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After spending some time thinking over the Mars omen I'd received and written about a short while back, I think I have some better understanding what it was about.

I don't think it was about the god himself, I was past that assumption almost as soon as I hit post. Why would a Roman war god reach out to me? I'd written; yeah, why indeed? He probably wouldn't. One of those old problems I see too often, a mistake I've seen people indulging in over and over - don't try and make a sign more than what it is. Start small, because small is probably more accurate. If a god is trying to get your attention, it'll pile up.

So I turned my focus to the planet, or planetary energies. And there things started making more sense. With a possible confirmation, assuming that I've gotten this hint before, that's it is connected to something that had popped into my head a long time ago that I never worked out the meaning of. It was a string of discoveries and associations that had led me to reading a bit about Celtic Mars, one of the things consistent with the notion I'd had, one of the few things about it I was solid on, was a water element. Celtic Mars has associations with water. And, turns out, so does Mars itself, it's a water planet (elementary knowledge to most of you who may be reading this I am sure, it's not an area I'd looked much into before and always just assumed fire; the more you know...).

Not everything that popped through my head during meditations the last few highly confusing years was complete garbage, meant to keep the chaotic cycle going; there were moments of real intuition, nudges, insight into the way things were going that would be confirmed some short time later. One of those was to make an amulet, or piece of jewelry, something to wear for Mars (not the god, the planet, the energies). Two pieces of what would be needed came to me right away (and later proven to be good choices when I looked up correspondences), the third piece on the other hand didn't come through as clear, the few things I tried out didn't work so well and so the project got shelved while I thought it over. It had been a year at least.

I considered the omen might, in part, be reminding me about that outstanding project. I was just starting to read Circles of Power when I determined to finish it, and that very day I came across something in that book that caught my interest and seemed relevant to the project, potentially narrowing down that mystery third piece. What I read sent me to Natural Magic looking for an appropriate correspondence and lo and behold, there was something there unexpected, and that I just happened to have on hand. Put it with the other parts and it went together beautifully.

Project complete. And it is always satisfying to get to cross some long standing item off the to do list.

I think, in the end, the omen was about energy I need to cultivate in my life. Strength, willpower. The bird, the woodpecker, lying flat on the ground, unable to move, until that flash of energy that brought him to his feet, up and away. That bird could be the state of my life right now, telling me what I need to get up, to move on.

In examining my behaviors, current and relatively recent, I can see the signs clearly. My confidence is absolutely shot, gone, dead, decayed; it causes me to retreat where I can, lash out defensively where I can not. Recognizing this means I can pull back much of the latter, but not halt the former. It's little wonder. Leaving aside the overall pattern of my life in general, the last decade or so has been especially turbulent, marked by repeated loss, restrictions, peeling things away; destructive friendships that ended destructively, living in difficult circumstances in places I hated that made me miserable, poor health. And the massive spiritual loss on top of it all, something that I'd once been so certain of, had formed a good part of my identity around, my aspirations and future plans, and it was gone and maybe had never really been. And how had I gotten that so wrong, why had it taken me so long to see? Of course my confidence is gone, of course I'm reluctant to really get involved in anything else.

I know, sooner or later, I'm just going to have to do something: pick a direction, hope for the best, be ready to change directions if I really need to. Strength, willpower, get back on your feet, up and away.

I also need to think. I've seen that in the cards lately as well. At first I mistook it for needing not to think so much, one of those perennial problems I have as a creature that very much lives in my own head only tenuously contact with everything outside of it; now I think it's more a warning that I'm not thinking correctly. I'm too passively accepting of every stray thought and whim, instead of asking myself where they came from, checking their weight and significance, asking myself what I actually think about it. Is this my thought, or did I pluck it out of the ether? Is it in my own words or someone else's? Am I genuinely interested in this, or is it just something I think I can make work, as it once was with NeoPaganism, and might have been with Revival Druidry had the lack of confidence not kept potential activity grounded? I used to be better with that, but must have lost track of the ability at some point; it's something I'll need to develop again.

I shouldn't let it go on much longer. I should spend a short time very intensely thinking this through and make my decision. I'm planning also to put some of JMG's willpower exercises to work, see what I can do about waking my confidence from the coma it's been in. And I got the thing I finally made, that I can wear and let it work its Mars flavored magic.

Barring any further signs, I think the woodpecker omen can be put to rest.

Current Mood: okay

I just finished reading through JMG's Golden Dawn series (Learning Ritual Magic, Paths of Wisdom, Circles of Power). It's given me a lot to think about, and a decision that has to be made.

I want to start practicing magic; I've identified problem areas and character flaws that I think would benefit from it (and said same problems and flaws likely put spiritual practice out of reach for the time being at least). I have been wanting something like this for a few years now, but while I have touched a toe in here and there, I haven't really taken the plunge.

I'd started with the Sphere of Protection, and had been looking at possibly doing the Dolmen Arch. My reasons for this were mostly because it was explicitly polytheist, and that felt important at least at the time. It was more of a snap decision than anything else. And I know part of the reason I struggled so hard with getting anywhere with regular practice is the insert your own pantheon nature of the ritual tied it into the quagmire my spiritual life turned into; doing it without gods is possible, but that other possibility was always there and it was hard to keep my mind away from it when it so badly wanted to work this out. But is that really the only thing that was getting in the way, for the last few years of trying and failing?

With my head in a clearer space and focused on other issues, I started to have some misgivings about the system itself, SoP aside. One big piece of that is the central role of mythology in the system. I do not like Celtic mythology. Don't ask why, I have no idea, I've never been able to pinpoint whatever it has or doesn't that absolutely can not hook my interest. For a number of reasons I had been trying to cultivate an interest for a while now, and I can say I have developed some appreciated for the culture, love the languages, and certain mythological themes as written in books analyzing them can be mildly interesting, overall it's just not my cup of tea and it's never going to be.

The Welsh stuff is a little better than the Irish, in that I actually had read it, years ago, got all the way through it, too. Never been able to do the Irish stories. It's the opposite with the characters populating the stories: the Irish gods seems more lively and dynamic on paper, if you were to just describe them, but the stories that star them are too dull for me to get through; the Welsh stories are more readable, but the characters in them, with one shining exception, are flat and uninteresting. Again, I don't know why, it just is and has always been that way.

I have wondered once or twice, if it is possible to have a connection with a deity while having no connection to their mythology? There are people worshipping deities now who have survived into the present with nothing more than a name intact, and maybe those worshippers are getting something there despite knowing nothing really about the deity. Does that also work for a god whose personality and symbolism you find intriguing but their surviving lore impossible to read?

Having read the Mabinogian once, I had no real desire to read it again; having now read it twice, I have no real desire to read it a third time. There are mythologies that I would probably love to take the time to meditate over line by line. Taking into consideration the active lack of interest I have in Celtic mythology, is it really a good idea to tackle something that makes the intense study of it a central part of training? Would I be able to tease out the hidden meaning in a story where I can't even connect with its surface level? When it serves as a barrier to the stuff in the course I find more interesting (like the philosophy, or more advanced ritual work), am I only setting myself up for frustration and failure? Maybe it's something better looked at later on, much later on, after I've had some success with system better suited to my present needs?

I have not made up my mind yet, but those are things to consider.

Somewhat related to that might be Druidry and my relationship with it. I do seem to keep falling in with Druids without even trying to, and there is probably something to that; on the other hand, I always end up on the periphery of it, never fully joining in, and there may be something to that as well, aside from my standoffish nature. JMG's writings made Revival Druidry more appealing than anything I'd previously come across, like say Philip Carr-Gomm's work (no offense to the guy, I suspect our personalities are a bit too different, don't speak the same language). I remember the first time I read about the history of the movement in The Druidry Handbook that they sound like a cool group of people I'd love to hang out with. Likewise in the present day, a cool group of people I don't mind hanging out with (or sharing internet space with, and I'm much more exclusive there now than I used to be), but does that make me a Druid? Or just Druid Adjacent?

Let's tackle the issue of nature worship, and hope nothing I say is too controversial. While I was involved in NeoPaganism, I spent more time then in the Reconstructionist branches were nature worship was downplayed or non existent. Even where it was most present, in ADF, something about its expression there often struck me as insincere (beyond just watching people vomit environmental slogans and then get in their SUV to drive absolutely everywhere you need to go, however short the distance, you live in the city and could've walked, or taken the bus). JMG's various works and a Ronald Hutton book helped me to pinpoint just what it was that I saw (liberal virtue signaling on the one hand, on the other a deep seated hatred of the modern world and their lives in it, where nature is loved less for itself than for what it symbolizes: the very opposite of life in the modern world, an idyllic Eden that man has fallen from and which you're trying to get back to). Revival Druidry, on the other hand, has people that do seem sincere, their nature worship is more grounded in reality, expressed in something more than hashtag slogans and posturing, expressed in their whole way of living.

