There was supposed to be an intro post, before I started doing any of this shit. In it I would have discussed my overarching goals, history with chaos magick, issues with agency/Will, a smidge of feminist theory, and my Saturn return.
Without further digression, then.
Super-Long Intro
Overarching Goals:
Get my brain in order. Fix my life. Change shit up. Tear it down. Rebuild. Push some buttons. Clear some air. Dig deeper. Climb higher.
Spend time at the edges without completely losing my center. Alternately, lose the center. Re-define the center.
I'd love to outline a series of concrete goals - and I will, bit by bit. But that's honestly not the way I process my life, or my aspirations. Everything is shadowy and vague and shrouded in a reluctant avoidance of direct result-seeking. Which is, you know, part of the problem.
History with Chaos Magick:
This is brief, but important: my earliest forays into any sort of magick or occult study were of two varieties: [what I considered at the time to be mostly] fluffy white-light nonsense, and [what appeared to me to be] actual, real, magick.
Not to get all "back in the day" on you, because I know my seniority doesn't really rank. But this was, you know, back in the day. When my two major sources for occult info were the indy second-hand bookstore and AOL message boards. When "AOL" and "the internet" were still synonymous in my head.
So I was staring at candles and doing bio-feedback spirit guide contact and constructing my inner temple and attempting astral energy work and shared visionary experiences. These things went well. They amused me. They did not, though, make me feel quite like a bad-ass. (I was 16, OK? That was absolutely a consideration.)
And then, of course, there was Liber KKK.
Liber KKK would surely provide some bad-ass cred, right? Despite cautions from assorted concerned internet folk that KKK was surely not a place to begin, I was pretty bored of fluff-n-stuff. I'd been lurking on LHP boards for far too long. I needed some of my own stories.
I didn't finish Liber KKK, though. I didn't even make it through the sorcery-level exercises. And although my 16-year-old self would be mortified to know this, since then I've definitely tended towards the fluffier side of the coin, for reasons made clearer, perhaps, below.
Issues with Agency/Will:
The primary difference, for me, between two groups of ideas/exercises/philosophies, was the degree to which the agenda was set by the paradigm. I was attracted to Chaos Magick initially because the agenda wasn't set by the paradigm. I was an overachieving teenaged girl attending a small-town, Midwestern, Catholic high school. The agenda was always, always, always set by the paradigm, and the paradigms were incredibly demanding. National Merit qualifying scores, full scholarships, etc.
The agenda set by the fluff-n-stuff paradigm was a vague mixture of wish-fulfillment and self-improvement. A bit of forgiveness here, some healing there. Divination, wisdom, spiritual growth. I don't mean to discount these things - they have, generally, set the foundation and the tone of my spiritual practice. I only mean to point out that the degree of self-determination, of agency, of access to Will, is minimal. Meanwhile, the demands were generally low.
In Chaos Magick, the paradigm is instead set by the agenda. The fact that one has an agenda is assumed at the outset. Liber KKK fizzled, for me, in part because I didn't have my own agenda. I didn't even really understand that I didn't have one. The demands, here, are almost entirely self-determined.
Operating within a paradigm? I'm stellar. I will learn your paradigm and assimilate before you forget that I wasn't born into it. The idea that I could use this skill to advance my own ends was an enticing one, except for the part where I didn't actually have any ends.
A Smidge of Feminist Theory:
I have some theories about the tendencies towards gender divisions in occult practice. I have some theories about why there are so few female magicians.
These theories could provide a long and involved post, all on their own, but here is a preview: Gender socialization in our culture provides women with a paradigm that determines the agenda. A set of paradigms, even. But we are trained to respond. We are trained to assist, to support, to balance, to listen, even to serve. We are trained to strive, in our small ways, towards any one of a very short list of approved ends, with the implicit expectation that the seeking of continued approval is non-negotiable.
