I continued today with the five warrior syllables but did not feel any tingling in my third eye. This might have been because I vibrated the syllables in front of my partner, which made me feel somewhat self-conscious. He didn’t care what I was doing, yet I remained aware someone else was in the room who wasn’t taking part in my spiritual practice. This continues to be a problem with having downsized our apartment; we pay less rent, but I also have far less space within which to work. So far, I can’t see any way around it except moving my practice from place to place so I can be alone. With my fibromyalgia, I find this sometimes tires me out so much that I then don’t want to practice magick at all. I know I will find a solution, but one just hasn’t come to me yet.
I had a good deal of writing I wanted to get done today for the course I’m teaching at the beginning of April, and I expected it to fight me every step of the way. Strangely, the writing came easier than any I’ve done in years. I can’t help but think that’s because I’ve decided I don’t have to write anymore unless I want to do so. I am doing it for me, not anyone else.
I know I can be an extremely resistant individual. If you keep telling me I have to read a book, it doesn’t matter how good that book is; I will never crack its covers. The thing is, I’d never describe myself someone who dislikes authority figures. I’ve always been the kid who sits at the front of the classroom and hands in their homework on time. I remain a mystery, even to myself.
After meditating briefly with Salleos, I consulted the Tarot about this tendency and turned over the Sun and Death cards. I interpreted this to mean that I know my place in the universe and want to do what I like. I also want to make space for frequent new opportunities and growth, i.e. I hate getting bored. I just have to make sure I am pursuing of meaningful change and not being contrary for the sake of being contrary alone.
Besides this, I made took a couple of photographs for the #developingyoureye challenge WordPress. Whether or not I initially feel inspired by each day’s photography prompt, I always become absorbed playing with the act of playing with my camera and altering the photos. It may make me a wannabe hipster, but I adore this kind of thing.
Today’s prompt was ‘connect’ and I planned to take pictures of my cats alongside a necklace which means a great deal to me. When I pulled the necklace away from one of their paws, it formed a natural heart shape. This represents the person who gave me the necklace perfectly, as she is all heart. C, these are for you.
This religious necklace was given to me by my Temple-Mate, C, who I adore.
My cat plays with a necklace given to me by a friend.
(The photograph at the top of the entry are for yesterday’s prompt, bliss. I took the photos too late in the date to post on time.)
I feel like I was kicked in the teeth this morning. One of my cats jumped up on the bookshelf and knocked down what I’d I spent a week crafting with Malphas. One of its parts cracked right down the middle. It wasn’t just a trinket. I’d spent days charging it with positivity, security, and creativity. Now I either need to repair it or start again. Worse yet, when I came home one of them had puked spectacularly all over my desk chair. I couldn’t help but think the universe was trying to tell me something. Last night’s question kept coming back to me. “I’m a writer, aren’t I?”
I suppose I am. I do, after all, write. Sometimes I even enjoy it. I blog at demonolatry.org and have a good time doing it. I’m may ache after my time at my desk, but I don’t resent that. It feels like time well spent. I feel the same way about the posts here. I’m not sure how many people are reading, but at least I’m being given a chance to express myself.
Other times, writing feels like a burden. I don’t mean the business aspect of it. Although marketing yourself on the internet is never fun, I’ve gotten used to that over the years. Perhaps not savvy at it, but I recognize that it is a task I cannot ignore. Yet that isn’t the part of writing I’m referring to, or even the Dreaded Novel I Cannot Finished. Rather, it is that people think of me as a writer. It is what they expect me to do with my days, and what they expect me to be good at, and to be satisfied by. Writing has always been at the core of who I am. I fear that saying it no longer makes me happy a good portion of the time will make me seem like an entirely different person: a lesser person, someone not as worthwhile in their eyes.
The people I admire most are storytellers. A few have been published—many times, in fact. Others struggle to place their stories. They remain among the most gifted tale-tellers I know. I always feel blessed when they open up and share one with me. In all likelihood, most of them wouldn’t even consider themselves storytellers at all. They might say they have the gift of the gab, that they can make people laugh, or that they are natural healers. Indeed, they should be allowed to define themselves, but they remain storytellers to me, and they seem a little bit magical because of that.
Two tell stories with something other than words. The teacher of my sound healing class can spin tales with graceful movements alone. On the other hand, my husband weaves stories with color and light. He paints in three mediums now, with oil being the latest he’s trying to master. He once wrote together, but he could never quite express with words what he can with the brush and he always felt as if he was trying to catch up to me.
I admit it sometimes frustrated me that such a knowledge gap existed between us, but I knew he would catch up. I’ve often wondered if the joy went out of writing for me when he moved onto painting. Deciding that would be the easy but not true; in many ways, I prefer to work alone. Still, I often resented the excitement with which he raced to his easel while I trudged to my desk. I knew fibromyalgia and all shit-ton of other health conditions made harder and harder for me to sit there, but I also realized stress worsened fibromyalgia. After years away from drawing, I finally tried my hand art again to spend time with husband and to relieve that stress.
When absorbed in lines and color, the world disappears for me in the way like it used to when I wrote fiction. I cannot connect with stories that way anymore. I have to fight through fibro fog to write at all. I was amazed when I could edit a friend’s work so easily the other day. It took me hours, but I could concentrate in a way that I can only with visual art and meditation now. I know if I keep plugging away at it, that I can probably could force those neural pathways open and write again… but I don’t want to do so.
