I'm at Pantheacon this weekend. On Friday I presented my talk on Space/Time magic and included some new material on identity and cultural analyses of space and time. It was very well received. Later today I'll be at the Immanion press author panel co-hosting it with Lupa. I want to announce that I have started writing my new book Neuro Space Time Magic. I'm just about finished with the first chapter. I'll be making periodical updates on here as I progress with it.
In a Saturnian phase of build-up
I had an astrology reading done the other day. Given the recent changes in my life, I thought it might be useful to get an idea of the planetary influences I was dealing with. Appropriately enough, what I learned was that Saturn is playing a fairly role in my life right now. It's appropriate because of the time magic aspect that is rather significant to my life right now. Of particular note as well was that this particular influence of Saturn signifies a building period in my life, a period of creation. This makes sense to me, actually. The last five years I've spent cleaning my life out of my own issues and dysfunctions. Since switching to Time, I've felt that focus shift from purification to building something new. In someways, even the year in emptiness saw that, with the focus on my business, but the last couple of months has seen me actively working on what I would consider to be a new approach to my spirituality, and to my life overall. It was an insightful reading and confirmed a lot of details for me about the circumstances in my life and where I'm going with it. The divorce was really the final purification, and consequently in every way right now I am free to rebuild my life. I must say I am actually happy about that and look forward to seeing what I can do with it. In other news, I've been reading the Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam and have found the consequent insights about how the unconscious influences the conscious mind to be very useful in understanding situations that have occurred in the past, as well as present situations. I see this unconscious influence in how people will indulge in what are ultimately dysfunctional relationships because of cultural and social pressures to fit a certain image. It also confirms some ideas I have about identity and how it is shaped. I've actually started writing my next solo book on identity and magic. I'm only two pages in, but I'm putting in a bit of time each night, to keep motivated and focused.
And my final thought is of love and how toxic love as a cultural concept can be. Love doesn't cure all, and sometimes, many times, it traps us in situations that we'd be better off leaving...or rather the cultural beliefs about love trap us.
Future obsession, present awareness
The present unfolds when a need is met that previously was bothering you to the point of obsession. The shift of energy away from that place of obsession frees up awareness of the present and can help a person get more focused on living in the present. When you have an obsession, you're always living in the future, living in that moment of imagining what will happen when the obsession is realized. Nothing else exists after that moment and in many ways nothing exists before it. A person living in the present is likely free of such obsessions. S/he is living in the moment, hopefully aware of multiple possibilities, but not overly attached to any specific outcome. This occurs when we can leave behind the focus on the future and/or have the obsessions that fuel the focus on the future met. The clarity that results when those obsessions are realized is a clarity of purpose and awareness, for those obsessions no longer occupy your thoughts or emotions, freeing both resources up. The issue then is can a person keep those resources for the present or have them snapped up into the future?
Some thoughts on pop culture personas
I was in Vegas this last weekend and got to see Criss Angel perform. If you don't know who Criss Angel, he is a really popular stage magician. He's been on a couple shows and does some really good performances. He's also quite a favorite of the ladies. The next day I went to a signing he was doing with a friend of mine and it was interesting because when she got to him, he mentioned how tired he looked and how if he took his sunglasses off, he looked like crap and she told him that he'd never look that way. And what was so interesting about that exchange was that Criss the person might feel like crap, but to this fan, my friend, the pop culture persona of Criss could not ever look like or feel like crap...and it was that persona she wanted to interact with, that idealized version of Criss as opposed to the very real person of Criss who was tired and felt like crap that day. To me this exchange demonstrates a fundamental truth of pop culture magic, as applied to celebrities, which is that what fans interact with isn't the real person, but rather the idealized persona god-form of the celebrity. The fan interacts with the celebrity, but not so much with the real person. So Criss, for example, is tired and tells this person that, but to her, he can't be tired or look anything other than how she wants to see him...so what she's interacting with is Criss the pop culture entity, as opposed to Criss the person.
The peril of celebrity is that it creates an entity which is the celebrity persona, who is different from the real person. And it is the celebrity persona entity that ends up taking over most of the interactions that this person has. Fed into this persona is all the expectations and desires of the fans. This persona consequently is the shadow of the real person and can have quite an effect on the real person, in terms of behavior, because that person is trying to live up to fan expectations via the effect the persona has on him/her. There is a stress or pressure on the person that is created by the celebrity persona entity, which is fed by the desires of the fans. Ultimately the behavior of the celebrity can be influenced by those same fans to some degree, because its what feeds the celebrity persona entity.
Are you a Traditionalist?
A reader asked me yesterday, after I posted my review of Evola's book on Buddhism, if I agreed with Evola's traditionalist views in other areas, because I liked Evola's work. When I posted the review to Amazon, I'd noticed traditionalism come up as a possible tag, first time I ever came across the word actually. Let me just say that assuming I'm anything based on what I read is at best an erroneous assumption. It's true I like Julius Evola's writing. And if we were to research Julius the person, we would find out he was a fascist and I guess a traditionalist as well (maybe they are even one and the same!). But I'm not interested in Evola's political beliefs and don't find them relevant to my practice. Nor, really, am I concerned with labeling his spiritual practices or my own as traditionalist.