I do not mean to imply that the gender programming for men doesn't limit their acceptable ends. I only mean to suggest that it's more accepted that men will, indeed, have ends. I know far too many gifted intuitive practitioners, who happen to be products of female gender socialization, who are confused, if not distressed, when confronted with the question, "What do you want, anyway?" One might think, from the facial expression, that I was a near-stranger who'd just asked for a recommendation for a brand of lube, complete with detailed review notes.
It is not easy, when one is socialized to subvert one's own desires for the perceived benefit of others, to awaken to a spiritual or magickal practice whose central questions are completely open-ended, and ask only that you desire. We find, often, that we do not remember how.
My Saturn Return:
Starts in December, technically, and goes through October 2013. Why, yes, there is a retrograde period in there! I am sure that simply adds to the fun.
I don't have a ton to say about this, except: holy shit. And these influences are definitely already in the works. (12 degree orb, right now.) And returning to Chaos Magick, and finally addressing some of my issues with agency and Will? And finally getting back into school, and finally paying off some debts? And taking classes explicitly in the field of study I abandoned ten years ago?
Let's just say I'd like to work on a better steering apparatus, because although this ship has seen some times, those are some crazy looking clouds.
On that particular note, I will move into my (hopefully) brief notes on the first official week of this project.
Week One Summary
I am, for the most part, following Satyr's lead, at least for the moment. We did discuss the syllabus, so to speak, and although I anticipate some evolution thereof, I am completely content to work my way through as it's been laid out.
This is, to say, that I am also starting with Liber MMM.
My meditation goal was set, although not in writing, at 5 minutes per day. I have averaged every other day, and so far learned the following:
- Meditation in the morning, right now, does not happen. I fucking despise mornings, and while this particular attitude might be up for magickal adjustment in the near future, as of right now, the last thing I want to do in the morning is anything that implies I might have a goal or a hope for the future.
- Meditation in the evening is a challenge, especially if I am very tired. I fall asleep very easily when meditating, although not when I am trying to fall asleep. This has led me to, on at least one occasion, meditate for the explicit purpose of falling asleep, while suspending the thought that the effort behind the (in)activity was, in fact, sleep. This is not a button I want to push very often, though, because I don't actually want to reinforce the meditation = sleep connection.
- Motionlessness is still easier for me than I expect it to be. Part of this is probably because, as a child, I used to time myself to see how long I could remain perfectly still on long drives. Without moving a toe. Even around corners. Yes, I was a really weird kid. Turns out a lot of those mechanisms are still in place, if dusty.
- Focus on breathing is a classic tool of mental discipline, but I've been beginning to see it as a way of tuning. This may well be one of those things that everyone else already knew. When I am truly focused on my breath, really experiencing the changes in pressure and texture and sound and energy flow, I am noticing things that are always happening, all the time, that I generally ignore. And I am forced to wonder what the world looks like through the eyes of that level of focus, and how much information I could be gathering. And then I remind myself that I'm supposed to be focusing on my breath.
Banishing, right now, means trying to keep my apartment clean. I know, for sure, that is a cop-out. But I am incapable of doing any meaningful work in a messy space, and my space is usually messy, and energetic banishing seems downright silly when I've got physical banishing to do. I will try harder this week. I promise.
Dream work is keeping a journal beside my bed, and recording the minimal fragments that have greeted me upon awakening. (Milk for sale. Six dollars. Barn dance.) For some reason, lately some of my dreams don't surface until hours later, like, while I am driving. I might start carrying a tape recorder around.
And that, my darlings, is all. Until next week, or at least tomorrow, because I am falling asleep at my keyboard, which doesn't say much for my ability to meditate before I crash.
"I know far too many gifted intuitive practitioners, who happen to be products of female gender socialization, who are confused, if not distressed, when confronted with the question, "What do you want, anyway?" One might think, from the facial expression, that I was a near-stranger who'd just asked for a recommendation for a brand of lube, complete with detailed review notes."
ReplyDeleteBest pullquote ever. Especially since I've seen the face of which you speak.