Balancing it out.

I’ve got power in Hod. Its where my head (ha-ha) naturally goes when I am thinking. I am always in motion, like Mercury, seeing myself an extension of the activities I am in the midst of doing, and the places I am in the midst of going.

Even now, in the writer’s trance, I feel most at home, looking behind at the letters I have already typed, and ahead to the ideas I have yet to translate into words that are eaten up by my fingers clattering on the keyboard.

This motion is natural to me.

It doesn’t mean I need to fight it, in order to rectify any imbalance; I simply have to Know this about myself.

In order to achieve balance, I have to manually insert Netzach into my experience regularly.

I am finding this works best through periods of meditation.

I’m a digital ninja, fer crissakes. I took the twenty minutes necessary to find the right meditation apps for my iphone, complete with binaural beat frequencies. Now I have the tools to enter trance, and shut off the raging intellect for a few minutes, sporadically throughout the day.

Then when I return to the domains of Hod, I am balanced while I am there, and I have the powers of Netzach behind me to fulfill the manifestation,.

I can see the next step: incorporating an emotional state. Next I need to invite in an emotion and hold it for a period of time. (I’m guessing this is touching on Four Worlds Meditations, where I am already lacking in knowledge.) Do you have any exercises for me?

Reviewing Netzach

The receptivity is where I lack.

I like taking these two sephiroth in a pair; they interplay so much, being on the same level (but different pillars) I understand them much better now, in the context of one another.

I am very will-driven. My tagline is “I make things happen.”About a year ago I realized the error of this, trying to continually inflict my will upon reality. Privately, I changed my tagline to “I let things happen.”

It’s more difficult for me to ensoul this mantra into my being, so I’m going to make me some subliminal audio affirmations to help do that. (Thanks to the ALF, I know how to do that. And so will you – module 4, coming up next month.)

By letting things happen, I allow in the massive powers of the universe to create the universe that is in truest alignment with the energy I am putting out. I could very well be consciously evoking one intention, and subconciously evoking another, and the result is a pile of bleh.

Using the powers of Netzach, I can relax myself into the flow, and dance my way to manifestation.

I’m exhausted, frankly, of trying to define and manifest everything myself. It shouldn’t be laden with effort. Instead, I’m going to vaguely outline what I would like (in terms of the specific feelings I would like to have manifested) and then step out of the way and let the heirarchy do its work.

I let things happen.

It isn’t as catchy, but it’s a lot more effective.

I’m writing a memoir, did I mention that?

It’s hell.
Hell on wheels.

Tonight. I get to go see a woman speak at the Hugo House about …. actually, I’m not sure what she is speaking about, (here: http://hugohouse.org/content/dont-ask-dont-tell oh, and it’s sold out.) but she is an unbelievable author, and quite frankly, kind of an idol.
She wrote “The Chronology of Water”
I stalked her a little on the internet and sent her a facebook friend request and low and behold – she accepted (and I had to be sedated).
Drinking a beer.
Then going to go.
Trying to not give myself a heart attack.

Moving on, to bigger and better lessons…

I made a deal with myself a few months ago.

I was tired of having money issues. (Okay, I still am, to be perfectly honest.) I’ve been stuck in resource lessons for a while, repeating some old patterns, and decided I was ready to step up on Maszlow’s Heirarchy of Needs. Getting beyond survival issues, I can start working on higher level issues (relationship, existential, etc) that can only really be fully addressed once the survival state is taken care of.

“So,” I said to the Universe, “I’m ready to step up now. You can give me bigger lessons, and I’ll just keep the wheel turning on this whole money making thing, so no more problems there. Deal?”

For a while, yeah, that worked.

I’m kinda glad I went through another period of scarcity, because I’ve come to handle them a lot better now. I don’t get wrapped up in the emotions, and perpetuate it for six months, like I used to. I’ve learned how to remain calm, and optimistic, and gently decline the opportunity to freak out, and just focus on what saves me in the long run: working hard, getting clients, doing my thing.

The times I have been most scarce in my thinking (and therefore my wallet) have been the times I paid the closest attention to my budget. When I’m counting every penny, it’s like they all count waaaay more than the should.

My new philosophy, “Fuck a Budget,” has only gotten me so far.

But, it’s getting me through, with a better state of mind than I usually carry. So I call that a win. Like I told my wife, it’s not that these periods of financial tightness don’t happen. It’s how we deal with them when they do.

I’ve also gotten better at identifying when the periods of scarcity end. I made a sacrifice of my favorite vices (beer and pot) until I got through this period.

And then, aha, I realized how to get out of this state.

