XAH

I am the darkness of your nightthe shadow to your light, the laughing fox who jaunts about is my guide into you.

I am your holiest of holies, your god and personal Daemon, I am the emptiness which engulfs you the passion that burns you the intensity which brings you to your knees at my feet worshipping I who can bring you to a place of transcendent spiritual ecstasy even as I devour your soul

In my nothingness is born your everything, in the wink of my eyes lies the shuddering span of your life. The fear you feel of facing yourself is the fear of the unknown that lies at the center of your being all and nothing, one in all, and all in one I am that I am that I breathe your name brings you life that I laugh makes you shudder

I am your daemon, your god your holiest of holies that which is beyond you yet that which you become 0 into 1 and 1 into infinity

I am Xah, your personal daemon, your guide into the Tao where everything and nothing transcend any reality all collapses into none to birth one the cycle eternal everything fits within everything the endless spider spiral of life and time is your gateway to endless silver strands of probability

I am Xah...your guide Come run with me...

Addendum to my post about the limitation of gods

Later in the epilogue one of the protagonists is told that Ahriman is pursuing them because he still needs to tell Ahriman his wish. He says he doesn't want anything Ahriman offers and Ahriman is astonished. And the key point to that...Any relationship is defined by the choices you make. A god only has power over you when you give that god power over you. Before then a god could suggest, tempt, etc., but in the end it is the choice of both parties to create a context for a relationship. It's another point worth considering when it comes to deities, and for that matter relationships in general.

Some thoughts on the limitations of gods

Warning...this post will likely be considered blasphemous if you are of the school of thought deities are all powerful, all knowing, and therefor infallible. That said, let's move on to the content... I recently finished the new Prince of Persia game and have been playing the downloadable add-on epilogue adventure and in both the main game and the epilogue there is a very interesting point raised about the power and intelligence of a deity. At one point, in the main game, one of the protagonist's wishes that there was an army helping them fight Ahriman, and the other protagonist says it's actually better that it's two of them, because an army of people would be more dangerous because they could be tempted by Ahriman. In fact, she goes on to explain that the real danger is that peopel would be tempted by Ahriman. Yes, this deity could tempt them, but the fact is, the choice is ultimately the person's and that makes that person very dangerous. Ahriman, in this game is simply the god of Darkness. In some ways he has less individuality and less choice than the humans he could tempt. He's dangerous, but his danger is limited by the context of the function he serves by being a god of darkness.

In the epilogue, the characters face a monster that Ahriman creates, and both note the lack of originality and the one character says that Ahriman is still weak and so is using forms he is familiar with, when creating monsters out of the corruption. But it also brings up an interesting question about the creativity or lack thereof that Ahriman displays. Ahriman is limited to some degree by the very role he has as a god of darkness and so what he can do is also accordingly limited.

In the Buddhist conceptions of deity, the gods, despite being powerful within the function that they fulfill, are less powerful than humans because they are defined by that function and even defined by the way humans relate to them. In the past, it has been pointed out to me that deities can grow and develop as a result of the relationship that they have with people, and I agree that this is true, but it is actually because of that relationship that they can grow and evolve...that the function of what they do can change. A god of darkness is kind of old hat in contemporary culture...but a god of darkness and several other functions is a god that has adapted to the times as a result of its interaction with people.

I think that there are some spiritual seekers that are too eager to give all power to the gods, while divesting themselves of the responsibility for their actions by saying: "My god made me do it." Undoubtedly they would look at what I wrote above and say I was being blasphemous to the spirits, that I would be punished for my affront by describing gods as beings that may not be all powerful and may in fact be defined and shaped by the relationships they have with humans and other beings. Yet, the simple fact of the matter is that everything is defined by relationships. A human being is definitely not all powerful...s/he has to live on a planet with a breathable atmosphere and other forms of live in order to sustain his/her own life...and that's just survival on the physical level. The emotional, mental, and yes spiritual level also necessitates relationships of some kind in order for a person to survive and indeed thrive.