In fact, I'm not really interesting in trying to label my own practices either. The most I've ever done is to label myself as an experimental magician, an even that label is one I rely on less these days. What's really important afterall is not the label, but rather what one is actually doing.
So for me, Evola's writing, which I like because he's a good scholar and offers some intriguing perspectives on what he writes about, whether it's Buddhism or Tantra, or Hermeticism, or an article on time magic, is important because I find it relevant to my spiritual practice. Frex, the book on Buddhism offered some useful insights into early Buddhist texts and practices, and proved helpful in my emptiness working.
But even though I like his works, it shouldn't be assumed that I'm a traditionalist or anything else that Evola was. I am, after all, not Julius Evola (last I checked). Nor because I've read Edward Hall and liked his work, should it be assumed I hold to his political beliefs or his approach to anthropology or anything else. Liking someone's writing doesn't mean you agree with all of it or that you hold the same beliefs as someone.
But really what I'm saying is this: Labels are at best an illusion crafted to provide us and others the security (a false one) of being able to say this person is this or that. But what if I'm not?
I read what I read because I find it important to cultivate an awareness of a wide variety of perspectives and beliefs so that I can see how those perspectives inform my spiritual and indeed, overall life. So am I a traditionalist? Likely not.
But I am me...and I do enjoy learning and applying what I learn toward living a better life. I hope you do as well.
Review of The Silent Language by Edward T. Hall
In this book, Hall explores the intricacies of time and space from a cultural studies perspective. Although this book is a bit dated, the information is still very relevant, and what Hell offers is an examination of how much our perception of time influences our cultural and everyday interactions. For example, learning just how tightly time is wound for Americans as opposed to other cultures is quite insightful to the workaholicism that pervades American culture. Hall touches on some aspects of space as well, though you'll find more of his thoughts on it, in the hidden dimension. What I most enjoyed about this book is an exploration of time from a social science perspective as opposed to a hard science perspective. I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in understanding concepts of space and time.
5 out of 5 stars
Continual shifts in my philosophy of magic
My philosophy and overall approach to magic has shifted a lot in this last year in particular, but even in preceding years before this. It has become less about overt rituals and sigilization and other more visible techniques of magic and has moved into a quieter and more subtle practice, even as my studies and experiments have moved more toward a deeper end of the pool. The exploration of the concepts of identity and their relationship to magic has necessitated a very different approach, because its rooted much more in what I would consider the core of a person. It's not about fixing a situation or getting a job, so much as its about making changes at a deeper level of being, which when realized, changes the surface layer very quickly, because the changes have been building up and moving through the various layers of identity and personality to imprint themselves on the embodiment of selves I manifest in this life. I'm continuing to move further and further away from traditional concepts and definitions of magic. While to most, magic may be the art and science of causing change to manifest according to the will, that definition feels inadequate to me, and pretty much always has. But even the definitions of magic that I do have respect for...there's something missing. The last few years, with the continued internal work has continually shown me that. The more I read outside of the occult books, the more I recognize perspectives that could contribute to much to magical experimentation and process that are mostly ignored because they don't fit within the occult paradigm perse.
I don't identify with the mutant occulture movement. I don't identify with the chaos magician, the ceremonial magician, or any of the other labels. I don't identify with the occult culture. My time spent studying and learning the various perspectives and approaches to magic provided me a useful process and way of examining my relationship with the universe, but it wasn't until I actively started looking external to traditional occultism that I began to develop an appreciation for taking a more detailed look at the microcosm, and how I did or didn't impact that microcosm, or how it effected me in turn. The original impulse for getting into magic was to claim some form of empowerment by getting involved in it. That impulse has changed to a more introspective approach. Empowerment can be found in a variety of outlets, but what then is empowerment? What does it really mean to "have" power? And do we really have any of that? And where does it really come from?
If Magic is a process for change where is it most effective to enable that change? And beside the overt change in the world as a result of practicing magic, what is the more subtle change, if any which occurs? I think about these questions more than I used to, especially as I continue to research and explore alternate perspectives and beliefs involving a person as a change agent. I'm questioning my spirituality, my beliefs, and my identity, because in the questioning I'm finding myself visiting places I never thought to go before...but where it'll go, I'm not sure. And that seems to be a good thing...not knowing where it'll go, what will develop as a result. That's been the emptiness working for me...but its also the rest of my workings as well. It's moved out of experimentation for experimentation's sake and into experimentation for as a journey and evolution.
