Oh, this poor neglected little blog. It has been nearly a year since I've posted to it. Too long. But if you were to look back and read all the posts you'd see this is a common occurrence. Gaps abound in my journals. In fact this is really the reason I started this blog in the first place. I know myself well enough to know that I respond well to pressure from an expectant audience. I knew that if I had a deadline, no matter how artificial it was, I would step up.
At any rate, I had someone asking me a few days ago about this blog. I lamented that I had been so neglectful. "Ach!," I wrote, "what a slacker." I asked them what I should write about. They suggested I write about balancing the elements of life, mundane and magical, and about periods of being a slacker. I've written about this idea before but perhaps it is time for a reexamination, if for nothing else than to break the ice and get back into the swing of not only writing on the blog but also my greater practice.
One of the great lessons of the material existence is all things move in cycles; birth, growth, death, decay, birth. When one is in the death and decay stages of whatever cycle they're in it is hard to do much. Depression and despair are at once the exact situations for which magic would be a help and the very conditions in which it is almost impossible to do any kind of magic. Or at least it was for me. In a very real way I met my shadow over the course of the past couple of years and it wrestled me to the ground. The obstacles in my path were entirely of my own making and really were only obstacles because of my dogged determination that everything must turn out in exactly one way. Who knows how many opportunities I missed just because I was blindly following a plan that turned out to be futile. My strategy was flawed from the beginning and I wound up working harder and harder for no gain to the detriment of almost everything else in my life. I dropped my magic practice, avoided people, wouldn't allow myself anything pleasurable, and the work I loved was becoming something I was coming to resent. So I quit that job and got a regular one. That's where I've been for the pat several months.
So, why do I tell you all this? Partly just to vent but I also think there is a lesson to learn from this.
Did I fail magic?
An argument can be made either way. Did I fail magic? Yes. I should have been more prepared with divination to identify and find solutions to the pitfalls that were about to be in my way. I could have marshalled spiritual forces to my advantage.
Did I fail at magic? No. Even the most powerful of mages cannot escape the challenges of a mundane life. Perhaps my experience could have been much worse and was ameliorated by the spiritual authority I have built up over the years.
I find limited value in this second guessing and questioning my decisions long after the fact. What I can say for sure, however, is that panic and desperation kill my ability to do magic of almost any kind. My divinations become skewed, my offerings turn into childish begging for favors, and my shadow rises up to tell me that I am unworthy for happiness or success.
I am definitely coming through the other side of this experience. The stability that comes from not stressing constantly about how to pay my bills helps immensely. Some projects that I've had on the proverbial back burner are catching my interest once again. It reminds me that my practice has always ebbed and flowed. I look forward to doing more,experiencing more, and sharing more.
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