A number of people I have spoken with recently have told me that they choose not to read newspapers, read news sites on the internet, watch TV news or listen to radio news as they prefer (and I use the term they used) to remain ‘blissfully unaware’. What bothered me even more was the fact that they shared this information with me with a kind of piety, as if, by being in this blissfully unaware state, they were somehow enjoying some kind of deeper, more fulfilling kind of spirituality than I could achieve, as I chose to remain up to date with current affairs. I came away from all these interactions both confused and concerned. I’ve been mulling this over now for a couple of days.
I am bothered by these comments on a number of levels, not least because if one is blissful because one chooses to bury ones head in some kind of pseudo-spiritual sand, then one should expect to have ones head cut off! This kind of attitude causes me to picture people rearranging deckchairs on an ethereal Titanic. I was also reminded of the rabbits in Richard Adams ‘Watership Down’ who thought they had a wonderful life, unaware that they were captive and being bred for the pot. I just can’t see that this is what we are called to as magical beings. We’re here to affect change, not to live in some kind of self imposed ivory tower refusing to acknowledge that change, or evolution, is required. We are the people who can affect change!
I’ve not read Dion Fortune’s ‘Magical Battle Of Britain’ but the little I have read about it leads me to believe that during one of Britain’s darkest moments she encouraged people to come together in a series of meditations with the sole aim of not just protecting the UK, but the world, from a terrible fate. Far from burying her head in the proverbial sand, she sought to lead and train people in using their spiritual and magical energy in such a way as to bring real light into the world during a time of terrible darkness. Here was a demonstration of the immense power we hold as people of spirit and how we can affect very real change when we come together with focused intent. If we are truly magical beings, then change will be a constant, both within, and without.
This has bothered me because of where Europe finds itself at the moment. In a few weeks we have the European election. In my own country, the UK, this generates very little interest, and voting apathy in this regard is well known. This bothers me because it is at times of economic recession, as well as times when people lose fath in the political and democratic process, that people turn to the more extreme political parties for answers, usually because they offer scapegoats for all the worlds ills, scapegoats that some people are willing to accept with the consequence of many minority groups suffering as a result. It is already becoming apparent within the UK that some extreme right wing parties are spending more on this European election than they have in all the others put together because they sense their opportunity to gain their first seats in the European Parliament.
Far from being blissfully unaware, people of spirit need to seeking the Divine Mind and working magically to bring about positive change. At times such as these our spiritual path cannot be something that brings gain just for the individual practitioner, but needs to be something that spills and reverberates out from this and brings positive change for all. I have a very powerful and genuine sense for the need for our spiritual practice to be used in part to send out protective energy to guard and protect our nations at what is a very vulnerable time.
This isn’t a party political post, but it is my attempt to call us all to action, whether this be in a magical sense, or in the sense of causing any European readers not to rest on your laurels, but to firstly use your vote, and to use it responsibly.
Whilst we are not in the situation Dion found herself in, let’s follow her lead, and look outward at such a time as this, as well as within.
Showing posts with label Magickal Being. Magick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magickal Being. Magick. Show all posts
Monday, 11 May 2009
Sunday, 3 May 2009
The Apprentice
I hate the BBC TV programme The Apprentice. There – I’ve said it and I feel quite alone is saying so! I feel alone as it’s one of the UK’s most popular TV programmes, gaining plaudits, awards and millions of viewers and it is peddled as very much the programme to watch – but I really don’t like it. I actually find it disturbing and worrying. I’d go as far as to say that it actually offends me.
The Apprentice is one of the ever increasing number of reality television shows to hit our screens. In this programme people are set tasks by Sir Alan Sugar to test various aspects of their business acumen. Each week, the candidates are divided into two teams and Sir Alan briefs them on the new task. The team appoints a project manager and this person is responsible for leading the task. After each show, the candidate who has impressed Sir Alan the least is ‘fired’ and usually in rather humiliating fashion. The goal for each candidate is to make it through all the various tasks in order to win a six figure salary as Sir Alan’s Apprentice.
Why don’t I like the programme? Because it has the affect of bringing to the surface all the aspects of the human personality that I really struggle with. Those aspects that I feel that as spiritual beings we should be moving away from. The candidates all appear to be prepared to sell their own Grandmothers if this would secure victory. Everything within the programme plays to their own ego and their inflated opinions of themselves. When they feel they’re in trouble; that is, when they feel they are in danger of being fired, the venom that spews from their mouths and the pure hatred that is sometimes evident in their body language in order to denigrate the others is nothing short of scary. Perhaps it reminds me too much of the office politics that all too often surrounds my working day.
