the journey, where you push through the tiredness and make it to the end, because you know its part of the journey. 9-28-09 There's not really much to write. Unlike all the other months, what I really feel right now is anticipation, or being in the center of the eye of the hurricane. I can look around me and see everything I've been dealing, but also recognize where I am and know I've moved past everything. Now it feels more like making a choice and getting ready to move ahead, free of the rotting putrefaction I went through, because the refinement is here.

10-01-09 I've been playing the Force Unleashed recently. When I first started my emptiness working, I played that game a fair amount. It represented, for me, the feeling of emptiness at the beginning. It doesn't really anymore because I no longer see emptiness as an antagonist. It's something I can see as part of me, instead of against me.

10-02-09 I reflected today that to truly experience emptiness I've had, in one form or another, to really become empty, to really see everything I hold dear fall through in some form or manner, if only to convey to me the full depths of emptiness. Recognizing that everything could be taken away, that's been hard, but useful as well.

10-06-09 On a really deep level I wonder how much this year's working has really helped me. I've been exposed to what drives me toward feeling empty, come to a really good understanding of it, but I don't feel like its really solved. There's still a part of me that just wants to find someone, something that will somehow meet this very intangible need I have. It's a very primal, emotive part, not something rational that can be reasoned with. And it's likely always going to be there. I guess I've learned better strategies for handling it and recognizing it when it comes out...and maybe I feel a bit less driven than I did before, but I also feel like somehow I just haven't really "solved" the core issue for me. I don't know if I ever will. Maybe, all I'll really come away is a better grasp of my emptiness and a better way of handling it, when it comes up in potentially unhealthy situations.

10-08-09 I woke up this morning thinking about D. D was someone I met when I was twenty. We became lovers. She was seventeen years older than I was, a gifted magician, and very experienced when it came to life, and for that matter sex. I never fully, consciously realized until now just how deeply she imprinted me, or how much the relationship not working out would affect me. The majority of women I've been attracted to have always had a connection to Babalon, Lililth, or a similar type of goddess, i.e. the sacred whore archetype and I think it's because of that imprint from D. This person made a really strong impression and I never fully got to satisfy or see where that relationship would go. So I see it as the root of a lot of my longings and seeking when it came to possible partners and sex in general. I've been trying to find someone with this particular current for a long time but I never fully understood why that was the case. And now I do...I really understand some of my choices in a very different light now than I did before.

10-10-09 I've been thinking further about what I wrote above, about the person I contacted, etc. I look back at various activities, various sexual encounters and I see this particular need trace itself through most of my relationships in a manner that never fully addresses it in a satisfactory way. The two partners I ended up with in long term relationships never embraced that particular archetype of the sacred whore. And conversely I've put myself in situations where I could almost have that relationship with someone who embodied that archetype, but then would take it away from myself, too afraid perhaps of getting what I wanted, or perhaps just not ready. I'm tired of that pattern. I'm tired of the hurt it's caused me and others. And while I do love my wife very much and take genuine pleasure and joy from her presence in my life, I also have to acknowledge that this current is in my life and likely always will be. It's something I want to explore with someone, safely and sanely.

10-11-09 One of my problems or flaws is that I put expectations on a lot of experiences, people, etc. In a conversation with a friend this morning, I thought about that...really thought about how much those expectations have actually caused me to miss out on some good experiences. I know I've placed expectations on so much of my life, and I'm even relatively sure of where that pattern came from. I also know those same expectations create a lot of the emptiness I feel as well.

I've been reading the Doctrine of Awakening by Julius Evola. It looks at some of the earliest tenets of Buddhism. I'm finding a lot of it speaking to some of the struggles I've been experiencing for a long time. And I've been reminded that I'm not really drawing on all the tools available to me. But I'm not surprised by that either. I've needed to fall apart this year, to see my flaws up close and personal as well as understanding the cause. It's when you know the cause that you can start at the beginning with awareness and readiness to move forward. So falling apart has been discovering the causes...and starting the healing. I'm just about ready to move forward.

She said: "all you have to do is look around you and really see, not the image of your life but the real life. When you can define yourself alone, all the emptiness goes away" The image of my life is the desires, the expectations, the fixations, everything that haunts me because it isn't realized. The real life is accepting how little any of that matters and how much what does matter is less about expectation and a lot more about the experience.

10-12-09: Further discussion with D, as well as thinking about something written in The Doctrine of Awakening, which stated that when a person "needs" another person they are spiritually weak. Not need as in rely on a person to back you up, but need as in codependent need, trying to find someone to fulfill something within you. As we all know by now, my emptiness working has at its core been dealing with that very issue, and on a very primal level, sex as a shadow activity can be expressed that way. Sex becomes a connection, the intimacy a doorway...the problem is it can also be addictive...it's a drug like any other. You become a junkie, looking for your next fix. And for me, sex, like so much else, has been a way to avoid emptiness, to try and fill it up, and otherwise shut it out, but it's always been a temporary fix. And it's always been more about a constructed reality than an actual acceptance of this reality.

I know that now. That's really what this year has been about, is finally, finally tracing the emptiness to every single root event and coming away with a profoundly different awareness of my emptiness in the process, as well as myself. And always going away with the awareness that I have a choice, have always had a choice, but now have more awareness in making that choice.

10-16-09 I volunteered at a play party tonight, to help out with one of the communities I'm part. After finishing up volunteering, I watched some people play and was struck with a feeling of incredible loneliness, and later a feeling of anger at myself and others for the last few years. I feel really alone. I have for a while. And a lot of it's my own making. Seeing the fun and intimacy others were experiencing tonight just brought it home to me.

10-18-09 I ended up writing a long post about how I was feeling the other night on another site and got some useful feedback. But it also seems that the last couple of days has conspired to put me in touch with some possible interests...and I kind of laugh about that, because it's the end of the emptiness working...and that ending is going to be opening a lot up for me. Last night I had a dream of a silver web and in the middle was a glowing orb and cracks were starting to appear in it.

10-20-09 I went and got the tattoo for Xah. The artist, Alice Kendall did an excellent job . You can see a picture below of the sigil for Xah, as well as the saying "From 0 to 1" Tonight, I went into my ritual room, and painted my body with the sigil of Xah, while vibratingh isn ame over and over again. Eventually, the fox lord came, eyes laughing, tongue lolling out. "You've been through a lot this year. What have you learned?"

"I've known myself at my weakest, all my faults, flaws, and reactions exposed to myself. I've known myself at my strongest, confident, secure in who I am, able to achieve anything. And I've known myself as a mixture, and I am humbled by everything I've experienced. And I'm ready to move from 0 to 1, from a place of reactions to the past and old wounds, to a place of conscious decision and acceptance of the consequences."

Then I, for a while, just meditated on this last year, on what I'd learned about myself, and my choices. This has been the hardest year of my life, in terms of really facing myself, and fully coming to terms with my emptiness. I've had to dig up all my core wounds, come to terms with some different people and their effect on me and also more importantly come to terms with my choices and how those have really effected others. I can't say I'm a better person, so much as I'm a much more aware person after this year, after, the last five years really...and that awareness provides me an opportunity to be much more mindful of my choices. This year has been the culmination of a lot of internal work. I don't even recognize myself sometimes, because so much has changed...but I'm ready to embrace this person I've become, and let go the weight of the past.

At times I wondered if I could make it...I spoke for a while just to myself about this last year, about what I learned, about who I've decided to be. And then I told Xah I was ready to finish this year, and move into the next one. I decided to use a bit of sex magic and brought myself to ecstasy, and in that ecstasy gave myself to Xah again and felt him enter through the sigil I'd placed on my arm and then felt the zero crack open and from it came forth the direction I've chosen...then a shower to wash the paint off...and now it is the 21st my Birthday. And I've made it through this year of emptiness and found myself and found clarity and sanity and peace with myself. For yes, there is emptiness, but now I no longer need to fight it or run from it. Finally, finally, I have accepted it.

I read through my entries on emptiness...it's about a good four pages worth Just re-read everything...from start to now. If you go to the categories dropdown, you can select emptiness and read every entry...go back four pages or so...start at the beginning...You'll read a journey of this last year, of a person's journey to find himself and find resolution and closure with an element that most of us in the West would rather ignore.

Below is a picture of the tattoo I got as a tribute to this last year.

Happy Birthday to me.

She came to me

She came to me tonight as I was being massaged and said, "I would have an audience with you tonight." I said I'd prefer if this audience occurred when I was alone, for since this was part of my emptiness work, that needed to be part of it. She smiled and said, "I'll get you some alone time in a bit." And she did deliver for Lupa was contacted and asked to help with something that needed to be taken care of tonight. "Will you be okay with that?"

"Certainly, go ahead."

After Lupa left, she came back and said, "So about that audience." I nodded, and went over to the guest bathroom and started up the bath water, mixing in oils as well. Once the bath was ready, I sank into the hot world, and she appeared before me, in all of her awful majesty...my lady Babalon. Her eyes were as red as blood, her hair the darkness of pitch, her skin ivory...and she looked through my soul and words poured forth from her perfect lips:

"Almost a year ago you entered into me, and through me descended into the abyss. You took on the rotting that was predicted to you, when you chose to stay here."

I nodded.

"You've come through this admirably. You've rotted and that was my gift to you, not a punishment, but a gift, for you fully needed to feel helpless, fully needed to feel the strength of your desires even onto addiction itself, to fully come to to the root of what has caused your pain and emptiness. You never would've come to this realization if you'd gone out there, and so you would have remained a beast...but now you have traveled through your abyss, through your own rot and dis-ease, and horror and fear, and come through it with a clear understanding of what has held you back."

"I agree. I felt a lot of regret and guilt over what happened, but as I went through this year and came to fully face what has haunted me so much of my life, as I rotted, I finally could find resolution to so much of the pain and emptiness that had previously driven me on. I finally came face to face with each of my core wounds and came away healed."

"This year was your abyss walk, but also the culmination of the previous four years of work. You chose to walk into the abyss through me, as all magicians must, for it is only in facing your desires and facing the shadow behind them that you can move to the next step of your journey. You are no longer a beast, a pashu. You are now a person, a human."

And then I said, "And if still I have the same desire after all of this. I've accepted I may never have that desire fulfilled and accepted that its best to enjoy what comes my way, but still I feel it, even after all of this. I feel it in a conscious way...recognize it as more than just an attempt to fill something up."

She smiled gently. "After all of this, I will tell you enjoy what comes your way and what you have, but I will also say that what you desire will come when the time is right, and in a way that doesn't involve you leaving the Earth you've come to call as your home, and also in a way that respects fully what is already there."

"I'm still one of yours aren't I?"

She smiled again, and said, "You never stopped being one of mine. But you are not a beast to be ridden either. Remember what you've said yourself, 'Both parties create the relationship and choose what it will be.' And what have you chosen with me?"

"For you and I, Milady," I said, "I choose to walk with you at my side, even as I am at yours, devoted to you and your mysteries, but also free to be me and continue on with the journey I've chosen."

"And that is how it should be with you. For you are your own star, and must shine that light on the path you walk. And you and I both know that you've chosen to walk a very particular path, to bring forth the unorthodox and unusual, and manifest as well that success which is yours to claim."

Then she kissed me on the lips, her energy melding with my own, and looked into my eyes with her red eyes and said," Tomorrow you'll move from Zero to One, from Something to Nothing, and mark it with the sign of Xah....Tomorrow you will start your re-birth, and claim your freedom from the abyss. Remember, I'm always at your side, never too far away...and you are one of mine, even as you are your very own self. Enjoy what's coming next...you've earned it."

Then she left, milady Babalon, just like that...and I climbed out of the bath...and readied myself for tomorrow, purified and ready for the rebirth.

Elemental Emptiness Month 11: The zero is about to hatch

8-20-09 It's hitting me that in two months this working will end. I'm sort of surprised it's such a short time away, because in a way I've felt like I've lived more than a year's time with this working. And maybe in some ways I have.  The metamorphosis I've been experiencing and still am experiencing is monumental. I know what's at the end...actually had a number of different people pick up on the end result, so to speak, but the journey is how the end manifests. Would the end exist if the journey didn't? 8-21-09 When I'm situations where I'm dealing with subcultures, whether the "occulture" or the "goth" or any other, what I'm well aware of is a sense of discontent on my part. I thought about it, meditated perhaps, on it tonight while dancing and realized at a certain point that all this feeling of discontent, whether it's about subcultures, or about my dating life (or lack thereof) is really just my issues...it's no one else. It's all my perception and it's all my clinging, holding me back from really letting go and experiencing emptiness. At some point I thought to myself, "Why am I continuing to struggle with these issues so much" and the response I got was, "Because you're trying to hard and you want it too much" And that pretty much is it...I want it too much. I want to feel belonging, acceptance, be desired etc., and it puts a lot of pressure on me, which I've never really acknowledged before.

8-22-09 Thinking about the feeling of discontent further, it's a feeling of not fitting in I've felt a fair amount, but also a kind of clinging to wanting to belong.  The question then arises...when do you embrace your space and accept it, regardless of how much you fit in or not? And that's a question I've struggled with a lot...and it's fitting that its coming up right now in this work as I near the end of this year. Where do I really fit in? Does it matter if I fit in? Does anyone get me? Does it matter if they or don't? These questions might seem like ones only asked by teenagers going through existential angst, but I think people of a wide range of age/life experience ask them. And whether that's the case or not, I know I'm asking them as part of dealing with some of my own attachments and blockages around acceptance and alienation. And I feel comfortable with that.

I went to a guy's night out with some friends...not something I've ever done before. We went to a bar with a karaoke machine, played pool, drank beer. It was an interesting experience, and a little surreal. I'm generally working on projects or playing games. I enjoyed it in some ways, but I don't see myself doing it very often. But sometimes putting yourself in unfamiliar situations can be useful, and I felt that way this time.

8-23-09 As I find myself in various social situations, I'm struck once again by the realization I had some time ago...I'm more comfortable in situations with specific functions attributed to those situations. It's an odd realization that I struggle with at times. It makes sense, but it also illustrates a source of my discomfort with different interactions and social situations.

8-27-09 I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to update this, but today's meditation got me thinking. Basically, what stood out about it was how much my mind kept wandering as I focused on two different issues: sex and business. I've been going through a period of celibacy and it's reaffirmed some of my recognitions about sex, while also digging up how I deal with sexual frustration, as I've needed to be a bit creative with that. But I think also I may take some of the celibacy a bit further, to complete celibacy, just to see what happens. And business...given my journey into self-employment, I'm not surprised it's in my mind when I'm meditating. I can see where stress from both is coming out in my meditation, but I think that's good, because it means I'm able to focus in on those particular areas and spend some time with them, instead of just letting them slide and create problems down the line. In fact, I tend to find that meditation can act as an early warning system, an identifier of stress and blockages in one's life. It's not so much for emptying the mind, for me, as it is being more aware of what's going on in the subconscious and working with it proactively, instead of letting it bubble up in ways that could hurt myself and others.