The exposure to more sincere people has given me an appreciation I didn't have before among the NeoPagans. As much appreciation as a city dwelling recluse like myself can have. Sometimes, standing on the beach staring out into the ocean, or sitting in a nearby park atop a hill with a view of the city and beyond that stretches out for miles, I can see its appeal. But I also know if nature worship was my focus, if it was all that I did, it would not be satisfying, it would leave something out. A secondary function, maybe, an important supplement, and possibly one reason I keep finding myself attracted to Druids while also never quite getting involved; maybe something I should look more into when I get my head on straight again. But not the primary focus, no, not the thing I need the most at this point in time.

What is that thing? I'm not completely sure. Probably what I've been looking for and not finding in the various places I've been: NeoPaganism, ADF, Revival Druidry, Reconstructionism, spirit work, etc. Now here in magic.

What resonates with me? Freedom, transformation, initiation; communion with the gods; discipline and willpower, being focused intensely in a single direction to bring a particular passion to life. I don't have those latter qualities, I can untangle myself from places I don't want to be, let go of the outside factors that often get in the way of such pursuits, not so good at the moving forward; I wasn't taught discipline, I was kind of imprinted with its opposite, it's something I will need to develop. I suspect sometimes that the particular direction my life took, in adulthood at least, that gift the universe gave me, was meant to give me the space and the freedom to work on myself. And I'd be further along on that path if I didn't misunderstand the message, thought it meant something different and included different benefits and had to learn the hard way that no, that's not for you.

So with this in mind, there was something I liked better in reading the Golden Dawn books. I liked what seemed like a focus on personal and spiritual development that seemed to be absent from other books I'd read - not to say such systems aren't capable of spiritual development, but maybe that it isn't the primary focus? I also liked, in LRM, the more compact lessons, two weeks and then we review. I think that is a better approach for a beginner in order to measure their progress than one that takes three months at a minimum and probably longer (three months can be a very long time). I also found myself intrigued by the Cabala, the Tree of Life, more so than I might've thought I would be. It could be interesting to work through that system and see what it does.

What turns me off about it? The Judeo-Christian elements. Easier to ignore in LRM, became impossible to do so in CoP.

I don't have the bug up my butt about Christianity that one would commonly see in NeoPagan circles (the demonization of Christianity was something I complained about often when I was in them), my mother attempted to raise me Catholic but it didn't take, I dropped out at age ten and that was the end of that. That said, I've never found Christianity even remotely appealing, its exoteric organizations and beliefs offer me nothing that I want, I disagree with its view of divinity, human nature, the world; I don't like the ugliness it's historically responsible for, but recognize its days as a conquering power that will save you whether you want to be saved or not even if it has to kill you to do so is well behind it, thus there is very little point in walking around with a chip on my shoulder about it. I do feel a certain antipathy for it that I do for anything I have no interest in but that the culture has embraced to such an extent that it decides no, I'm not allowed to opt out - so basically the same antipathy I have toward, say, Harry Potter and Marvel movies. I don't like the way it has become the default, that its ideas are equated with religion itself, defined on its terms only as though its terms are what all religions must be and must offer; same with its notion of divinity as a single thing, and the only conceivable options for most people are to accept that or to believe in nothing at all. I tend to think that situation won't remain in place for much longer, that it is already starting to break apart; for long though doesn't mean I'll live to see it or reap its full benefits.

I read in one book Golden Dawn is explicitly and solely monotheistic and that's just the way it is; I think JMG's work on the Celtic and forthcoming Heathen Golden Dawn have shown that not to be true. Or Damien Echols, who seemed to be more focused on what one could easily call the pantheon of angels, that, if I remember him correctly, he kind of divorced from traditional Christianity's tribal god, beings that pay allegiance to the higher universal order and not any particular religion (very possible, in a general sense, the divine lines likely do not lay just where people here think they do). The system also includes ideas of ultimate unity, common to everything I've thus far read, that I'm not sure I completely agree with in the manner it is presented in, but that (when divorced from traditional monotheism and the Christian god) is a minor quibble; the places where it might matter are nowhere I'd be touching anytime soon.

It would probably make life easier to find something that lines up well with my religious beliefs, or doesn't contradict them too badly. The problem is, I'm not sure that system exists right now. Whether I like it or not, right now most traditional occultism is steeped in Christianity and monotheism; some people are working to change that, but it is moving at the pace that such things do. Do I want to sit around and wait for an experienced occultist to come along and make a decent system that actually works centering around a pantheon I am drawn to, however long that might take? Or do I figure out how to work with what I have to work with? What compromises am I willing to make, at least in the beginning when I'm too ignorant to have much choice, to get where I want to go?

What are the pluses and minuses of each? Invoking certain beings, what attention might that draw, what might it bring into my life and is that something I want? I half imagine, with the traditional Christian elements being the default in occultism for so long, invoked by believers and non believes alike because that's just the way it is, the answer may well be nothing, unless you really want it.

It's something I have to think about: which system will get me where I want to go with the least amount of detours, and what am I willing to compromise on to get there? I'm not sure what I think yet, might have to ask something on Magic Monday, if I can come up with a way to ask without coming across too stupid about it. If anyone happens to be reading this and has advice to offer, feel free.

Current Mood: thoughtful

So, as I said in the previous post, a few weeks ago I ended every practice I was trying to do: spiritual, magical, whatever else. I've entered into a period of contemplation: what I'm doing, where I'm going, what isn't working and why.

It kind of began with a bit of bibliomancy someone did for me on JMG's blog here after I recounted the problems I've been having for a number of years, with my patron relationship having vanished and my attempts to reach out not going well, my mind spitting out one name after another in a maddening spiral that has been increasing in speed in recent times. It mentioned a covenant, which tied into ideas that I'd had myself more than once - that the specific manner in which I'm trying to interact with the gods, the probably ill advised oaths I had once taken and the patterns they set down, were a big part of the problem. Something about that confirmation settled it in my mind, and I waited until the appropriate day to approach my shrine, with the appropriate prayers and make a formal request to be released from these vows.

That bit may have been successful. I have a very hard time trusting any of my instincts, any impression right now; the strong feeling of presence I felt, the words clear in my head, I release you, is more than I have had in a long time.

I tried continuing my practice after that, but in a lot of ways it was the same as it ever been - names continuing to be spat at me at machine gun speed. Until it finally hit the limit of believablity. It took a while, but it finally went and used the one name I know it can't be, the one deity I know for a fact is not and never will be trying to get a hold of me. That was enough to shatter the illusion.

It wasn't pretty or fun when it happened. There was a minor explosion, and the following depression that has been part of the cycle never hit the dark depths of self loathing that just encourage me to get up and try again, it slid right into a sort of numb acceptance, an unhappy peace with the situation where I distracted myself with old video games until this whole knot of stress and misery went away.

An odd side effect of that. We have this cat, adopted her almost two years ago now, so while this whole cycle has been on going, and she's always been very ambivalent toward me; she watches me with some interest from a distance but usually wouldn't go near me. That's since changed. The room mate is still her favorite person, but she sleeps on me all the time,and I can pet her without her sliding away like I'm diseased. I don't know if that is directly related to this (no odd behavior from the other cat, but we have had him a lot longer and he's always loved me best) but the timing lines up and it makes me wonder if I didn't banish something ugly.

I've given up the idea of a spiritual life, for the present moment at least; I'm too broken right now for anything to get through, and the break clearly can not be fixed from that direction.This has been more of a relief than I might once have thought; the desperate search for some meaning I've been compelled to keep up the last several years has worn me out.

But why did this happen? I can point to the dysfunctional ridiculousness of NeoPaganism deep in its end stage, the dysfunctional groups I met and the bad ideas they imparted to me, people who let their personal issues become married to, and centralized into their religious lives until the gods were little more than unhealthy coping mechanisms. That's all true, but what in me was all that able to hook? What was continuing to enact this self defeating cycle long after the dysfunctional people were gone, long after I knew how bad they really were? That's what I've spent a good chunk of this time trying to figure out. And it's not the first time I've picked apart my personal problems, bad patterns of behavior I engage in and the childhood scars that probably cause them, though I don't think I ever got all the way down to the bottom of it.