Yet, I watch it each week. I think I watch it to convince myself that what I don’t like about it is really what I don’t like about it! Perhaps I want to see it improve; perhaps I want to see someone actually look out for someone else. Perhaps I want to see someone demonstrate a degree of understanding of another person, perhaps I want to see someone demonstrate empathy, put someone else first, recognise another for who and what they are as opposed to seeing each and every other candidate as nothing other than a back to stab and a carcass to climb over in order to get what it is they want for themselves. They feign teamwork, but in the end the single motive is about self. In other words, there is no authenticity, no transparency, everything is false.
I guess the reason I struggle is because everything about this programme challenges my own values. Some people have labelled me as naïve because of the values I hold, but I refuse to believe that other people exist merely as a means to my own gain. It is fellowship that is important, not what someone else can do for me to make me look or feel better. We should be celebrating each other, not denigrating each other.
The Apprentice appears to further popularise the misconception that we should use force to obtain our goals, that the means justify the end result. Conflict, it would appear, is fine as it brings about selfish ends, whereas what is truly important is purification, a stripping away of all the former, in order to bring about a deeper and fuller manifestation of ones Higher Self and therefore selflessness. It’s about a laying down, which, ironically, once we fully move into this arena, brings far more worth and value than one could have ever initially realised.
Domination is a theme that runs through The Apprentice, and of course this programme simply reflects where we are as a society. It’s all about survival, it’s all about profit and gain, whereas the magickal being is called to lay down and surrender, not control and dominate. Magickal power is birthed in sacrifice.
This is what Dion Fortune refers to as the death of the personality and increasingly I am beginning to understand what it is she actually means. I don’t pretend to have arrived at this point but I see more clearly than ever just what it is that is required of me in this moment in time.
Where it will lead . . . well, that has to be another story!
The Apprentice is one of the ever increasing number of reality television shows to hit our screens. In this programme people are set tasks by Sir Alan Sugar to test various aspects of their business acumen. Each week, the candidates are divided into two teams and Sir Alan briefs them on the new task. The team appoints a project manager and this person is responsible for leading the task. After each show, the candidate who has impressed Sir Alan the least is ‘fired’ and usually in rather humiliating fashion. The goal for each candidate is to make it through all the various tasks in order to win a six figure salary as Sir Alan’s Apprentice.
Why don’t I like the programme? Because it has the affect of bringing to the surface all the aspects of the human personality that I really struggle with. Those aspects that I feel that as spiritual beings we should be moving away from. The candidates all appear to be prepared to sell their own Grandmothers if this would secure victory. Everything within the programme plays to their own ego and their inflated opinions of themselves. When they feel they’re in trouble; that is, when they feel they are in danger of being fired, the venom that spews from their mouths and the pure hatred that is sometimes evident in their body language in order to denigrate the others is nothing short of scary. Perhaps it reminds me too much of the office politics that all too often surrounds my working day.
Yet, I watch it each week. I think I watch it to convince myself that what I don’t like about it is really what I don’t like about it! Perhaps I want to see it improve; perhaps I want to see someone actually look out for someone else. Perhaps I want to see someone demonstrate a degree of understanding of another person, perhaps I want to see someone demonstrate empathy, put someone else first, recognise another for who and what they are as opposed to seeing each and every other candidate as nothing other than a back to stab and a carcass to climb over in order to get what it is they want for themselves. They feign teamwork, but in the end the single motive is about self. In other words, there is no authenticity, no transparency, everything is false.
I guess the reason I struggle is because everything about this programme challenges my own values. Some people have labelled me as naïve because of the values I hold, but I refuse to believe that other people exist merely as a means to my own gain. It is fellowship that is important, not what someone else can do for me to make me look or feel better. We should be celebrating each other, not denigrating each other.
The Apprentice appears to further popularise the misconception that we should use force to obtain our goals, that the means justify the end result. Conflict, it would appear, is fine as it brings about selfish ends, whereas what is truly important is purification, a stripping away of all the former, in order to bring about a deeper and fuller manifestation of ones Higher Self and therefore selflessness. It’s about a laying down, which, ironically, once we fully move into this arena, brings far more worth and value than one could have ever initially realised.
Domination is a theme that runs through The Apprentice, and of course this programme simply reflects where we are as a society. It’s all about survival, it’s all about profit and gain, whereas the magickal being is called to lay down and surrender, not control and dominate. Magickal power is birthed in sacrifice.
This is what Dion Fortune refers to as the death of the personality and increasingly I am beginning to understand what it is she actually means. I don’t pretend to have arrived at this point but I see more clearly than ever just what it is that is required of me in this moment in time.
Where it will lead . . . well, that has to be another story!