Cultural identity shifts
I talked about family identity and individual identity patterns in my last post, but in Outliers, Gladwell also discusses cultural patterns and heritage and how it can impact the way people work together, how well they learn particular subjects. Of course this has all been written about elsewhere as well, but the focus in Gladwell's work is particularly relevant to my own identity work, because he discusses how cultural patterns of identity can be shifted by introducing alternate cultural patterns of identity, especially through language. The case study he provides, where Korean pilots were trained to speak English as the first part of a rigorous change in how they flew airplanes is really interesting, because it shows how the introduction of a different language successfully allowed the pilots to, while flying the airplane, get away from cultural memes that actually hindered their communication when flying the planes before. Basically written within any language is the cultural memes that accompany the language. If you want to change those cultural memes, or cultural identity, introducing another language, with its cultural identity can be a useful way to do so. Language is the obvious route for this kind of identity work, but from personal experience, I've also found that studying another culture's practices and integrating those practices (spiritual in my case) into your life can be a useful method of shifting your cultural identity. This is also true with subculture identities as well, and even "class" identities, though social class is just another form of subculture identity. If you can successfully integrate cultural practices from a different subculture identity than your own, you can use those practices to break out of your cultural identities. In fact, I think they could also be useful for helping you break out of family identity patterns. Certainly some of the wealth magic work has involved utilizing different cultural identity patterns from other subcultures outside of the ones I'm familiar with. Those identity patterns have been useful for changing many of my beliefs about finances, networking, small business development etc. Of course by using different cultural identities, I end up assuming those identities...but it's also made it easier to resist family identity patterns that continue to believe in identity structures that are less healthy for my entrepreneurial work.
The cultural identity shift is a larger identity shift, a backdrop against which family and individual identity shifts also occur. They are easier to enact on a personal level than family identity shifts, because they don't have the same type of history on a personal level. But I suspect they can help create momentum to enable family identity shifts as well. Unfortunately to prove some of that would ultimately involve several generations of family after myself and since I don't plan to have kids, it may not be so easily proven. Regardless, I can at least continue to explore how my own integration of entrepreneurial cultural practices as well as Taoist and Buddhist cultural practices contributes to the shifting of identity patterns I desire to change.
Outliers, patterns of success and identity
I'm reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a very interesting book, as all of his books are, and in this particular case has prompted some thoughts on identity, based off of what he's writing about. Outliers are people who are significantly different, in terms of how they succeeded, from the usual cases of success. However, these are not self-made people (if there is such a thing). Rather Gladwell argues that examining their cultural and family background can provide clues as to how these people achieved success. He makes a very convincing case, from what I've read so far, and most importantly shown what I think is another facet of identity in the process. That facet of identity is the cultural and familial models of behavior and practice that inform how a person handles situations that occur in life. These models or patterns of behavior are displayed to a person from early childhood on and they influence how a person makes choices from careers and finances to love and friendship. These patterns can be changed, but changing them involves challenging not just the immediate familial and cultural beliefs and practices, but also a history of them that has influenced previous generations in their choices and actions.
I was reminded of that today, when I was talking with dad about another family member and made the remark that her problems with finances were a direct result of a pattern of belief that a person had to struggle in order to be happy and that she should just focus on her business and not worry about what could happen. My wife, listening to this conversation, accurately pointed out that I participated in this same pattenr of behavior fairly recently myelf...and she's right. And I've been working on changing this pattern, but I realized that this pattern isn't just part of my identity, but also part of one side of my family's pattern of identity. And that pattern of identity reaches down through the generations to influence the current generation, in this case me. Which isn't to say it can't be changed, because in yet another synchronous conversation with a distant relative I just met today, there was discussion about how a couple of generations ago there was a shift toward getting a college degree by the different members of the family. At some point the gene-erational patterns for the family identity shifted into a different identity for the majority of the family and that pattern is now accepted as something essential to the family identity (if they wouldn't look at it in quite that way).
In Outliers, it's suggested that the identity of success is best realized through patterns of behavior that encourage that identity in the overall family. I would posit that this also applies to other patterns of behavior exhibited in a family and that the sense of identity a person cultivates is partially informed by the family identities that s/he is a part of. When a person wants to change his/her identity, change a pattern of identity/behavior s/he probably does need to account for the weight of the family identity and how it will either provide momentum or resistance to the change. For example, my desire to change my financial patterns and identity is an ongoing process of not only changing that part of my identity in myself, but also starting to change that identity within my family's identity of it (or at least one side of my family). Indeed, I would suspect that for my change in identity to be fully successful, it could be useful to interact with the spirits of my family and show them the benefit of that change, so that they could retroactively start the change in previous generations, providing more momentum behind the changes of identity I'm currently engaged in. Hmmm...now there's an idea for an experiment. I need to give it a try and see what happens.
Assorted matters
I've been feeling a bit stagnant in my magical practice lately. I've been doing my daily rituals, my emptiness working, and even have been involved in a economic activism experiment I hope to post about soon, but being at Heartland did remind me of how important it can be to get out of the usual patterns and push yourself into some new places. I have to admit my emptiness working has perhaps caused some of this feeling of stagnation. To some degree everything in my life feels empty at times and it can be hard to face that.
At Heartland, I ended up doing a fair amount of energy work with one of the people I met there and it reminded me of some of the practices I've done in the past with energy work, so today while having a conversation with Lupa, I asked her to run energy with me. We both noted that the energy between us felt strong and steady, speaking to a strong connection between us. I'd run energy with other people and found different variations, which seemed to speak to the connections I felt with each person. I may be trying more of this as a way to ground my awareness into the connection I have with a given person.