I had a beer and smoked some pot.

And wouldn’t you know it, today I have much more money.

It’s a funny manifestation structural crutch: by defining, internally, what the characteristics of two different states will be, then when you change those characteristics, you can successfully change your state.

I was driving back from a client meeting this morning, and my car started having heave-ho problems going up the mountain. I listened to my intuition; which I will always follow, especially when it leads me to a bar.

A drinking lunch on a school day, with $8 to my name, of course I’ll have a beer!

I did, and met some potential new clients. Got home, and said, yes, intuition, I will have a bit of pot. It is, after all, the literal last few leaves I can scrounge together, packed into the bottom of my pipe.

(Nothing like rock bottom to clear you out, energetically.)

So I don’t interpret this as a breaking of my own vow to myself, I interpret it as a recognition that yes, my period of financial scarcity is over. Because those were the boundaries that I set for the change between states, and bam, it happened.

I had two loans come in today (and when you’re a bankrupt with no credit lines, thats a feat, let me tell you). The month will now take care of itself. You’ve got money coming to you in the next 24 hours, and the short term loans I’ve used to bolster myself up over the past two weeks can get paid back.

Now, I’m working at digging myself out of this financial hole. And I do this with a greater knowledge about the truth of myself.

(It took me awhile, but I started this ramble in mind of eventually getting to the subject of this blog.)

The big thing I learned about myself is that I have serious hungers. My two favored vices (beer and pot) are strong, deep hungers within me. After having one beer today, I really wonted another. Like, really wanted another. I could have drank four, happily, and then finished my drive home – mostly straight.

So, I log this in the inventory about what I know of myself. I have strong hunger for my two favored vices.

I understood this before, but didn’t recognize it as a truth about myself. Hod is all about recognizing the inner truths, and I’m grateful for this recognition.

I’ve also come to face my full understanding of my own root. On a resource level, I have scarcity issues. I have no contact with my ancestry or my childhood. This isn’t something to be overcome, but something to recognize and adapt to, which I can do better now that I see this as a truth about myself.

Before moving into Netzach, I felt way off balance with only Hod. I expected some sort of symbiosis, a collaborative energy like when we moved into Air in the Elements class, where I felt most at home.

This was different, though; with Hod, the realm of the intellect, I’ve got plenty of cylinders firing there. By immersing myself in that energy, I am imbalanced.

So when you sent over the expansion on the correspondences for Netzach, I was able to put the intellect in its proper place. By using these two energies in tandem, I can fully focus on areas in which I am deficient (the root chakra).

I have enough intellect in my daily existence, so much that I don’t really need to invoke more of it. (I’m not deficient there, at all.) But I am deficient, on a lot of levels, in incorporating emotion into my daily experience, and into my manifestations.

So, Netzach. I want some more. Whattaya got?

Ah. It’s the root.

I’ve been doing a lot of introspection to try and uncover the cause of the recent life lessons. Once the lesson is uncovered, it’s generally time to move on to bigger and better things. (If, that is, we are ready to learn it.)

So last night I check in with my chakras, to see if everything is okay in there. Turns out my root chakra is seriously unhappy.

This makes a lot of sense, since I’m having resource issues right now. I spend some time meditating on my chakras, giving them colors and light, and I spend a bit of time in inquiry with each of them.

My root is traditionally underfunded, with an early break from my family, and a disconnection from my heritage and ancestry that came with it. I decided to spend some more time coaxing this chakra into health.

The second chakra showed me something interesting. It’s the seat of desire. not just sexual desire, but of all desires we have. I looked around to see, what does Caelan really desire?

Looking back over the past few years of my adult life, it’s money. And not just extravagant money, but money to be safe.

I am always trying to get ‘enough’ money to provide for my family, and this is usually the overarching consideration and greatest desire that rules my days.

The second chakra is being flooded by the lack in the first chakra.

So, I’ve got some big root issues to deal with. Starting now.

A second look at my primary addiction

Somehow, after justifying my daily addiction during Yesod, I got completely out. I’ve gone ten days without smoking pot, until yesterday.

Looking around at the financial difficulties I landed in, I made a sacrifice: my favored vices (pot and beer) until I dug my way out of the hole, and got some cash coming in.

It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, and withdrawal wasn’t too bad, since I don’t smoke very much in one session anyways. 2-3 hits off a joint, 1-3 times a day, is about my max.

Yesterday, I saw what I really needed it for, and how easily I had grown beyond that.

Having three kids is tough. They constantly make demands on your time and attention, with no regard for where you are in the moment or what you need. It is very easy for me to accomodate this when I am stoned.