Monday, 6 October 2008
What Is My Path?
It’s been a few days since I’ve posted, but this hasn’t been because I’ve fallen into inactivity or procrastination! Mind you, both things have been enemies of mine in the past, and I am mindful of the different guises they assume with which to lure me!
I have a feeling this is going to turn into one of my rambling posts! Apologies! I just feel a need to summarise my journey to date, as I have a need to declare where I am here and now. Obviously, I’m leaving loads of detail out, just for the sake of space and to save you, dear reader, from pure and guaranteed boredom! I just have a need to make this post another significant marker, which for me, at the moment, is the main purpose of this journal. I hope that in some small way this post will also provide an essence of who I am and what I’m about. I feel it’s timely.
This was confirmed when I read one of Seshat’s recent posts. She writes in a way that often touches my spirit and soul, and this confirmed to me that I needed to make this entry.
As I have said in recent entries, things have been happening for me of late that have moved me on, spiritually, and there are doors opening for me, and I’m both excited and nervous about these things. I have a real sense of anticipation and expectation. There are many things changing around me, professionally, personally and spiritually, and some of these changes will be a constant, I just need to go with them for the time being, whilst other changes I need to take control of, magickally speaking.
I have been walking a pagan path for some years, but I think it’s true to say that probably half of that time I was walking a somewhat ‘fluffy’ path. I don’t say that disrespectfully, I think perhaps many of us come to our paths this way, it’s only with reflection that I see my time then was one of walking into awareness, step by step. This is why I don’t criticise those who seem ‘fluffy’ to me, although at times I may feel irked by them, especially when I feel their fluffiness is being inflicted upon me! I don’t criticise, because it’s not for me to judge where they happen to be on their path. That’s for them to work out. Only they and their Gods know where they are at this point upon their journey. It’s none of my business.
Recently I’ve felt a need to define my path anew. Not that it’s changed, as such, rather there has been something of an evolution, the result of my own spiritual development over time. I’ve felt the need for this redefinition only because I have felt a need to declare my Own True Will – the purpose I was placed here, in this incarnation, at this moment in time. My recent growth has been a result of study together with application and a heart that truly seeks to connect with the One Divine Life and to bring this connection to others, in whatever form they are ready to experience it at the point of development they themselves are at. I feel that is my True Will.
My background is one of fundamental Christianity. I mean the real Charismatic, speaking in tongues, healing the sick and raising the dead type. I even attended an evangelical/charismatic bible college in a bid to ‘get closer to God’ but none of this met that genuine sense of longing and healing I was experiencing within. Indeed, attending the bible college almost destroyed me, because all it showed me was that God found me, as a gay man, and someone who found this patriarchal presentation of religion difficult and uncomfortable, detestable. I was also seeking healing for my visual impairment. I was rejected by the Divine – or so it felt to me at the time, as none of this came to pass. I left the college empty, more empty than I had arrived.
In time I was thrown out of the Christian Church, because of my sexuality, and thrown out of the town, because my parents, pillars of the local charismatic church, felt me to be possessed of the devil. This, as you can imagine, sent my life into turmoil.
After a process of many life events, I moved into a kind of spiritual no-man’s-land, a kind of agnosticism that was pure self indulgence and which resulted in spiritual death – and potentially physical death, such was my carefree abandon. I just lived for myself. At the end of this period I was left with a real gaping whole within that was longing for spiritual fulfilment.
However, the One Divine Life had not let go of me, or my calling. And I do feel that I have a calling, dramatic and over the top as that may sound. I’ve wandered down too many blind alleys to count, but the fact is, the hand of the Divine always brings me back, and in these past few years I’ve found myself in a place I’ve never felt possible. This all began with my eyes being opened to the wonder of nature – or more correctly, Nature. I began to see that my years of searching, this desperate need to feel a sense of ‘belonging’ was futile, because I was seeking that which already existed – I WAS CONNECTED! That connection already existed, it was there, unbroken and vital, and this was such a sense of revelation and joy as I moved into the truth and the reality of this connection.
In time this led me to people who were practising a form of Goddess spirituality locally. I thought that I had found my spiritual home, but in time this proved not to be the case. I think some people there found a gay man – a man who loved and had sex with men – in the middle of a Goddess movement, difficult to handle. I don’t think they knew what to do with me or what to make of me! I don’t say this with any criticism towards any of the sincere and lovely people there at all. I loved many of them, but I think I was ahead of their time in some ways in that my mere presence perhaps challenged them in too many ways. That sounds arrogant and I don’t mean it that way, I just mean that as many of them were working out their own relationships with men, a man who openly professed to being gay forced them into a place that perhaps they were not ready for at that point in their own journey. I felt it right to withdraw from that particular expression of that movement and chose not to dedicate at the end of my first years training. It was the right decision; time has shown that to be the case.
