Gaining Clarity

It's been an interesting couple of weeks, it feels in some ways that I've been taken on a roller coaster ride, only this ride has been an internal journey, one that has been purposeful in clarifying what I really feel and believe when it comes to this life in this body.

I think I had my answer on 30 May when I turned the Chariot in my morning tarot meditation. I think the Dion Fortune book has been really useful, there's a lot there that I can learn and grow from, but what it has also shown me is what doesn't fit for me, as well as what does.

I do feel that I inhabit this body for this incarnation. Why I chose this body, I have no idea, but there must have been some reason! In that regard, this body is a vehicle, a vehicle in which my spirit, the essence of me, experiences and enjoys this world. Bringing the Chariot into the equation, this body knows fears, anger, aggression, love, lust, passion, the whole nine yards. These emotions, these feelings, these desires are not wrong of themselves, most certainly they are not 'sinful' but they are capable of being my master, and the key, the spiritual key, is to bring them under my control. If I am controlled by these things, then my spiritual and magickal workings will not be as effective or as powerful as when I bring them under the control of my will. All these powerful emotions and expressions can bring forth great wonders, but under the direction of my will. This is the lesson of the Chariot, and it's a lesson I was supposed to learn about a week ago!

What I have learned from the Dion book is that the essence of me, my will, is not something that lives in my brain, or as I chose to see it; it's not my Talking Self, it's the me that is far more holistic than that. Dion talks of the Will, or the essence of me, permeating from my chakras. I like this idea, as it helps me understand that the me who the Lord and Lady see is the me before name and form, the me before adaptation. The me who chose to incarnate in this time and place to learn and experience what I need to learn and experience in the Now. I am more than my thoughts, more than my brain, more that my myriad reactions to all the events of my life. I am deeper and more than all this. Developing this sense of self is part of developing my will.

So when it comes to Dion's message of being 'free of the desires of the flesh' I read it not as a charge from Paul writing to the Church of Corinth, or anywhere else. I don't see it as some mangled Christian doctrine. The lesson I take from this is simply that I am my own Master, and the feelings, desires and needs of my body are fine, but I cannot allow them to take over. It's back to this personal responsibility thing again. The tail does not wag the dog. It's about channeling what I think and feel, knowing what I think and feel, and not being controlled by these things. I think there is also something of the 'little death' lesson here. Life is continual death, preparation and rebirth, and within this there is a continual letting go and moving on into deeper and greater freedoms. If I am tied to something, dependant upon something, needing something, then I am not free. I explore my pleasures from a position of choice, not from one of enforced control. True pleasure is born of freedom and liberation.

"The nearer the source, the purer the stream" says Dion, and although I probably take her words out of context, this sums up my own spiritual philosophy perfectly. My desire is to intimately know The Source, to celebrate and revel in that Divine relationship and to know and experience the ecstatic embrace of the Divine. This is my inner hunger, and something that motivates me to travel ever forward, getting closer to this goal.

My Pagan journey, my path as Hedge Witch, is one of transformation. It's not always comfortable, change is hardly ever comfortable, and I don't do change that well, really, but it is my path and one that I embrace. From this transformation comes real and genuine joy and celebration. I look to the next phase with a smile on my face!