The morning started out rough. Johanna was frazzled. The kids were spinning out of control. I was yelling and scolding everywhere.

What is the best way to resolve this conflict?

I took one hit off a joint. Got swimsuits, coloring books, and fruit into a bag. Took the kids down the mountain to the pool. We had a great time, Johanna rested up, and I was completely present.

Looking back over how I would smoke, during the 6+ months since coming to Costa Rica that I’ve been smoking daily, it was always when I was entering a period of parenting.

Unfortunately, it ceased being a salve to use when parenting was tough, and became my key to enter the gateway of parenting time. Since I spend rather a lot of my time parenting, I was stoned for significant portions of every day.

So now, I’ve recommitted to a new regimen: I smoke when parenting is tough, and I need an escape hatch.

This means I won’t be smoking every day, or every time I am with my kids, but when it is necessary to even out my emotions, calm the children down, and generally enter a better emotional space.

But I’m going to stop using it as a preventative measure.

Being in hod has helped me to analyze the nature of this addiction, by stepping away from it, examine where its effect are most useful, and where it is not needed.

I’m feeling off balanced, being over on one side of the pillar – so I’m ready for the expansion on the Netzach correspondences. Kindly send them over when you can.

My condolences.

Amanda,

I know that its like to lose an entire computer. Tons of work. Not only your data, but your machine, all gone.

It sucks.

No other way around it, and I know when I went through it, I indulged myself in a dark time of depression, booze, and loathing.

I had a choice, when this happened. And I didn’t take it.

I was midway through the second draft of my novel. It was a high fantasy romp, based on a D&D game that I had played for 5 years. (Yes, I’ve got serious dork cred.) I had a writing partner for a few years, he was the DM of the game. We created a 12-issue graphic novel series (never drawn, never published, but beautifully scripted) and moved on to other things. I decided I wanted to tell the backstory of my favorite characters, from boyhood to manhood, and wrote a novel.

The second draft was moving along sluggishly, and I was unemployed, with a newborn baby, focusing my time on being a struggling writer. Living off credit cards. I went into town one day to meet with a friend and play a D&D scenario which would, I justified, count as research for my book. He bailed on me, so I went out to lunch with my wife and baby at Wildwood, one of our favorite restaurants – a little pricey, but I was always trying to manifest a better life by living the finer side, even when I couldn’t afford it.

When I went out to my car, I saw exactly how much I couldn’t afford it.

The back window was smashed open. My laptop, my bookbag, my camera, my cell phone, my 3 new D&D books, all gone.

The hardest was my data.

Newborn pictures of my baby girl that I never backed up. The entire second draft of my novel. All gone.

The lessons learned have stuck with me. Now, I back up regularly. (www.backblaze.com, peace of mind for five bucks a month.) I also keep an external hard drive and a spare machine, so if I lose my laptop, I can be up and running again within hours.

This kind of protection is only diligently created after a loss; so, unfortunately, welcome to the club. I know you’re going to be better for it from here on out.

The choice I neglected, you may be facing as well.

I looked around at the shattered remnants of my creative life, and I saw stacks of spiral bound notebooks. Relics from a past of slam poetry and loneliness. Notebooks I always planned to go through and cull out the really beautiful nuggets.

Given my emotional state at the time, it would have been perfect to revisit those tearful years, slice out the pages that could add up into a different novel, the story I always wanted to tell.

I toyed with it for a few weeks, and never got around to it. The notebooks are still waiting for any type of use, carted off into boxes in a storage unit in Portland.

I rebuilt, slowly, and found my way back into creativity. It took a detour into professional life for a few years, so I could learn how to support a family as well as indulge my creative side.

I see the experience of losing my laptop as a wakeup call. I was being lazy, which is all too easy to slip into as a writer. It is such a fragile state of circumstances that allow the writing trance to be invoked, it is easy to put off changing things in favor of keeping things normal enough to keep on writing. This easily leads to stagnation.

Now, I think, is a good time to ask you the question I’ve been sitting on:

What the hell are you still doing in Seattle?

I picked it up again.

I started writing again… I really haven’t written anything in the last few months. I’ve been working on a book, the book about champagne and drowning that I sent you a while ago. Here is a bit of another chapter. I’ve been working on it….. what do you think?

************

When you get high on ecstasy for the first time it is unlike anything you have ever experienced. It is the best, greatest, most colorful, most heart opening and awe inspiring event ever. Then, every time after that first time, you are always chasing that moment. Begging for that peak that was as good as the first, but it is never enough. Never far enough, just not quite there.