This led me to concentrating and practicing my own solitary practice and it is here that the fireworks really started! As I began, somewhat blindly and with huge ignorance in many ways, to practice my own solitary pagan practice, embracing both the Divine Feminine and Masculine, it was like Source spoke directly into my life – honestly, it felt that powerful. Within my own practice my connection with the One Divine Life was realised and I dedicated myself to Sulis, Goddess of the hot healing springs of Bath (a local city) and to the Lord of the Wildwood. Opening myself to them began a process whereby their qualities began to manifest within me and I was enthralled within my pagan spiritual practice. I love my patron Goddess, and Her connection and energy in my life is a real and constant Truth, The Lord of the Wildwood has shown me what it is to be truly divinely masculine, and to Him I am both thankful and grateful. I have also made connection with a number of Guides and I have worked closely with my ancestors. All of this has led, as you can imagine, to real personal spiritual development.
However, of late, things have moved on, to an extent that at times provides great clarity, but at others throws me into confusion, and it is because of this that I feel a need to define my path. Not to put me into some kind of spiritual package or false bondage and restriction, but in a bid to express where it is I am coming from of late.
Flowing from recent happenings within my own spiritual practice I have found myself drawn to a more magickal expression of my spirituality. This has led some to describe me as a Magician, but this is a title I do not feel worthy to accept and neither do I feel it appropriate. I say this for a number of reasons. One, I know very little of Magick, although I am reading and studying for all I am worth. Also, I have a very real sense of my devotion to my Gods, and this relationship is powerful and real to me. As Seshat says in her post, Magick to me is a genuine gift from my Gods – an outworking of that dynamic relationship.
Boy, I am rambling today, I am sorry! I just need to get this down!
So this combination of a real and genuine pagan practice, that has been so personally powerful for me, and a progressing magickal element to this practice, has been confusing me. How do I combine the two? What does this make me? Am I turning into a ‘pick and mix’ pagan – something that I have never, ever, wanted to be? Have I finally lost the plot somewhere?!? Have I finally lost my very last marble?!?
All I can say is that my connection with the term ‘Hedge Witch’ has never felt more real and genuine. Yes, I am experimenting with Magick. Yes, some of Crowley’s writings have inspired me in ways that the written word has never done before. But, so have the writings of Dion Fortune. Another conundrum!
My path is one of combining the spiritual celebration of my connection with my Gods, with the magickal outworking of that relationship. In truth, right now, I’ve no idea how the fruits of this relationship will express themselves, all I know is, this is the path I am walking today. I am in the ever constant state of Becoming. This is my present home!
As for doors opening, I was walking down Glastonbury High Street the other day, and in a shop window was a very inconspicuous note asking for people to join a reading group exploring the works of Dion Fortune. My heart was in my mouth, and I signed up! I go to the first meeting this week, and this is what I mean about new doors opening, I don’t know where this is going to take me ... but I’m walking through the door!
I am Becoming!
I have a feeling this is going to turn into one of my rambling posts! Apologies! I just feel a need to summarise my journey to date, as I have a need to declare where I am here and now. Obviously, I’m leaving loads of detail out, just for the sake of space and to save you, dear reader, from pure and guaranteed boredom! I just have a need to make this post another significant marker, which for me, at the moment, is the main purpose of this journal. I hope that in some small way this post will also provide an essence of who I am and what I’m about. I feel it’s timely.
This was confirmed when I read one of Seshat’s recent posts. She writes in a way that often touches my spirit and soul, and this confirmed to me that I needed to make this entry.
As I have said in recent entries, things have been happening for me of late that have moved me on, spiritually, and there are doors opening for me, and I’m both excited and nervous about these things. I have a real sense of anticipation and expectation. There are many things changing around me, professionally, personally and spiritually, and some of these changes will be a constant, I just need to go with them for the time being, whilst other changes I need to take control of, magickally speaking.
I have been walking a pagan path for some years, but I think it’s true to say that probably half of that time I was walking a somewhat ‘fluffy’ path. I don’t say that disrespectfully, I think perhaps many of us come to our paths this way, it’s only with reflection that I see my time then was one of walking into awareness, step by step. This is why I don’t criticise those who seem ‘fluffy’ to me, although at times I may feel irked by them, especially when I feel their fluffiness is being inflicted upon me! I don’t criticise, because it’s not for me to judge where they happen to be on their path. That’s for them to work out. Only they and their Gods know where they are at this point upon their journey. It’s none of my business.