My life has been most strongly marked by experiences of rejection and exclusion. I'm one of those people that just doesn't get on very well, I always do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, rub everyone the wrong way, I've never been sure of why but it is what it is. I've accepted this, I've been living a hermit like existence for years now that I'm much more well suited to, better than attempting and failing to socialize. None of that made the treatment I received at home or school, from both peers and teachers and administrators (especially that latter) any easier to deal with at the time. I'd accepted that reality at the time, too; having gotten the message loud and clear that you're not welcome here, and being naturally inclined toward solitude I was ready to embrace my outsider status and wander off in my own direction. Oh no, yeah they don't like that. While I was clearly never going to be allowed in the inner circle I was required to want to be there, to live my life with my nose pressed against the glass just hoping someone would give me a chance. I assumed it was so I would be available to be used at will. My refusal to accept this role likely helped to bring about a lot of the trouble and abuse I experienced.

(Yeah, these were mostly upper class people with upper class values. I myself am not, I was from one of the dwindling number of working class families that just barely managed to hold on to their homes when all the rich people moved in and proceeded to drive everyone else out. No doubt this all played a huge part in the way things worked out: the managerial class would be hostile to any child that won't accept their direction and doesn't want their help or approval)

I know some of the problems that linger to this day and have helped contribute to this mess. Like the hard time I have knowing what I want. That's not an instinct I developed, I went the opposite direction, more useful to you when your life is a long series of conflicts and stand offs - if you don't want anything, there is nothing people can bribe you with; if you don't care about anything, there is nothing they can threaten you with. When the conflicts end, it's definitely less useful. I know this has left me with a mostly negative identity: I know what I am not, what I don't want to be, where I don't want to be. Once time passes and you're able to escape the conflict, when you can put distance between yourself and those things and places you don't want so that they're not pressing in on you anymore, well, what then do you have? Combine that with the former problem of not knowing what I want, and my life is one where I drift around in a way I am increasingly uncomfortable with.

That, I think, was one of the things that made that former patron relationship so meaningful, especially when it first came long ago now. It was something positive, something I did have, something I did want, a whispering promise of something that I could one day be. That alone inspired me then to move forward, to take risks, move out of a bad situation, go somewhere new, try new things, all on the basis of this promise of something that I could have. A lot of those moves ultimately didn't end up well for me, blew up in my face, but unfortunately for me I ran into a pop spiritual movement on its downward spiral, into dysfunctional people marrying fantasy with religion; it took time before I could find the trained occultists that actually know what they are talking about, systems of training that look like they will actually work. Still, when I realized that patron relationship had up and vanished, no wonder it made me panic, or try my best to find something similar to replace it.

A lot of this I already knew. This time around, I think I hit a deeper level, another wound and a deeper need that I never saw before, and that ropes in a lot of my other self defeating behaviors.

When my mother rejected me and pushed me into the role of family scapegoat, there were very particular things that came along with that: I was incompetent, I couldn't do anything right and everything I touched turned to shit. My sister was the hero of the family, the responsible one that had to take care of everything but I could not be relied on and would just fuck it up (this meant my sister had a lot of responsibility dumped on her shoulders that she didn't deal well with either). This situation was manufactured through nitpicking, goal post moving, refusing to teach me anything and then berating me later because I didn't know the things she never taught me. My relationship with my mother was very combative, and remained that way until I moved out, she started treating me very differently and things improved between us while my sister gradually took my place in the family hierarchy; I used to think she hated me but now I know it had nothing to do with me, this is just her own self defeating behaviors that she isn't able to see, that unfortunately affect the people around her more than my own do. There was a similar dynamic at school. where teachers decided I was stupid and started to treat me like I was (I never bought that, and was eventually able to prove as much, to my own satisfaction at least); there was the same moving of the goal posts game to ascertain they got what they wanted out of me and never had to give out the reward they had promised; any action that I took that someone else happened to notice was up for criticism and mockery (and I'm down playing this, reading my school record was scary, the degree to which I was monitored, the things people projected onto everything I said and did - I do kind of understand what happened with my mother, but this whole thing I will never get).

And so what did these things teach me? To be an outcast is to be ineffectual. It is to be a failure. That the keys of success, or not even success just basic skill and competency, lie in someone else's hands, and if you aren't able to impress them they won't give you anything (even if they are in a position where they are supposed to, like parent or teacher). I knew that my confidence is not great, but this is a different level from that, not just doubting your own ability but seeing skill wedded to group acceptance in such a way that, as long as you are outside the group, it is entirely off the table, not even an option for you.

So I live in a world that I see as hostile, that was known to be hostile in the past, without much of a social safety net, no one I could turn to for help (not that I would want it anyway, from past experiences of so called help), but at the exact same time I can't do anything to help myself either. I believe the technical term for this is screwed.

I think what lies at the bottom of a lot of what I do is a sense of helplessness, a fear of helplessness, a desire to escape that state but not certain how to do so since the power to do anything lies elsewhere.

And if the one positive thing I had is a connection with another being, someone whose acceptance could open doors of possibility otherwise locked to me, someone whose acceptance had opened doors and what a new experience that was, and then to have to go away? No wonder I've spent the last few years with my head slowly exploding. No wonder I kept repeating behavior patterns I knew weren't getting me anywhere, from this perspective what other option did I have?

And yes, I can also see how a spiritual life, or at least the way I unwittingly came to understand it thanks to those I fell in with, would really not be as helpful here, reinforcing this pattern rather than breaking it.

Taking up magical practice instead may be the best thing I could do. Take power back for myself, take control of my life, develop my own capabilities; deal with these long standing issues, transform myself into a state of health and balance.

Provided of course that I can find it in me to do it. And that's really the issue here, isn't it?

I know that I have an iron will buried under all this baggage, that when I can get it out I can easily accomplish things other people struggle with. If I can give myself a good motivation, if I can convince myself that it is something I can do on my own, that I need no one's help or approval, that I have access to every thing I would need and my success or failure rests with me alone. If I can get both of those things in place, I could do it as easily as I lost weight and got in shape a few years back (with lifestyle changes that I have maintained).

Is magical training something entirely on my own to do? I think because it got tied in with the quagmire my spiritual life turned into (and magic and religion are all but one and the same in so much NeoPaganism) I wasn't seeing it that way, that losing a patronage meant losing that opportunity. It is very likely I need to reexamine that assumption, and then see what I can do for myself here.

Current Mood: calm

I have a post I've been working on in my head about the past few weeks. In very short form, the problems I've been having in my spiritual life came to another head, but this time instead of the event cycling through a depression followed by a renewed determination to not give up, it just kind of... broke, in a more permanent sense. This is not necessarily a bad thing (though I'm not saying it's a wholly good thing either, I'm not sure right now), that previous cycle is one I've gone through a hundred times by now and it never does anything but repeat itself. I have dropped all practices for the last three weeks, spiritual, magical, everything. I have been reevaluating where I am, what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and where I ought to go from here.

I have something to say about all that. But that's not this post. This post is about something weird that happened yesterday.

As a prologue to this, let me bring up a minor incident from the summer, I can't remember exactly when. I happened to be looking out the living room window when I saw a woodpecker land for a few minutes on the small, sad tree growing at a sharp angle along the sidewalk across the street from me. Moving to this city has brought me into contact with a lot more nature than I might've expected, I've seen animals around here I haven't come across before, and that includes woodpeckers that I've encountered two other times, though both of those times were in more forested areas. The area my apartment is in is pretty much the opposite of that, and I was surprised to see him. He hung out on the tree trunk, very clearly visible, for a few minutes before taking off.

I was still thinking about it days later, and started poking around online, out of a curiosity, to see if there was any symbolism or mythological connections. I didn't find much, except that the Romans considered the woodpecker to be Mars's bird. An interesting thought, Mars has come up indirectly more than once in the ever rotating list of names my brain is spitting out at me (but indirectly - Celtic Mars, or Mars as he was worshipped in Gaul and Britain, crossed with Celtic deities - there is another story here, too, but I'm skipping it for now). But the list of names is ever shifting and it is easy enough to say and why would Mars contact you? Yeah, thought so. So I didn't go any further than the quick internet search, moved on to other unproductive paths, remembered the woodpecker as an unusual sighting and thought little else of it.

Now, yesterday.

The room mate and I were going to spend the day at the beach, as I like doing as often as I can in the spring and fall (I loathe the heat and crowds, so I avoid it in the summer). She went off in one direction to pick up some food, I wandered down another to get closer to transportation. And as I'm walking, in my path I see a bird lying in the middle of the sidewalk. Looked like a corpse, wouldn't be the first time, and I had to cross the street anyway so I started angling away from it. But I could see it wasn't a pigeon, or one of the other garden variety birds one sees all over the place, so I decided I was curious enough to know what it was and walked closer instead.

It was a woodpecker, as I'm sure you guessed. Coming closer also revealed the bird was alive, I could see it breathing.