8-29-09 I think it fully hit me today that one of my issues with sex has always been a fear of having my desire fulfilled and then taken away. This issue actually extends to further beyond that, back to when I'd be told I could have something such as a game, and then have it taken away shortly thereafter for whatever reason or none at all. But in most areas of my life, I have a lot more control of whether something can be taken away. But with sex, a variety of control issues arise that make it all a very weird tangle. For example the desire to be dominated, mixed in with a desire to be in control at all times, makes for a real contradiction and some confusing signals. Or the desire to be dominated and the fear of being controlled. So I see these issues and it suddenly makes a lot more sense why certain relationships never took off, because of triggering issues that I hadn't fully resolved in my sexual identity, or overall identity. Now I'm aware of these issues and left thinking, "now what?" I have contacted one person where this occurred and explained what happened on that end of things. What I'm realizing at the ice-tip as it were is that there is a lot of control issues around sex for me, which has hurt others occasionally, but hurt me much more because I haven't really been able to get clarity on what I want and what I can really handle.

8-31-09 In a week or so I'll be meeting with an ex...timely for us both, because she's leaving Oregon shortly after that and I'm wrapping this emptiness working up. Relevant as well to my sexual celibacy and issues around it. I think it'll be productive for us both.

9-02-09 I'm going to the Fall Equinox festival (held on labor day weekend ironically). It's a strange feeling of anticipation. I *know* something will happen there...yet have no idea or expectation of what will occur. It is just my intuition speaking up, offering to me a realization that I need to go to this event and be there...that something needs to happen and whatever will happen will be significant for what it will offer to me. So much of this last year I've felt so much of what I valued lose meaning, lose significance...so to feel it is comforting, and also in some ways, a reminder that a shift is already beginning to occur. Nothing is moving toward something, 0 is becoming 1, potential is manifesting into reality.

9-03-09 It strikes me as very interesting that the majority of women I'm attracted to usually are working with darker, more sexual goddesses, and tend to have a lot of sexual energy. I'm more overtly aware of this than I used to be. And I'm getting more comfortable with it as well.

9-07-09 Back from Fall Eq. What a weekend for me. I went alone to this festival, left Lupa at home. Having some of that freedom was nice, especially in terms of being able to flirt with people, without feeling like someone might be looking over my shoulder. I didn't hook up with anyone, but the flirting and feeling attracted to several people I met gave me a lot to think about when it came to my sexuality. Spending time at the Tantric temple also helped, and I used it as an opportunity to meditate on my fears.

What really helped however was the Lakshmi ritual. The first part of the ritual involved making a sacrifice. For me the sacrifice was my fear of failing at my business, my fear of my sexuality, and my fear of asking for a specific desire I have. Giving up those fears was a relief to me. The second part of the ritual, where we asked Lakshmi to bring prosperity to our lives was also efficacious for me. I lit the candle and saw a vision of the goddess and she told me that there was light at the end of the tunnel for my emptiness working and that everything I've been working toward will manifest if I stay consistent with what I'm doing. And I got evidence of that when I got home, both in some constructive discussions with Lupa and in some welcome news on the business front.

9-10-09 Some realizations about how I handle fears and such. Sex, in its own way, is a security thing for me. Losing myself in the pleasure is a way to also temporarily forget about whatever I fear in that moment. As I come to a close on the emptiness working, I've been feeling regrets about how certain situations with lovers in the past turned out...the past two years anyway. Feeling those regrets isn't necessarily bad, but I realized today that if there's one thing I want from this emptiness working, it's starting with a clean slate. So I guess I need to resolve those regrets. Already have with one...the rest will get taken care of as well.

9-12-09 I had a really interesting conversation with Lupa today, which resulted in me realizing that the real trap in my life has been the act of trying to escape from situations I didn't like, as well as my own feelings and actions in those traps. Each time I've "escaped" I've just put myself back in the same trap...even if I didn't realize it right away. The last five years has been, for me, the journey to realize that I no longer need to escape the trap...I just need to change my awareness about that trap...instead of trying to escape it...sit with it, understand it, come to acceptance with it. My trap has always been my emptiness, my attempts to fill it and escape from it. But I could never escape it or fill it, and so this last year in particular I finally allowed myself to feel it, and accept it...I'm no longer in the trap, because there no longer is a trap. I'm just about ready to let the 0 manifest into the 1.

9-16-09 Today I hit bottom. I felt like everything was hopeless, empty...and frustrated. And then I rallied, talked to friends, went out to a networking event and realized it's all about perception. Emptiness is a perception...one that is given reality with what you are willing to believe about it.

9-18-09 We drove into Seattle today. Always when I come back here, I feel a palpable tension in the air, and today is not different, but I feel comfortable handling it for a visit. On the drive up, I thought about last night at the Goth, feeling no real sense of longing or need to fill something, where at one time that would've been all I felt when I looked at other people. Now it's just a feeling of acceptance. I know there's nothing that can "fill" me, but then, I don't need anything to fill me up either. I'm comfortable with my emptiness, comfortable feeling it, for it's no longer a trap to escape from. I may never "fit" in, may never really feel I belong, but how much of it is perception on my part? A lot of it...and so if that's the case, it's up to me to come to terms with that perception, which has been the theme of this month. And all that said, I'm more comfortable realizing my boundaries as well and knowing in that context what I can or can't accept about particular subcultures I sometimes visit and even ones I may belong to (such as the occult subculture.

The zero is about to hatch...The inner alchemical changes, for this element are just about complete. I'm ready.

Time Magic: Purson

When I got home on Sunday from Fall Eq, one of the first things I did was go back to my ritual room and get started on the next painting for the time magic ritual I'll be doing in October. This time, the painting was for Purson, one of the Goetic Daimons of Time, and one I've been working with closely for some time. Purson is one of two guides for time, in my paradigm. The horn he blows in a symbol of sound and its relationship to sound, in terms of tuning potentialities into actual realities. Purson, as a guide, provides safe passage on the silver web of time, and can act as an intermediary for the magician, when the magician wishes to work with the Spider Goddess of time. As an interesting aside, Purson stabilizes time, while the other guide stabilizes space. Below is the painting I created as a Seal for Purson.

Time Magic: Work with Elephant

I'm prepping to switch from the Element of Emptiness to the Element of Time. My work with the element of Time will likely be quite different from that of the previous workings. I'm working with a lot of entities, and already have been given a diagram of sorts that shows the positioning of each entity. Last night I did my first working, which was to Elephant as the gatekeeper of time. Elephant guards the gates of time, acting as a guardian for those who would work with time, but also as a guardian of time itself. I would consider him a tester of a person's understanding of time. His lesson is to teach those who would work with time about the integral role of space in defining our understanding of time, specifically in terms of distance and how we use spatial measurements to process the motion of time.

I'll be working with him for the rest of this week, as part of the prep work for switching over to Time in October. Below is the painting I created last night with his guidance. The background colors are purposely done somewhat faded, so that the symbol stands out further.

Elemental Emptiness Month 10: Love and Longing

7-18-09 I got a comment on my last entry on emptiness from a reader, who is a christian, who said I should turn to the christian god to fill up my emptiness. I wonder if she really read the entry, or for that matter read any of the others or just decided on the spot that prescribing her religious beliefs would somehow make everything all right. It reminds me of the various times my mom has tried to convert me to her belief system, without really trying to understand my choices. Eventually she stopped and listened, but occasionally I still catch her trying to be an evangelical with me, instead of simply treating me like a person. It highlights my own issues with gods of any kind and any religion, and is one reason I favor the Buddhist conception of gods, at this point in my spiritual journey. Before I go into my commentary on that I do acknowledge that I have readers who have perfectly functional and happy relationships with the deity or deities of their choice. If you find yourself reacting to this commentary, I ask that you stop, take a breath, and then respond, with the realization that what I'm really presenting is my interpretation of relationships with deity AS IT APPLIES TO ME.

Truth to tell that comment embodies a feeling of objectification (and emptiness) via religion, in my mind. The belief that some exterior force can somehow solve all my problems or even just the feeling of emptiness is a belief I've not found to be true. In the end, the emptiness has still been there, and no god bandaid is going to fix it or make it go away. If anything, I tend to agree with the Buddhist concept of the Gods as powerful beings, who nonetheless are trapped in their very attachment to their own power. Certainly, looking at various mythologies, what most stands out to me is just how human the various deities are in terms of their emotions and actions. And how often those emotions and actions seem to entrap them.

I think deities have their place, but I don't feel the need to be 'saved' by any of them. If anyone is going to save me, it'll be me, as in the end, I am responsible for myself.

7-19-09 There are times when I feel very distant from my wife. I feel like I don't get her, that I don't know her...and I wonder then how she ended up with me, how this relationship even still exists, and whether I will ever "get" her. And then I read Epstein who discusses his own awareness of the distance between himself and his wife, and I read an online friend's feelings of emptiness and unhappiness with her relationships, and wondering if she'll ever find someone who "gets" her, and I realize this feeling is far more common than just the insides of my own head. It's likely a feeling that everyone experiences at some point or another. I also recognize that even if S wasn't in the picture I'd still feel this way sometimes (and have in the past). Her relationship with him highlights some of the feelings I have, but they'd be there regardless. For what I'm really dealing with is the feeling of emptiness that I feel when I recognize the distance between this person and I.

Lupa tells me that it's my expectations about connection that makes me feel this way, and Epstein would seem to agree, in discussing his own awareness of the emptiness and distance he felt with his wife. And I can see it as well with other people, because there's a cultural belief in finding "the one", as if there is some person out there that can complete you or fill you up, similar to what I mentioned about gods above. Yet, I can't say for myself that it's really about having someone fill a hole, so much as being with someone I feel I can relate to...which doesn't take away from the fact that there could be some projections/expectations, etc involved. What I'm really aware of however is that whatever sense of emptiness I feel about this ultimately is my own. And when I stop trying so hard to bridge that distance that I perceive, it actually can become less, because I'm no longer allowing it to control me. I can appreciate the moments of connection I do have, instead of trying to find some idealized connection.

7-20-09 In further discussion with Lupa, I was able to voice something I've felt, but not spoken of before, which was feeling a deep feeling of unworthiness for this person, and realizing that the basis for that feeling originates from so much of my early familial interactions, where I was treated as being unworthy of whatever I got. Recognizing that and voicing it was liberating.

7-25-09 As I've been working with the element of emptiness, I've been able to identify situations that bring it out more and in those situations, work with the feeling proactively. Feels pretty good when I can take that kind of control over what I'm feeling. I'm not stopping the feeling or repressing it, but I am finding healthier ways to express it and let it go.

7-26-09 There was a point tonight where I realized with vivid clarity something about a situation in my life, which allowed me to see that situation in a completely different light and realize that continuing to put energy toward it was needlessly wasting my energy and mental and emotional health on something which didn't matter. But until you have those realizations, you do put energy toward whatever bothers you about a situation. I've done it, other people have done it, and it will happen again and again. But you challenge the patterns that inform that direction, the history, and you can begin to change the pattern to something different. That's how I feel as I've continued working with my emptiness. I've challenged and changed the patterns, instead of continuing to act in the same old ways I used to.

7-27-09 Been mulling over the last nine and a half months of this emptiness working. It's an interesting experiment for me, as much as it's a chance to continue refining who I am. The conscious choice to shape my identity, and also to sit with my emptiness. The last couple couple of days has given me ample food for thought about my family and how they've influenced my life, up to and including my emptiness, but also how much of that can be changed by being able to recognize the influences...and also my own role in sustaining and passing on those influences.

7-30-09 Yesterday, I felt really empty inside at one point. I looked at everyone around me and I felt like they all had something I didn't have. I know that's an illusion, because I'm sure at least some of them feel empty as well. After sitting with the emptiness for a while, I stopped dwelling on it and focused on interacting with the people. Later that night, Lupa and I had a long talk about our relationship, and about the distance we sometimes feel towards each other. It was a rough conversation at times, but it was a good one, because we put it all out on the table. Afterwords, I felt closer to her, because I felt like we'd acknowledged something about each other. And thinking about it further, I have to admit that sometimes the distance I might feel is perceived distance, which doesn't make it less real, but does mean some of it's in my attitude/approach to the relationship. But I'd rather admit there's distance and know I need to talk about it, than bottle it up and not resolve anything.

8-04-09 Spending time with a partner shows you what their good and bad aspects are, as well as your own. For me the last weekend was tough because it was hot out and both Lupa and I were irritable with each other. Even so, every time after I felt that irritability, I also felt recognition of the bond that connects us. I have been doing some thinking, though, about what I'm looking for in another partner. I no longer feel that I'm trying to fill up or cover up my emptiness with relationships. I know, realistically that'll never happen. But when I still feel desire to have a companion, I can now be more honest about that desire with myself, and others. I know what I'm looking for in a partner and why that's important to me, and I've decided that it's time to put some magic into the process. It's always worked before, and I'm ready to handle whoever manifests in my life, because I no longer am trying to fill up my emptiness with someone.

8-06-09 Had a nightmare this morning where I ended up alone and could not find my way home, because every road lead south and my home was to the north. I woke up, feeling alone, scared, wanting to reach out and touch my partner, but also not wanting to wake her up. Later today Lupa offered to do a soul retrieval for me, noting that when people feel emptiness, it could indicate that they have lost part of their soul. While I agreed to let her do so, I did point out that a lot of the stigmatization toward emptiness focuses on trying to fill it up, as if it should not exist, instead of trying to simply acknowledge and accept it. As much as I have struggled with emptiness, and I have, and still do, that lesson of acceptance has repeatedly been what has helped me come to moments of peace with it, moments which are slowly growing, as I learn to struggle less. I think emptiness is part of the human condition, something we all experience, even if not all of us will admit it. It is easier, on the surface, to just fill it up with activities, consumer goods, sex, lovers, friends, etc. But to feel it...to really feel it is some times the most exquisite experience I have felt. And other times the most painful.

8-09-09 This month has been interesting to observe for I've seen it essentially as a month which has really forced me to focus my awareness of emptiness on my relationship with Lupa. I don't think this is a bad thing, if anything it's been quite an enlightening experience. It's fair to say that I've come to feel a better sense of appreciation for her presence or are relationship despite, and perhaps because of some of the adversity we've been dealing with. It has been helped by coming to closure about how I feel about other relationships that impact our relationship, and recognizing from those other relationships where I've been and also where I no longer am. Getting clear on my feelings, in concern to those relationships has taken a long time, and a lot of thinking, consideration, and feeling. I feel like I'm starting to arrive, which probably doesn't make sense to most reading this, but makes perfect sense to me...I've been in the zero of emptiness for just about ten months, gestating...I'm just about due.