Recently I’ve felt a need to define my path anew. Not that it’s changed, as such, rather there has been something of an evolution, the result of my own spiritual development over time. I’ve felt the need for this redefinition only because I have felt a need to declare my Own True Will – the purpose I was placed here, in this incarnation, at this moment in time. My recent growth has been a result of study together with application and a heart that truly seeks to connect with the One Divine Life and to bring this connection to others, in whatever form they are ready to experience it at the point of development they themselves are at. I feel that is my True Will.
My background is one of fundamental Christianity. I mean the real Charismatic, speaking in tongues, healing the sick and raising the dead type. I even attended an evangelical/charismatic bible college in a bid to ‘get closer to God’ but none of this met that genuine sense of longing and healing I was experiencing within. Indeed, attending the bible college almost destroyed me, because all it showed me was that God found me, as a gay man, and someone who found this patriarchal presentation of religion difficult and uncomfortable, detestable. I was also seeking healing for my visual impairment. I was rejected by the Divine – or so it felt to me at the time, as none of this came to pass. I left the college empty, more empty than I had arrived.
In time I was thrown out of the Christian Church, because of my sexuality, and thrown out of the town, because my parents, pillars of the local charismatic church, felt me to be possessed of the devil. This, as you can imagine, sent my life into turmoil.
After a process of many life events, I moved into a kind of spiritual no-man’s-land, a kind of agnosticism that was pure self indulgence and which resulted in spiritual death – and potentially physical death, such was my carefree abandon. I just lived for myself. At the end of this period I was left with a real gaping whole within that was longing for spiritual fulfilment.
However, the One Divine Life had not let go of me, or my calling. And I do feel that I have a calling, dramatic and over the top as that may sound. I’ve wandered down too many blind alleys to count, but the fact is, the hand of the Divine always brings me back, and in these past few years I’ve found myself in a place I’ve never felt possible. This all began with my eyes being opened to the wonder of nature – or more correctly, Nature. I began to see that my years of searching, this desperate need to feel a sense of ‘belonging’ was futile, because I was seeking that which already existed – I WAS CONNECTED! That connection already existed, it was there, unbroken and vital, and this was such a sense of revelation and joy as I moved into the truth and the reality of this connection.
In time this led me to people who were practising a form of Goddess spirituality locally. I thought that I had found my spiritual home, but in time this proved not to be the case. I think some people there found a gay man – a man who loved and had sex with men – in the middle of a Goddess movement, difficult to handle. I don’t think they knew what to do with me or what to make of me! I don’t say this with any criticism towards any of the sincere and lovely people there at all. I loved many of them, but I think I was ahead of their time in some ways in that my mere presence perhaps challenged them in too many ways. That sounds arrogant and I don’t mean it that way, I just mean that as many of them were working out their own relationships with men, a man who openly professed to being gay forced them into a place that perhaps they were not ready for at that point in their own journey. I felt it right to withdraw from that particular expression of that movement and chose not to dedicate at the end of my first years training. It was the right decision; time has shown that to be the case.
This led me to concentrating and practicing my own solitary practice and it is here that the fireworks really started! As I began, somewhat blindly and with huge ignorance in many ways, to practice my own solitary pagan practice, embracing both the Divine Feminine and Masculine, it was like Source spoke directly into my life – honestly, it felt that powerful. Within my own practice my connection with the One Divine Life was realised and I dedicated myself to Sulis, Goddess of the hot healing springs of Bath (a local city) and to the Lord of the Wildwood. Opening myself to them began a process whereby their qualities began to manifest within me and I was enthralled within my pagan spiritual practice. I love my patron Goddess, and Her connection and energy in my life is a real and constant Truth, The Lord of the Wildwood has shown me what it is to be truly divinely masculine, and to Him I am both thankful and grateful. I have also made connection with a number of Guides and I have worked closely with my ancestors. All of this has led, as you can imagine, to real personal spiritual development.
However, of late, things have moved on, to an extent that at times provides great clarity, but at others throws me into confusion, and it is because of this that I feel a need to define my path. Not to put me into some kind of spiritual package or false bondage and restriction, but in a bid to express where it is I am coming from of late.
Flowing from recent happenings within my own spiritual practice I have found myself drawn to a more magickal expression of my spirituality. This has led some to describe me as a Magician, but this is a title I do not feel worthy to accept and neither do I feel it appropriate. I say this for a number of reasons. One, I know very little of Magick, although I am reading and studying for all I am worth. Also, I have a very real sense of my devotion to my Gods, and this relationship is powerful and real to me. As Seshat says in her post, Magick to me is a genuine gift from my Gods – an outworking of that dynamic relationship.
Boy, I am rambling today, I am sorry! I just need to get this down!
