bloodteethandflame

A life in threes

Tag: psst…this is where the magic happens

Questions and answers.

Have you ever played with the Ape of Thoth?

It’s a searchable database of Thelema texts – by verse and chapter, if one knows the number – but what makes it fun is that there is also a feature on the site that is a Thelemic text randomizer.

It’s pretty neat, actually.  You type/ask a question, and it brings up a portion of text from the books of Thelema as an answer.

Which makes it so much more interesting than the Magic 8-Ball these days.

So…I have an issue that is quite emotionally-laden for me, and I was having trouble keeping a clear head about things.

So I decided to ask the Ape of Thoth for some guidance, simply typing:

 

What to do? RE: LOKI

 

[And this was the answer:]

 

“Continuation. Further concerning occupation.

Let the devotee transmute within the alembic of his heart every thought, or word, or act into the spiritual gold of his devotion.
As thus: eating. Let him say: “I eat this food in gratitude to my Deity that hath sent it to me, in order to gain strength for my devotion to Him.”
Or: sleeping. Let him say: “I lie down to sleep, giving thanks for this blessing from my Deity, in order that I may be refreshed for new devotion to Him.”
Or: reading. Let him say: “I read this book that I may study the nature of my Deity, that further knowledge of Him may inspire me with deeper devotion to Him.”
Or: working. Let him say: “I drive my spade into the earth that fresh flowers (fruit, or what not) may spring up to His glory, and that I, purified by toil, may give better devotion to Him.”
Or: whatever it may be that he is doing, let him reason it out in his own mind, drawing it through circumstance and circumstance to that one end and conclusion of the matter. And let him not perform the act until he hath done this.
As it is written: Liber VII, cap. v. —
22. “Every breath, every word, every thought, ever deed is an act of love with Thee.
23. “The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love.
24. “The songs of me are the soft sighs:
25. “The thoughts of me are very rapture:
26. “And my deeds are the myriads of Thy Children, the stars and the atoms.” And Remember Well, that if thou wert in truth a lover, all this wouldst thou do of thine own nature without the slightest flaw or failure in the minutest part thereof.”

 

All I could think upon reading the above is – what remarkably specific advice – even if it doesn’t answer the question that I thought that I was asking.

But sometimes that happens.

Perhaps this is the connection in discovering the meaning of that phrase

Love is the movement that gives substance to the Will 

 

Hm.

Funny, that.

Even though I know

Not everything that comes up in my life is a message.

Not everything in my life in my life has a hidden meaning.

And most importantly of all…

I know that if there is a message or a meaning

the message and the meaning aren’t

always

specifically

meant for me.

But then again, certain things show up in my reading and I have to wonder

Just what is the Universe up to?

 

Allow.

‘There is a secret about human love that is commonly overlooked: receiving it is much more scary and threatening than giving it.   How many times in your life have you been unable to let in someone’s love, or pushed it away?  Much as we proclaim the wish to be truly loved, we are often afraid of that, and find it difficult to open to love or let it all the way in.’

John Welwood

~~~

He said:

‘Is it so difficult?

And so I will tell you again what you must do: 

Open up to love. 

Just love.

Let love consume you.  

Let love engulf you in its joy.

You must trust in your love.

You must allow love to take hold of you.

You must allow yourself to feel.

You must forgive yourself and allow yourself 

Love without condition,

Love without attachments,

Love without goals,

Love without agendas.

You must love for the sake of love.

Don’t you see?

You must allow yourself to be taken by joy.

Release yourself to love.  Surrender yourself to joy.

You must not fear being open.

You must open up to love.’

~~~

Joy, and derailment.

From Wikipedia:

A derailment is said to take place when a vehicle (for example a train) runs off its rails. This does not necessarily mean that it leaves its track. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system, and they are potentially seriously hazardous to human health and safety. Usually, the derailment of a train can be caused by a collision with another object, the mechanical failure of tracks, such as broken rails, or the mechanical failure of the wheels.

Also:

In psychiatry, derailment  is a thought disorder characterized by discourse consisting of a sequence of unrelated or only remotely related ideas. The frame of reference often changes from one sentence to the next.

In a mild manifestation, [this] is characterized by slippage of ideas further and further from the point of a discussion. Some of the synonyms given… are used by some authors to refer just to a loss of goal: discourse that sets off on a particular idea, wanders off and never returns to it.  In some studies on creativity…it describes a similarly loose association of ideas, [but] it is not considered a mental disorder, or the hallmark of one; it is sometimes used as a synonym for lateral thinking.

~~~

 

From Thursday, 18 February 2015:

I was feeling good.  I really was.

I was feeling as if a fog had lifted.  I was feeling that I was being seen and understood.  Things were good.

And then my friend, Phil called, wanting to talk.  Phil said that he had been concerned about me and he simply wanted to ‘check in’ with me.

We ended up getting in an argument over the historical accuracy of the show Vikings.

Now I must wonder if Phil might not be as aware of my spirituality as I had assumed.  While I’d thought that Phil was somewhat aware of the fact that I am a polytheist and a Pagan, it occurs to me that he might not given it much thought beyond that.  He was flippant and downright condescending towards the spiritual beliefs and culture of pre-Christian societies, including the Vikings.

(I cannot seem to think of the concept that I’m trying to convey here – the belief that one’s ancestors weren’t as intelligent or spiritually developed as those living in the modern age.  Edited to add: Urdummheit.  The concept is called Urdummheit.)

He made several comments about the Eddas as ‘being a stupid bunch of poems,’ and that ‘the Havamal is a poem that has no basis in reality’ when I pointed out the cultural relevance of both in giving insight to Viking society.  When I brought up Tacitus- since he was trying to make his point that his belief is that there is no historical record of Vikings being anything beyond what he was saying that they were – that is precisely where our conversation truly degenerated into something that was more contradiction than intellectual discussion.

We were talking about history, and the next thing you know, we were getting defensive with each other about the legitimacy of each other’s opinions.

And it disturbs me when that happens.  Initially, I’d felt the need to defend my point, but then I realized that I’d lost all patience to do so.

I haven’t any patience to educate you on my opinions today.