7-10-09 One of my favorite anime series is Rah Xephon and part of what I like about it is the music. All of it is very evocative music. Some of the music is very sad in its sound. When I listen to this music, I listen to it at times when I feel melancholic...and find release in what I hear. The same has been true of a lot of the music I've listened to with emptiness. I'm evoking emptiness through that music and coming to a place of emotional closure.

7-11-09 While I was visiting an acupuncturist I'm doing a business trade with, I did my daily meditation and ended up meditating about a conversation that focused on sex magic and the traditional role vs the contemporary role of the woman in sex magic. What I realized was just how idealized the role of the woman in sex magic is, regardless of whether it's traditional or non-traditional. There's this kind of approach, for male magicians, and I include myself in that, where the female is idealized, but also objectified by the idealization...and for me realizing how much of that idealization has really been a desire to somehow feel completed by this person, as if everything would become perfect through the union of opposites. Maybe it would for a second, or maybe it's just a delusion fed to the self as a way of trying to strive for something. But whatever is attained, still more is wanted, because there is no sense of satisfaction...that's my conclusion about the idealization of women in sex magic, but also in some senses just another layer of recognition, another set of scales falling off the eyes (though this particular set had already mostly fallen off).

7-14-09 I find guilt to be  mostly self-indulgent feeling. I know some readers will recoil when they see that, for isn't guilt supposed to show that you feel bad for whatever it was you did? And I suppose it shows you feel bad, but if guilt only does that, it seems to mainly be a way of flagellating the self, for the self's benefit and perhaps to show others that yes I recognize I did or didn't do something. At the same time, while guilt puts on a good show of displaying how bad someone feels, unless action is taken, it's ultimately superficial. You can feel bad for not doing what you could do, but if you choose not to change it, all that feeling bad really does is give you an excuse to say, "See I know I'm bad." Great, you know that...and?

Different people, in the past, have argued that displaying and feeling guilt is good...that it shows that the person is aware of what s/he did...but guilt without action is merely a reaction and self-indulgence for getting caught in the act. It is only when you decide to take a course of action to change the behavior that caused you to feel guilty that you can then say guilt has served a purpose...motivating you to be better because you don't want to hurt someone the way you did before. I say that with the weight of experience, for this emptiness working, and the other workings of the past few years have all been motivated by a desire to change from who I didn't want to be, to someone I could like and respect...and someone who would do his best not to hurt the people he cared about. I think I'm much closer to the latter person than the former, which is something I couldn't have said even a year ago, but all of this work is tempering me, and the dross which falls away is left behind, not really needed anymore.

In thinking about the emptiness working, I've realized that I haven't actively worked with the entities I associated with it for quite a while. At some point, I realized I couldn't continue to hold on to their hands...I had to let go and fall, and hit bottom. Xah is still a distant background presence, but the emperor is gone...he served his purpose and left, on to others to teach what they could learn. But Xah is both near and far...he doesn't need to be directly involved, but at the same time, he keeps a watchful eye on me. Given that he is me, I shouldn't be surprised...but all the same I do feel alone in this working at this point, and I'm rather content with that. The last few months has also seen my magical practice not so much fall to the side as take a backseat to my business. My business is where my manifesting energy is going...and while magic is still important, I also feel it fits the emptiness working. Everything that previously had meaning in my life has in some form or another gone away, become empty, because you can't really experience empty you've given away what had meaning to you. I know, I'm busy with my business, which must have some meaning to me...and it does, I won't deny that, but my business, the actual business really came into existence during my emptiness ritual...I see it, ironically, as a manifestation of meaning that brings me the greatest level of comfort I've ever felt. I couldn't find that comfort in the arms of others, or in the usual distractions I provided myself. I could only find it in exercising my skills and talents, while also substantially changing the superficial layers of myself to reach into the depths and pull out the meaning I really needed to see...in myself and in what I can meaningfully offer to others.

7-17-09 Seems kind of appropriate that this entry ends on the first day my wife is gone on her first of two trips. This month has felt like the emptiness perspective on my relationship with her. It's been a hard month for me, and her, for various reasons. Yet at the end, I can't help but note that I do miss her and her presence. My house is empty right now. There's something missing, something essential to the equation of this home. I know it will come back, but I also know it is not there. It's a good reminder that no matter what tribulations you experience with someone, what you miss when that someone is not around speaks louder than any of those tribulations.

Element Emptiness Month 9: Craving and Desire pt. 2

6-19-09 I'm feeling out of sorts today. This is one of those days where there's missed connections, where everything feels slightly off. It's a day where I feel the craving to be filled a bit more sharply. A day where nothing I do really satisfies and underlying everything is a feeling of loss. I hate those days. They don't happen often, but when they do occur, no matter what I do that day, it feels like nothing got done. Sad though, measuring the day by what got done or didn't...yet I do it all the time. There can be benefits for doing it, but is that really the only way I find worth? 6-22-09 Envy is one of the shadows of desire. Feeling envy is like feeling pointy, sharp knives being stabbed into you...Each stab is a fresh reminder of the pain you feel. Just one of those nights.

6-27-09 I'm alone this weekend. My wife is off with her boyfriend and I have our home to myself. In someways, though, I've felt fairly alone lately, because the emptiness working is intensifying and I've also been letting go of a lot of my cravings when it comes to wanting other relationships...letting go, but also feeling.

It is the act of feeling which allows for the letting go. I've never realized as much as I do now how much I sometimes have found value in myself through the relationships I have with others. I think some of that can be healthy, but can get unhealthy if the value is only because of those relationships.

I want to be involved with someone new...be dating someone...and I acknowledge that. But I also accept that if and when it happens, it will occur because it's the right moment...which doesn't mean I'm not looking...just means I'm less frantic about it.

And more appreciative of the relationships I do have with wife, family, and friends. It's wonderful to have people hwo genuinely care about you and love you and want you in their lives. I appreciate that more than ever because having those relationships is what's helping me get through this emptiness working.

6-29-09 As I've continued doing this emptiness working, something which has come into my consciousness more has been an awareness of other peoples' emptiness. It's consequently made me more aware of what I am comfortable dealing with and what I'm not comfortable dealing with. I think every person has some degree of emptiness in them and I think it's not unhealthy to have it, but how it's expressed can be unhealthy. When I'm around someone and that person wants something from me, in a way that tries to fill that person up, I know it's a case of trying to fill up the emptiness. In some ways, it's a kind of psychic vampirism. And until people get comfortable with their emptiness, and understand how they are reacting to it, it will cause them to act out in ways that involve trying to fill themselves up. I know this, because it's been that way with me, most of my life. Only recently have I come to a place where I'm not acting out that emptiness...but because I'm aware of that emptiness in myself, I can also feel it in others, and see it in the behaviors they exhibit.

7-01-09 Sometimes an event will occur, which triggers issues for me from the past. Frex I give someone a gift and that person doesn't exhibit as much enthusiasm or interest in said gift as I hoped (expected) s/he would. On the one hand, Lupa's pointed out that I tend to build up some expectations as to how someone will act when I give that person something. And there's some truth to her observation. I do sometimes build up an expectation on how I think someone will act or react to something I do and that can lead to disappointment and isn't fair to the person either.

But in thinking about it, the root of this issue is in feelings of neglect. My honest feeling wasn't so much disappointment, as a feeling of neglect, of not being noticeable enough, worth enough to be shown consideration to. And yes that issue can lead to high expectations, but when I trace it back to myp ast, I trace it to my childhood, where I was essentially an indentured servant. I was expected to do a lot of chores, and was rarely, if at all thanked for what I did. In fact, I was usually only acknowledged when I did something bad. Everything good I did wasn't worth noticing or paying attention to. And sometimes...I still feel that way. Now, that isn't the fault of anyone I know. It's my issue to deal wih, my issue to own, but part of owning it is acknowledging it, being honest about it, and recognizing what triggers it. And also recognizing what I need to do, to decondition that trigger.

7-3-09 I recently added a new business to my entrepreneurial gig and in the midst of doing that got some real gems for my emptiness work: Humility is believing in yourself and in abundance. It's believing you have everything in the world to offer and also believing that everyone else does too." It's an interesting definition of humility, and one I find compelling. And what does it have to with emptiness...Simply recognizing that everyone does have something to offer. It's a shift in thinking that focuses on recognizing the value that each person has. And for me, this is a shift which has been occurring for a while, since the advent of my entreprenurial focus. And when I've come to this view, it's changed some of my feelings about emptiness, because I recognize more and more what it has to offer to me as well.

7-03-09 There are times where I still find myself struggling with being completely open and upfront. I want to be open...but there's also that part, which doesn't want to be open. That part is the part that learned early on that being open was a bad idea, that it would be used against me.  And rationally I know I'm not in that place anymore...I'm not that child anymore, but emotionally my issues with the authority that someone could have with my life is one that makes me feel uneasy. That uneasiness brings its own contributions to how I handle situations where I want something, but might have to get someone else's approval to get it. Sometimes I really have to muster up my courage to bring something up, because of that uneasiness. It's gotten easier to deal with over the last year, but its still something I have trouble with occasionally.

7-06-09 This month so far has been quieter than all the other months. Sure some stuff has come up, and there is still an awareness of emptiness, but at the same time there's also a quietness, a kind of calmness...and not the calmness before a storm, but more like a calm centeredness of knowing myself and knowing emptiness and feeling collected and grounded with both.

7-10-09 Sometimes I will catch myself in a stream of thought that is focused around desire and in that moment acknowledge just how much that desire occupies my thoughts. It's useful for recognizing just how much I want something, as well as asking whether that focus is really helping or not. It's showing me as well the place desire has in my internal landscape, and now I'm learning how to sit with that comfortably. It's not always easy, because sometimes I feel overwhelmed by how much my thoughts can sometimes go toward desire, but learning to sit with it is teaching me a lot about how I feel when I feel desire and can't act on it. I'm seeing what underlies desire, which sometimes is a feeling of emptiness and fear, and sometimes is a desire to connect.

Some further realizations. Some of my desires deal with taboo, the desire to do something forbidden. When I thought about that and traced it back, I found the root, of course, in my past. Because I lived in a very disciplined household, one of the things I did to get power in those situations was to go behind my parents back and to lie to them. If I could get away with something, I took it as a triumph. And I see that same behavior in my life, over and over again through my twenties, and to a lesser degree my early thirties. Never mind that the root situation is gone...there's still this desire to do something forbidden, and the pleasure of getting away with it. I'm not acting on that desire now, but it doesn't mean I don't have fantasies about it. Today when I had such a fantasy, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, sitting with it, and figuring out where the desire originated from. And having done that, I can say that it makes a lot of sense to me, but it's no longer needed. I'm not in a situation where I'm dealing with some authority over me restricting me from enjoying what I like. I'm in a situation where I have that authority and ultimately responsibility for what I do. Needless to say, that gives me a lot of incentive to continue working on this stuff, instead of acting out on it.

7-12-09 I've been re-reading Epstein's works on Buddhism and psychotherapy. Seemed appropriate for the emptiness working. In one of the books, Epstein talks about realizing that the pain, anger etc., isn't something you can remove, that instead you've got to sit with it and work through it. The same is true of desire. You can't remove it, and you do need to work through it. It's something which needs to be experienced, but in a manner that allows you to know that you are truly at peace with how it makes you feel. You can't eliminate the emptiness, the desire, the anger, because it's something which is part of you. We treat it as the other, because we don't want to deal with it. But it's only in sitting with those feelings, that we can find peace with them.

7-13-09 I am simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable with my desires. I am comfortable in the moments I express them, but uncomfortable with having them...and it's fairly easy for me to figure out the root and where it all came from...but sitting with it and being present with is something else I'm still learning to do.

7-17-09 Sitting with my desires today, I realized just how important it is sit with them and be silent in that sitting. And by silence, I don't mean not talking, so much as I mean really listening. I still don't feel any more comfortable with it, but I do feel like I'm finally ready to listen as opposed to frenetically acting.

Elemental Emptiness Month 8: Craving and Desire pt. 1

5-18-09 I think sometimes what I find so difficult about desire is that desire brings some sense of vulnerability with it. I can express a desire, but that expression leaves me vulnerable. And sometimes the expression has left me in places where I've felt very...hung out to dry. I've expressed interest and then been left dangling, wondering what happened when I don't get a response. And some of that is ultimately on me and how I express desire, but nonetheless the vulnerability that arises with all of that is something I've never sat with or really spent time being around. It's an interesting insight for me to realize.

5-19-09 Therapy does a wonderful job of getting right to the heart of the matter for me, with the fear I've been feeling about my desire. Well several of them. One realization being that some of the ways I act out omy desire is useful because it removes the element of rejection. No one likes rejection, so how handy is it to just not have that included...problem is fantasy land is not the real thing, and rejection is a real part of life. Realization #2, the much bigger realization really is what I'm really afraid of: I realize that almost every single interaction in my life has involved, to some degree, the attempt to fill myself up. My desire has ultimately been based around filling up my emptiness. And what's so scary is that when you realize that's what that is, you second guess every relationship you've had and even have now.

"We are what we repeatedly do." Aristotle. So what am I? Am I just some kind of vampire just trying to get whatever I can from anything and everything. Feels that way today. I feel ashamed of how much my desire for any kind of interaction seems to based on trying to escape how empty I feel. And also just how much I've objectified myself and other people in that process due to what I might consider to be very primal urges. It's pretty sad to think that most of the interactions I've had haven't come from a place of genuine connection, so much as from a place of wanting to get something from other people. Sure, I can be generous, but still how much of even that is genuine? That's the kind of questions I've had to ask myself when it comes to this emptiness working. Everything I don't like about myself stands revealed, and since a lot of what I don't like about myself is actually tied to my desires, it hits home even more, even as part of me wants to run screaming for the hills, or indulge in those same desires, to escape for even a few moments, from what I see about myself. Yet, it is my choice if I do walk away or indulge and the consequences are also mine, and before I wouldn't have looked at that reality. But in looking at it, I have another choice. I can deal with how I'm feeling in this moment, really sit with this part of me, my shadow self, and all the feelings it brings up, and try to see it for what it is...not some terrifying monster, but rather it's a part of me, which I've repressed and tried to ignore as best I could. When I shine the light on it...I see a person who just wants some comfort and love. And no one else can give to him.

5-20-09 I woke up this morning so horny, so hungry, so empty...I feel it even now.  It would be so easy to act on the impulse, but instead I'm just sitting with it. It's not easy to sit with it. And this isn't a case where sleeping with one of my partners would help, because it's really a case of wanting to find someone new and have some casual objectifying sex with that person. It doesn't mean I'll act on it, but there are days where it is really hard to not act on it. I want to dive into the anonymity of the sexual interaction...have sex, and then leave the person behind, never seeing that person again, and knowing that for a few moments that person fulfilled my emptiness and also ended up being one less person to sleep with. It's a fairly crass way to state all that, but some days it is how I feel. And the reality of it is that I really just want that person to somehow fill me up, to somehow complete me, but there is no completion, no filling up, no cessation of emptiness. I know this. And that is why I'm sitting with this feeling and talking with it, because acting on it hasn't met my underlying need...it's just caused more suffering.