Also at Heartland, I ended up picking up some clothing, which included Hakama pants and a black vest with colorful patterns on it. When I combined the vest and pants with a mesh shirt and my black hat I found I'd created a ritual garb for myself, which very much invoked my connection with Xah. I've already got some ideas on how I can enhance that ritual costume further, which I'll be trying out soon...both for magical work and also for another type of scene. I want to play to my roots as a ceremonial magician more, albeit with my own flair and imagination. It's been a while since I've used some of the more ceremonial aspects of my magical practice, but I think it will be a fun challenge for me.
Book Review: Mapping the Dharma by Paul Gerhard
I found this book to be very readable and easy to follow. I really appreciated how it was set up to explain Buddhism in a very approachable manner, with clear and concise explanations of what Buddhism is about. While I'm already familiar with Buddhism, the author's way of explaining the core concepts and different components of it really helped me understand a lot more about Buddhism. I came away with a much more solid understanding of Buddhism, its practices and how I could incorporate it into my life.
5 out of 5 meditators
When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by By Jeffery Masson and Susan McCarthy
This was a thought-provoking book about the emotional lives of animals and how much we take for granted by trying to assume that only humans can feel emotions. The authors provided a wide variety of anecdotes from their own experiences as well as the experiences of others. They show that animals can feel emotions and also interact in a variety of ways that go beyond traditional scientific reports on them. This book also raises some important questions about how we treat animals. My only complaint would be that at times the authors are very biased about how they feel, which consequently tones down some of what they attempt to convey to readers.
4 out of 5 animals
Why demonization of others doesn't work
I just finished reading the Madness of George W. Bush by Paul Levy and in it, he mentions something which speaks to what I often find problematic when it comes to political activism, namely the tendency to demonize the people being demonstrated against: The (arche)typical political activists, in fighting against Bush as if he was separate from themselves, unwittingly act as a conduit to create and sustain the very thing they are fighting against. By fighting Bush, they are unconsciously reacting against something in themselves, which simply perpetuates the diabolical polarization in the field. Political activists resisting Bush without realizing that he is an embodied reflection of a part of themselves, lack genuine compassion. Not recognizing what they are fighting against is something within themselves ultimately causes them to not be helpful. On the contrary, they are secretly complicit in perpetuating the very problem to which they are reacting...reactive resistance is a habitual pattern in which we are unconsciously reacting to something out of fear and avoidance, which just gives power to the very thing we are resisting. In reactive resistance, we are possessed by and complicit in the evil we are fighting against.
Levy does also focus on proactive resistance:
Proactive resistance is an activity in which we consciously and creatively respond out of a sense of empowerment. Proactive resistance is when we step into the role of standing up for ourselves when our situation invites-or shall we say, demands-that we pick up this role. Proactive resistance is when speak with our true voice, a truly loving, healing, and compassionate act.
I wish Levy would've focused more on the prpactive resistance and how one becomes proactively resistant...but I agree with the point he makes, and in fact it speaks to my own issues when it comes to political activists, because so often what I really see is an us vs. them mentality with them being demonized as much as possible. The demonization, ironically, actually gives more power to the people being demonized, because suddenly they are larger than life demons actively plaguing the world. Certainly Bush was treated as a demon while he was president, which in many ways reinforced his power. But the same can be applied to how people treat cops for example. Cops, to one degree or another, are often demonized as a force which is out to repress, brutalize, and otherwise beat down people who show dissent. Rarely, if ever, do protesters actually consider that the cops are human beings as well (and yes I'm guilty of this to some degree as well). I say that, because the writing I see all too often from peopel who consider themselves political activists is focused on objectifiying and demonizing what they don't like, while not even recognizing that in doing so they are acting out the very same kind of oppression, close-mindedness, and to some degree bigotry they claim to hate.
It's much harder to treat someone you genuinely don't like with compassion, but I often find that what you don't like in someone is usually a mirror to an issue you don't like about yourself. That's not to say the person doesn't demonstrate behavior that is dislikeable, but what buttons is that behavior pushing in you? Learning to be compassionate, with yourself, and with others necessarily makes those people human to you...and actually takes away a lot of the power in the demonization that they would otherwise receive. It's certainly something to remember...do I really need to put so much energy into someone that I make that person into a demon who can wield such power over me that I do whatever I can to demonize them even further? Seems to me the person who is demonized wins in a way...because you can't see that person as a person...you see that person as an embodied force which has power over you.
The solution then is to view the person as a person...to be compassionate toward that person while still holding to your values and boundaries. Once a person is no longer demonized, you've reclaimed your power. You are no longer resisting, but instead acting on the situation.
Review of the Madness of George W. Bush by Paul Levy
I found this book to be an insightful look at how George Bush has been demonized and how that's really reflective of a process of how people externalize their own issues and project them on to other people. Levy builds a strong case for how the madness and demonization of Bush is ultimately something we are all responsible for by our choice to treat Bush as a being of such evil and harm and ignorance that we can't see the human person that he is.