Why wouldn't this principle apply to gods? In fact, I don't think gods are all powerful and I think they are limited by the function of what they do and how that is defined in the relationships they have with others. I think that when people put gods on a pedestal, they are divesting themselves of responsibility for their own actions, or using that god to justify their own attempts to have power over other people. This isn't to say that a relationship where a person feels subservient to a god isn't spiritual or right for that person...for clearly that can be a relationship that person needs. Nor is it wrong to feel a sense of awe or humbleness in working with a deity...but such relationships will ideally not involve abdication of responsibility. Rather, ideally the god will challenge the person to grow and use the spiritual lessons to help that person fully understand the nature of the service s/he has entered into in choosing to work with or worship that god.

All the same, I don't think treating a god as all powerful or all knowing is a wise idea. Recognize it's power and knowledge, but also recognize your own. Recognize the context of the relationship in order to better appreciate that relationship and learn and grow from it, while also helping the other end learn and grow as well.

Elemental Emptiness Month 4: Compassion pt 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

B. K. Frantzis says of emptiness:

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

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

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

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

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

Connecting to my shadow self

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

Thoughts on energy work

Very recently I had an experience with energy work which really amazed me, because of how subtle it was and yet how how powerful as well. It was a case of someone taking over an interaction and showing me how I was actually over-extending myself instead of allowing myself to flow into the moment. This person showed me this a few different ways and each time I was amazed because I realized how much, even now, I sometimes put too much energy into an interaction and end up unbalancing myself.

I've actually started re-reading Relax into Your Being by B. K. Frantzis, and it seems like a good time to re-read and re-mind myself of the principle of flowing into energy. I've recognized before the value of flowing into a situation, but even so it's easy to forget sometimes in little ways. I enjoyed the reminder because it did show me some areas I can improve on with my energy work and also intimacy. Learning is always an experience to be cherished.

I think what I really learned last night is that sometimes to really experience the energy of a given moment, you've got to let go of your preconceptions and desire to control and just be...and let that speak for itself.

Review of Feeding Your Demons by Tsultrim Allione.

This is probably one of the most elegant and useful processes I've found for doing internal work. She bases it off of the Chod ritual done in the Tibetan Bardo and Buddhist systems of work, but makes it sufficiently culture free so that anyone could use the technique and get the concepts behind using the technique. Additionally the technique is broken down into a five step process, which is easy to do and definitely produces results, while also continuing to build upon the internal work you may already be doing. Pick this book up, because it will definitely put a new twist on your dysfunctions, and also help you move past them.

5 out of 5 demons

An experiment with Fasting

I just finished reading Tai Chi Dynamics (see below for the review) and in it he included a chapter on Fasting and how to do it properly. I decided to give it a try today and so far it's been interesting to experience. He notes that a person can be a bit more temperamental, which is true. My emotions have been a bit edgier, though he also notes this fades as your body gets more accustomed to the fast. He also mentions that you begin to notice a difference between when you are genuinely hungry and just feeling a desire for food and he's right. There is a definite difference. I have felt a sensation that I'd say is not hunger so much as it's emptiness in my belly. In fact, I think that sometimes I have eaten because I have felt empty and wanted to fill that emptiness up with something and food has been convenient for that. In choosing not to eat, I have been observing my reactions to the feeling of emptiness in my belly and recognizing that I don't necessarily feel hungry (and yes there is a difference in that feeling). In sitting with that feeling and observing it I do notice a difference in awareness in terms of how I'm thinking about hunger and food.

The purpose of fasting is to actually break down the toxins of the body that it holds onto otherwise. I can see why this would be healthy and useful to do and so that's my main reason for trying it today, to feel what it's like to fast and also to help my body break down some toxins it'd otherwise hold onto.

Review of Tai Chi Dynamics by Robert Chuckrow

I found Tai Chi dynamics to be an interesting mixture of martial arts, physics and philosophy. The author clearly and concisely explained how physics could be applied to Tai chi movements and practice as well as providing some very interesting exercises a person could do to demonstrate the principles in action. I also found his chapter on fasting to be very useful as he explained how to properly do it and what needs to be considered in order to do a successful fast. This is definitely a book for intermediate practitioners. If you aren't familiar with Tai Chi, spend some time learning it and then come back to this book.