5-25-09 Last few days I've been at Heartland, and it provided me a really good opportunity to sit with my desire, and really be conscious of what informed that desire, whether it was emptiness, a genuine desire to connect, or something else. I didn't find myself attracted to each and every person, but that's been true for the last six or so months...I did feel desire for a few different people, but I didn't do much to pursue it, and in fact opted, for the most part, to just chat and enjoy their company without looking for more. There was one person I was rather drawn to and I decided to trust in that feeling. We didn't sleep together, but we ended up chatting a lot and what it really helped me with, was just being comfortable feeling a fairly intense amount of desire for this person, expressing it even, but not having to fully act on it. I'd have acted on it, I'll admit, but it wasn't the right time and place and I accepted that. It was more...fun to not act on the desire immediately and just talk. I don't know if I will hear from this person or not, but even if I don't, I know I've been fortunate to have this encounter, for it placed me in a situation where I could really be present with my desire for someone and explore that desire at some length. And it was good to find myself not feeling a need to fill myself up. I'm very comfortable with feeling desire and knowing it can actually be about something other than trying to fill myself up. It was also nice to get confirmation from some old friends that yes indeed I have changed a lot, in a really positive direction.

05-27-09 While I was away on my trip, I was reading Mapping the Dharma by Paul Gerhards and he offered a gem of insight that I found useful in my work with emptiness: "Craving causes suffering because with craving comes attachment. The very nature of attachment is the inability to let go, which creates tension because of our desire to keep things from changing" When I read that statement, it crystallized so much of my issues with desire...the attachment to certain expectations, and out comes, which consequently created a lot of suffering for myself and others. My craving to have those outcomes met, and yet if they were met, the inability of that result to satisfy the craving...the attachment created an illusion of something I couldn't see through, which nonetheless held me back.

5-29-09 Desire ideally never compromises my sense of self-esteem. If it does compromise that, then I've become a slave to desire. I realized this earlier today, when I contemplated incidents of passive aggressive behavior and saw in that behavior an inability to clearly express how the person felt, without having to attack me on a personal level. Not the kind of energy I want in my life. I realized that allowing that kind of energy in my life was harmful. And when a desire is associated with someone who exhibits that behavior, it can become a choice of still seeking that desire and also dealing with the negative effects of the passive aggression, or it can be letting go of that desire but also the passive aggressiveness. The latter choice, while depriving a person of the fulfillment of the desire, nonetheless also frees one from being put in situations that are degrading to one's sense of self. An interesting lesson about desire is recognizing when you compromise yourself to fulfill a desire.

6-01-09 In talking matters over in therapy today, what I really came away with is that feeling desire is fine, having strategies to explore your desire is good, but letting your desire turn into craving is when addiction sets in. At the same time, learning to be comfortable with my desire, really comfortable with what it is, and how often I might wish to experience and explore those desires is equally important. I've not always been comfortable with my desires, despite acting on them...only now, am I really starting to get more comfortable with them.

6-05-09 Last night I went out dancing at a goth club. While there, I was aware of a familiar feeling of craving. I say craving, because it wasn't just a feeling of desire, but rather clinging to an attachment, to an expectation. I recognized it for what it was, and instead of acting on it, I paid attention to the feeling and acknowledged that it was an attempt to fill something up. The more I spend time in these situations being present with the emotions and feelings, which arise, the more aware I am of when it's a situation where I'm clinging to an attachment, versus a genuine appreciation of the desire I'm feeling at the time.

6-06-09 I got into some interesting headspaces sometimes and tonight was one where I was fairly submissive and quiet...and feeling a bit lonely for part of the evening. Actually I felt it earlier today. Some of it I think is a reaction to having broken up with someone I was seeing until last week, and some of it is also a kind of craving of some sorts, which I recognize for what it is: I want to feel whole, because of the hole...but I also know there's no one who can make me feel that way, except maybe myself It's a feeling which is faint. It's not an active hunger like it was before. And some what I feel is just genuine desire...like earlier today, where I was spending some time with a friend I care for and really appreciated her presence.

6-08-09  In re-reading Open to Desire, I'm struck by a tale the author tells about trying to close the distance between himself and his wife, and then realizing that in doing so he wasn't appreciating the intimacy of the distance between himself and his wife. I feel like I haven't really appreciated that either, in any of my relationships. I've learned to be better about giving space, but appreciating it? Sometimes I've been so intent on filling up my life with something, I haven't really appreciated the moment for what is, or the emptiness in that moment. And sometimes it's really eaten at me, because I've been too focused on trying to fill something up, that it's become a moment of craving. The author notes that a person's tendency when filled with craving, is to try and fix something, to try and somehow make it all fill up...yet if anything in those moments, all I feel is a kind of desperate weakness. That weakness is so hard to feel...I want to be strong, but strength doesn't necessarily involve beating something down or not feeling something. Strength, many times, is really feeling that weakness and acknowledging it as something that needs to be felt. I just wish it wasn't so hard to do.

6-09-09 There is something powerful about vocalizing feelings of vulnerability, anger, fear, etc., to someone, and knowing that person will listen and hold sacred space. with you. It's a shared power, a place of mutual connection that provides both or more people mutual resolution and satisfaction, or at least that's how it felt to me today, when I spoke to Lupa about my feelings of vulnerability about sharing my desire for her, with her. It was good to get some stuff said that I haven't said before, but what was even better was her willingness to really listen to what I had to say. That kind of support is priceless.

6-10-09 I had a dream of an ex-lover this morning, I was in a classroom and there was a TV. It turned on and showed her doing some of her different routines and I felt a wave of sadness go through me. It's been a long time since I've thought about her I wish her well, and I recognize wouldn't be where I am if she hadn't acted as a catalyst in my life.

6-13-09 There are some days when I feel so depressed, so empty, so filled with craving, and question what the hell I was thinking when I decided to do this working. There are days when I don't feel connected to anyone, or to the magic, and I feel so low energy, more low energy than I've ever felt. I've had a few of those moments today, and over the last couple of weeks. Desire and craving are hard issues for me, hard places to be with myself...I think the hardest I've encountered this entire working, and certainly the deepest of my core issues. I was told about a year ago that if I chose one path and became the messenger of a goddess that I would be filled with the essence of that goddess...but somehow I think even if I'd gone down that path, all of this still would be here to deal with.

As is I took the other choice, the other path, and was told there's rotting on that path...and then I took that particular prophecy and purposely fulfilled it by doing this emptiness working. If I was going to rot, I was going to do it on my terms. And you know...yeah I am dealing with my rot. I'm sitting in my shit, dealing with my issues, my dysfunctions, owning them, embracing them, understanding them, communicating them.

And it's not easy...it's so hard sometimes to do this working with emptiness. It's so hard to face my weaknesses and really see them for what they are and how they have pervaded my life and my choices. So I'm rotting...and somehow through all that rotting, I'm being stripped away of so many illusions. And what's left...whatever's left, when all this is through...it's the divine in me...it's the HGA, the all in one and one in all.

On the other hand...I've never felt more confident or more sure of myself in my life. And for the first time in three years, I'm feeling productive and wanting to write...really write. So I'm rotting...being stripped of whatever, but I'm also starting to see something underneath that rot. Just got to be patient and keep digging through the putrefaction.

6-14-09 I met a person I've been wanting to meet for a while and got to talk with her at some length yesterday. Last night, I took a purification bath and while in that bath was able to work through some blockages that came up while doing an exercise that the person taught at the workshop I attended. And I realized that I envied this person a bit. I envied her stillness, her centeredness. I felt scattered compared to this person (and in some ways I am scattered right now). And then I stopped myself and recognized that there was no need for comparison...That being so self-conscious really just showed me some places to keep working on in my life.

I also came up against the theme of respect and being desired. I want to be respected. I want to be desired. These are feelings I've had a long time, arising I realized out of never being a popular kid. I see someone else who is "popular" and I want what that person has. It was rather charged for me, this feeling, this recognition of wanting to be desired and respected. It's the wanting to be seen. And I went underneath it to the need and what I got was, I want to be accepted. And yeah that makes sense. Amazing how meeting someone can open you up to some issues in you, if you are receptive to realizing those issues.

6-16-09 Therapy highlighted to me how much progress I've made in this year's working. The therapist noted that pretty much every tool had come from me for dealing with situations. That was good to hear. Next week is my last session for at least a month as my therapist is about to give birth to a child. It will be a good litmus test for me in terms of seeing how I do with what I've learned from here out. I'm still doing a lot of work with desire and craving, but I also feel that I have some tools I can use to come to a better place with those emotions in my life.

Elemental Emptiness month 7: Fear and Desire

4-18-09 I got a response to my last post report on the elemental emptiness working, where the person made some observations about my flaws as a person. It wasn't easy to read, but as I reflected on what had been noted, I realized that it was an observation as opposed to a judgment, but also realized how much fear I have around being judged for what I would consider to be my flaws. It's a fear of being seen for who I am...and actually it's come up a bit the last few days in different ways...yet obviously I have been seen for who I am by different people and am still in the lives of the different people I know. This fear of being seen though is an interesting fear to feel...there's a level of self-consciousness to it, but also a realization that in some ways I've focused on what I think of as deficiencies to the exclusion of appreciating my better qualities. Self-esteem issues...yeah, a fair amount and working with my fears is allowing me to really see those self-esteem issues for what they are. I did wonder today, if I'd been raised in a more "ideal" situation, would I be as fucked up as I sometimes feel I am? And when do I realize I'm "ok" or good, or whatever...when does it balance out?  The last few days, in different situations, definitely made me feel vulnerable...no one likes it when they are called on their shit, or seen in terms of their worst flaws. I'd like to run, but I don't think the hermit would let me, or honestly, I would let me. And while anyone can see those things about me I might not like, the only person who can choose to do anything about those things is me. And shying away from what I don't like about myself just leads to more dissatisfaction and unhappiness. So here I am, vulnerable, flawed, selfish, but also less angry, more compassionate, loving, and willing to sit with all of me instead of just the best face forward.

4-19-09 I talked to the moon goddess today about some of what I wrote above and she pointed out that it's important to keep a balanced perspective and that someone telling you about the good aspects of you can be equally as revealing as what one observes about you that s/he doesn't care for. And in thinking about that I realized that how you create equilibrium is maintaining an appreciation of what about you is good, while still working on your deficits. And that might seem obvious, but I think it's easily forgotten, because as a culture it seems more acceptable to focus on the dysfunctions and problems as opposed to what really works.

4-21-09 In therapy we talked more about fear as the emotional base for a lot of my decisions. Something interesting came up, because she mentioned how at one point last year when Lupa and I'd seen her together, I had mentioned how I didn't do anything unless there was a direct benefit for me. We talked about that statement and it's context to fear...the realization that fear for me has really operated from a place of scarcity, poverty, and trying to "get" something directly feeds into that kind of statement. As I find myself shifting toward being more giving without expectation, I find myself realizing that I don't always need to see a direct benefit from something, in order to do it. On the other hand, I also recognize that there's a lot of value in recognizing what the payoff is for doing something. Afterall, I can easily tell anyone what my payoff is for writing, coaching, or doing any of the other things I do. But being able to come into a situation without an expectation place on the other person can be incredibly liberating, and much less fear-oriented.

I also told her about a victory I've had in regards to my fear. I don't get as angry as I used to be...and I'm not as angry at myself either...and when I get angry I've put together strategies to help me express it constructively, while allowing myself a way out, in case I need to cool down. It's a big victory for me, and one I hope to continue capitalizing on.

April 23, 2009 - I don't think feeling anger is unhealthy. I think holding on to it is...The feeling of compassion isn't a substitute for feeling anger. You need to feel anger, to really allow yourself to feel it, in order to move on from it. Compassion that stymies anger just leads to more anger and unhappiness...compassion which comes after anger is felt and expressed, is the seed of forgiveness, which allows us to move on from what angered us, while also forgiving the people involved (though not necessarily forgetting). Forgiveness is not condoning what happened. Forgiveness is moving past what happened so you can heal.

4-26-09 Something I've been trying to do more, with varied levels of success is just being quiet and present with my fear. Sometimes it works...and sometimes it doesn't. when it does work, I can quiet the tapes and when it doesn't work, I have to find a distraction for those tapes. When it works, I'm finding a way to meet the underlying need, and consequently, I feel more present and involved in my life, because that need isn't defining the situation I'm in.

5-01-09 I haven't been writing as much this month, but the last two days provided ample fodder, as it were, for this month's working. I went camping, and went to a radical faerie Beltaine, by myself, as much to get away from my really busy schedule of late, as for the opportunity to meet someone I know online who was going to be there. This person is going through a lot of similar spiritual work with emptiness right now...in fact, I felt like I met my mirror...in terms of the fears and other issues we are dealing with.

Going to this event, I realized I was likely one of the few straight people there, if not the only one and the entire time I was there, I felt out of place...It was a good reminder to me of the fact that people at the event, that people of skin colors and ethnicities which aren't Caucasian deal with this feeling of out of placedness, or marginalization, or whatever on a daily basis. I only had to deal with it for a day and then I could go back into the world and not think about it. It reminds me of how easy it is to take for granted how, in some ways, I don't have to think about or worry about what others will think. Honestly, if I'm conscious of anything, it's my gender. I'm male, and being male, I recognize that what I say or do can be taken in a variety of ways...but even that awareness is something I had to learn.

And going to this event reinforced that that I don't identify with the pagan subculture that much...I haven't identified as such for a while, but it comes home to me occasionally that as I continue to make some fairly comprehensive lifestyle changes, my identity changes as well. And while I will always practice magic, that practice doesn't automatically confer onto me a label of being a pagan, occultist, or whatever. Well it may for some people viewing me, but not necessarily my own perception of it.

Actually, I realized that in a lot of ways, my emptiness work is really about purging myself of what is holding me back identity wise...what I've been clinging to out of fear, anger, lust, whatever else...all as a desire to fill myself up with whatever, so I wouldn't have to face myself. In choosing emptiness, choosing to sit with emptiness, I'm also seeing all the rot in myself...and as I clear out that rotting, what I'm left with is an awareness of what has held me back, both in my personal choices, my fears, and yes even my associations. I still plan on writing books about magic, because I have something to say about magic, even as I plan to continue running the nonfic line of immanion press, but as I mentioned to a friend recently, I'm not really in touch with the majority of people in the occult subculture anymore. I have a small group of friends I work with on a regular basis...a few others I talk shop with...and that's all I need and want. At one time, it would've been a different answer, but that answer was based from a place of fear...this one is based from a place of authenticity with myself. And it extends to the rest of my choices as well...This year's helping me prioritize my life choices, as much as it's helping me face and embrace myself.