I think that’s what my spirits were trying to tell me when they brought up the Novel That Dare Not Be Named and all its labyrinth symbolism again. It was a story about a man who felt himself changing and became terrified of that change. I felt myself changing while writing it and became similarly afraid. Back then, I was certain that any metamorphosis providing me with the key to happiness would also guarantee I’d end up alone. I still fear that, only now I can see that my chrysalis involves art. The tarot deck I consulted today said no change will come at all unless I am willing to admit what I want, no matter the risk. I’ve known this all along.
Not so long ago, the writer I admire most suggested I take a break from writing. Other than my current commitments, that’s what I’m going to do. I will even play what if with myself and pretend I am not a writer, at least not a professional one. I may be good at writing, I can support my friends and all they do, but I do not have to write anything new this months unless it makes me happy.
Somehow I forgot that muses must be nurtured. They must live in a healthy environment to thrive. I’ve kept mine in a coal mine, working him 24/7 for years. Even when I wasn’t selling my work, all my writing was aimed at eventual sale or getting me forward in some way. I stopped writing for fun—except for the few bits and bobs I mentioned before. I’ll keep up with those because there’s no reason not to; it makes no sense to throw away what still works, does it?
In light of what I’m figuring out about myself, I’m ratifying my original plans to bring them more in line with working with daemons of love and understanding. Therefore:
EVERY DAY – I will write my novel for one hour, without planning anything in advance, using a soundtrack I created for inspiration. I will not judge or even looking back at the work until the end of the month. Listen to the soundtrack. Meditate on and disperse any anxieties it brings up with dance and sound. I accomplished this today.
EVERY DAY – At minimum, sing the enns of the daemons I’m working with and run their energy through my chakras. I accomplished this today as well.
EVERY DAY – Make some new art, even if all I do is photograph or draw something I love. If possible, I will listen to upbeat music while I work. I haven’t managed this yet, but I still plan to after dinner. I feel like saying I want to make is major movement on this front, since I’ve been nearly paralyzed to say it out loud and disappoint people I love. In addition to completing day two of the #developingyoureye challenge through WordPress and snapping the photo you can find below, I took a snapshot of the angel which sits on my porch. Do you love her as much as I do? You can see her at the top of this post.
And, of course…
EVERY WEDNESDAY – Attend a sound healing class here in my city.
My brain hasn’t quit churning since the day Andrieh Vitimus announced his domagick challenge. I knew right away that I wanted to take part, but exactly how I would transform myself in March remained elusive. What spirits would I speak to in those thirty days? What realm of my life should I concentrate on, knowing I’d share my work here, on the internet?
These are the sigils regularly used for the demon Seere. I discovered the sigil above during a meditation with her.
Unfortunately, no one could answer those questions for me, though I certainly pestered friends and family for advice. Fates bless them, they suffered me patiently enough. So did Seere, the daemon I worked with this week, when I sought her help to see the matter more clearly. I admit that the cards I turned over this week didn’t seem to make much sense at first, but I’ve frequently had trouble doing divination for myself in the past. It’s not that cards don’t read true, but that I can’t understand what they mean because I am too close to the situation at hand.
I kept asking Seere, “Do you mean I should be doing this? Or that?” I was asking for specifics, to be spoon-fed… and daemons don’t work that way, at least not in my experience.
First off, there’s the language barrier. When we ask spirits concretely worded questions, we general get Tarot card type answers in reply: images, symbols, a few keywords. Except in books, I haven’t heard of too many psychics who receive complete sentences when communicating with spirits, daemonic or otherwise. Maybe our brains are too small to catch more than a glimpse of what spirits are trying to show us, or perhaps they just don’t speak human.
More importantly, spirits have their own drives and motives. Sometimes it behooves them to be a tad reticent when doling out information. My patron is notorious for wanting me to come to conclusions on my own, and I’m beginning to suspect he’s gone to every other spirit in the universe and said, “Don’t tell that one jack shit. Make him figure it all out on his own. It’s the only way he learns.”
My favorite name for him at this point is King of the Red Herrings. Last month, during one of those rare moments of truly crystal clear communication, he suggested I could do something—if I wanted. Of course, I immediately did what I was told, thinking it was in my best interest, without even stopping to consider what my best interest actually was. Only afterward did I begin to regret the action and brood about it, wondering why he’d made me do such a thing.
Again, daemons don’t work like that. If a daemon is telling you to do anything against your own will, it isn’t a daemon talking. If anything, it’s most likely an internal need to self-sabotage. And, oh, how I love to sabotage myself! I follow paths of action on a regular basis that I know damn well aren’t good for me, usually in the hopes of receiving outside approval. I’m rarely satisfied when that approval comes, if it ever does. By then my martyrdom tastes bittersweet. I know I only have myself to blame, but I often end up subliminally resenting whoever I put myself in that position for in the first place. I’m only human, and as the video I posted above points out, humans make very little sense sometimes.
With Seere’s help, this time my hindsight was truly 20/20. I finally understood the lesson my patron had specifically set up for me and how easily I’d taken the bait. I’ve created a heap of extra work for myself by doing so too. I haven’t wrecked anything irreparable, but I definitely have to go back to square one without collecting my $200 dollars.
Strangely enough, as soon as I realized this, the confusion I’d felt concerning the #domagick challenge cleared up. I saw a pattern in the spirits I’d been considering that I missed before. I began to intuit how I could work with them to transform my writing, the area I’d wanted to work on most. I can’t say I know the entire shape of my March work yet, but that’s what the rest of February is for, isn’t it?
Hail Seere, she who helped me see clearly! And hail my patron, who keeps me on my toes! May I continue to learn from them both.