I ended up squatting down on the sidewalk next to the bird, I got close enough I could watch him blinking. That's all he was doing, lying there on his stomach, with his head turned to the side, breathing and blinking. Some time passed, he didn't move or react much to my presence. I wasn't sure if he was hurt and I didn't want to just leave him there. I contacted the room mate to let her know what was going on, and she's looking to see who we could call.

This is over the course of ten minutes. I'm looking at the bird, and my vision starts suddenly blurring; I can still see him just fine, but the sidewalk around him is shifting. It was like what used to happen sometimes when I was doing the Sphere of Protection, being able to actually see the energy around you. Looked like a lot of it right there, more than I was used to seeing.

Then the bird suddenly snaps up, he's up on his feet, hunched forward and looking upward. Another minute, and he flies away.

Okay then. I continue on my way.

I keep thinking about it though. As far as signs, as omens go, it's a more powerful one than the first. I don't expect to see a woodpecker outside my window in an inner city neighborhood, but i can happen; this is a bird I wouldn't have expected to see, lying in my path (a relatively private path, too, this is not a heavily trafficked area I was walking through, I might see one car going by, one other person, often not even that - the bird and I had all the privacy in the world there) and behaving unusually.

Once upon a time, I probably would've acted on it without much second thought. But at this particular point in time, after everything that has been going through my head the last three weeks. Stopping the quest to fix things was only hard the first few days, it was, overall, a mental relief. Coming to better understand what was really motivating that quest. Coming to peace with the fact that the old patron relationship I once had is indeed gone, and furthermore that I might not be able to have a spiritual life right now, maybe not for a long time to come; that maybe that will be okay, maybe I need to focus on something else right now.

So I'm taking it seriously. But at the same time, I do not want to start that old cycle again. I don't want to see something, assume something, start chasing after something, that isn't there, because I want it to be there, want something to be there.

I'm standing alone on the beach, and I offer up a quick prayer. As odd as that encounter was, I can't accept it as an omen by itself. For all these very sane reasons. If this really was an omen, if this meant something, someone trying to get my attention, then I need a second omen to back it up.

What sort of omen? I wonder to myself, what would count, what could I not dismiss? Probably too much to ask that Mars drops a second woodpecker on my head in one day. Number symbolism? Didn't know any off the top of my head. Planetary sign? I did know it of course, but no. A image of a Roman solider? Might work, but how likely might that be? Or how about this, how about I just see the word Mars somewhere before I get home today. That didn't seem likely either, but what else could I use.

I keep an eye out for a while, but there is little else to see on the beach, too few other people to introduce any random events. The day goes by, at the end of it I've walked ten miles and even my eyebrows hurts, and I still got to walk home. I get back to the city, sleepwalking just about, trying to move as quick as I'm able to. Pass the more populated areas and I'm about to go into the same relatively people free zone I was in that morning; passing the street light where I see someone has tacked up some notice, a piece of paper in a plastic envelope, facing out toward the busier street. I'm not paying much attention to it or anything else, but I must've scanned just enough of it to make me stop.

Project M.A.R.S.

I think it was about a research study, something about drugs and alcohol. It didn't really sink in, it was beside the point.

I got my second omen. Exactly the one I'd asked for, in exactly the time frame I specified.

It's certainly a lot clearer than anything else has been in a number of years. There have been a couple odd random events that might have meant something (something I'm possibly not interpreting correctly), but an odd random event couple with a specifically asked for one?

Room mate threw some tarot cards down for me this morning, just to clarify. They were mostly wands. It seemed to be further confirmation.

I said if I got the second omen I'd do something about it. So I suppose I now have to do something about it. And not go completely off the rails with it either. I've started thinking clearly again, don't want to lose that.

The other post will come, it just might take a little longer with this new development.

What would a god like Mars (Celtic Mars? some form of Mars?) want to do with me? Still a good question, I suppose it's one I'll have to ask.

Current Mood: surprised

One bit of unequivocal good news: I've found the one habit I can build in the summer, that may even best be built in the summer. This is my worst season, I loathe the heat (something which has gotten more pronounced over the years; perhaps I'll be some weird reverse old person and retire to Alaska), melted into an uncomfortable puddle of uselessness only the most deeply ingrained habits can find any expression. A quick cold water scrub down first thing in the morning though, that's been going very well and the miserable weather hasn't once gotten in the way.

As for the rest, the Watcher at the Threshold is still kicking my ass. Though I do keep getting back up again. Not moving forward, which is beginning to drive me a little insane, but still getting up.

And I'm almost certain that's what this is, more and more that's what it looks like this is. Not doing anything wrong per se, just a hurdle you need to get past. Timing isn't great, since I'm still coming off several bad years and bad spiritual direction I'm still getting rid of, still not very confident I know where I'm going thanks to all that time when I really didn't - but the universe doesn't care about that, you just got to deal. It's one reason among many I keep getting tripped up.

The other part is I don't think it's enough to just do the Sphere of Protection and meditate every day, or pick up the Dolmen Arch (or some other magical training) and just start (I'm not doing that until I can at least do the SoP every day without fail for an appropriate length of time that I know it will continue). I have managed to beat back those negative feelings and keep going before, at first, but it doesn't last. There needs to be a spiritual component, I need someone to worship, something to connect to; it's too vital a piece to go forward without, it was the source of the worst spiritual damage I've experienced, and it's one piece that so far has just not wanted to fall into place.

I couldn't just pick something and go with it, after all that happened I wasn't sure what it was I wanted, much less where I would be welcome or not. I spend time in meditation trying to work through it, and my brain spits back a dizzying array of different names from different pantheons, jumping from one name to another like a little kid on a sugar high. This is not the way my brain usually acts, it was disconcerting and seemed to add to the impression that I was doing something wrong. None of those names seemed to work out much in practice, beyond a day or two, though I will admit I wasn't sure just what confirmation I'm looking for - does something really feel wrong or is it insecurity?

Last week, when the Watcher knocked me on my ass again, I had something of an insight, in the midst of an otherwise unpleasant moment. I realized that wild cacophony of deity names my brain was randomly spitting at me, was a little less random than appeared. There was one or two specific things they tended to have in common, to one degree or another, that I hadn't noticed until that point.

Is that what has been going on? Regardless of what pantheon you settle with, this, this particular thing they all have in common, is the energy you need in your life right now, so that is what will greet you at the door?

It led to another thought: is that what I did the first time around, too? Subconsciously summon someone whose gifts I most needed right then, and being a complete noob I didn't question it when he showed right up (and later, thanks to bad advice and no real training, misunderstood what was going on leading to endless problems down the road)? Is the reason he has faded into the background to do with my not needing those gifts as much anymore?

I don't know, and I admit the idea that's what I was doing makes me a little uncomfortable. It reminds me too much of the me centered NeoPaganism, "using" the gods for whatever you can get from them, that I never had much respect for. Though I know that was never really what I was doing, then or now, something in me winces at it still.

Though that did set my mind going down a very particular track, that I may not have reached otherwise.

Several weeks ago, before this insight, I began another minor project that I'd hoped would start to help. I decided I would learn more about Egyptian religion, gods, mythology. I picked Egypt because it was a pantheon I knew almost nothing about, and I never interacted much with anyone who worshipped those deities, so they are free of any past association. I'd started out Greek, but feel it may be best to get away from that for a while, if not permanently, all things considered; and I think I'm well done trying to make Celtic gods work, my odd habit of hanging around Druids and Druid organizations does not extend to an even remote attraction to Celtic mythology, and the gods themselves remain very ephemeral. So, Egypt: focus the mind, commit to reading a few books, learn what you can, see what happens, if nothing else you'll be on one and only one thing for a little while. And of course my brain almost immediately picked out an Egyptian name to add to the din, one that made absolutely no sense to me, but turned out to fit that pattern I've only recently noticed.

I leaned into it. Then leaned away in confusion, only to lean back in harder after my insight. The thoughts have expanded to include at least two other deities from the same pantheon. I said I didn't know then what I was waiting for, but perhaps I'm starting to get some small idea? A mythological element? A story I could love? One that inspires, points a way forward, that I could use like a tool to get out of my mess?

It's been an interesting last week. Where I've started thinking about the problem from a different angle, and from this new vantage point a potential solution occurred to me, one I have not tried before. I don't want to say too much ahead of time, I want to try it out and see how it works. Fill my mind with this notion, soak in that imagery, work on that particular connection, whatever it takes, and when next the Watcher on the Threshold appears, we'll see if it goes any differently.

Shouldn't take too long. It never does.

Current Mood: determined

In moments of calm, I can sometimes hear this whisper in the back of my mind - that if I step back and look rationally at recent events in my life, there is evidence, good reason to think, that someone out there may still be watching over me.