5-4-09 "Once there was nothing that turned itself inside out and became something" - Sun Ra The path of emptiness isn't just about nothing...rather it is also about becoming. Emptiness strips away the delusions, lies, and falsehoods...the masks we give ourselves, but it also reveals the potential we have as well. It shows us the possibilities. I feel like I've started to swing around to the other side of emptiness, to that discovery of possibility. It's always been there to some degree, but I'm more open to it, because I'm living in the moment., and not letting my issues obscure the awareness of possibility. This is revealing to me...just how much my fear has stopped me from realizing my potential.

5-6-09 I've been reading Kissing the Limitless by T. Thorn Coyle, and in it she talks about the concept of self-possession, saying that self-possession is the process of becoming consciously aware and awake. And reading about it really speaks to my own realization that my own journey is one of self-possession and that lately I have felt a level of confidence and self-assuredness about myself and my interactions, which I'd never previously felt before. That isn't to say I still don't have my moments of insecurity, but I'm able to recognize those moments for what they are and sit with them much more than I'd previously done before.

At the same time, the moon goddess pointed out something, which I'm going to spend more time with. She said that while she definitely noted that I could be very open, she also noticed a guarded secretiveness as well. And I have to agree it is there...I'm aware of it, and I'm aware that it's roots go back to the abuse I experienced early on. Such guardedness is typical of situations where abuse has occurred, but in the here and now, do I need such guardedness?

5-09-09 I've been meditating further and doing some thinking about where I want my emptiness work and therapy work to go. I think I'm ready to untangle the guarded secretiveness I sometimes inhabit. I'm aware of it. I'm aware of some ideas for handling it. The first step is talking about it, opening up about it...not just with people I know, but really with myself. What are my reasons for doing it...do those reasons apply now? And I know some of those reasons go right back to growing up in a situation where keeping secrets was a way of staying out of trouble...the less they know, the less they can use to hurt you. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are other reasons. And what does all that have to do with emptiness...it's another dysfunctional outlet for the unhealthy relationship I have with it.

On a different note, I found myself in a situation where I realized how I felt about someone had shifted a bit. It wasn't a bad shift, but I also recognized that while it was good to acknowledge that shift, it didn't mean I had to act on it...and in fact perhaps it was best to just acknowledge the shift and leave it at that. No planning, no trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Just acknowledgment, acceptance, and letting it be...And that was really empowering.

5-10-09 Today found me in a situation where I needed to express feelings of hurt about behavior that my wife has sometimes exhibited toward me. I was upset, even a little angry, and yet I was able to express those emotions in a manner which was fairly straightforward, emotive, and yet not over the top. I didn't blow up or yell I did raise my voice a bit, which was fine. Most importantly I allowed myself to really feel my emotions and express those emotions, but I did so respectfully to her. And that, to me, is what all this meditation and other work is about. It's not denying the emotion, but it also isn't letting it control me. It's accepting it, acknowledging it, feeling it, and expressing it and also letting it go instead of holding on to it. This is a good approach to handling my anger, fear, and yes hurt. I'm also pleased because I could actually express how I felt, without trying to hide it. I'm getting better at speaking up, instead of holding things in.

5-11-09 I was talking with a friend today about the occult subculture and how nutty it can be sometimes. The power plays, the politics, and also depending on what groups you know of and are affiliated with, the racism as well. A year ago, even half a year ago, despite what disillusionment I might've felt, I wouldn't have imagined myself moving away from the occult subculture as much as I feel I have. And it's not that I've moved away from my magical practice or spiritual beliefs, because those are still very relevant to my life, but rather that I continue to move away from the occult subculture itself, as well as the baggage that goes with it. A person can have a spiritual practice and beliefs and yet limit participation in the subculture that the spirituality and beliefs are usually affiliated with. I don't think I'll ever completely leave the occult subculture, but the emptiness work continues to reveal what is and isn't relevant in my life, in this moment.

I'm also continuing to work with some of my desires and how those desires get expressed. I don't believe in denying desire, but I do believe in finding healthy ways to exercise it. In the past, one of my greatest challenges was exercising my desire in healthy ways. A lot of times I used my desire to avoid emptiness, and while I think I do that less now than I used to, I also know there are times when I still look to my desire to fill up my emptiness. old habits die hard. I know as I continue to work with this, it becomes less of a struggle, but this is a persistent work in progress for me.

5-13-09 In her book Kissing the Limitless, T Thorn Coyle talks about how sex is part of how we connect to the divine and that when we try to grasp at sex to fulfill a yawning void in our lives, we are actually moving away from the divine. That point and a realization that sometimes sexual activity has come from a place of anger and unhappiness with my main relationship really has shown me a lot more of the roots of the dysfunction in my relationship to sex. It's not easy to look at that or feel it. I feel weak today.

5-15-09 I've been pondering what I wrote above for the last two days. As I've sat with my sexual desires and where a lot of those desires originate from, I feel like I'm ready to move away from using them to try and fulfill my emptiness. I already know nothing can fill the emptiness. I'm also tired of struggling with these desires...and yes I've said that before, but just as I once struggled with cutting myself, and recognizing that cutting myself was an addiction, so do I realize that some of my other choices and behaviors also could be addictive...get hooked on a few seconds of bliss, makes all your problems go away...then you come back to Earth and you feel worse than before...or at least more empty. That's how it's always been. My fear, with my sexual desires, is a really a fear of of that emptiness, of letting myself fully feel it...just as I felt the same with my anger and fear...It's really being present, really being aware of what my sexual desires are and no longer trying to use them to run away from the emptiness I also need to be present with.

5-16-09 Last night we went to a play party. I met several people there, flirted had fun, and later emailed them. I only heard back from one and it was evident that she'd responded more out of politeness than any genuine interest. I feel embarrassed and ashamed. While my emails were merely stating an interest in getting to know the people I'd met, I still feel as if I've somehow walked over boundaries I didn't know existed. And that right there has always been one of my fears and issues with my own desire. How do I balance the expression of my desire with the awareness of the boundaries of others. In the past, I'd tend to favor the expression of my desire over the awareness of others...In the last year and a half I've slowly, but surely changed that. My expression of my desire too often has come from a place of trying to fill up something within myself, with little or no regard for how it affected others. And sometimes it still does.

I sit with that sometimes and other times I fight it. If there has been one issue in this emptiness working which has been more difficult than the others, it is desire. Fear has been hard, anger as well, but desire is the underlying fuel for those emotions as well, because I've realized time and again that even my expressions of anger and fear have stemmed from a desire to fill myself up, to be whole, instead of feeling like an endless hole. Sex is one expression of my desire, but I've found other expressions via consumerism, need for attention, etc., which have spoken as insidiously to me of trying to fill something within myself.

I don't think experiencing desire is a bad thing, but I think the U.S. culture has an unhealthy relationship with desire...or maybe it's just me who has an unhealthy relationship with desire. It just seems to me that sometimes the achievement of desire is valued far more than the recognition of the consequences for achieving that desire. I have valued the achievement of desire more than I have recognized the impact that achievement has had on other people. Yet that achievement has lead to a lot of suffering for me. Satisfaction hasn't been achieved...if anything the opposite of it, dissatisfaction has been felt more keenly as the years have rolled on.

Conversely this year of emptiness has seen me happier and happier, partially because I've come to better grips with my anger and fear, and emptiness, but also because I've been been learning to sit with my desire more, instead of acting on it so much. I still feel torment about my desires. I still suffer, though at least that suffering isn't extending to people around me nearly so much as it did in the past. I'm still learning that delicate balance of enjoying my desire, while also recognizing when the expression of desire goes overboard and becomes an attempt to fill something up.

Fear taught me a lot...but desire...I've talked about it a lot throughout this working, but I haven't that much with it yet. And perhaps it took sitting with my fear to get to this point, because if there is something I can say I am afraid to face, it is my desires. I've expressed them, but have I really sat with them or talked to them, or just been present with them? No...because I have been afraid to do that. It is scary to sit with my desire and fully acknowledge it. But now is as good a time as any to start.

Elemental Emptiness Month 6: The Hermit and Fear

3-15-09 I'm in a foul mood tonight. I essentially got told by my spirit guide for this working (one of them anyway) that I have to step up and face my fear of being alone, and accept the very real possibility that I may always be alone. He feels that this fear and the desire that goes along with it is holding me back from a lot of things I need to accomplish. I can't even disagree with him, because I see his point. He's right...this fear is holding me back and he's pointed out that I need to work with the Hermit to deal with this fear...and I don't want to. I feel really resistant and angry, because I just don't want to go into this space. Yet I know I need to. This fear goes hand in hand with my fear of being consumed by my emptiness. I deal with one, I find the way to deal with the other. And I will do this, but tonight I just feel...angry, vulnerable, and yes, very, very alone. In some ways I'm finally realizing just how much some of my desires have lead me to attachments, which have held me back...and I feel pathetic for letting it happen...yet also realize a profound point I read just yesterday. "Thou are but mortal" I am mortal...I have my weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and attachments. And that's part of the human experience...accepting that what you may want, etc., may never ultimately occur. It's a place I don't want to go, but I have to.

3-16-09 I started work with the hermit today and he wasn't pulling any punches with me. He spoke with me about my fear of being alone and showed me the connection to my fear of being consumed by emptiness. Then he pointed out that a big reason the Sith mythos had come up a lot in this working is because of that fear, reminding me that the character of Darth Vader had his fall because of his inability to accept his fear, while acting on it. He asked me at the end if it would really be so bad if I did realize that I am alone in certain fundamental respects. I have no answer for him, but I do acknowledge just how much that fear has fed into expectations I have about relationships I get involved with.

3-17-09 Today the Hermit showed me how my fear of being alone links into the fear of being consumed by emptiness. The latter fear is fear of the loss of ego/individual personality, but the former fear is linked to the latter in the sense of not having anyone to connect with, in order to anchor that identity and also to stave off the emptiness. Convoluted? Yes...but interesting as well, because it does show how one fear can be linked to another or as Tsultrim Allione put it, how one demon is a relative to another demon.

3-19-09 Last couple of days has been crazy busy, so I ended up jotting down keywords to remember for this part of the post...On Tuesday, in therapy, got into a really long conversation, which essentially boiled down to me recognizing some very fundamental issues about my feeling of disconnect with Lupa. What I realized is that sometimes I don't really feel she connects with me on an empathic level. And to be fair to her, I know sometimes I don't, because I'll get caught up in trying to find a solution as opposed to actually listening to her and what she has to say about a situation...as well as showing empathy for what she is feeling in that moment. And this issue extends fairly deep into our communication with each other. Sometimes she feels that when I tell her about some technique or experiment I'm doing, that there's an expectation that I will want her to do it, while I actually simply want to tell her about something I find interesting. Realizing this, as well as realizing how this disconnect has occurred in other areas of our communication has given me a better perspective on how to handle communication on my end. I've caught myself several times starting to offer solutions, and stopped myself from doing it, realizing that I wasn't listening to her like I really needed to. So I'm going to work on being more empathetic in my listening with her and with others.

The other day, after a date, I felt a large sense of emptiness. I'd had a wonderful time, really enjoyed my date, but I felt empty afterwards and I felt unsatisfied on some deep level, and I realized it had nothing to do with the date and everything to do with how I've approached relationships. And in fact the Hermit and Xah agree.

I've been asked by the Hermit whether I really know what enough means when it comes to relationships. What, he asks, is enough for you? When do you feel satisfaction with the relationships that you have? When do you stop seeking and start appreciating? And my answer is that I've never really stopped at all. I'm terrified I'll miss out on an opportunity with someone if I do say enough...and yet I am missing out on my relationships with the people I do have in my life. I am missing out on those moments of intimacy and connection, because I am so busy trying to attain some "ideal" relationship, some perfect union...and never really stopping to see if I could already have it, or better yet, simply acknowledge what I do have and feel grateful for having it. If you always seek and never stop, what do you really have in the end? That's what the hermit has asked...Both he and Xah point out that my fear is stopping me from enjoying a lot of my life as much as I could and also stopping me from getting to a lot of pursuits I could be doing, because of how much energy I'm putting into searching for some ideal magical partner.  Today a friend pointed out that if I stop looking and just be still, maybe what I've looked for so much will finally manifest. And maybe it will, but whether or not it does, I'd like to actually stop and appreciate what I do have...

3-21-09 The last few days I've been watching/observing/monitoring my awareness and I've recognized that sometimes I get really caught up in seeking, in trying to find a person, so caught up in it that I don't enjoy the moment I'm in. Catching myself in this behavior is unpleasant...It's not a behavior I care for, but consciously acknowledging that part of me is always trying to find someone to fill me up is important. The hermit tells me that this is where so much of my energy has gone, and I see it, in my awareness of this seeking on my part. I've always tried to find something in someone else to fill me up, to somehow complete me, yet nothing I've found has ever done that.  I'm reminded of a scene in one of my favorite fantasy books, where the character has just killed his mistress and his cousin who was sleeping with his mistress, after discovering that they were sabotaging his company. He is called out by his best friend on the fact that he finds yet another woman desirable. That friend tells him that he's really just trying to fill up something in himself with those people, but not looking within himself at all. And that sounds like me (sans the killing part). I've looked and looked and looked...I've caught myself wondering if such and such person was going to be the magical partner I was always looking for...and I've neglected in the process some of the most important relationships I do have.

It's hard to admit that, and hard to face the fact that some part of me has been so desperate to fill myself up with something and that I've looked for so long to other people, put so much of my energy to finding someone, without really asking myself why or what it was accomplishing. Recognizing this is the first step and recognizing how it's tied to my fear of being alone and being consumed is also part of why I've looked so much, to find someone who somehow takes all that fear away. But no one can do that for me, except me. It's time to stop looking so much and start appreciating what I have and also find in myself, the resources I need to handle my fears and the emptiness.

3-22-09 The Hermit is the seeker, which is ironic I guess, but in a ways perhaps not, because who better to know when to stop seeking than the seeker? Well he seems to know that anyway. I'm still learning that I don't have to continue seeking, that it might be unhealthy to do so. I'm also learning to let go of the past...because what was can sometimes hide what could be.

3-24-09 Therapy today provided useful for externalizing some of my internal stream when it comes to how I deal with romantic possibilities. The fact is I've devoted a fair amount of mental and emotional energy to finding the idealized one...right down to fantasizing what it would be like to date this person or that person. I've caught myself doing it a few different times this week and when I catch myself doing it, I don't punish myself, but instead ask what it is I really see in that person that makes me think whatever it is I'm thinking. And usually it's illusion of some kind or another...little hopes flittering about, but not with much in the way of substance.