~~~

In an attempt to cheer myself up and focus on things more positive, I thought about my upcoming flight to Atlanta to visit another friend over the weekend of March 6th-8th.

Earlier in the day, my friend had texted me concerning my plans.

I allowed myself to feel good when I read about how excited and pleased she was for the opportunity to see me, as we hadn’t seen each other in several years.

When I realized that I had missed some of her recent responses, due to my being on the phone with Phil, I returned her call.

And she didn’t answer.

I had to remind myself that it was OK.  I had to remind myself that I was just feeling defensive and put off energetically by my phone call with Phil.

~~~

He asks me what is wrong.  I can’t even articulate it.

~~~

A friend posted something today – and I responded to it, but I probably should not have.

It dealt with something that I could relate to that Loki had said, about joy being one of the only things that impresses Him; the sense of presence, the joy of being in the moment is all He’d ever seek.  How He seeks energy, energetic presence that is pure, unadulterated by shame or guilt or guile.

This reminds me of the words that He has often said to me:

Just feel.  Just be.

 Do you know what you are?

You are light.  You are energy.  You are electricity.  You are fire in a bottle, contained.  

Shine on.

But, as is a human habit, I get hung up in negativity, in conceits, in an inability to see the opportunity, to allow myself the experience of the raw joy of being.

We squander it, I suppose, spending all of our time in making comparisons and in competition with each other rather than feeling compersion, or allowing ourselves connection.

Maybe that is the lesson.

If I am ever going to love him

I should just love him

and stop thinking of how I could do it better

or more profoundly

or whatever

and just love him

Just letting the light of what I am –just letting that love flow out of me.

Just be.  Just love.

It sounds woo-hippy-crazy, I know.

But I don’t care.

It’s difficult – but probably not nearly as difficult as I am making it out to be.

Let go of fear and open to love.

 

 

Earnestly occupied, and fascinated

From I09:

If time is a fluid concept, then I should really watch what I say from now on.

 

Gods, how I love language.

 

And I can so see some of my Gods being all over this sort of business. 😉

Month for Loki, Day 14: Art…and anxiety.

My only anxiety is what I can do… Could I not be of use and good for something?….This world only concerns me insofar as I feel a certain debt and duty towards it and out of gratitude want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures…to express sincere human feeling.  

                                                                                           – Vincent Van Gogh

~~~

This past month, I’ve been doing a lot of drawing.

I’ve still yet to put any of my artwork on DeviantArt, but I’ve got quite a stack now, so stay tuned.

For one thing, I’ve been getting a lot of practice drawing facial expressions – including lots of noses.  (I’m getting better at drawing noses, so that’s a plus.)

Such as it is, I’m really pleased with yesterday’s sketch – which came together relatively quickly –  but I have to do some clean-up on it, or otherwise I’d be posting it.

~~~

I had just been saying to a dear friend that I very rarely draw things directly out of my head, as I often use photos or at the very least, I’ll do a few body/face/positioning studies before I actually draw anything.  Within about twenty minutes from ending the conversation – and having not much intent to draw anything moments before – I found myself absentmindedly sketching a face on my drawing pad.

And next thing I know, a whole scene started quickly to come together, and I sketched a woman’s face, eyes nose, mouth…and then, her shoulders and torso, and then…sketched the outlines of a face of a man… his shoulders, chest, and torso…and soon —

I realized that I had drawn a pretty detailed rendition of a young man with long hair and a goatee, lying with his head resting casually in the woman’s lap. The woman is looking downward, smiling at him, and her hand rests lightly on his bare chest.  He is looking up at her, with a playful grin, and he is winking at her.

I could hardly believe that the sketch came together so quickly, so smoothly, with so few erasures/corrections — all within about twenty minutes of first putting pencil to paper.

(If I had sat down with the focused intent to draw such a scene, my usual attempts would be made slowly, carefully, and fraught with erasures as I stress over perfecting the jawline, or re-drawing the nose for the third time, or what-have-you, and that whole process would usually take me hours.)

 

So you might imagine how surreal it felt to suddenly find myself drawing …

 

And everything

— their facial expressions, the positions of their bodies —

just seemed to flow effortlessly from the pencil to the paper, almost without stopping, and entirely without much intent on my part

within the span of 20 minutes.

 

~~~

Later on, while making dinner, I was talking to an artist friend of mine, and he asked me how my sketching had been going.

I excitedly mentioned how easy things had been that day while I was sketching, and he remarked that it seemed supernatural compared to my usual anxious plod-through.

 

Hey, d’you think that it means this thing was divinely inspired? I laughed.

I dunno, but I love it when sketching’s like that, he responded.  It may not be divine, but it sure is magic.

 

Indeed.

 

~~~

Hail Loki ❤

 

 

 

Month for Loki, Day 13: Preparation is everything.

So, if I haven’t already mentioned, I have been taking a course in Shapeshifting, through Cherry Hill Seminary.

It’s been an interesting few weeks to say the least.

I am preparing for the final project next week

 

 

and I decided to get some help from Mr. Tea:

 

:MrTea

 

His pants are full of mugwort, and he’s now relaxing in my teacup.

 

We will see how this goes.

 

This is where the magic happens.

 

Wish me luck!

~~~

Hail Loki, Shapeshifter ❤