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qosI don't know how common this experience is, but for a very long time I've felt both a strong attraction toward and an even stronger resistance against actually practicing magic. One of the most challenging aspects of my priestess training has been actually doing the basic energetic and magical practices. There's all kinds of simple, reasonable explanations for this: my "low church" orientation that just wants to go inward and connect without a lot of mumbo-jumbo hand-waving and chanting of dead languages; my "rationality filter" that's a side effect of growing up in a modern, rationalist household with a King of Swords for a father; and my life-long impatience about repetitious learning (dooming my study of foreign languages and limiting the scope of my musical abilities). But there's always seemed like there was more behind it than the simple and obvious explanations. Over the last couple of years I'd become semi-convinced that there were bindings of some kind on me, preventing me from fully engaging my actual abilities.
I've tried to avoid making it an excuse for not doing the work, but fear I was only partially successful, especially in recent months. I started to focus more on finding the roots of the bindings (if indeed they existed at all) rather than just doing the work. But I was growing tired of feeling like I was putting more effort into simply motivating myself to start my daily practices than I was actually doing them. For the last few months I've done only the simplest of my assigned work.
Then, on the evening of August 28th, a few days after my balcony vigil, I reached a crisis point.
Part of me is afraid that if I commit to my exercises, take them all the way, I'll succeed in proving that this is all a ridiculous pursuit after all.
The alternative -- to throw it all down: jettison LM, Ereshkigal, magic, just let it all go and me a normal, mundane person. . . stop trying to have a relationship with a dead man, be an ordinary person and ask only ordinary happiness from my life. Get a new boyfriend, go back to gaming, write erotica or whatever. . . let go of the unseen. . .
[There was a long pause here as I really, truly contemplated doing this. I looked around at my three altars in my bedroom, the candles, the images, and imagined taking it all down and living without it and what it represented.]
And when I imagine that I feel a sense of a great weight lifting from my shoulders, grief ebbing away as it does for ordinary folk.
At which point I hear Christina [the character Queen Christina from the play "The Abdication"] shouting at Oxenstierna: I am not ordinary! If there is one thing you've taught me since I could hear it is the specialness of me!
[another pause to process]
I was thinking about leaving it all -- and I thought of the point I got to with the SCA, where I had to either do it, all the way, or stop.
And then I thought of my initiation, and Ereshkigal telling me that if I leave the path it will break me.
Isn't that what I've been feeling like recently? And isn't it true that I have not been walking my path?
What if the distress I'm feeling has as much to do with not doing my work as anything else?
I was chatting with SC before coming into my bedroom this evening and wrote, somewhat flippantly, that I need to experience the pain of emptiness as a withdrawal symptom, and remember that the "drug" is my practices. There was probably more truth to that than I realized.
But why the knot of resistance in my gut when I think of the Middle Pillar? I need to go deep to find that answer. . .
[another pause, as I went through what I write about next]
I did an approximation of the Middle Pillar sitting on my bed. The centers flowed and hummed. I was relaxed, having done the four-fold breath first. Everything was alive -- and then it was as if it had been flame and all the air was sucked out. It was cold, gray, hard charcoal.
I cast around for a very long time. I can't even remember when or by what route I came to think of Christ, but when I did, suddenly it felt like everything within me was unlocking. [It felt as if there were actual keys turning in locks, gears unwinding, doors opening. It was as if lots of things that had been tightly wound up and secured had been let loose and now were spinning back the other way, in release. It went on and on.]
And I thought/wondered that if I had been bound in a past life, then it was very likely that it was done in the name of Christ -- and it would require a connection of my magic to Christ to unlock the bonds. [This is the result of my perception of "White Magic" lodges of previous ages being self-consciously Christian. That may or may not be accurate, since I haven't studied them in much depth.]
Part of me is convinced that this is truly the key. It reminds me a lot of the realization that the "locked chest" inside me was my journeying skill. [A talent I'd always had, but didn't recognize as a magical-spiritual gift for a long time.]
Yesterday I found and bought a Templar-themed Grail Seeker's Tarot by John Matthews.
I've been looking for a deity to relate to who can help me re-connect with life. Jesus feels right. More than any other I know of he is connected with human life and existence. [I kept getting images of dusty feet walking on dirt roads.]
And he knows the underworld.
I am a Grail Priestess.
There is a tingling at the base of my skull.
This may be it. . .
I need to sleep on this. . . .
* * * * *
After "sleeping on it" for about a week, my sense is that something did shift that night. I am feeling far less resistance to my magical practices, although there is a lot of habit of thought to be re-shaped. I don't know why the thought of "Christ" triggered the shift, only that it did.