5 out of 5

Learning not to struggle with my demons

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

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

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

Feeding a Demon

I recently started reading Tsutrim Allione's Feeding Your Demons, which presents a technique based on the Tibetan Chod ritual, where you find and locate your internal demons, stresses, etc., and you personify them and then feed them what they need, as opposed to what they want. She makes a critical distinction between want and need, arguing that a want can mask a deeper underlying need for something else. I've already started using her technique for myself. This morning I was feeling pretty need and instead of indulging in that neediness I decided to give it a shape and talk with it. It ended up being a child version of me with a huge mouth for it's torso. It told me that even when I gave it what it wanted all it really felt was an increase in emptiness. The mouth in the torso never felt satisfied and always wanted more. This made a lot of sense to me. I asked it what it needed and it said it needed love and acceptance. So I started feeding it love and it grew quieter and smaller. It's still there, but not nearly as aggravating as it can be. It's quiet...and I feel a bit more balanced. I can definitely already see the benefits of this technique, and I haven't read all the book or done all the techniques.

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?

*******

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

The Emptiness Working Month 3: Rage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Researching the Emperor

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

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

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.

Tea Time

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

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

The Emptiness Working Month 2: Obsession

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

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

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

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

*********

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clock time and natural time

I've been thinking further about natural perceptions of time vs clock time. Jean Houston, as far as I can tell, was the first person to overtly note a substantial difference between clock time, and natural or internal time, in her book The Possible Human. However, As I've been musing on this subject, I've also noted that even in everyday consciousness the perception of time can vastly differ depending on how time is measured. Let me give you an example. An acquaintance and I were discussing the formation of modern education in the U.S. the other day. The modern education system was developed during the industrial revolution as a way of moving people out of an agrarian approach to life and more towards an industrial model. In an Agrarian approach time is measured by when the sun rises and sets. It isn't parceled down into hours and minutes, and instead is much more rhythmic, in tune with the day light. Now take people out of that approach to life and put them into a factory, and you end up having an issue, because the way those people approach time affects how they approach work. To get around that you put them in a setting where they are educated about time through the example of having periods of time that are used to measure how long they are in class and how much time they have for a break. And then afterwards they are trained for a very linear approach to work. You have only to look at today's average work day to see this in effect. So many minutes for a break, so may for how long you work, the rest you schedule what else you want to do.

That conversation came up in way that I'd say was odd, if it wasn't for working with the spider goddess of time. Ever since I worked with her, she's been showing up in different ways and while I didn't see her when I was having this conversation, I definitely felt a divine nudge that there was a lesson here, and was reminded of my classes at clarion, where this very subject was discussed at some length as to why classrooms are arranged the way they are spatially...it's a factory setting. Students lined up in rows, ready to be processed and put on the line.

I've had a few moments of alternity, where time has seemed to stretch out. I get that every so often in general...time expands, my sense of possibilities changes, everything seems elongated, crystalline, fitting together perfectly. I'll see it occasionally as I drive, but sometimes as I walk or doing something else...time stretches out, becomes a parchment of silver webbing, shining strands of possibilities, and the sense of time changes, becomes much less overt. It's only when I look at a clock that I'm really brought to a linear awareness of time. The clock constrains, restrains, and otherwise confines a sense of time to a very immediate moment. I look at the clock and I see a specific time: 9:29:39 and only that moment exists. Everything else, all other possibilities fade in the glowing green digits of time that express exactly this one moment of linear time, which my entirety exists in.

I can see why clock time has become so prevalent, so important to the work world for instance. It is the engine which drives people to perform for whoever they work for, the way of rating the exchange of life for the means to sustain that life.