The other thing I've been realizing is that I can give myself permission not to have sex or be involved with someone just because that person feels interested in me. I haven't always realized that...or rather I haven't always had good boundaries about it. I've felt that if someone showed interest, I should show interest in return, even if I wasn't really interested, because maybe I'd miss out on an opportunity or maybe this person would be the idealized lover. Needless to say, this kind of choice or behavior on my part isn't exactly healthy and has hurt some people as well as myself in the past. So realizing I can say no, realizing I don't actually have to sleep with someone is really powerful. I can say no...I can choose to let an opportunity go by and better yet I can simply appreciate the person as a friend, instead of having to make her into a lover.

3-27-09 "You live too much in the future" I was told that last night by the Moon Goddess. In meditating with the Hermit today there was some agreement, a noting that looking toward the future so much is its own sign of seeking for something to fill me up, and again the question, "When is what you have in this moment enough? When do you know you have enough?" I'm left with no answer, because I don't know. I just realize that both the Moon Goddess and the Hermit are right. I do spend a lot of time in the future, as opposed to just appreciating the present. And I recognize how much that behavior has created my seeking, as well as feeding my fears when it comes to being alone. I realize that part of me seeks stability, seeks some kind of grounding in the relationships I have with people, but also attempts to fill this void up within me with those relationships, while not actually standing still and being present in the moment. I suppose I always looked to the future, because in the circumstances I grew up in, I always wanted to get away from the present I lived in. Now though, I don't know if that's so wise or helpful...when is this moment enough?

3-29-09 We went hiking today and while we were hiking I experienced my fear physically. I could feel myself shaking a bit. I felt this fear and I realized it was the experience of the fear I feel on a really deep level. This fear pervaded every part of me and when I felt it, I recognized it as that fear of being alone. I also recognized it as what has motivated me so often to focus on the future, instead of living in the present. That fear has pushed me to try and stabilize my life with relationships or plans that allow me to predict and control the future and consequently the present as much as possible. The key word is control. I'm sure I'm not alone in doing this, but I don't think it's been so good for me or others. I reflected today that marrying Lupa was motivated by fear of her leaving. By marrying her, I made her a more stable part of my life, insured she'd stay in it longer. I didn't live, in the moment, with her. I didn't experience the present as it actually occurred, because I was so busy trying to plan it, and project my expectations into it. When I realize all this, I don't try to judge or blame myself. There's not much use to doing that. Instead, today I felt the fear and I talked about it with Lupa and I acknowledged how I felt about spending so much time planning my future out so much. I don't like how it makes me feel. I don't like planning my relationships so much. So I'm going to do my best to live in the moment, and accept it for what it is.

4-01-09 Therapy, yesterday, proved helpful in further exploring the fear I mentioned above. A lot of what I came to realize/process is that the fear arising out of my early childhood no longer serves a purpose in my life and actually distracts me from being present with myself or anyone else. I catch myself daydream, flitting into the future a lot. It's startling to recognize just how regular this activity is...and underneath recognize the fear that informs it. My fear doesn't need to define my relationships, if I don't want it to, or me. In therapy I discussed how I've been recognizing this fear of being alone, of being consumed by my emptiness as something which has made me plan out so much of my life in order to create an illusion of safety and control for myself. It's terrifying to give up that safety and control, but exhilarating as well, because if I'm not holding on so tight, then perhaps in letting go I can really start to appreciate the opportunities and situations for what they really are, genuine moments of being present and alive and with myself and anyone else I happen to be with in that moment.

4-3-09 This seems to be rather accurate about my life, for the moment. Or rather it's another message which correlates with messages from other independent sources. Then again...if you look for a pattern long enough, you're bound to find or create one. And this is a bit new agey.

4-5-09 As I continue to sit with my fear this month, I find the emptiness less harsh than before. By burrowing down so far into my own issues, and into the feelings which inform those issues, I've also set free a lot of the emptiness within me. There are days where I can barely feel it, where it's just a ghost of how it usually feels. I don't pretend that the emptiness will go away, but I will admit, not feeling it as much is something I wouldn't mind continuing to feel. Yes I wish to be more comfortable with it, to accept it for what it is. Sometimes I'm not sure if I can do that, and other times I think I can.

4-6-09 And then there are days, like today where I feel really empty, hungry, desperate...where it seems like nothing I do makes that emptiness feel better. The hermit and I talked about this quite a bit in my meditation today and he noted that it felt as if I was trying to run from my emptiness, by doing any and everything I could not to feel it. He's absolutely right...yet nothing I do takes it away, and in some ways it only deepens it. I feel like a shriveled husk today.

4-7-09 In therapy, we ended up getting into an interesting discussion about the history of some my methods for dealing with feelings of emptiness. Aside from coming away with an appreciation of just how much I have changed as a person, as well as recognizing that I have developed healthier methods for encountering my emptiness, I also realized I am at the right place, right now, to work with the fear I feel when it comes to sitting with my emptiness. I'm encountering layers of progression in this work...Obsession to surrender, anger to compassion, fear to whatever it may or may not lead to. There is evolution here, even if at times I have trouble recognizing it.

4-10-09 In therapy, something we reviewed was some of my sexual behaviors and while I've already in some ways realized this, the following clicked into place in a way it previously hadn't: I use sex to escape my emptiness. Not all the time, but it is a way for me to establish a sense of identity, or rather reaffirm that identity, whilst also feeding my emptiness something which isn't me. I know I've said that one way or another before, but it made more sense this latest time...it's realizing that just like when I used to be a cutter, where I'd use pain to deal with my emptiness, so too has sex been another way to deal with that feeling and fear of emptiness. Not the best way, not necessarily healthy, but what I developed as a way to cope with that fear. But I don't want to do that anymore and so I'm continuing to use the feed your demon technique to help me process how I relate to my emptiness and my fear. Here's a quote relevant to this topic from Toward a Psychology of Awakening by John Welwood:

"When we have shut fear out of our awareness, it remains frozen deep within the body, manifesting as background anxiety, tension, worry, insecurity...Seeking a "fix" cannot lead to genuine healing because it keeps us in the same mind-set - wanting our experience to be other than it is - that created our dis-ease in the first place. Our natural healing resources become mobilized only when we see and feel the truth - the untold suffering we cause ourselves and others by rejecting our experience, thus shutting down our capacity to be fully present. When we recognize this, our dis-ease starts to become conscious suffering. As our suffering becomes more conscious, it starts to awaken out desire and will to live in a new way."

I would have to say that this accurately represents my process right now. I am realizing that the "fix" is just causing me and others more suffering, and also realize that to truly relax into my being involves actually experiencing the emptiness, the fear, the suffering and being present with it as it is, so that I can discover how to live in a new way where I'm more aligned with the harmony of my life. Needless to say reading this just makes some of my experiences sink in even more, for recognizing just how much I've run away from feeling my fear and emptiness, or tried to, and ended up suffering more for doing so.

4-11-09 Sometimes it really does take some hard realizations to make you realize that what you are doing doesn't work. A moment of clarity arrives and you are present in that moment and you realize: This behavior is helping me, it's hurting me and everyone around me. It's just deepening the suffering I already feel. That's what this month feels like for me. In another way, I feel like I am all consuming being that offers nothing back to anyone, beyond my own detritus and rot. I'm so busy consuming, so busy trying to fill something up, I haven't stopped to feel what it's doing to me or note how it's killing me. In Toward a Psychology of Awakening, Welwood essentially says that you don't really become conscious until you actually feel what you're stopping yourself from feeling, and allow yourself to experience for what it is, instead of how you interpret it.

4-12-09 I've always found it amazing how I read exactly what I need to read, as it applies to this amazing journey I'm on, called Taylor's life. As I continue reading Toward a Psychology of Awakening, I've come across some more information about emptiness and all this work I'm doing which tells me that I'm definitely on the right path for me. Welwood says,

What shuts down the heart more than anything is not letting ourselves have our own experience, but instead judging it, criticizing it, or trying to make it different from what it is. We often imagine there is something wrong with us if we feel angry, needy, dependent, lonely, confused, sad, or scared. We place conditions on ourselves and our experience.

He says of Emptiness:

Emptiness is a term that points to the ungraspable, unfathomable nature of everything. Nothing can be grasped a solid object that will provide enduring, unshakable meaning, satisfaction, or security. Nothing is ever what we expect, hope, or believe it to be...Emptiness-the ungraspable, open-ended nature of reality-need not be depressing. For it is what allows life to keep creating and recreating itself anew each moment. And this makes creativity, expansiveness, growth, and real wisdom possible.

When I read both of these quotes, I recognize several things. First, I recognize how resistant I am to feeling emotions such as fear or sadness. Not that I can't feel them, but that I have resisted feeling them so much. Second, I recognize that my perception of emptiness has sometimes been exactly what has created so many problems for me. My fear of being consumed, instead of really being acknowledged by being felt, has been run from, abstractly approached, and other suppressed. So today, in meditation I did something I've never really done before. I allowed myself to fully feel my fear and just feel it, without judgment, without interpretation, without running. And eventually I realized it wasn't that scary to feel, and that by feeling it, I might just find some closure on some of the wounds I've finally been facing in this year's work.

4-13-09 Today when I started to distract myself from feeling my fear, I stopped and asked myself to just feel it. And it feels like a heavy weight in my stomach. Feeling it was feeling a sensation of turbulence, of dis-ease...Yet as I sat with it, the turbulence did diminish a bit. I just held my space instead of trying to find a way out.

4-15-09 I did some breathing meditation tonight and felt it begin to dissolve some of the fear, loosening up structures of tension in my body. It was a subtle, and deep feeling. I also did some thinking today about the relationships I've been involved in for the last six or so months, i.e. the potential lovers and such and realized that on some level or another I saw some patterns, which made me wonder why I'm attracting those patterns into my life, as well as what I can do to stop attracting those patterns in my life. I looked in myself and acknowledged that my insecurities are as much an attractor to certain people as the rest of me is. Continuing to work on and work through my insecurities is already yielding some good changes in my life, so this is just another layer to add to that.

4-17-09 This month was probably the hardest month of this working. Today the moon goddess and I talked. We'd had an argument, and we ended up working it out, but in the course of that I talked about how for a very long time I've operated out of a scarcity mentality. And at the root of that scarcity mentality is my fear. This month, for me, has been about realizing just how much my fear has informed my actions and choices, when it comes to romantic relationships, business, and life in general. This month I dealt with fear in a variety of forms: competition, jealousy, and being consumed by my emptiness. And I realized I made a commitment (actually a number of them, but this one was fairly recent) from a place of fear, from trying to secure a stabilized identity/future/whatever...but in the process missing out on living in the moment. My fear has motivated me to rush into and through relationships instead of just experiencing them in the moment...and I know that I need to slow down and live in the moment.

Living in the moment means embracing my fear, actually feeling it, living it...accepting it. Today, instead of trying to run away from my fear, I just sat with it, felt it in my body, and let it express itself. And I was scared, terrified...and free. I'm going to keep working with fear for a little while. It's only the last few days I've tried to be present with it, so I'll keep trying...see what happens...and know that all this shadow work is leading me to a better place...I'm rotting...but I'm also being refined.

Elemental Emptiness Work Month 5: Compassion pt. 2

2-16-09 I've been gone for a few days at pantheacon and a lot happened while there. On the flight in, I was reading Relaxing into your Being by B. K. Frantzis and in it he was discussing how meditation work initially is like a glass of water with red dust in it. The red dust swirls a lot, but as the water smooths itself, the dust settles and eventually you can see how it is separate from the water...likewise as you meditate and work through your issues those issues can be separated from the water of your consciousness. Then the true work comes, namely dissolving the dust, dissolving the issues, until all that is left it emptiness, consciousness, the Tao. As I was reading that, I realized very intimately that my experience with emptiness right now is really my experience with my dysfunctions and distortions of emptiness. It isn't the Tao, but my fear. There's still some red dust in the water, but not as much as four and some change years ago. I became aware of how far I have to go, but also appreciative that I could realize that and also that someday I will come back to the element of emptiness for a different experience of it, but that my current experience is healthy and useful for what I need it to be. I do feel like I'm achieving a healthier relationship with emptiness and this realization is part of that healthier relationship, but I also realized something equally important: I want to discover the Tao.

While at Pantheacon, I also realized something very significant about my experience there. It used to be that when I went to conventions or fetish events that I felt really empty and wanted to fill that up with people I saw. I'd feel desperate and wonder if this person or that person would somehow complete me. This con and also the fet events I went to, I haven't felt that compulsion. I did feel attracted to several people, and I realized what attracted me to those people is a desire to really get to know them as people and explore the energy and relationship between us. Much different from wanting to fill my emptiness up. And I didn't feel a particular need to act on those attractions, but to instead just observe, recognize, and release.

Yesterday I got into a discussion about vulnerability and a realization I had out of that is that I really don't like being vulnerable. Even when  I write about it, in some ways I am distancing myself from it. Last night's interaction and some difficult emails from last week has really brought this to my attention in a needed way. And I recognize that no one likes to feel vulnerable...but still it just really hit me how much that does scare me sometimes because of my past and everything that happened to me. Having grown up in a situation where my vulnerabilities were preyed on a lot, it's not a surprise I really draw back into a shell when I feel vulnerable. It's something I'll work with more, now that I'm aware of it.

2-18-09 I tried working with my vulnerability further by being very open with someone I feel vulnerable with. It was scary to be very open with this person, but also empowering. And what was so empowering was that my focus was on the relationship and connection I have with this power, instead of being focused on trying to fill something up within me. I don't feel driven to try and fill something up...I can actually appreciate the moment and the connection. That's something I can genuinely say I've rarely felt before.

2-19-09 I find myself in situations where I am able to sit with myself and with someone else with genuine compassion for the suffering that person is feeling, with less judgment than I would've used in the past. That's not to say I don't feel judgment at all, but I'm much more aware of how much of that judgment is really rooting judging myself and then projecting that judgment on other people. A recent situation really clarified that for me, because I could actually see how I've judged others and how it may have made them feel, because of how I felt being judged. It brings it real close to home, when suddenly you feel put in a corner. You see how you may have done that to other people as well and then you ask, "Where does this really come from?" And speaking only for myself, I can safely say that my judgments of others does come from judging myself. So how much of my judgment is really accurate at all, when the root of it is based in my own feelings toward myself? If I'm going to judge anything, may I judge the actions and motives, but not the actual person. May I feel compassion for the suffering of that person and yet may I also respect myself enough to not allow that suffering to harm myself or others I love. And may I also continue to recognize and work with my own suffering so that I find resolution with it and also don't inflict it on other people.