So this combination of a real and genuine pagan practice, that has been so personally powerful for me, and a progressing magickal element to this practice, has been confusing me. How do I combine the two? What does this make me? Am I turning into a ‘pick and mix’ pagan – something that I have never, ever, wanted to be? Have I finally lost the plot somewhere?!? Have I finally lost my very last marble?!?
All I can say is that my connection with the term ‘Hedge Witch’ has never felt more real and genuine. Yes, I am experimenting with Magick. Yes, some of Crowley’s writings have inspired me in ways that the written word has never done before. But, so have the writings of Dion Fortune. Another conundrum!
My path is one of combining the spiritual celebration of my connection with my Gods, with the magickal outworking of that relationship. In truth, right now, I’ve no idea how the fruits of this relationship will express themselves, all I know is, this is the path I am walking today. I am in the ever constant state of Becoming. This is my present home!
As for doors opening, I was walking down Glastonbury High Street the other day, and in a shop window was a very inconspicuous note asking for people to join a reading group exploring the works of Dion Fortune. My heart was in my mouth, and I signed up! I go to the first meeting this week, and this is what I mean about new doors opening, I don’t know where this is going to take me ... but I’m walking through the door!
I am Becoming!
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
Watch This Space!
So much has been happening for me spiritually in recent weeks that I hardly know where to begin. However, I feel a need to try and summarise in order to place a marker here at the end of the month, and also as now I enter the phase of the waxing moon, and the things that I record here I want to see grow and develop over the weeks ahead.
I have discovered a real power and strength in embracing my Own True Will, that is, being who I truly am and embracing my own course. I have a real sense of taking up my place on the Web Of Life, and I know the vibration that I send out on this Web. My actions, and indeed inaction, affect others on the Web, just as theirs affect me. We are interconnected and interdependent. Together, the notes of our collective vibrations are the orchestra of life.
All this leads to me having a new and sustained belief in myself, a confidence and strength. This comes not from some kind of puffed up, egotistical, conceited pride, or, equally as disastrous, from some kind of false or introverted humility, but rather from a real sense of who and what I am. Believing in myself, truly moving into that place of spiritual confidence, has been a theme of this New Moon - believing in my own inner relationship. And this confidence, this embracing of my own True Will, leads me away from the supplicating "if it be thy will" of my archaic Christian past, into a new place of where I can make it happen and affect positive change.
I will be buffeted and blown about at times, my vehicle is but human flesh, but the tides that are beneath the surface are stronger than any winds that may blow above, and therefore I will stay true to my course, even if it appears that I'm travelling in the opposite direction to everyone else!
I am a Magickal Being, I am Divine, because I am of the One Divine Life, just as the One Divine Life if of me. My goal, my aim, my desire, is to truly experience and reflect that most awesome and powerful of connections. To know, even as I am fully known. I seek the true, real and powerful initiation of the manifestation of the Higher Self within me, and I know that this brings a real, deep, intimate and personal challenge.
My tarot meditations of the past two weeks have made this challenge abundantly clear. Now is the time were I have to be serious about bringing down those pillars, those constructs, those beliefs and patterns that have reinforced the illusion of self. I have bought into my own personal hype too often! I can't avoid this - I have to truly experience the path of the 'little deaths' if I am to truly experience the manifestation of Higher Self. There are no shortcuts, and I've known this forever, yet still I shy away. This can happen no more. I have to let go of those things that are contrary to my own course, those things that will only bring inner conflict, those things that are at odds to my genuine calling and my true purpose in being here. To continue with them is to only continue this sense of separation from my True Self, and my True Self is Divine.
My desire now is to bring my manhood up into my Godhood. 'I live here on earth but my race is from the starry heavens' and I want this to shift from knowledge to experience. The mighty experience of last nights New Moon ritual has underlined and emphasised this truth.
It's been an incredible couple of weeks. A couple of weeks that throws so many things up in the air, yet at the same time makes so many things so perfectly clear. I don't see an easy road ahead, but I see a road that I want to walk, a path that I do not want to avoid or sidestep, yes, it will bring growing pains, but the alternative is not worthy of my consideration.
Things are changing on a personal, professional, spiritual and magickal plane for me. All is shifting and moving, all is fluid. At the centre of this is a movement in my spiritual experience, an embracing of a more magickal aspect to my spiritual practice. I don't fully know or understand how this is going to pan out, I don't fully understand the steps I have been taking of late, but this I know: they are the right steps, they are steps of Divine initiation and they are the steps in which I wish to walk.
As ever, it's a case of watch this space!