If there's one thing I really would have liked to have seen from Levy, it would be more focus on the solution to the madness of Bush. He only writes a few chapters on that solution and ultimately doesn't spend enough time showing how it can be implemented or how to utilize the concepts he speaks of to make active and healthy changes in our lives. He's able to prove his point about how the shadow self can manifest and be projected, but more focus on what to do with that shadow self, how to work with it, etc., would have been really nice.
4 out of 5 dreamers
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.
Integrating concepts into your life through your subconscious
One of the skills I've picked up over the years is one where I integrate magical concepts into my life on a practical basis by imprinting those concepts into my subconscious and then allowing those concepts to integrate into my life via my actions and life occurrences. Sounds really similar to sigils, right? The main difference however, is that instead of focusing on a specific desire, what I'm actually focusing on is a concept that isn't focused on a desire, so much as it's focused on attuning myself to a particular energy or force. William G. Gray wrote about this practice in Magickal Ritual Methods, describing how you could take a ceremonial tool and imprint that tool into your mind so that you would then understand and embody the conceptual force that the tool as a symbol represented.
I've taken that approach and used it lately to integrate the Chinese Element model and classical Planetary energy model into my life. For example, I've worked with the planetary energy of mercury through my networking. By integrating that planetary energy into my subconscious, I'm using it to influence my conscious decisions when it comes to attending networking events. This kind of integration allows me to work with these types of concepts and energies on a deeper level, while also gradually aligning them with my conscious mind, for when I can work with them more overtly. And how I do this? I have a table of correspondences tacked to my wall that I look at each day for a couple minutes in order to imprint those correspondences on my mind. I've found it useful for not just memorizing, but also integrating those correspondences/concepts into my life, so that I'm more open to their influence in my daily activities.
An encounter with Elephant and Apophenia
Today Lupa and I went to the Portland Art Musuem and at one point made it to a floor which had some Art from different parts of Asia, including India. Some of that art included statues to Ganesha, and while I was there I learned that Portland is apparently well-known for liking elephants. I found this to be very interesting and synchronististic. Here's a little-known fact about me: Elephants are my absolute favorite animal in the world. I've always been fascinated by them and actually collect elephant statues, and would have to say that in some ways I do identify with elephant strongly. And certainly I seem to have similar memory traits as I generally remember wherever I've been and can trace the path pretty easily and have an intuitive ability to find my way around as well.
So tonight I decided to meditate and see out elephant. I'd gotten an elephant statue recently and I held it in one hand, whiel I meditated, using it as a link to connect with elephant. What ended up happening is that elephant found me on a prairie plain and asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted to know what the significance of his presence in my life was. He told me that if I wanted to, I could work with him more and he could show me how to get better at clearing my path of obstacles and finding the best paths to get to my goals. He showed me how he did this a lot, when seeking food and water, and said my search for business was essentially the same...trying to find my food and water...and that he could help. I think I'll be meditating with him further on this and seeing how he can help, but I'm definitely intrigued.
After my meditation with elephant, I decided to do a working with Apophenia, from the Apophenion by Peter Carroll. Basically I asked her to show me the random connections in my current situation, which is what she is known for, I used the elemental hexagon deck and the reading I got pretty much confirmed a prior reading, so it was an excellent way to test Apophenia, while also getting a bit more information on the situation I was doing the reading about. I'll start working with her a bit more proactively in the near future, but this time around just wanted to connect with her and that seemed to work pretty well.
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.
The connection between Inner Alchemy and Social Responsibility
Latest article on Right where you are sitting now: A reprint of Developing an Internal Body Language. I've just finished reading Mencius and what really stands out to me about is an approach to the value of relationships and sustaining them, which I've only found in networking groups which focus on a collaborative approach to doing business. In this book, Mencius talks about turning vices into virtues by sharing them with other people. What an interesting principle! Essentially he argues that when we keep our pleasures to ourselves, then we have turned them into vices, being done solely for one's own pleasure and without any consideration of other people. By sharing a pleasure with others, we turn it from a vice into a virtue because we are using it to create and sustain relationships with others, and consequently taking care of each other, instead of just the self. Likewise, his focus on the heart, as a principle of connection and feeling which separates us from other beings is interesting because it again suggests that the value of being a human is not based on anything inherently human, so much as it is based on the relationships and connections we create, and how then to cultivate those relationships. These two principles are very humanistic, and I think rooted in compassion.
I've found over the years, as I've continued to meditate and work through the various societal and dysfunctional programming I have, that my awareness of others and relationship to those people has changed. I've become more socially responsible, for I recognize that I do have a responsibility to my fellow person, as well as to myself. I think that as a person unclutters his/her psyche that s/he ideally begins to recognize the connections to other people s/he has and begins to cultivate healthier connections focused on the benefit of all, as opposed to just the benefit of the self, or just a few people. Naturally the best connections occur between the people you know well, but even with people I don't know as well, I've come to recognize that I share much more in common with them, than what is different. The differences do matter, but the commonality of being a human being, of having needs, etc., outweighs those differences significantly in a socially responsible model for approaching the world. Inner alchemical work, by its nature emphasizes an awareness of the commonality all of us share, for in doing the work, the superficial layers fall away to reveal a person with the same ense of vulnerability and need that anyone else has...and if we can cultivate compassion for that, then we can reach out and help others, not out of a self-righteous sense of ego, but rather a humble, humanistic awareness of the commonality of the human experience we share.