2-20-09 Some really interesting insights came up in therapy, which make a lot of sense in regards to anger and how I handle vulnerability. Anger is my "safe emotion" It's the emotion I switch to when I feel uncomfortable with a situation. Makes complete sense to me, because it's an emotion about defense and protection, even as it's also an emotion about judgment and criticism. It's an emotion I've used to judge myself, without really communicating with myself. It's masked my vulnerability from me, even if it hasn't masked it from anyone else. As I've continued working with my relationship to anger, I've gradually uncovered the feeling of vulnerability underneath the anger and realized how much I've avoided feeling vulnerable, in order to avoid being hurt by someone. Question is whether I've really avoided being hurt. I don't think I have. If anything I've just avoided acknowledging how my vulnerability really makes me feel.

Thankfully as I've continued to get more comfortable with my anger, it's also me to work on being more comfortable with my feelings of vulnerability. I'm still pretty uncomfortable with feeling vulnerable. It's not something I'm used to admitting to myself, but I think the next step of my emptiness working will involve learning to sit with those feelings of vulnerability, while I also continue to improve my relationship with anger. Already I've gotten a bit better about actually expressing the emotion underlying my anger, so that instead of just yelling or bitching about something, I actually explain what the underlying emotion is. Small steps, but definitely helpful for making me feel a bit more comfortable with actually feeling my vulnerability and expressing it.

2-21-09 Tonight I realized something very important about how people have different standards of importance...as well as the fact that underlying my desire to have time with someone is really a need to feel important in that person's life. That last part is important, because so much of my life has involved me feeling neglected by the people who were in it, so much so that it quite naturally effects my standards of how people show me that I'm important to them. I need to keep that in mind, but also keep in mind that other people will have different standards of importance, which are equally as valid and need to be considered. And despite the shortness of this paragraph, that's quite a bit to consider.

2-22-09 I'd kind of been seeing a person for the last few weeks. Today it ended up not working out. I don't know if I should read more into it than is there...is this part of the emptiness working? I think it's more about her journey than mine in this case and what I take away from it, in my own journey, is that this time I was able to be very graceful about breaking it off and accept where she is, instead of getting upset because my expectations weren't met. I'm sad, but also accepting.

I wrote that earlier, but as the day progressed, I could feel my dysfunctions with emptiness rear up. I'm sitting with them, but I have to admit I don't like who I see in the mirror, right now. It's nothing anyone has done...it's just sitting with those parts of me, the anger, the desire, the fear...sitting and feeling. I'll relax into it, and let it swallow me into the dark well of emptiness.

2-24-09 The last couple of days have been insightful for me, since things were broken between myself and the person I was dating. What has been insightful is that I've had a demon rear its head again. It's not as strong, but I recognize now that by being in a relationship with someone, it anchored that need or grounded it, and once unanchored it once again became something which does not feel good to deal with. It also reveals, to me, a kind of desperate neediness on my part, in a sense. A co-dependence I suppose and I'm not sure I like that either. So I'm trying to sit with this demon and feed it what it needs. It's not easy. My sleep this morning was definitely uneasy as I came out of it thinking about this situation of feeling this desire and recognizing how this desire makes me feel when its expressed in a manner which is unhealthy. I'll keep working with it and being patient, but it does definitely bring up some uncomfortable feelings and realizations.

"Who's that ugly person staring at me?"

"Why that's you my dear."

Re-reading Frantzis's Relaxing into Your Being has been helpful for showing me that what I'm going through with this emptiness working is perfectly normal to be experiencing, when you are doing this kind of work. He mentions that one experience a meditator will have is that of Ru ding, which is a total fear of the death of your ego. And I have to admit, sometimes I have felt that fear. He notes that when you approach the core of your being is natural to want to run in the opposite direction or scream...check. I've felt that too, yet I know I have to stay in those moments, work through them, sit with them, accept them and if I can do that it actually is really good afterwards. And the breathing meditation lets me do that...I breath and I am here.

I also have to acknowledge that on some level I am feeling insecure in my relationship with my wife, because I recognize a feeling of disquiet about our relationship. Yet that disquiet is rooted in what I've discussed above. It's that same demon within me, wanting to have a need fulfilled, but not feeling like she could fulfill that need. And is she really supposed to anyway? A friend said recently I need to spend some time figuring out what I want for me. And he's right...and this demon is part of figuring that out. All the feelings and insecurities that come up are part of it all. What do I really want in my relationships, and also for myself, period?

2-25-09 Today I feel humbled. I realize just how far I have to go in my spiritual journey. Today I feel angry at myself, for my weaknesses, for feeling jealous, and for feeling angry in the first place. I "should" feel compassionate toward myself, but I just can't. I feel like a failure. I am someone stuck to my red dust, and to my habits, and my dysfunctions. If a human is half beast and half angel, most definitely I feel I am the beast today. I sit with my anger, and my jealousy and embody it as a demon and feed it what it wants, but still am left feeling unsatisfied with myself or my efforts. The sharp edges of my feelings are cutting me deep and I really wonder if I can handle that, handle a relationship dynamic I'm not entirely certain I want anymore, etc. The relationship dynamic issues, the demon as it were has really come out as I've considered what has motivated me to be involved with anyone at this point. What it is I'm trying to find with Lupa, another lover, or even a friend. What is the point of all of this? I don't know and I really feel lost today.

2-27-09 Therapy always provides some interesting insights. My therapist asked me, what if my needs, desires, etc. aren't necessarily unhealthy...what if some of my motivations are healthy, but that it's just that I've let the unhealthy needs set the course as it were? And I think it's a good question to ask. I guess I'd say that not all my reasons for my life choices have been unhealthy, but recognizing the reasons that have been unhealthy has made me do some re-evaluation about the kinds of relationships I want and what those relationships will mean to me. And of course it is helping me also understand my relationship to emptiness and how it feels to just sit with emptiness instead of having to try and change it. If I'm not trying to fill my emptiness, but just sitting with it, that does change the types of relationships I'm having with people. And I don't want my relationships to be based on trying to fill something up within me. I want to them to be much more about the actual people who I'm fortunate enough to share my life with.

3-2-09 I feel much less angry with myself than I ever have. There's still a lingering feeling of anger, but not nearly so strong and it's so surprising how much it changes how I feel in general. It's like a big burden has been removed. I actually feel really good and comfortable with my emptiness. It seems the anger aggravated it, which makes sense, but wow...how different it feels...how strangely different and beautiful.

3-3-09 Today I've been sitting with some feeling of anger over a situation where I've felt...unacknowledged for lack of better word. It's not a situation with anyone, or anything...but rather a desire to feel acknowledged. Yet in sitting with it, I wonder how much of it really is about my own sense of self-esteem as well. Seems to me that unattachment, the ability to be distinct, distant, and un-needing of anyone is valued a lot, and what do you do when you realize that isn't who you are? I don't like being distant or unattached. I like connection, resonance, feeling a shared and mutual interest. It's time for me to go a step deeper into the Emptiness meditation work. The layer is ready to be unpeeled.

I meditated for a while and the main impression I got? The fear of my emptiness consuming me, so thus trying to fill my emptiness up with other things so it doesn't consume me. And it makes sense in a very odd kind of way, even though it's clearly a dysfunctional relationship with emptiness. I don't think emptiness would consume me, but this fear, this new layer of issues with emptiness is definitely something I'll visit more, because it speaks of a deep issue with consumerism itself, when it comes to why people indulge in it so much...Are we as culture trying to fill our collective emptiness up, so we can avoid it consuming us?

3-4-09 In reflecting further on what I wrote above, it seems clear to me that many pursuits, if not all of them, offer a person a chance to feed emptiness, while trying to avoid it as well. That's true for me, anyway. I may not want to generalize for anyone else. Yet emptiness is all around us. In reading some more Toward a Psychology of Awakening by John Welwood, he notes something rather interesting: "Our most common experience of nonthought or emptiness is the appearance of little gaps between our thoughts - gaps that are continually occurring, though normally overlooked" He's right. There are gaps of emptiness which appear. If you think in words, the very momentary blip between each word is a moment of emptiness. Then again I think in music and have it on in my mind unless I'm listening to it and I wonder if that isn't just another way to avoid emptiness, even those microcosmic moments of experiencing it. Yet I can say there are times when I am comfortable with emptiness, comfortable with those moments, when that fear of being consumed is gone or somewhere else. Further meditation and reflection and reading will undoubtedly reveal more.

3-08-09 The last couple of days has involved an interesting process of reacting to a moment when I was very vulnerable and open with someone., as well as dealing with my tendency to be possessive/fascinated with the people I'm involved with. Being vulnerable is something I don't do well and there is a reflexive tendency to protect myself when it occurs, because I don't like how it makes me feel. This person can see into me and sees who I am...what will they do now. Readers could argue I'm being vulnerable on this blog, when I write about this stuff, but it's entirely different level of vulnerability, when in person.

The other issue of being possessive/fascinated is always a weird one for me. I am, by my nature, a fairly possessive/territorial person. I can adjust it somewhat, but it is something that never entirely goes away...It seems to be an integral component of my psychological makeup. I recognize it's a fairly selfish aspect of myself, but I also see it rooted in a desire to have a stable home life/territory with people. I like to know what is mine so that I feel secure about it. Yet, I see it relating to my issues with emptiness as well, as if by possessing something or someone I have something to protect myself from the emptiness. A lot to consider.

3-9-2009 Sometimes I find myself in a real fix, with my mind split on what I could do and whether I should do it...and the conflict that can occur sometimes. And in those cases, I sometimes feel terribly weak as a person because of that conflict. I know it's a conflict others deal with as well, but in that moment of feeling weak, all I can really acknowledge is that some part of myself does feel...weak. Moments like these occur much less than they used to be. As I become aligned with what I might think of as my true purpose. calling, destiny, etc., I find myself discovering an inner strength I never thought I possessed. And if I can just continue to sit with these moments of weakness and not necessarily act on them, I might find a capacity to embrace that strength, while also loving my weakness and letting it go.

3-10-09 Today I talked further with my therapist about my realization that underlying my desire to fill my emptiness up was a fear of having that emptiness devour me, devour my identity. She noted I felt a bit ungrounded and I had to admit that yes, I did...I'm not really sure what to do with this realization, or if there is anything I need to do with it. I'm still processing it, still figuring out what it means and how I feel about it. It's such an overwhelming feeling to feel that I need to handle it one little bit at a time, one tiny step...talking about it today was one step, who knows what the next step will be or when it'll occur. I know the fear is there...I know I need to sit with it, but first I just need to accept I feel it.

3-12-09 I've been meditating on the fear for the last two days and a very important realization came up. Sex, for me, has been a way to feed my emptiness, but also a way to avoid feeling my fear about being consumed by my emptiness. It's a multi-layered issue/demon. And it helps me understand the reality of what I'm dealing with when I'm doing this emptiness working. I'm dealing with a bunch of issues connected to how I feel about experiencing emptiness in my life.

3-13-09 It hit me fully today or at least much more today...my emptiness and my fear of being consumed by it as well as what that has meant in regards to my motivations. I felt this fear, felt this very real fragility in myself over acknowledging this fear of being consumed by my emptiness and what that actually means when it comes to my motivations for my choices. In feeling that fear, as opposed to just thinking about it, I got closer to emptiness than I have before.

Later in the evening, I did a tarot experiment where I determined my life/soul card, which turned out to be the Hermit card. We did a pathworking, where I ended up going really deep and allowing the hermit archetype to possess me. He didn't speak much, when questioned by the person doing the pathworking, but he did have a lot of information to give me about not only the emptiness working, but also, if you will, my destiny in this particular life. And what he told me made a lot of sense...answered a lot of questions...what it really boiled down to is being able to let go of what I've held onto for a long time, so I can take that next step on my spiritual path. Truth to tell that's just a really brief summary, but that's all I can offer on the experience.

3-14-09 Sometimes what you hold back eats at you more than what you are showing. When I can't share with someone in my life what I'm going through I feel like that person is no longer really a connection. And when I feel that way...I feel lost with that person. It's the end of this month, the second month focused on compassion. I feel more compassionate toward myself than I used to and maybe even somewhat compassionate toward other people. And I feel less combative toward this emptiness in my life...and yet also find myself on quite the precipice with it. I was telling someone the other day how tired I feel right now...this emptiness work is hard, harder than the love working, and while the progress which has been made has been so worth it, there comes a point in time where what I really look forward to is simply letting go. I am letting go of so much, but the path to that letting go is full of barbed wire and hard realizations. My feet bleed and my emotions hurt...I hurt. And I have seven months more of this...but what those seven months could be...is anyone's guess. I'm learning, I'm living, and yes, I'm experiencing my emptiness and my issues with it. That's something right there I've never done.

Elemental Emptiness Month 4: Compassion pt 1

1-15-09 I've spent the entire day sitting with several patterns of behavior which I've identified as behaviors where I'm engaged in dysfunctional behavior. One example is that while I think it is good to recognize qualities you want in a partner, taken to an extreme this can be its own form of objectification. Have I objectified people I've been interested in? Perhaps, in terms of looking for something specific to fill up the emptiness. That's a disservice to that person, because I'm not seeing the person. I'm seeing what I can get from him/her. The other dysfunctional behavior is a passive aggressive petty streak which manifests through petty comments and actions. I've asked myself, with this one, what the benefit is, and what I get is this wounded child wanting to make sure he doesn't get hurt, by pushing people away and/or seeing if they still want him. And what I feel is compassion. I don't want to judge this child or even his actions as 'good' or 'bad'. I don't want to try and make myself 'better'. I want to heal this child. I want to remove this hurt which spurs on so much of my actions which are hurtful to others and myself. Pema Chodron offers some words I've spent all day contemplating as I've sat with this emotion of pettiness and jealousy.

"What we reject out there is what we reject in ourselves...If we find ourselves unworkable and give up on ourselves, then we'll find others unworkable and give up on them. What we hate in ourselves, we'll hate in others. To the degree that we have compassion for ourselves, we will also have compassion for others. Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves, all those imperfection we don't even want to look at"

She also points out that blame is a way people protect their hearts...and I see that in my pettiness. Inevitably the reason I hear for my pettiness is, "This person did this to me or didn't measure up this way, etc." It's a whole variety of reasons that starts with This person did or did not. And it is a way to protect myself from facing that vulnerable wound in myself.

Today I just sat down and everytime I wanted to be petty, I asked myself, "What will this get you?"  And for each response I did my best to be compassionate with that part of myself, to be open to the wound that these actions and behaviors are really hiding. Instead of trying to fill my emptiness up, I want to try and face it, and face the wounds concealed deep within me. So I'll keep asking myself: What does this action do for you? And I'll hold my hand out to that wounded child until he takes hold of it and gives me and him a chance to grow and learn instead of continuing in a cycle of pain and hurt.