My once divine relationship began when I had one of those intense personal encounters that I don't think most people ever experience, much less within the first tentative baby steps toward a religious practice; after a fairly short time of the most basic sort of worship, he arranged a few days of unexpected privacy in order to speak to me in a more up close and personal way. He told me I needed to move out; this was not news to me, but life at the time was, shall we say, less than good and the end result of a childhood of less than good was that I seemed to be stuck with no good options for escape (a fact that the adults around me pretty much agreed with, they wrote me off real early on). He told me if I agreed to his proposal that he would make the arrangements, all I had to do was say yes and go when he told me to go. In the end, I agreed; it only took two weeks - a string of improbable coincidences involving one of the few friends online I then had, and a room mate that decided for whatever unknown reason to abruptly leave and never return.

Moving on very short notice a thousand miles away, to a city you've never been to, to live with someone you've never met, would probably strike most people as too insane, and that's even without the additional baggage I was bringing to the table. I did it though, and somehow it all worked out.

That was my TSW moment. Or a close equivalent thereof. Whatever has happened in the years between, however difficult things got, I could never be a non believer.

A few years back I'd found myself stuck again living in a city that I loathed, that made me miserable even without all the other problems going on at the time. I ended up there as a result of decisions that I should not have made, though if I'm honest I have to admit I don't know what other decisions I could've made at the time; there was a recession, things were starting to look a little desperate, and hey, the financial side of things worked out, even if the locale and the local community left everything to be desired. I wanted to be more proactive about that, when I came out of the fog of depression group involvement had cast over me, I and my room mate wanted to get the hell out of there; we picked a new city and started making plans, saving money. Those plans still required a bit of luck, that luck came after a year; we might've been hoping for an option that allowed the room mate to keep her job, but at least when the universe closed that option down and forced our hand, it did allow the move to happen swiftly and smoothly.

Room mate lost her job a year ago, and after a few frustrating months (the second time we were reduced to my disability income only and yet somehow managed to get through it intact) she wound up with something that wasn't even as good as the last crappy job, but would still pay the bills and, most important turns out, was virus proof. Didn't know that was coming, but we both breathed a sigh of relief knowing she'd keep working when a lot of other people weren't.

And just now, she got an email from a recruiter about another virus proof job, one that pays a little better and has benefits. A couple days after she started making inquiries, her current employers announced that the government office they do work for is considering ending their contract and moving everything in house instead; they're trying to convince the government to change its mind by taking away employee benefits and slashing people's hours, which is hardly any good either. Just as that is starting to take off, she's already got a new job so we'll be avoiding that.

When I agreed to the original deal, I'd said that it needed to work out; I knew damn well if I left my mother's house the door would slam shut behind me, I wouldn't have anywhere else to go. He promised it would. When it comes to money, to having a roof over my head, those things have always been good, and when they haven't been I manage to skate by quicker and easier than I probably should. I can sometimes have good luck in those areas, areas that are firmly within his wheelhouse.

I also think about how I made the decision to create an account here and start trying to participate just in time to join in a conversation about the failures of ADF and potentially starting a new deity focused druid group. When that is one of the things I struggle with, finding a new foundation to build worship on, something different enough to banish old thought patterns. I don't know what will come of this, maybe just a small book of prayer and ritual structure with some actual decent advice, or maybe an online group I can get in on the ground floor of. Either one would be beneficial to me right now, and it was good to see I'm far from the only person wanting something like this, sick and tired of the LARPing quality of NeoPaganism.

There were other noteworthy synchronicities that coincided with my finding this space online, nothing I want to get into right now but more than enough to suggest that I am where I ought to be. It's been a while since I've been in a place where I got to watch these meaningful coincidences pile up like that; for real, that is, not groups of people seeing what they want to see, or telling other people what they should be seeing in order to get something they want.

This doesn't change what I already know, that this god is not directly accessible to me, for now and possibly forever. The reasons my original approach was such a mistake just keep on piling up; there is a whole lot of imbalance I need to correct. But, in those calm moments when I listen to this whispering voice and think on what it means, it is comforting to know that he may still be around, in the background, keeping to the terms of our initial agreement. Or if not him then arrangements were made.

Definitely far preferable to the Petty Jerk God my last brush against NeoPaganism brought me into contact with, the image that was presented to me as though I should adopt it. Maybe especially after that, it's encouraging to see the trust I showed when I made that leap of faith many years ago was not misplaced. That was the founding brick my whole faith in the gods was built on, and as long as it stands it can be rebuilt again.

Current Mood: grateful

So I think I got a surprise bit of help on my question of how to fix things with the gods, one of those fun bits of synchronicity. I read JMG's latest blog post, even though I am nowhere near caught up on the book club and thus usually leave those posts alone, and I saw in there a discussion of degradation and spirit obsession.

I think that's what happened to me, I think that's what has had me trapped in one place for such a long time. The thing I need to let go of.

I think I've been inching up to something like this, a little at a time, but not knowing enough to put the image in the right order. When I first started trying to unravel this mess, I didn't even want to bring up that group, I didn't want to play the everything bad that happens to me is someone else's fault, I have no responsibility for my failures I am always somebody's victim card that they did so well. But it was hard to ignore, no matter how I thought about it, the problems I was having can be always be traced right back to their doorstep, that is where it began. Furthermore, the longer I looked at the ruins they had left behind, the more it seemed I was not the only victim, even if I may have been one of the few that recognized the problem because I didn't embrace the delusion.

I mention one case where I think parasitic entities might have been involved. It was kind of an extreme case, of all of them she went the most insane (then again she wasn't very stable to begin with, as I found out the hard way), and for a short while there she was in my house, so this was something I had a front row seat for. By this point, she'd left named deities behind and was involved with some spirits let's say that she'd come in contact with; other people claimed to have extensive contact with these entities, but most of them were very close to her and parroted everything she said. I can only say I felt something brush against me a couple of times, enough that I do think she wasn't (just) playing around, that something was there but it wasn't what she said it was, her whole practice was very different from the way she portrayed it online - far grubbier, and comical. Aside from this one case, I've never been sure; I started doubting that people were really dealing with gods (or not after a certain point); I knew I lost contact after a certain point, but was there anything more to it than an image that continued to exist in my mind? I wasn't sure, I really didn't know enough.

This, this makes sense.

There was a degradation, a shift down to a lower plane. That one is pretty easy, things stopped being about the gods and started being very self indulgent instead. The gods didn't hang around for it, but maybe something else did.

I know there is a strong thread of self indulgence in NeoPaganism, self help masquerading as religion, everything is all about you; I've not read Starhawk and nor shall I ever, but other people often bring her up as a good example of this. This isn't what I mean, what happened there was far more insidious than that, more buried beneath the surface, the unholy marriage of spiritual practice and personal issues. On the surface these were seemingly serious people that wanted to be spiritual specialists; but I think it started having less to do with the gods and more about how it made people feel. They wanted to be Chosen, they wanted to be special and powerful and to have people look to them for guidance, because to be frank, these were not winners. Some were people who have multiple serious, genuine problems, they'd been dealt a shitty hand and struggled with it; religion can give purpose and meaning to that. Or they were bored, lonely, had never been given status they felt entitled to. Or you had people that just didn't want to take responsibility for their lives and so had patron gods that made all their decisions for them - and if those decisions just made the story of your life an endless string of dumpster fires, well that's just the hardship all of us have to put up with.

People's various problems and insecurities were front and center, increasingly it was what they spent most of their time talking about. One of these days I'll have to talk about what all of that did to my mental health, and the sudden improvement that occurred as soon as I walked away from them. I also think about that encounter with the NeoPagan I mentioned in the last post, the way our conversation came down on all my insecurities in a way that left me feeling miserable for days; I don't think it was deliberate, but I wonder if there isn't a line to be drawn there nonetheless. Like that is what NeoPaganism is, the kind I was involved in, the kind the priest represents - something that feeds on insecurities.

I know what insecurities of mine got me hooked into this obsession: that particular mystical path, or the warped fun house mirror version of it I encountered. Easy to see in hindsight, even if I didn't get it for a while. But I don't always pick up on these things right away, and it's easier for me to believe the problem lies with me. The obsession never managed to swallow me whole, I never embraced the comforting delusion it offered; I always knew it was false, I always knew something was wrong, and frankly, I'm not interested in playing house with the gods, having an invisible friend that just hangs out with me and tells me I'm great. So I didn't go nuts. But it did manage to play on those insecurities to keep me locked in place, distant from it but still captive by it.

And I think that's the thing that keeps cropping back up and getting in my way just when I start finding my feet again. It blocks my path forward, it fills my mind with that old doubt. One part are you sure you want to walk away from this? Maybe it can be fixed if you just keep trying. Maybe it never will at all if you turn your back; one part is that the way things with gods are supposed to work? Are you sure you're not doing something wrong? Maybe kidding yourself? Maybe it won't work, like the other thing never worked. Maybe it's you, maybe you're just not welcome here, or anywhere.