Review of Mencius
I found Mencius to be an excellent book, which clarified and drew out a lot of the Confucianist principles found in the analects, with much lengthier explanations offered. In particular Mencius's focus on the Heart and also changing your vices into virtues by sharing them with other people is fascinating because it illustrates a different perspective on how to approach the world, while simultaneously advocating a humanistic approach, sorely needed in our current time. It's wroth revisiting this great classic, both as a way to evaluate our practices, and also to remind us that ultimately we need to value an approach that is humanistic as opposed to materialistic.
5 philosophers out of 5
Releasing negativity by using negativity
Yesterday I was feeling very frustrated and negative about some situations occurring in my life. I felt like I had no control, or like anything in my favor. I realized that I was in a bad enough mood that I'd probably end up feeling this way the rest of the day unless I did something, but I couldn't just bottle up my frustration or unhappiness. I needed to have an outlet for it, but I needed the outlet to be one where I could actually experience the negativity and then release it. I decided to watch Falling Down. It's movie where a guy snaps because he's unemployable and he can't see his kid. He basically ends up committing a series of crimes based on his perception of what is wrong with the world he's dealing with. I watched that movie, because I needed, for just a bit, to be that person...not in real life, but by participating through viewing the movie. I needed to be that person who was feeling so negative, so lost, so unhappy that he'd go and do what he was doing in the movie. And so whiel I watched that movie, I let myself really feel my own negativity and unhappiness over my current financial situation and job hunting, and a variety of other things.
I used the negativity of the movie to evoke the negativity within me, so I could feel it and then release it. It didn't solve anything for me, but it did put me into a better headspace where I could start looking for solutions to my situation that didn't necessarily involve conventional routes, but does provide me something to utilize that will hopefully result.
I released my negativity by allowing it to be embodied and projected in my choice to observe, and on some level, participate in the movie I watched. Negativity experienced vicariously, instead of acted on...Negativity released so I could focus on positive solutions.
Demons and social responsibility follow up
I've continued working with the five step process detailed in Feeding Your Demons. It's proven very helpful so far when I've had insecurities come up. It serves as an excellent complement to my Taoist breathing practices which are also focused on the dissolution of blockages. One issue that this process has helped me recognize is an awareness of focusing on how much time one spends with me as a way of recognizing my value. In recognizing this issue, it's helped me start reconsidering if that's a valid measurement of worth and also helped me further explore how to develop my own sense of worth more. I'm also writing about this process in my monthly report for the elemental working, so you'll see more information about it in two weeks. On magic and social responsibility, I've been delving further into Mencius and also just started reading Investment for Change, which examines the ethics of investing as a form of social responsibility. Mencius shares information that I find intriguing and useful for considering magic and social responsibility. One idea involves turning a vice into a virtue by sharing it with people. It argues that if you keep what you enjoy to yourself then it becomes a vice, because it's done primarily for selfish reasons, but if you share what you enjoy with others, the pleasure becomes a virtue because it is done with other people. In a sense, it also might be argued that by sharing what you enjoy with other people, you make it into a social activity where the activity can be enjoyed but also moderated by social boundaries and mores, whereas if you keep it to yourself, it may be done to excess and addiction. Also if you share your pleasure with others, perhaps you are helping to fulfill the needs those others have through the act of sharing. And how does that apply to magic? If magic is done primarily for self-gratification, is it a selfish act? If magic is shared with others as a means of empowering those others as well as yourself, does it then create social responsibility? While I don't think magic done for the self is always inherently selfish, I do think that exploring the concept of sharing magic with others is worth exploring in terms of fleshing out whether magic can have an aspect of social responsibility to it. The investment book I mentioned is focused on the idea of investing with an eye toward manifesting change into the world through your investments...while not inherently magic, it does fascinate me to explore finances in that way, and of course wealth magic provides an opportunity employ magic toward that purpose as well. Undoubtedly it is something I will explore further.
There's a few other projects, but they are not in a coherent form just yet...
Social Responsibility and Magic
I've previously posted on here about magic as a social practice, but I've decided to expand on that further by examining the concept of social responsibility and whether magic has any role in it, or not. As far as I can tell this is not a question which has really been asked in occultism, beyond the Ethics of Thelema by Gerald Del Campo, which ultimately focuses on a religion and its approach to ethics. Given that I don't consider my practice of magic to be a religion, I'm not interested in approaching this argument in context to what a central figure wrote. Del Campo's discussion inevitably has to revolve around Crowley because he is the central figure of Thelema, but such a narrow focus ultimately doesn't examine magic and its relationship to social responsibility (nor, to be fair to Gerald, was that necessarily his intent).