Bringing Jesus -- or Yeshua, as I prefer to refer to him -- into my spiritual life at this time is like picking up a dropped thread. My spiritual roots go deep in Christianity, and my first ordination was as a Christo-Pagan Grail Priestess. I've always had a positive relationship with him, and have no problem fitting him into a personal pantheon that contains Sumerian, Norse, and Greek deities.
I am no less a Priestess of Ereshkigal than I was a week before this. If anything, I'm doing better at that because -- whatever actually did happen and why -- I feel more free and better able to do my work than I did two weeks ago.
I'll just have to see where all this goes. . . .
I've tried to avoid making it an excuse for not doing the work, but fear I was only partially successful, especially in recent months. I started to focus more on finding the roots of the bindings (if indeed they existed at all) rather than just doing the work. But I was growing tired of feeling like I was putting more effort into simply motivating myself to start my daily practices than I was actually doing them. For the last few months I've done only the simplest of my assigned work.
Then, on the evening of August 28th, a few days after my balcony vigil, I reached a crisis point.
Part of me is afraid that if I commit to my exercises, take them all the way, I'll succeed in proving that this is all a ridiculous pursuit after all.
The alternative -- to throw it all down: jettison LM, Ereshkigal, magic, just let it all go and me a normal, mundane person. . . stop trying to have a relationship with a dead man, be an ordinary person and ask only ordinary happiness from my life. Get a new boyfriend, go back to gaming, write erotica or whatever. . . let go of the unseen. . .
[There was a long pause here as I really, truly contemplated doing this. I looked around at my three altars in my bedroom, the candles, the images, and imagined taking it all down and living without it and what it represented.]
And when I imagine that I feel a sense of a great weight lifting from my shoulders, grief ebbing away as it does for ordinary folk.
At which point I hear Christina [the character Queen Christina from the play "The Abdication"] shouting at Oxenstierna: I am not ordinary! If there is one thing you've taught me since I could hear it is the specialness of me!
[another pause to process]
I was thinking about leaving it all -- and I thought of the point I got to with the SCA, where I had to either do it, all the way, or stop.
And then I thought of my initiation, and Ereshkigal telling me that if I leave the path it will break me.
Isn't that what I've been feeling like recently? And isn't it true that I have not been walking my path?
What if the distress I'm feeling has as much to do with not doing my work as anything else?
I was chatting with SC before coming into my bedroom this evening and wrote, somewhat flippantly, that I need to experience the pain of emptiness as a withdrawal symptom, and remember that the "drug" is my practices. There was probably more truth to that than I realized.
But why the knot of resistance in my gut when I think of the Middle Pillar? I need to go deep to find that answer. . .
[another pause, as I went through what I write about next]
I did an approximation of the Middle Pillar sitting on my bed. The centers flowed and hummed. I was relaxed, having done the four-fold breath first. Everything was alive -- and then it was as if it had been flame and all the air was sucked out. It was cold, gray, hard charcoal.
I cast around for a very long time. I can't even remember when or by what route I came to think of Christ, but when I did, suddenly it felt like everything within me was unlocking. [It felt as if there were actual keys turning in locks, gears unwinding, doors opening. It was as if lots of things that had been tightly wound up and secured had been let loose and now were spinning back the other way, in release. It went on and on.]
And I thought/wondered that if I had been bound in a past life, then it was very likely that it was done in the name of Christ -- and it would require a connection of my magic to Christ to unlock the bonds. [This is the result of my perception of "White Magic" lodges of previous ages being self-consciously Christian. That may or may not be accurate, since I haven't studied them in much depth.]
Part of me is convinced that this is truly the key. It reminds me a lot of the realization that the "locked chest" inside me was my journeying skill. [A talent I'd always had, but didn't recognize as a magical-spiritual gift for a long time.]
Yesterday I found and bought a Templar-themed Grail Seeker's Tarot by John Matthews.
I've been looking for a deity to relate to who can help me re-connect with life. Jesus feels right. More than any other I know of he is connected with human life and existence. [I kept getting images of dusty feet walking on dirt roads.]
And he knows the underworld.
I am a Grail Priestess.
There is a tingling at the base of my skull.
This may be it. . .
I need to sleep on this. . . .
* * * * *
After "sleeping on it" for about a week, my sense is that something did shift that night. I am feeling far less resistance to my magical practices, although there is a lot of habit of thought to be re-shaped. I don't know why the thought of "Christ" triggered the shift, only that it did.