There is still some very small part of me that mourns that lost path, even though I've long since stopped believing in it. And there is a much larger part of me that has become skeptical, worried about making the same mistake twice.

It's not as bad as it might have been. JMG talked about creativity as a way to balance things out, shake obsessions loose; after I gave up making anything work, when I was beginning to pull away from the group (but hadn't left quite yet) I threw myself into a huge writing project, so I may have been unknowingly medicating the problem. But I gave up on that a couple years ago, after a few disappointments, started to think it was a waste of time. I haven't been writing anything at all in a while.

Maybe it had some effect, and that's why I can start, why I can see the beginning of a new path, something far more solid than the old one ever was. But maybe the process was left incomplete and that's why that old pattern, whatever is left of it, can still come forward and block the way ahead, cloud everything over so it doesn't look right?

Then again, most of my writing projects were left incomplete, too.

I'm going to test that out, I'm going to take one of those old projects, something shorter and fairly simple, start work on it again. While restarting the daily banishing and meditation.

It may also help just knowing, being able to put a name to it, knowing this process is something well known. I can put to rest any idea that offer it makes is a legitimate one, that it could end anywhere other than the defeat or madness I saw take over everyone else. The doubt is a more potent threat at this point, and it was part of what snared me in the beginning as well; I started doubting my ability to know what was right and started relying more on the people that put themselves forward as experts. If I can separate out the doubt the pattern uses against me from what arises naturally within me after the experiences I've had, I could learn not to listen to it. It might not even be that hard to do, its doubts are very particular things tied into those old insecurities. Knowing what it is, knowing that it is only trying to obstruct me, could be enough to dismiss it, once and for all.

My own doubts are something else, and may be taken care of in time. There is a world of difference between what I'm trying to do now, and what I was doing then. The belief structure is different, the expectations are different, the experts I've found are closer to being actual experts and they're not surrounded by endless drama and constant misfortune. As I said, it feels more solid, whereas the old path was more ephemeral. I can see a solid course of growth, rather than very vague ideas. Maybe all that will make it easier to just go ahead with it long enough to let it prove me wrong.

I like the image of the path I can see in those unclouded moments. I want to be able to follow it, see where it goes. Just as soon as this old demon is slain for good.

Current Mood: determined

So I've hit another dead end in my religious practice. Or not another one, the same one I've been smashing my face against for a few years now, ever since I began earnestly trying to fix what had gone wrong.

How to describe it? Disconnection. Becoming aware that, on the other end of the practice I'm trying to establish, there is only a gaping void. Knowing deep down that you're only shouting into the wind, knocking at an abandoned house, whatever metaphor you want to use. I'm doing something wrong.

Might this be a Watcher on the Threshold moment I just need to push on through? Maybe, I suppose, but I really don't think so. There are plenty of other signs pointing to a deeper problem. Back when this began, this push to fix things and get back on track, I was bombarded with the message that something had changed. And the things I used to do that worked didn't work any longer, hadn't for a while. It's been an aggravating trial and error process where I don't have the ability to get clearer answers than that and I have no other people I can talk to about this.

The loss of that previous divine relationship was likely a part of it, and accepting that took a long while. Based on the timing, I half suspect the tainted egregore of NeoPaganism may have also been in play, the point crossed where the present state of madness prior to destruction became the inevitable future; I had already been out of it for long enough, long enough perhaps to avoid being ensnared in the backlash, so don't go back, find something else, something more stable.

I erase that name from my mind; I try to pull most of the NeoPagan programming out of my head. It still happens though, that wall. I'm still doing something wrong, Or not doing a right thing, perhaps.

The last time this happened, I decided to reach out for advice; my own divinations were not enlightening. I no longer have any connections of my own, a friend still has a few people she barely knows through Facebook but no one she could vouch for - I had to take what I could get. Most of it was free services, too, and so I also got reintroduced to that wonderful tendency of NeoPagans (and others online, no doubt) to volunteer to do something, and then piss off into the night without doing it, without a single word, just nothing. At least the vanishing act meant I didn't have to deal with the part two of that old song and dance, where I'm the asshole for expecting you to actually do what you said you were going to do, rather than heaping endless praise upon you for volunteering when no one else did (as though your raising your hand counts for anything at all if the task remains incomplete, if you had remained silent with everyone else the end result would be the same).

Can't say I missed any of that.

There was one went a bit beyond a quick or half finished tarot reading, one I spent some amount of time talking with. A lot of what she had to say to me seemed to tap dance all over every insecurity that I had in a way I don't think was deliberate, so it was a little while before I could think it through with a clear head. As far as the answer to the questions I had go, I think she was the least helpful - she was all over map, kept what advice she had very basic, completely unwilling to commit to an answer, and she had a ready made excuse for it, and maybe there was something to that, but in retrospect I wonder if she just didn't know what the answer was. She was helpful in one regard, and that was bringing me back into contact with that old NeoPagan mindset so I could see what a dead end it really was.

I have been out of it for a long time, so it was kind of jarring to hear someone mouthing these sentiments like they seem rational. It was jarring, when I make a statement trying to distance myself from the LARPing crowd using religion to create a soap opera life for themselves more interesting than their real one, to be chided for it, like you can't not believe them, of course it's reasonable to think great cosmic powers have nothing better to do than play house with you, what else would they be doing? I used to be surrounded by such people, but the spell has long since worn off, it was losing its grip while I was still there; now this just sounds like blithering nonsense.

So how did that ever happen in the first place? Well, it was incremental, and with a lot of it I had been agnostic at best; I was new at this and other people weren't (or claimed not to be), I was less educated than others (or they claimed to be), I've had more than a few experiences many people would raise their eyebrows at but they happened so maybe this other thing could happen, too? It was over time, when they sealed themselves in an echo chamber and lost more touch on reality that people's claims started getting out there, and rather than looking for sanity checks they started cracking down on anyone questioning them claiming it was oppression. Getting to know people better also helped with that, it's a lot harder to miss the smell of garbage from up close, when you can see it with your own eyes. I don't know whether or not this woman is a LARPer as I don't know her, but NeoPaganism itself has been redesigned for the LARPers and everyone has to toe the line.

Serious or not, a lot of her advice to me was rather alarming, and it was difficult to sit there with a straight face while I was being given suggestions on how to act with the gods. If a person I knew behaved that way around me, they would be bounced right out of my life in less than an eye blink; in this respect, I think most people would agree with me. The tone of her voice, like she thought this was some sort of flirty fun game, not the bright red flag of narcissism waving you toward the exit. Is this how you act? Would you put up with this from anyone?

It's that view of the gods informed by modern fantasy fiction tropes; she shares that view, said as much more than once. The gods are basically just people. People with superpowers. And religion is an endless soap opera you weave around yourself dealing with these petty, over emotional people with superpowers. The gods really have nothing better to do than play house with you, serving as your sassy room mate, benevolent sky parent, the handsome rogue here to sweep you off your feet, or whatever other role you feel is missing from your life.

There are ways people view the gods that I've never agreed with nor liked that I think were too neat and tidy from a mortal perspective, too sterile; I've always thought the world was messier than many seem comfortable with, and I personally prefer the messiness. But this is a step too far, reducing the gods to the human level only. It's a mistake to think gods are identical to people, that they think the way you think, feel how you feel, want what you want from your limited, short term, mortal perspective. Those humanizing elements are part of the draw for me, but the idea that it would all play out exactly the same with immortal, non-corporeal beings that exist on another plane seems kind of silly to me. And disappointing.

It was an interesting lesson though; one thing to leave a group and rethink a lot of their assumptions over time, quite another to encounter those old assumptions again after you've left them behind in favor of something saner. There is definitely no going back, no way that was going to build a foundation for anything deeper or more meaningful.

Most of the advice, even the stuff that seemed basic, wasn't even that great. No, i don't think I have to "journey" to anywhere to solve my problems. I'm pretty sure whatever problems I'm having are very much of this world and there is no need to mentally reenact fairy tales in order to solve them.

Though maybe not, as here I still am.

The last successful run I had at regular practice of banishing rituals had me bar the issue of the gods altogether. I wanted to actually get through every step of the Sphere of Protection without being derailed by the greater problem, that was the way I saw to do it. It succeeded for a while, but then again I did set myself the goal of getting through to the end and I accomplished that - so the problem could surge up again. I don't think it's a long term strategy; even aside from my suspicion that adding divine names to the ritual would make it more potent (and that's certainly necessary nowadays), it seems to be the path of the mystic that draws me. The gods are my primary interest - not nature, not power, not wisdom, or at least not without that connection propelling things forward. I don't know why it is, it sometimes seems odd for me, all things considered. But it is.