The other reason I'm not interested in approaching this issue from a religious angle is that all too often moral and ethical authority is placed in the hands of some cosmic being, as opposed to residing in the hands of ourselves. By placing such authority in the hands of a deity that may or may not care about what happens, we abdicate our responsibilities to ourselves and each other, or worse come up with ways to conveniently invoke the name of the deity while flogging our personal values and beliefs on other people. The Far Right Conservative Christians are an example of what happens when people choose to conveniently displace any sense of personal responsibility into the hands of a deity while promoting what is ultimately a hateful and destructive agenda in the name of religion. It is harder, but much more important to place the responsibility of how we treat each other and this planet in our own hands.
I suppose one could argue that the ethics of magic is examined in the Wiccan rede, but I've never found that to be entirely satisfactory either and beyond stating that one shouldn't harm others in acts of magic, it doesn't seem to deal with the concept of social responsibility at all. Then again, I haven't even defined social responsibility, so let's focus on that for a bit.
I recently finished reading the Analects by Confucius and have just started reading The Mencius. Something which really impressed me about what I read is the concept of social responsibility toward your fellow person and indeed the overall society one lives in. Confucius calls social responsibility benevolence, but I'm going to refer to it as social responsibility. In the works I've read social responsibility involves having an obligation your family first and formost and from there other people who are connected to you. The more connected people are to you, the more obligation is involved. This sense of obligation also applies to statecraft in the sense that one has an obligation to be involved in statescraft.
I don't entirely agree with the Confucian model of social responsibility because it can be fairly elitist, but I do recognize one important aspect of it, which is the focus on taking care of the people you are connected to. However, I also see the possibility for some extensions in other directions.
The concept of social responsibility is something I've been thinking about and trying to act upon in my personal choices for quite a while. I think of social responsibility as a recognition that the welfare of the community is equally as important as the welfare of the individual, if not more so, for the simple fact that an individual has a much harder time living and surviving alone than if s/he has a community to draw upon (and also resources to offer the community). In other words, it is important that the person recognizes that s/he needs to be an active participant in the community s/he is a part of in order for both the community and the person to flourish.
An additional layer of social responsibility is the recognition that each person must be a responsible steward of this planet. This involves more than just recycling and cutting down on one's carbon imprint. It involves recognizing that the planet is a living being in its own right and we live in a symbiotic relationship with this planet as well as with all the other life forms existing in it. It involves making an active effort to connect with the land, similar as you would with the community you are a part of. Some of starhawk's work and the tradition of Reclaiming focuses on environmental work and one's obligation to the environment, and that can be a useful jumping off point for exploring environmental action and magic.
Part of what has motivated me to question the occult culture (and magic) and its significance or lack thereof in contemporary society and culture is that I've rarely felt that my spiritual practice has actually connected me to the people around me. It has been useful in getting me results, but it seems that the focus in Western Magic, at least, is primarily a me-ist focus...what can I get for myself, as opposed to what can I give of myself. While I certainly appreciate the effectiveness of results magic in terms of making some situations in my life easier to deal with, I've also, especially over the last five or so years, questioned how magic can be integrated into society, and whether magic can be incorporated into society as a method and practice of social responsibility.
The magical activity I've observed as having aspects of social responsibility has inevitably focused on using magic to attack corporations or subversively undermine values of society that the magician doesn't agree with. I certainly think subversive magic has it's place and that utilizing magic in regards to protests of corporations or unjust wars is of value, but what stands out to me about those activities is that they seem mostly destructive and of course focused on the existing archetype of the magician as a rebel. I have not observed any constructive focus or practical application of magic as a force for social responsibility and the closest archetype I can find that might involve a positive role is that of the Shaman serving his/her community.
I think it is vitally important to determine if magic as a methodology can be used to promote social responsibility to ourselves, and to others...not a religion, but instead as a dialogue for how our interactions with spirit mesh with our interactions with the everyday realities of this world and with how we treat each other.
One direction to explore is the path of using internal work to cultivate an increased conscious awareness of one's actions and the effect those actions have on not just the self, but other people, and also the other lifeforms we are symbiotically connected to. While I don't believe that internal work can solve all of our problems, I will note that an increased awareness also leads to an increased focus on being socially responsible in one's actions and words. It certainly has for me...as five years ago I generally only cared about myself and how anything anyone did benefited me. Internal work is not just about becoming spiritually liberated or psychologically sound of mine. It is about recognizing the profound connection we have to each other and to all living things and the decision to step up and become actively responsible in how we choose to interact with all those living things. It is not merely a healing of childhood wounds, but an awareness that for true healing to occur, it cannot be limited to just the self, but must be extended through actions and words to what is around us.
But magic as a form of social responsibility must be taken further than just internal work. We need to ask how it can be applied practically to the world around us. Do we do a ritual to heal the Earth and if so what does that practically mean? How does that ritual change our consciousness and does that change only last while we do the ritual? How do we take magic and change the focus from me to we?
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I finished reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. Although I've reviewed it before, I've never reviewed it on here, so below is a new review, fresh off from re-reading it.