Bringing Jesus -- or Yeshua, as I prefer to refer to him -- into my spiritual life at this time is like picking up a dropped thread. My spiritual roots go deep in Christianity, and my first ordination was as a Christo-Pagan Grail Priestess. I've always had a positive relationship with him, and have no problem fitting him into a personal pantheon that contains Sumerian, Norse, and Greek deities.
I am no less a Priestess of Ereshkigal than I was a week before this. If anything, I'm doing better at that because -- whatever actually did happen and why -- I feel more free and better able to do my work than I did two weeks ago.
I'll just have to see where all this goes. . . .
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-07 07:11 pm (UTC)What if the distress I'm feeling has as much to do with not doing my work as anything else?
^This.
In my experience, as much as doing the Work can be hard, not doing the Work is usually worse.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-07 07:28 pm (UTC)And telling myself that I'm doing the Work when I'm actually just going through the motions makes it even harder to realize what's actually going on. . .
Thanks for the good wishes.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-07 07:21 pm (UTC)The alternative -- to throw it all down: jettison LM, Ereshkigal, magic, just let it all go and me a normal, mundane person. . . be an ordinary person and ask only ordinary happiness from my life. Get a new boyfriend, go back to gaming, write erotica or whatever. . . let go of the unseen. . .
Been there. Frequently. They have a room set aside for me, at that inn, and the bartender has my usual memorized. Sometimes I wonder about it all, if I'm just playing head-games with myself and wasting time better spent in pursuits that give tangible results.
Of course, I also look and see the thing's it's brought me. Even discounting the possibility of magick really doing anything at all, the practice and pursuit of it has brought me countless friends, the family I now have, a deeper understanding of myself, and a sense of place in and peace with the world. Given that, does it matter if I can't light fires with the power of my mind? :)
Then again, there are those moments when a voice that sure doesn't feel like it's mine speaks in my head, and tells me what I need to hear. There are plenty of odd coincidences, and the feeling of the god's daimon descending on me like a welcome second skin... And I'm inspired to go on.
Glad you've found something to try. Here's hoping it brings you what you need.
Thank you. . .
Date: 2009-09-07 07:30 pm (UTC)I'm with you on the tangible advantages too. However desolate I feel sometimes, the fact is that I have a greater sense of center and purpose now than I did during all my years of spiritual wandering. And most of the people I'm closest to in my life now are people I've met on and because of the journey.
Re: Thank you. . .
Date: 2009-09-07 07:36 pm (UTC)Do you mind if I quote that passage in an entry on my own journal, based on my reply above? I think there's something there I want to explore further.
Re: Thank you. . .
Date: 2009-09-07 07:40 pm (UTC)I look forward to reading what you have to say.
Re: Thank you. . .
Date: 2009-09-07 07:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-07 08:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-07 08:48 pm (UTC)I was raised non-denominational Protestant, and the "personal relationship with Jesus" was very real to me. The existential crisis which resulted in me leaving Christianity was never about the person of Jesus or my relationship with him.
Two things enabled me to integrate a relationship with Yeshua with my own Paganism. One was Matthew Fox's book Original Blessing, which highlights aspects of Christianity that many people don't realize are there and so seek in places like Paganism instead: reverence for the earth, inclusiveness, honoring the feminine, and etc. The other book was Shadwynn's The Crafted Cup which contains the theology and rituals of the Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis, a Christo-Pagan fellowship of the Holy Grail.
The novel The Moon Beneath Her Feet was also a big help, as it drew on the gnostic gospels to re-tell the gospel story from within the perspective of the Ancient Near Eastern dying-and-rising-god motif. It's not good history, but it's excellent myth-making.
You might try inviting Yeshua to stop in for a visit and a chat. He's always been open to socializing with anyone who's sought his company.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-07 09:20 pm (UTC):-) This made me smile.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-07 09:21 pm (UTC)That's very close to what my attitude has been as well. For me it's been more a matter of "that's one of the things prayer is for."
These days, I'm coming to appreciate it more as a tool which I use in concert with my gods. It's like doing my part to achieve something I've asked them for and/or have been asked by them to accomplish. Call it a form of "sweat equity" in spiritual pursuits?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-08 06:51 am (UTC)god(s) help those who help themselves, after all.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-08 12:15 am (UTC)Yet I still resist. That there will be nothing worth it at the end. That this could just all be in my head and I've spent money on things that didn't matter and that I should just go back to being "normal".
And think I guess I read forums dealing with my spirituality, or posts like yours, and I think that little flame of hope inside me rekindles again, to just keep trying.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-08 01:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-08 01:28 am (UTC)