The issue of the gods, of where I go from here, needs to be settled first. I'm not sure anything permanent can stand until it does.

No help from any outside readings as far as that goes. They (the other ones, that is) mostly confirmed my own intuition that my old connection that had been the center of my spiritual life was lost. As for the future, it's all sunshine and roses for me going forward, as I step over this little setback and get on the path, which may not look exactly as I once imagined it but is still going to be great.

Yeah. And how do I get from here to there? Good question. It will just work itself out somehow was kind of what it amounted to, there was an offer to further clarify that, but then said person pissed off into the night without another word so I suppose it will have to remain a mystery. And I have well exhausted my sources for outside assistance.

The way that was worded, if I can take it seriously, makes me think it's something very simple. But I'm just not seeing it.

That may be more frustrating than anything else.

Current Mood: frustrated

Looking at my divinations lately, I think one of the running themes I can see in the advice is to take this, going forward, as a fresh start. Erase the past, it's no longer relevant, let go of your expectations and the narratives in your head; let it be like this was all new to you again, because in a very real way it is.

Some things are harder to let go of than others, and I don't even mean some of the worst of the NeoPagan ideas that got embedded in there deep enough they're difficult to notice. I mean things I really didn't want to lose.

Like the divine relationship I once had. Or thought I had. (It was something I believed for a very long time, and I shouldn't let recent setbacks and the comments of a particular person with very questionable viewpoints make me doubt it altogether)

I started out in the more exoteric end of NeoPaganism, in ADF druidry and reconstructionism, and it took me time to find a model of what it was that I was looking for. It started with two people I came to know, very passionately devoted to their god, on a level beyond the basic patron deity that seemed par for the course but yet wasn't all that I wanted. These were genuine people too, not LARPers; they're still going at it, having dodged the insanity that's been tearing the community apart and, when the implosion finishes and the rubble's been cleared away, I fully expect to see them still there doing what they've always been doing. I was immediately attracted to that, to them and what they were doing, the very first taste of something that was at least pointing in the right direction. I started drifting away from the exoteric groups and organizations and more into their circle; they were busy networking with a growing number of esoteric types, and so it was through them I met LARPers.

Not all of them, or at least not at first, not consciously. Some might have gotten taken for the same ride I had been. It's very hard to know, way back then, all I know now is how it all wound up, how bad things got in the end. It might have been real once, for some (others a definite no, I got to know them well enough, in person, to feel very confident in that declaration). JMG said in a post not too long ago that a lot of people aren't careful about what they worship, and end up unknowingly worshipping demons or mindless egregores that only mirror their own imbalances back at them. That latter is what I tend to think happened for the most part (barring one case where I am nearly certain some sort of parasitic entity was involved), sitting with a mental construct that just made you feel good about yourself; after a certain point, that really was all it was about anymore, feeling good about yourself, feeling special, even while your life is burning down around you.

Probably even happened to me as well, but only after a certain point when I was worn down, desperate and this was the crowd I had left. You see, eventually I saw the right combination of words that triggered something in my mind, that had me stepping out of just observer status and throwing my hat in the ring. Two things happened after that: the things that I had been doing that used to work no longer did, cutting me off from the kind of contact I used to have; and something hit the purge button on my life, initiating some very turbulent years where a whole hell of a lot was stripped away from me, I had to confront some hard truths, all in a very short time, while having moved to a bad place, and I didn't handle it all that well.

Now, you could think from all that that maybe I made a mistake in pursuing this path and this was the way the universe chose to tell me; I wondered that myself for a while, but in the end I don't think so. I fully admit to perhaps jumping the gun and being very ill prepared, but I don't think it was a mistake. Though it took a while (and some of that was my own fault) I ended up in a better place, in better circumstances. Looking back at those early years, before I made my fateful decision, that was a situation that was always going to collapse and could've been worse than it was. Newly out on my own, possibilities I'd never had access to before, I was taking too much on at once and there was no way I could've kept going at the pace I was (don't get excited, it really wasn't anything more than what most would consider a normal pace, but I am very abnormal and it was too much for me); in retrospect, the cracks were showing even before I made my bold vows. I lost friends, but no one I shouldn't have lost, people who were destructive or a drag, people whose sudden absence caused almost immediate improvements.

Not in every case. Those first two people, who gave me some idea what I was looking for; they were falling out number two. Many years later I can say I regret that, or I regret my part in setting the events in motion that made the fall out an inevitability (a seemingly innocuous decision I made, an offer I took up, months before there was the slightest hint of drama). The plans we all came up with then just were never going to work out, not on my end, not on theirs. I've wondered whether or not this needed to happen the same way some of the others so clearly did, and I don't know. It's possible, possible I was tying myself too closely to them, possible our paths were very different and some degree of distance was necessary; I just wish it could've happened in a way that we could still be talking. I think every now and then about testing the waters, it's been long enough, reach out and say hi, I'm still around, still read your stuff, sorry about all the crap you have to put up with, you don't deserve it. I probably never will though.

It was like I saw a whole string of doors snap shut at once in front of me, so many possibilities slipping permanently out of reach. It's possible though that I caused those doors to close, those possibilities to vanish, with the path I chose. An argument could be made that none of those options were compatible with the path I said I wanted, that where I am now is, and that learning to live within those limitations is part of the lessons that have to be learned before progress on the path can be made. Perhaps.

It's even possible that divine relationship I had, that set me on this path, was always going to be temporary. That perhaps he was just a Way Shower, propelling me forward until I arrived at where I needed to be, and then he was always going to leave, pass me on to someone else. There is some reason to think that, it is a distinct possibility.

I'm reluctant to embrace it too enthusiastically. this notion that everything always works out exactly the way it should have. It reminds me of behaviors I saw in the later groups, this need to see things as fated, to find hints of your eventual spiritual paths, traces of your god's presence, dating back to childhood if not birth. And if you end up moving to another tradition, another patron - well, just rewrite that. There was one person in particular, who rewrote her life story four or five times as she bounced from one thing to another, trying to stay ahead of all the bridges she was burning. I used to find that tendency baffling, but now that the unacknowledged influence of modern fantasy fiction tropes in NeoPaganism was pointed out, I think I do get it - because you're The Chosen One, and you're Special, you have a Special Destiny, and Special Destinies are marked at birth, whimsically visible all throughout childhood. This is not to say it might not have been true some of the time (the people that were consistent with it, anyway), but not all the time.

It can be a nice bit of side stepping of responsibility, if everything always works out the way it's supposed to then you can never make mistakes. Maybe I did. Maybe that was a path I could've walked, a patron I could've had, but I blew it. Maybe the god himself got frustrated and walked away; maybe the thread just got dragged through so much miasma as I floundered in these groups that it became tainted, irrevocably so, and all that could be done anymore was to sever the link and let me start over again with a clean slate. Perhaps. And I can say I didn't know, that I wasn't prepared, that the guidance available to me was wretched and flagrantly incorrect, and this is all true. It's still my life and, ultimately, my responsibility and no one else's. If there was a fuck up, it was my fuck up; knowing that, accepting it, is necessary for learning from it, to avoiding fucking up again.

Right now I don't know, one way or the other. I only know that some things are started to stir to life again, interesting ripples are appearing that suggest I might be moving with the flow once more, but that particular corner of the divine realm has remained silent and empty. Not necessarily other corners, just that one. That might change in time, it might not - I've gone back and forth on that one many times over the last few years, and a while now I've been leaning more toward no, regretfully, it won't. But even if it might, focusing on that hope is not going to help me in moving forward, could set me up for a crushing disappointment later on down the road (later on? hell, that's probably already happened a few times). I have to let it go.

It's hard though. When you've been operating under a certain paradigm for so long, with certain expectations, how do you unlearn it all? How do you prevent it from creeping up again, coloring what you see, raising alarm bells (which are hardly unfounded, when you've been moving in the wrong direction for such a long damn time)?

The image I saw, long ago, of the path that I wanted to walk, that combination of words that set off this whole event? I saw it again, not too long ago, in a stray comment from JMG on one Magic Monday. I'd already come to suspect that the image I'd encountered then was a warped fantasy fiction role play of something that is a real spiritual option; just right enough to call to me, just wrong enough to cause a sort of dissonance when I tried to start out. I have been trying to sort out what the correct course is under all the baggage, that stray comment may have pointed me in the right direction. That is a very good thing.

That relationship, though; it meant a lot to me once. I wouldn't be here without it. That has been the hardest thing to walk away from. I keep trying. Maybe this time I'll make it.