Yet how much is missed out on in the obsession of clock time, when we lost the natural rhythms of life to the growing gleen digits that mark out how much time is left for a person to work, or for that matter to live? Where is the seamless experience of time as not just one moment, but a sea of infinite possibilities, or the silver paths of the web the spider goddess lives in? We find it when we can let go of clock time, let go of the need to look at the very face of time that binds us...When a day becomes much more than just one hour passing after another...it becomes full of possibilities and adventures and so much else.

Give me natural time any moment of the continuum

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

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

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

Entheogens and emptiness

Tonight I went over to a friend's place and utilized an entheogen. It's been about ten years since I've done it. The first time I did it, there was no spiritual purpose for doing it, but tonight, I had a specific spiritual purpose in mind.  I pulled out my two tarot decks and did a similar working, and while doing that I drank orange juice which contained the entheogen in it. I wanted to see what the experience of walking in the silver web of time would be like with the entheogen. Right now I feel like everything is an illusion, and that seems to have been the tone of the trip throughout the evening. I evoked XaH, Thiede, Purson, and the Spider Goddess of Time as I ingested the brew. I also invoked my future self, the Master of time. As I was writing down the results of the reading, perhaps twenty minutes in I began to notice that it was hard to write. I frantically finished scrabbling my notes and then put my hands into the prayer pose to start working with the silver webs of time. As an interesting note, I noticed that my train of thought became very cyclical and spider web oriented throughout the entire trip. I recall one of my fellow journeyers pointing out that what you brought into the trip is what you got out of it...echoes the sentiment of give to get.

My emotional spectrum was all over the place. I think a lot of my inner demons took the opportunity to come out and play tonight. I saw a lot of control issues and ego issues played out emotionally. Not horrible either to experience those and realize how much they sometimes inform my choices and actions. It actually showed me how strung up I can get sometimes about  the choices of life. Also the spider goddes of time devoured me at one point, or at least came close to it. She ate most of me, but left a small part behind and I regrew. I felt purified after she ate me...it was as if she ate the parts that were trying to control instead of just letting go and feeling the trip.

Physically, I felt like I was getting made love to by the music we listened to. I felt so damn good...it was like having a really good orgasm, except that it lasted for hours and hours. Also my feeling of time elongated, so that minutes seemed to take an infinity to occur. My perception of light became perceptions of web patterns of time. I wasn't so much weaving them as I was becoming them. I became this great spiral of time where I could traverse the web and go to different points.

One thing which really stands out me is that at one point I realized how instinctual every thing is. Basically I couldn't rationalize any of my choices. I recognized the instinct that informed each choice and saw each choice purely as an instinctual response. At another point I noticed how long I took between breaths as well as how heavy my body felt when I took each breath. At yet another point, the light seemed to elongate...and when I smiled or moved I felt incredible.

Remembers another point, where I pointed out to my one friend that he was wearing a sleep mask. He slipped it off and smiled...everyone moved in slow motion, jelly like in the flow of the concentric webs of time.

The final phase, which I'm in now, has been an odd experience. I'm basically observing myself doing things, talking, eating, whatever else. I'm cognizant that I'm doing the action, but it almost seems like someone else is. What's really been odd is that the observer part feels as if it's a step forward in time. So I feel like I know what Lupa will say a second before she says it. It's like everything was rehearsed in the lines of a play. I could predict what would happen and then it would happen. It was an odd experience of time to have because I did feel like an oracle. There's a part of me which is currently questioning whether I'm really writing this post or if it's just an illusion on my part.

I'm feeling really mellow at this point. The emptiness aspect of this experience really involved the inner demons coming out...maybe, or maybe it's this feeling of mellowness, or maybe its something else. Regardless, I feel very mellow, very relaxed. I think I will enjoy that for the rest of this evening. I may try these again in the near future for another space/time experiment as it proved fruitful in terms of experiencing the silver web of time.

Book Release: Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick

Immanion Press has just released Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick by Frater Barrabbas. It's the first book of a trilogy he is offering on ceremonial magic. I really enjoyed his previous book Disciple's Guide to Magic, and also enjoyed reading this one when I copy-edited it.

Meeting the Spider Goddess of Time

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

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

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

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

Emptiness and Time

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

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

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

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

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