The Voice and the Void

Monday during lunch I finally started reading Evolutionary Witchcraft by T Thorn Coyle (aka yezida), someone I learned about from queenofhalves. It's been a very long time since I've identified as a witch, but queenofhalves's accounts of the focus on personal growth and development, and her own experiences with it, have impressed me. And, frankly, I've been looking for a spark to inspire me.

I certainly got what I was looking for. The Introduction alone, an account of Thorn's spiritual questing, heartened me. She has found a place now, and made it her own through depth work and bringing her own sensibilities to it, but for more than 20 years she was a wanderer, looking for "it" in a variety of traditions as she herself grew and matured.

Like me, she does not cast a circle for ritual work, she casts a sphere. I enjoyed reading her process, but when I got to the poem she uses to seal the sphere I felt resistance. The words were nice, but they certainly were not words with which I resonated.

Then it hit me: I didn't have to use her words. They were an example. I can use my own. In fact, the whole ritual she presented was for instruction and inspiration. I could take what I needed and leave the rest, and it would be okay.

For a Queen of Swords, who likes to know what is correct so I can be right, this is a huge step in maturity and confidence.

After I was finished reading, I put the book down, rested my elbows on the counter, clasped my hands, and put my forehead on my knuckles. And I reached out.

I guess I'm actually past being surprised when the response comes quickly. But this time there was an uncharacteristic chiding in the Voice: Why do you search when all your life I have been closer than your breath?

( As always, the Voice was right on. . .  )

Repeating Myself

During my one-on-one meeting with my manager this afternoon I suddenly realized that I was saying the same things about my performance on the projects I'm managing that I've been saying for several weeks.

And I didn't like that realization.
Because I was talking about what a difficult time I was having.
And about the outside factors that were impacting me.
And feeling not enough confidence.
And etc.
Not whining, but too consciously avoiding sounding defeatist.

It's the same damn thing as with my business: I keep writing the same damn things here, but nothing is getting done.

Other things, valuable things, are getting done. Things I have also done a lot of writing about and striving toward: improvements in my home, in my finances, in quality time with my daughter.

And that's good to realize.

But that doesn't erase the fact that the most important things I can be doing for my career -- both my day job and my vocation -- are not being addressed with my full intelligence, passion, and creativity.

It's time for another ritual.
That's the only thing I can think of right now to help me move forward.
The last one I did (healing around some past emotional/relationship wounds) turned out to be unexpectedly, amazingly powerful. This time I would do something around claiming and affirming power.

This also dovetails with my introduction to the unexpectedly inspiring materials for the game Mage: The Ascension. I've never been remotely interested in the World of Darkness universe (known mostly for its vampires and werewolves), but Mage focuses on the simultaneous personal growth and raising of humanity by those who are magickally/spiritually Awakened. Reading the basic book has been almost as inspiring as a couple of my seminary texts! I was going to create a character, but then realized I was channeling creative, passionate energy into fiction that I could be applying to building my practice -- and that I could use that sense of fun and possibility to infuse what I have been experiencing as desireable and stressful and risky.