Current Mood: contemplative

I was awake in time to see sunrise today, and I was even coherent as I'm often not upon waking, especially not in the summer when I tend not to sleep so well. It was a bright orange sky, and golden light was streaming in through the three living room windows right where I've been doing the Sphere of Protection. just that very portion of the room bathed in sunlight.

A good time to do the ritual.

I'm picking this routine back up again: banishing ritual, meditation, divination. I've been doing the Sphere of Protection off and on for a few years now, never with the consistency I would like. It is time to change that. The last time I tackled this goal I got a good run that lasted almost half a year, before the spiritual crisis came to a head and I was too overwhelmed and depressed to continue with it. I honestly don't think it did me any good, but I get why it happened; longer established routines couldn't withstand that final slam into rock bottom.

I'm starting it from the beginning again, as I've done each time I take too long a break. The opening and the closing. Finally mastered the circulation of light.

I had been avoiding adding gods to the ritual, that being the heart of the problems I've been having. I don't think I want to keep doing it that way, but it will require more thought, more meditation.

I'm also actually trying discursive meditation this time, picking out a theme ahead of time, for now from The Cosmic Doctrine. I use a stick of burning incense to track the time. When it's done, I'll get up for a minute or two, to mentally switch tracks, and sit back down for prayer and offerings. In previous attempts, those two acts were blurred together; this time around I'm keeping them separate.

Tracing back stray thoughts that interrupt the meditation (rather than just shutting them down) has been an interesting experience. Before I might have thought my brain was overactive enough that things come up fairly randomly, but when I focus on it I find that no, however bizarre it is by the time I notice it, there is indeed a clear thread back to the topic at hand. It's been interesting, a chance to get to know just how my mind works in a way I otherwise never would've seen.

Divination is a non standard tarot deck I've been wanting to learn to better use. Three card draw: what is coming, what should I do, what should I not do.

It's been a week now. I want to make it a year this time.

Current Mood: determined

I had a different journal on this site once, somewhere around the time this site came into being, I'd drifted over with a small crowd of then friends when Livejournal was sold. Those were the only social media I'd ever used; I refused Facebook (and stuck to it regardless of how much pressure was put on me), had zero interest in Twitter, I'm only passingly familiar with anything newer than that. That journal was abandoned and then deleted when I finished drifting out of the sub-subculture that brought me over here - there was nothing in it that represented either who I was or who I wanted to be, nothing that was worth keeping around for the memories, a clean break with the whole sorry mess was the better road to take.

I've drifted even further from the internet in the years since, further from social anything, really. Part of it is lingering burnout from the circumstances that separated me from that sub-subculture, part is the way the whole tone of online discussions have changed since then. I'm one of those people, few social skills and always out of step, the most simple gesture takes an enormous effort even under the best of conditions, any reward to be found is very small if indeed there is any; with that as my default setting, I tend to retreat in high risk situations. For the most part, I've been fine, occasionally nostalgic for the rose tinted view of the good old days, less and less so as time went by, I got along on my own; all told, I think I got out at just the right time.

And now? For one, I've been following John Micheal Greer's work for the last few years, and he's moved over here and brought many of his regular commenters, some of whom have created their own content that I pay some attention to as well. For the first time in a long time, I see a group that might be worth the effort, and the risk, of trying to involve myself with, even if years of inactivity and burn out have kept me hovering just on the edge, making only an occasional anonymous inquiry. Creating a name and a home base where my own novice ramblings can be found is a solid step in that direction, as it was once before.

Second, well one reason I initially joined and stuck with these sites is that I felt I had something to say. That's not been the case for many years, the interests that brought me out of my hermit cave have mostly been stuck in place, and I don't kid myself that anyone cares about the minutia of my daily mundane life - I barely care about it, certainly not enough to get it on record for the benefit of the masses. And so I've been silent. But that may be changing now, and this more laid back public journal like platform may be the best place for these thoughts.

When I joined Livejournal forever ago, it was a way to begin exploring NeoPaganism. I'd had a growing interest in alternative spirituality, I'd had some powerful experiences with a god (or a being I believed to be a god, even believed I knew who it was; I still mostly believe this, even if I feel the need to put a small asterisk next to it) that changed my life; NeoPaganism was - well, never a perfect fit no, but it was what was available and it was close enough. I went out into the online world to meet people and to learn.

And what can I say about the time period now, years later? My time under the NeoPagan umbrella was not only a waste of time, it was actively damaging. All was fine for the short time I was mingling among the Pagan lay people, attending a weekly service as well as holiday celebrations (yeah, I had both of those things, competently run too such that I know they're still going though I have long since moved away; I lucked out with a good initial group); it was when I started looking to something more esoteric, when I recognized a desire to follow the path of the mystic, that the problems really started.

I'm greatly indebted to JMG in a way I can't quite express, as well as to whatever turn of fate that brought him to my attention (and at a time when I was capable of listening). His writings have provided me with the basic foundational practices (that actually work) that I sought in several groups and never found. He helped to point out some of the flaws and problems in the belief system I'd left, as well as its adherents, some things I had noticed but couldn't put into context. Probably most important of all, he gave me an image of the way things actually work (and don't work), a realistic range of expectations - something NeoPaganism (and especially the groups I was involved in) lost the plot on a long, long time ago.

The groups I was involved with toward the end were pretty bad, for reasons that seem obvious in retrospect. Using ideas drawn from The Cosmic Doctrine that have been bubbling in my head the last few days (I'm trying to catch up on the book club), the further I drifted out of alignment with my chosen path's Ring Cosmos, the longer the situation went on, the worse my company got as I moved closer and closer to the edge, the boundary of the Ring Pass Not. Even when it was some of the same people along for the same ride, they just got more delusional. And out at the boundary is only dissolution, something that seems to have happened to many of the people I once socialized with. I admit it's second hand information, from having checked on them online (the ones that still were, sometimes finding stories about the ones who weren't), and yet I noticed a pattern in what I was seeing, that I could see the beginning stages of it in my own life and I was determined to stop it, to course correct, to get back to where it should be.

I spent three years running in circles, running myself into the ground, trying to figure it out. The wingnuts of the latter years were easy enough to dismiss, to recognize those bloated leeches clinging to my mind, pick them off and move on. But it wasn't just the wingnuts, it was even the saner people from earlier on; it was the whole NeoPagan dynamic, everything I'd been exposed to, had come to believe, was mostly all wrong. The expectations, the how things really work (and don't work, let's not forget that) might have been the biggest obstacle. That world view, as I've come to realize, is too heavily (and no doubt unconsciously) inspired by modern fantasy fiction tropes that have little to do with any reality, spiritual or otherwise. In retrospect, I think a lot of the people around me were larping at being powerful wizards and deep visionaries; there was that high level of dysfunction, people whose personal lives are one dumpster fire after another, that is often seen in these circles, and that larping seemed to serve both to paper over how miserable they openly were and to provide an excuse for why they had to be so miserable (just the cross I have to bear being the holy chosen one of deity X - ugh, the number of times I saw some statement like that).

There is also the way that personal issues and spirituality became welded together, tangled in an unholy mess, turning the gods into an unhealthy coping mechanism. Part of that may well have been baggage that naturally came to the surface and needed dealing with, but a lot of it I think was not so natural, more deliberately done. This is an idea I'm just starting to play with, so I'm nowhere near ready to expound on it in any great detail. Just that it may have made it harder to see things that needed to be given up, and that much harder to actually do it.

I like to think I've come to a turning point. Tentative divination (tentative because I developed a bad relationship with it in the years I was running in circles and desperate for clarity, I'm cautiously dipping my toes back in) suggests there is something there but it's fragile, the pull toward old ways of thinking and the emotional load that was placed on them is still powerful. I'll have to work hard to get out of its orbit, to keep the realistic expectations in mind, It may be that I've been in this position a few times before over the last three years and each time couldn't hold on to the fragile new beginning when the old ideas moved back into place and raised objections that the outcome wasn't what it should be so there must be something wrong, leading to another crash and burn. Maybe understanding the process will help in some small way to weather the storm; I know it won't be everything, but it is something different.

That's what I can offer to the discussion: the experience of being set on a spiritual path, being knocked off of it, and the ongoing struggle to claw my way back. The problems in NeoPaganism and where I found traditional occultism to make more sense, because I highly doubt I'm the only one who has had such troubles while yet avoiding dissolution (hell, if JMG's predictions are correct and NeoPaganism has set itself up for a messy implosion that will be arriving very shortly, that number is likely to go up).

I don't expect many to read, but for anyone interested, welcome aboard.

Current Mood: content

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seasidehermit

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From an Urban Hermitage

Writings on Magic and Mysticism

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