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qosI've been taking advantage of the quiet time this morning to review the instructions for the basic hermetic magic practices in Paths of Wisdom and had a *headdesk moment realizing that I've been omitting a key element of the practice.
I've been struggling with the Middle Pillar exercise for months now. Most of the time, I've ended up feeling constricted and/or frustrated at the end. It's seemed to take a lot of energy, far more than it should. The degree of effort it's taken has made me reluctant to do it consistently, so instead of doing it daily I've been forcing myself to do it once or twice a week.
The difficult part for me has been the second half, in which breath and energy are circulated from Tiphareth down the left leg into Malkuth, held there for a time equal to the duration of the indrawn breath, and then drawn back up to Tiphareth through the right leg. Simple, right?
Except that I'd managed to completely forget that breath and energy do not start and end in Tiphareth. The directions actually tell the student to take an indrawn breath through the nostrils, down the windpipe and into Tiphareth -- and at the end the breath goes up back up the windpipe and out.
No wonder I've been feeling off-balance and awkward. I was creating a closed circuit. I was visualizing Tiphareth revitalizing the energy, but I wasn't linking it fully to the breath and letting the natural exchange of breath revitalize everything.
Arrgh!
On the upside, I expect the practice to get much easier now!
I've been struggling with the Middle Pillar exercise for months now. Most of the time, I've ended up feeling constricted and/or frustrated at the end. It's seemed to take a lot of energy, far more than it should. The degree of effort it's taken has made me reluctant to do it consistently, so instead of doing it daily I've been forcing myself to do it once or twice a week.
The difficult part for me has been the second half, in which breath and energy are circulated from Tiphareth down the left leg into Malkuth, held there for a time equal to the duration of the indrawn breath, and then drawn back up to Tiphareth through the right leg. Simple, right?
Except that I'd managed to completely forget that breath and energy do not start and end in Tiphareth. The directions actually tell the student to take an indrawn breath through the nostrils, down the windpipe and into Tiphareth -- and at the end the breath goes up back up the windpipe and out.
No wonder I've been feeling off-balance and awkward. I was creating a closed circuit. I was visualizing Tiphareth revitalizing the energy, but I wasn't linking it fully to the breath and letting the natural exchange of breath revitalize everything.
Arrgh!
On the upside, I expect the practice to get much easier now!