1-16-09 I'm continuing to practice conscious awareness of my inclination to distance and passive aggressiveness. Last night, I consciously chose to address what I was feeling at the time instead of acting it out through my actions. I did the same this morning, with an internal focus on being compassionately aware of my feelings and not judging myself for having them. That last part is important, because I think a lot of my passive aggressiveness has actually arisen out of judging myself for feeling certain emotions.

1-18-09 Pema Chodron says the following about being in the present moment: "We have to stop thinking that we can get away and settle down somewhere else. Instead, we could just relax - relax with exhaustion, indigestion, insomnia, irritation, delight, whatever." I've always been trying to escape, instead of relaxing into the moment. I've realized that a lot, especially this last month. There's this desire to get away from the emptiness, to avoid it, to somehow fill it up, or make it go away, instead of just relaxing with it. Today I just tried to relax and be present with the feeling. I still felt irritable and unsettled, but less so than I have this last month. I knew and know I can't escape it, so instead of trying to escape, I'm just sitting with my emptiness, and letting that experience speak for itself. And I'm learning something: To be gentle with myself, to be compassionate to this person who is me.

For so long, for most of my life, I have been my harshest foe, my harshest critique, the angriest person at myself...so hard, so harsh. Chodron says,

"Even after many years, many of us continue to practice harshly. We practice with guilt, as if we're going to be excommunicated if we don't do it right...Some of us can accept others right where they are a lot more easily than we can accept ourselves. We feel that compassion is reserved for someone else, and it never occurs to us to feel it for ourselves. My experience is that by practicing without 'shoulds' we we gradually discover our wakefulness and our confidence"

I have never been kind or compassionate to myself. Much of my self-improvement has been spurred on by a feeling of guilt, that I "should be someone better", or because I've wanted other people's approval or simply because I am supposed to be some type of person for this person I happen to be involved with. And inevitably with a standard set by other people's approval, I have been harsh with myself for not measuring up to what is ultimately an impossible standard. I can tell you lots of reasons, point to my past and everything that happened when I was so young, or to later events in my life, right up to yesterday or earlier today, but the reality of it, in this moment, is that for the first time in my life, I'm discovering what it feels like to be kind and compassionate to myself, in the moment, right now. Not a moment later, not some nebulous time in the future, but in this moment of infinite compassion and softness, without looking to other people for approval, for a standard, or for their expectations of who I should be. And most importantly without guilt, without some sense of obligation to fitting some image that someone else thinks I should fit. This sense of compassion, this feeling of gentle love and acceptance is for me and by me...not for anyone else, not because of anyone else, simply to be in this moment with my emptiness and to love myself regardless. And though I feel vulnerable and frail and just a bit afraid, I also feel empowered, capable, and confident of loving myself, being true to myself and perhaps, for the first, really getting to know my emptiness for what it has to offer and be, instead of trying to fill it up with everything I can distract myself with.

Tonight, I went to one of the fetish events Lupa and I like to go to. When I've gone there in the past, I've felt very empty and very much desired to fill it up with something. Tonight, I still felt empty, but much less so and instead of wanting to fill it up with something or someone I just let myself experience it without any sense of agitation. I actually enjoyed tonight a lot more because of that. I didn't feel desperate or unhappy or anything so much as happy to be in the moment and just appreciative of being where I was...with no need for it to be anything more.

January 22 Today I talked myself through a moment where I wanted to try and fulfill my emptiness. I was compassionate about it...not angry, not full of condemnation. I asked my questions such as: What will this fulfill for you? Who will this benefit and who will this hurt? Answering these questions through a dialogue helped me consider carefully that moment where I wanted to escape and ask myself if it was better to just sit with it and acknowledge it.

January 23 When a person succumbs to a weakness and afterwards reflects on it, the reasons that can be explored and learned from are quite insightful even as that person may be filled with a sense of shame about it. I was that person today. And while I was unhappy with myself, I decided not to berate myself, but sit with compassion and ask myself what motivated my actions, who it benefited, did I feel fulfilled or unsatisfied, and other questions. I'll admit, I didn't really feel satisfied. If anything I felt emptier after the experience and I realized that I'd used the experience to try and escape from my emptiness. But it wasn't just about escape. I uncovered a couple other issues as well that revolved around my desires and how I feel those are or are not met. It leaves me in a place that definitely causes me to think carefully about what it is I feel and what motivates me to act on that feeling as well as whether there are alternatives for acting on that feeling. I don't have easy answers right now, but I will note that as I continue to sit with my emptiness with compassion, it makes it much easier for me to communicate with my partner in a respectful and caring manner, instead of lashing out with my insecurities.

1-24-09 tonight I felt incredibly vulnerable and insecure with Lupa. I basically felt like I had none of the usual walls or securities up with her. We were talking about some issues I've been working through in regards to sex and desire and she asked some questions which quickly took me to a place where I felt like I had none of my usual defenses in place to protect from her seeing apart of me I'm afraid to show anyone, namely the abused, lonely, wounded child. Her seeing this part of me without the usual shields up was very scary, as I was afraid of rejection, afraid that she'd not want to deal with this part of me. Afraid really of seeing the real me...the part that is weak, afraid of being alone, afraid of never having anyone, the part desperate for connection and willing to do whatever it might take to get that connection. Not the entirety, but certainly part of me. As we talked she suggested that perhaps my focus on attention was keeping me from sitting with the feeling of alone. Perhaps it is. Through all of this I felt incredibly vulnerable, incredibly open to this person and she would not let me hide or escape. She was compassionate, but she still stayed with me. It was an odd feeling to have someone want to be there. That part of me was so afraid of rejection, but also expecting it. And I recognize that a lot of this is past patterns, past beliefs, past experiences...but the past isn't the present and I'm ready to move on. This year's emptiness working is taking me deeper into the core of so much that has not worked in my life, but it's also freeing me of so much that has hurt me and others before.

A different angle on this, from Feeding your Demons by Tsultrim Allione: "The way to change things is to address the underlying issue, through feeding our demons what they actually need instead of what they seem to want. If we can get down to the fundamental need under the superficial desire, it usually involves love, compassion, and acceptance"

This is exactly what the issue is for me. I've focused on the want, but not dug underneath to find the need. Meeting a superficial want hasn't proven all that satisfying and why would it, when the need hasn't been addressed? I always feel unsatisfied when I meet a want...but whenever I have dug in and found the need, I can usually find some peace, because once the need is met, I'm no longer focused on directing energy toward it.

Jan 25, 2009 As I meditated today, I focused my awareness on a particularly troublesome knot I felt in my shoulder. As I began to undo the stress in the knot, unkinking the muscles, using energy work, I felt a sensation of fear go through me, about different situations in my life. I kept breathing and focusing on the knot, loosening it up. I realized that the fear was a release of that pent up energy and actually was glad to feel it, because then I could acknowledge it's influence on my actions.

1-26-09 There are days I struggle and feel like I am in an ocean, being buffeted by waves and waves of water, which threaten to suck me down and drown me and it takes all my strength to tenaciously cling to a board of wood that represents some kind of grounding in this working. It's harder still when you hear that someone you love is hurting because she sees you suffering. You want to tell her it will be okay, but on days like this I have trouble convincing myself it will be ok.

1-27-09 Something I can safely acknowledge is that I'm more aware of how I'm communicating and also aware that the important people in my life aren't going anywhere. Had a talk with my wife, which really clarified that for me in a way that was empowering..small victories can lead to big wins.

I also started a working with my magical partner, which involved invoking her into me and her invoking me into her. We've never met in person, but we know what each other looks like, which helped some...but what really stood out to me was that described me as having many holes in me. And really, emptiness does feel like a hole or many holes within me, so it made sense. It did make me think of William S. Burroughs talking about giving up the body when you go to the western lands, "It's full of holes, it's full of holes." I do feel like I'm full of holes...

1-30-09 In therapy today, one realization which came up was that when I feel angry at myself and express that anger toward others, I am punishing myself by driving those people away. I never thought of it that way until today, but it really makes sense. It's not applicable all the time, but sometimes I do feel anger toward myself and it does get expressed toward others and that does hurt me in the end, because then those people are driven away. My anger toward myself is for the failures and mistakes I've made...I've always been a perfectionist thanks to how I grew up and the impossible standards I was held to. I've learned to relax about the perfectionism (in certain ways), but I can be a harsh critic of myself. The past couple of weeks, in my effort to be compassionate with myself, I've tried to be less harsh and just sit with my moments of vulnerability and that's why I came to this realization today.

2-1-09 Some rough conversations the past day or so, plus a feeling of stress...When will you not be doing intense work on yourself? When I feel like I actually have a grasp on who I am. Internal work isn't easy and it never really comes to an end. That said, I do see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to various issues I'm working on. I've been embodying my internal issues as demons and using the 5 step process in the Feeding your Demons to work with those embodied issues. I feel that when I do that, I'm not really at the mercy of those issues...I can personify them and then work with them and they become less of an issue and more of a conversation. I realized today, for instance, that I get involved with lovers who have little time for me because that's a pattern I encountered early on, when I wanted positive attention from my family. I never got much of it, and always felt neglected (and was). Fast forward to the present and this pattern is played out with the people I get involved with. On some level, I recognize that and so go for people I know will not have lots of time. I then feel unsatisfied because those people don't have time for me, but I'm playing out that pattern in my life, even though it doesn't benefit me or the other person/people. Realizing that today helps me recognize what I need to work on/change within myself, in order to find some level of peace with my need for attention, but also attract the right people who can handle that need and desire for attention.

2-4-09 Feeling pretty good lately. The emptiness work continues and I've been doing a lot of core work with my feelings about abandonment. While I still have it rear up, I feel like I have a better handle on it now, with a better sense of assuredness. It helps that I'm continuing to meditate on a regular basis using the Demon Feeding technique. I feel more compassion toward myself, less anger. It's not completely gone, but for once I don't feel the need to punish myself.

2-5-09 A couple of nights ago, I felt incredibly vulnerable with someone. This person ended up helping me sit with that vulnerability, though it took sometime for me to really open up. It was scary, because I knew this person could see inside me. She made several observations which I knew were right on the mark, and I was able to admit she was right, but being seen in that way was both intimate and unnerving. I've always been a secretive person when it comes to my heart, but less so, because of this emptiness working. It's as if all the protections and defenses are being taken away...sometimes harshly, sometimes gently, but nonetheless they are taken away. I don't know if it's good or bad, or if it will leave me in a better place or a worse place. Yet as I continue this journey into emptiness and into who I am and who I want to be, I find that it leaves me feeling less conflicted than I have been. Sitting with myself in compassion, letting myself be vulnerable, and actively communicating in a direct manner leaves me feeling less hurt than I have been. And maybe my emptiness isn't the enemy I thought it was.

2-6-09 When is a mistake let go of? When does something done in the past get relegated to the past? I discussed that some today with my therapist. It's easy for people to sit and judge someone, even when those people have no business judging that person, especially when they never bother to ask the person being judged about his/her reasons for making a decision. It's easy to sit and judge and take sides, but the consequences of taking a side isn't always as pretty to deal with. I've been thinking about that as I continue to work through my anger toward myself, but also toward others.

When is something let go of? It's a question I've asked myself a lot, as I learn to let go of my guilt and and similarly toxic feelings about the past. At some point guilt which is felt becomes toxic, for even though it can be a motivating reason to change, it can also hold you back from reaching out to others. When do you let go, and say to the other person I'm ready to let go of my anger, my resentment for what happened. I'm ready to let go of what I did and what you did.

I'm ready to let go now. I'm ready to move on and leave the past where it belongs, while actually living and embracing this moment, this present, right now.

Longing leads to emptiness as well. The longing for an embrace, a touch, a kiss, a heated glance, or softly whispered words, or written text...a connection made, sustained, possibly lost, possibly found. When I find myself thinking of someone, am I really missing that person or just the way that person makes me feel, or a combination of both? We mistake longing for love, the passion of the first encounter, the rush of NRE for love, but what is love? When is love really felt? And when do we just delude ourselves into believing we are in love because of how someone makes us feel? In longing, I find the familiar awareness of emptiness...longing, longing, longing, longing...where will it lead to in the end, but emptiness, and through that everything...

In doing this emptiness work, I am focused, driven, obsessed with emptiness. My therapist said she's rarely seen someone so focused on a particular issue for so long. This is the core though...the core wound, the definer of my dysfunction...so I am driven by my desire to work with it, to face it, to really, and truly express and explore it, even if all that discomfits others. We don't have a healthy relationship with emptiness in the West. We are taught to fear it, hide from it, bury it, and otherwise escape from it. There is no escape, so I might as well embrace it.

B. K. Frantzis says of emptiness:

Everything will seem to be without content. Ordinarily, we experience both external and internal objects in the world as having shape, size, and some kind of content. Everything has an inherent identification or meaning that the world can grasp. As emptiness is accessed through meditation, however, your spirit starts increasingly to transform the energies of your perceptions of solid objects and stored mental images...as you start perceiving every tangible thing as nothing, you discover that nothingness simultaneously becomes full of universal consciousness, which is potentially able to become anything. There is no difference between everything being nothing and nothing being everything. your ongoing awareness spans the tremendous spiritual dichotomy between emptiness and fullness/form.

Everything and nothing, 0 and 1, all things and none. This is the path of emptiness, the path I am walking on.

2-7-09 How liberating it is to let go of a feeling that you've held for too long. My body had a physical reaction after I took care of something I needed to do. Even now, it feels looser, less tense, in the stomach and there is a lightness in my chest, I haven't felt in far too long. I need to not let circumstances or other peoples' fears stop me from communicating something that needs to be said. It's too toxic to hold it in, and it helps no one.

2-10-09 I've been sitting with my anger and the expressions of it a lot this month, without trying to act them out in the obvious route. Sometimes I've succeeded and sometimes not. Earlier I was a bit defensive with my wife over a choice I made recently. I stopped myself and said, "What are you really reacting to." And then told her. A lot of this month, in regards to compassion has been learning to let go of anger, but also let anger let go of me. Sometimes anger has held so tightly to me, because I've held so tightly to it and yet holding on so tight has been so hurtful for myself and others involved. Letting anger go and letting anger let go of me has been strange because it is so tight, and then suddenly it's not. I'm left with compassion, relaxation, a loosening of blockage into flow. I have felt physical blockages that were so tense just release this month because I've stopped holding on so tight. My belly feels more relaxed, less tense...it's something new.

2-12-09 Tonight it was suggested to me that I learn to love myself more. After this month, I think that could be possible. I've felt a lot more compassion toward myself, less anger, less struggle, less conflict. This emptiness working is stabilizing some. I'm still learning to sit with my emptiness and accept it for what it is, instead of trying to fill it up or run frm it. And acceptance has lead to soemthing of a more peaceful place. Love myself more...love myself period. Maybe. I certainly like myself more than I used to, so loving myself could be possible. I think I'll keep sitting with compassion and see where it gets me.