I have discovered a real power and strength in embracing my Own True Will, that is, being who I truly am and embracing my own course. I have a real sense of taking up my place on the Web Of Life, and I know the vibration that I send out on this Web. My actions, and indeed inaction, affect others on the Web, just as theirs affect me. We are interconnected and interdependent. Together, the notes of our collective vibrations are the orchestra of life.
All this leads to me having a new and sustained belief in myself, a confidence and strength. This comes not from some kind of puffed up, egotistical, conceited pride, or, equally as disastrous, from some kind of false or introverted humility, but rather from a real sense of who and what I am. Believing in myself, truly moving into that place of spiritual confidence, has been a theme of this New Moon - believing in my own inner relationship. And this confidence, this embracing of my own True Will, leads me away from the supplicating "if it be thy will" of my archaic Christian past, into a new place of where I can make it happen and affect positive change.
I will be buffeted and blown about at times, my vehicle is but human flesh, but the tides that are beneath the surface are stronger than any winds that may blow above, and therefore I will stay true to my course, even if it appears that I'm travelling in the opposite direction to everyone else!
I am a Magickal Being, I am Divine, because I am of the One Divine Life, just as the One Divine Life if of me. My goal, my aim, my desire, is to truly experience and reflect that most awesome and powerful of connections. To know, even as I am fully known. I seek the true, real and powerful initiation of the manifestation of the Higher Self within me, and I know that this brings a real, deep, intimate and personal challenge.
My tarot meditations of the past two weeks have made this challenge abundantly clear. Now is the time were I have to be serious about bringing down those pillars, those constructs, those beliefs and patterns that have reinforced the illusion of self. I have bought into my own personal hype too often! I can't avoid this - I have to truly experience the path of the 'little deaths' if I am to truly experience the manifestation of Higher Self. There are no shortcuts, and I've known this forever, yet still I shy away. This can happen no more. I have to let go of those things that are contrary to my own course, those things that will only bring inner conflict, those things that are at odds to my genuine calling and my true purpose in being here. To continue with them is to only continue this sense of separation from my True Self, and my True Self is Divine.
My desire now is to bring my manhood up into my Godhood. 'I live here on earth but my race is from the starry heavens' and I want this to shift from knowledge to experience. The mighty experience of last nights New Moon ritual has underlined and emphasised this truth.
It's been an incredible couple of weeks. A couple of weeks that throws so many things up in the air, yet at the same time makes so many things so perfectly clear. I don't see an easy road ahead, but I see a road that I want to walk, a path that I do not want to avoid or sidestep, yes, it will bring growing pains, but the alternative is not worthy of my consideration.
Things are changing on a personal, professional, spiritual and magickal plane for me. All is shifting and moving, all is fluid. At the centre of this is a movement in my spiritual experience, an embracing of a more magickal aspect to my spiritual practice. I don't fully know or understand how this is going to pan out, I don't fully understand the steps I have been taking of late, but this I know: they are the right steps, they are steps of Divine initiation and they are the steps in which I wish to walk.
As ever, it's a case of watch this space!
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Scary and Exciting!
I have a feeling that my post today will fall into the 'incoherent rambling' category, but then, I do warn potential readers that my blog may carry such entries on my tag line! Consider yourself warned!
I really feel that I am on a mighty learning curve at the moment, and that this is something Goddess and God really want me to learn. I picked up a book this afternoon (I have a bookshelf full of unread books!) and began to read a little book by Amber K called 'True Magick'. It's a book that I've been drawn to for some time, but the pressure of work, doing up the house, doing the garden and a host of other excuses have kept me from it. All excuses I know, we can make time when we want to I guess.
Anyway, this book seems to take up where I left off from my post yesterday, and from the wonderful comments some of you have been making. I'm only about 70 pages into the little book, but it's as though it's talking directly at me. It's clearly the time for me to be reading it! Part of it confirms stuff that I've known for years and have been taught at various trainings along the way, but it also looks at things from a slightly different angle, or at times from a totally different perspective, and therefore old truths seem fresh.
What's amazing is that these first few pages are covering things that I have been learning directly from Spirit in recent weeks, and have been talking about here in the past week or so.
Firstly, I was once again struck by the fact that the path I walk is a path of personal transformation. I've spoken this week of the Death card being turned in my tarot meditation, and Amber K talks of this in the very first few pages of her book. She talks of the magickal path being one of great courage because each change is what is she calls a 'little death' and each 'little death' is part of rebirth. This is about the surrender of the old self in order to find a greater Life. Typing the words both chill and excite me at the same time. It's exciting because what is actually an act of self-sacrifice; giving up the little-persona self, leads to encountering the Greater Self, and this Greater Self is God/dess, because we are all part of The All. We are, each of us, part of All That Is. Wow, it just blows my mind the more I think of it! It's something I've always known, in my head, but I think that today the reality of it is travelling from my head to my heart and from my heart into my spirit.