This is a book that will always challenge you and cause you to discover something new about yourself each time you read it. Having read it a second time, I found myself realizing new lessons which spoke to the heart and soul of my current situation and have no doubt that this book will be relevant again down the line for other situations. This isn't a book which offers concrete meditation techniques, but rather offers perspectives and reflection for you to consider as you meditate and indeed navigate everyday life.
5 out of 5 meditators
My New Years Ritual
Each year, at the beginning of the regular new year, I have a ritual I do. I create a sigil collage with my goals for the year. I first draw sigils on it. Then I'll anoint it with the appropriate body fluids to imbue it with my personal power. I then start cutting up newspapers and magazines and create random messages out of what I cu, all while listening to my personal saint of magic: William S. Burroughs. I do this each year...it's a personal ritual, it's my way of connecting with the spirit of they year to come, and also my way of grounding the past. Review of Sex, Sleep, Eat, Drink, Dream By Jennifer Ackerman
This is a really intriguing book that examines how the physiology of the body changes throughout an entire day. The reader learns a lot more about the different cycles that the body undergoes, which dependent on the time of day as well as how to make his or her habits work around and with the cycle of the body to produce healthier benefits.
What I found particularly fascinating was the detailed look at different parts and functions of the body such as digestion and sleep. As I read this book, I came to appreciate the miracle of my body even more, as well as how I can consciously work with it in order maximize the life I'm living. I definitely think that this book offers a lot of exploration for people who wish to work with their bodies on a conscious level.
5 out of 5.
The latest issue of Rending the Veil is now available, featuring articles, by myself, Lupa, Cat Vincent, and other talented writers.
Review of the Fabric of the Cosmos and some thoughts on being a moral person
Book Review: The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
This is an excellent book on contemporary physics. It is written for a popular audience, but even with that, it is a dense book. However Greene does an excellent job of making the material easier to approach. He uses some pop culture references such as the Simpsons to illustrate and explain the concepts involved in the physics he's discussing. What I enjoyed most, however, is the evident enthusiasm in Greene's work. His enthusiasm consistently made the book more enjoyable and the concepts easier to understand.
I highly recommend picking this book if you want to learn more about physics, or if you're interested in how science can inform your spiritual practices. I found it useful in helping me understanding some of the finer details involved in quantum mechanics and how time and space work from a physics perspective.
5 out 5.
I've started reading Confucius: The Analects. Vince Stevens recommended I check his work out, especially given some of my interests in looking at occultism from different angles outside of the rebel archetype. So far, I've just been reading the introduction, but the passages already stand out to me:
Behind Confucious' pursuit of the ideal moral character lies the unspoken, and therefore, unquestioned, assumption that the only purpose a man can have and also the only worthwhile thing a man can do is to become as good a man as possible. This is something that has to be pursued for its own sake and with complete indifference to success or failure.
and
Love for people outside one's family is looked upon as an extension of the love for members of one's own family. One consequence of this view is that the love, and so the obligation to love, decreases by degrees as it extends outwards...our obligations towards others should be in proportion to the benefit we have received from them.
I left some of the examples in the second quote, but reading both passages was interesting because while I found myself in agreement with the first passage, I had a definite knee jerk reaction to the second. nonetheless on further reflection about the second passage I could certainly see the point of the author and agree with it as well, mainly because I see this particualr pattern demonstrated in this culture all the time.
The first passage speaks a lot to my current spiritual journey, with the focus being on a process of change with no definite result in mind, so much as a desire to become what and who I can become as a result of going through that process. If it seems odd that I don't have a specific result nailed down, it's because I realize that having a specific result would necessarily diminish the opportunities and possibilities I can experience as I undergo this journey. In fact, that speaks to the weakness of result oriented magic...The focus is so heavily on the result that the process isn't fully explored or experimented with. But what could that process tell you if you did explore it? So no specific result...I'm involved in a process of change, with indifference to success or failure in any traditional sense of the words. Perhaps the lack of concern about success or failure is what makes all of this efficacious. There's no external standard or bar to compare myself to, no definite end of the journey or a sense of completion. It just is...and so am I and the only constant in that is change...it's a process of change, and whatever results arise out of that change ultimately feed right back into the process, and so have meaning only as a context to the process.
The second quote, in reflecting on it...I see it in the cliques, family structures, etc. The degree of separation definitely impacts how people treat each other and/or the willingness of said people to help (and harm) each other. I can see how the benefit cycle influences how people treat each other...It goes back to the concept of give to get. You give, in order to get benefits. It's an eminently practical method of handling social relationships. The idealist in me cringes, and yet I see the same behavior repeated in myself and others. If you belong to x subculture and so do I, the chances of us helping each other is increased because of that connection. Granted, that increase may be minor, but it is still present. Obviously as you get to know people better, and incorporate them into a friend, tribe, or family structure what you are willing to do for those people increases as well. I see this behavior in everyone. I don't think I know anyone who falls outside of it. And I recognize it as a survival strategy, something which has worked really well for humans for who knows how long. Is there a way to get past that survival pattern? Do we really want to? I'm not sure...I had my kneejerk reaction, but as I think about it more, it makes a lot more sense. I'll be curious to see what further reading yields and I'll be sure to share it with the rest of you.