That is what it is like to kiss the Mistress of Death. The first taste is ecstatic. The first taste commands respect. But not just the attitude of respect, it commands respect at a cellular level, calling attention to the very core and essence of self. You see, this Mistress of Death speaks to a part of you that nothing else touches. The part that is hidden and soft and vulnerable. The mistress seduces herself past your walls and blocks and sarcasm and snark and speaks to your soul. And guess what….. Your soul responds. It responds in a way that is almost unworldly. Your soul desires this Mistress, like ecstasy, knows the darkness of death intimately and desires to dance and dance and dance again.

They say, and for the record, I have no idea who ‘they’ are, but will continue to refer to ‘them’ like some faceless-nameless-know-it-all-collection-of-people like God, but different. Anyway, THEY say, one of the ways in which to reach enlightenment is to be aware of every single breath you take in.

Breath.

Air.

God.

Ecstasy.

God is a long way away from the Mistress of Death. God is a long way away when you are high on ecstasy. God is a long way away when years upon endless years are riddled with night-terrors, insomnia, anxiety and panic attacks. God is really not the first person you think of when you are standing behind a counter and a customer comes up to ask a simple question you are hit with a panic attack, instantly covered in sweat, shaking and looking for the nearest garbage can to puke into. God doesn’t feel any closer when you are all alone in a small one bedroom apartment for days and days on end because of the downright fear of opening the door and being around other people.

And they say, in those moments, the moments you are panicky and desperate and losing focus, THEY say, it is because you aren’t breathing. THEY say it is because you aren’t connected to God or the Universe

They say; The more you focus on your breath, the more you let go of everything else. Everything else which clutters up your mind and makes it race and race and race around in circles like an OCD Nascar race.

So, I gave up ecstasy. Gave up booze and men and drugs and sought ecstasy through enlightenment.

Ecstasy through Enlightenment.

Chased some ecstatic celebration and merging with God and the Universe in a natural, meditative, unassisted way.

Enlightenment.

So they say.

With Breath.

****************

Future tripping + A manifestress = Amazing job!

Caelan,

I can’t believe how well your launch went! WOW! You really committed to this project and felt it all the way down to your bones. You felt it in a way like it was your own child you were carrying and birthing, just like Joanna did with Taos. But not only did you get this amazing opportunity and learn all of these things (like shopping carts and information marketing), that serve you on a deeper level, but now you are able to serve your clients on a deeper level too. WOW! A double bonus!

Because of the difficult choices you have made, and the positive attitude you have maintained in the face of adversity, you have been able to provide for your family in a way that you have never been able to before, and you are able to freely give your credit card to your beautiful wife and say ‘go crazy, you deserve it’, and truly mean it. You are inspiring!

I know how hard you worked for all of this and it is really amazing to see how things have translated onto paper. As your bookkeeper, I see all of your bills not only being paid, but also having more than enough extra to sock away for your kids’ future expenses (like college, or traveling or a down payment on a house when they are ready for it). The way you have really loved and cared and provided for your family is admirable. I wish all my clients had the foresight that you do.

I can only hope that there are more men out there like you, you give me hope for the human race.

WAY TO GO CAELAN!!!

Future tripping – its good for the soul

I could feasibly make some serious money with this launch.

I have known that intellectually, but I haven’t felt it, which is why I sometimes feel like it’s not going to happen.

I have not been actively applying my emotional power to this phase.

That is where I can best serve use with my mindpower and heart.

I am so happy and grateful that there are people who will benefit greatly from this work.

I am so happy and grateful that I know the exercises to turn my emotional setpoint around

I am so happy and grateful that people are excited to read my sales page

I am so happy and grateful that there are people bookmarking my site, and coming back for more to read it later.

I am so happy and grateful that I now have a cauldron for all of my many different ideas, and so many different ways to provide good value
I am so happy and grateful that this project provides the opportunity for me to make a lot of money

I am so happy and grateful I have the entire shopping cart system setup, and I have learned how to do this

I am so happy and grateful that I have learned these new skills, and I can move forward confidently in the realm of information marketing

I am so happy and grateful that people are excited to pay me their money

I am so happy and grateful that people like my writing and my message enough to pay for it

I am so happy and grateful I have hundreds of relationships I can leverage into a solid online marketing platform

I am so happy and grateful I am aligning my business so that I can focus on product creation and ideation

I am so happy and grateful now that my bills are all being paid

I am so happy and grateful that my wife can pay for things she wants with my credit card

I am so happy and grateful that the universal supply always fills us with enough money to meets our needs

I love it how perfectly everything is working out!