Coupled with is I've been struck by the inner relationship between Talking Self (conscious), Younger Self (sub-conscious) and Higher Self (God Self). I've been drawn to the Younger Self today. Some people call it the Lower Self, Freud referred to it as Id. It's pretty amazing that I should fall upon these pages today, following my work with Darkness yesterday. In the Younger Self are my emotions, my feelings, my desires, drives, memories. Also, here in Younger Self is the person I was intended to be before name and form - the Free Child of TA, before adaptation. All those things that are hidden, yet motivate me and my behaviours are in Younger Self.
Just as yesterday I was drawn to explore my dark side and those things that are hidden within shadow so I have been exalted, through the pages of Amber K's book, to establish a relationship with my Younger Self. I'm reading Younger Self as the Child ego state of TA, yet this requires taking things to a much deeper level than the pages of I'm Okay, You're Okay, (a book that I read many, many years ago). Exploring and encountering Younger Self is going to be something of a painful journey. Whilst I consider myself to be very self aware I sense there are things that I am going to be confronted with that may hurt and surprise me, yet I sense this is where I need to be going at the moment. Clearly a pattern for now is coming together and there are things that I need to learn on my path to becoming a Magickal Being. For now it's about getting to know my Younger Self and those aspects of me that have remained hidden, or purposefully buried, for some time. From here is going to flow energy that I've not known the like of before.
It's both scary and exciting!
I really feel that I am on a mighty learning curve at the moment, and that this is something Goddess and God really want me to learn. I picked up a book this afternoon (I have a bookshelf full of unread books!) and began to read a little book by Amber K called 'True Magick'. It's a book that I've been drawn to for some time, but the pressure of work, doing up the house, doing the garden and a host of other excuses have kept me from it. All excuses I know, we can make time when we want to I guess.
Anyway, this book seems to take up where I left off from my post yesterday, and from the wonderful comments some of you have been making. I'm only about 70 pages into the little book, but it's as though it's talking directly at me. It's clearly the time for me to be reading it! Part of it confirms stuff that I've known for years and have been taught at various trainings along the way, but it also looks at things from a slightly different angle, or at times from a totally different perspective, and therefore old truths seem fresh.
What's amazing is that these first few pages are covering things that I have been learning directly from Spirit in recent weeks, and have been talking about here in the past week or so.
Firstly, I was once again struck by the fact that the path I walk is a path of personal transformation. I've spoken this week of the Death card being turned in my tarot meditation, and Amber K talks of this in the very first few pages of her book. She talks of the magickal path being one of great courage because each change is what is she calls a 'little death' and each 'little death' is part of rebirth. This is about the surrender of the old self in order to find a greater Life. Typing the words both chill and excite me at the same time. It's exciting because what is actually an act of self-sacrifice; giving up the little-persona self, leads to encountering the Greater Self, and this Greater Self is God/dess, because we are all part of The All. We are, each of us, part of All That Is. Wow, it just blows my mind the more I think of it! It's something I've always known, in my head, but I think that today the reality of it is travelling from my head to my heart and from my heart into my spirit.
Coupled with is I've been struck by the inner relationship between Talking Self (conscious), Younger Self (sub-conscious) and Higher Self (God Self). I've been drawn to the Younger Self today. Some people call it the Lower Self, Freud referred to it as Id. It's pretty amazing that I should fall upon these pages today, following my work with Darkness yesterday. In the Younger Self are my emotions, my feelings, my desires, drives, memories. Also, here in Younger Self is the person I was intended to be before name and form - the Free Child of TA, before adaptation. All those things that are hidden, yet motivate me and my behaviours are in Younger Self.
Just as yesterday I was drawn to explore my dark side and those things that are hidden within shadow so I have been exalted, through the pages of Amber K's book, to establish a relationship with my Younger Self. I'm reading Younger Self as the Child ego state of TA, yet this requires taking things to a much deeper level than the pages of I'm Okay, You're Okay, (a book that I read many, many years ago). Exploring and encountering Younger Self is going to be something of a painful journey. Whilst I consider myself to be very self aware I sense there are things that I am going to be confronted with that may hurt and surprise me, yet I sense this is where I need to be going at the moment. Clearly a pattern for now is coming together and there are things that I need to learn on my path to becoming a Magickal Being. For now it's about getting to know my Younger Self and those aspects of me that have remained hidden, or purposefully buried, for some time. From here is going to flow energy that I've not known the like of before.
It's both scary and exciting!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
