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Growth can be very awkward. Awareness of the Long Descent, coupled with the worldwide totalitarian Covid response, has provided the impetus to really, finally, change my life. About a month ago, I did a quick self-assessment on how it's working out (results were mixed). In terms of my skill development, results are still mixed obviously, but something important has changed. The most significant shift has been in my mindset.
Like a lot of modern people, I think I grew up in a state of learned helplessness. I didn't have any real confidence in myself in a lot of areas. It was true that I lacked a lot of important skills, but beyond that, I also lacked the faith in myself that I could learn them. A lot of the things that I'm learning how to do now just seemed like things that other people did. I also struggled sucking at things, for lack of a better word. If it wasn't great right away, I became discouraged and wanted no part of it.
Learning the magical arts, perhaps not so strangely, was what helped me break out of my mental rut. I was forced to do different and unfamiliar things as a part of my training, with nothing but my own determination to keep me going in the face of frustration (and sometimes fear). Slowly gaining some confidence as I entered a whole new world and way of being gave me the willingness to push outside of my comfort zone. It's strange to write that putting on robes and chanting barbarous words of power in flickering candlelight and clouds of incense smoke somehow helped me begin to learn home repair skills, start learning about herbs and essential oils, and opened whole new areas in my life, but it did.
The very idea of being a magician in modern times is ridiculous to many people (and many of the ones who take it seriously regard it as evil and Satanic), but it is a set of practices and a mindset that has allowed me to access and change my own consciousness in accordance with my will. I'm building a different sort of life, one I never thought was possible for me, and if it is ugly and halting here at the onset, I know that in time I will shape it into something pleasing and uniquely mine.
Like a lot of modern people, I think I grew up in a state of learned helplessness. I didn't have any real confidence in myself in a lot of areas. It was true that I lacked a lot of important skills, but beyond that, I also lacked the faith in myself that I could learn them. A lot of the things that I'm learning how to do now just seemed like things that other people did. I also struggled sucking at things, for lack of a better word. If it wasn't great right away, I became discouraged and wanted no part of it.
Learning the magical arts, perhaps not so strangely, was what helped me break out of my mental rut. I was forced to do different and unfamiliar things as a part of my training, with nothing but my own determination to keep me going in the face of frustration (and sometimes fear). Slowly gaining some confidence as I entered a whole new world and way of being gave me the willingness to push outside of my comfort zone. It's strange to write that putting on robes and chanting barbarous words of power in flickering candlelight and clouds of incense smoke somehow helped me begin to learn home repair skills, start learning about herbs and essential oils, and opened whole new areas in my life, but it did.
The very idea of being a magician in modern times is ridiculous to many people (and many of the ones who take it seriously regard it as evil and Satanic), but it is a set of practices and a mindset that has allowed me to access and change my own consciousness in accordance with my will. I'm building a different sort of life, one I never thought was possible for me, and if it is ugly and halting here at the onset, I know that in time I will shape it into something pleasing and uniquely mine.
From:
A different life
Yeah, growth can be awkward, but it is always life. Stop growing and you start dying.
Way off topic for this post but I really enjoyed your dragon gut post. I've sensed a similar vibe that presented as the Ouroboros, the serpent or dragon eating it tail. It looks like hopelessness at first glance but means wholeness and infinity.
Gawain
From:
Re: A different life
Thanks for the compliment on my other post. It was a very strange time. Can't wait to see what the next eclipses will bring...