An Exercise in Faith

JUMP!

I’m in a curious period of freefall, poised for either great success or another slammin failure.

I’m used to failures; they don’t hurt me so bad. The only time I get emotionally anxious is with the whole money thing, which I am slowly, slowly working through.

See, I’ve opened up more doors for wealth and abundance than I ever have before; thrown them open, you could say, putting together sales pages and information products and affiliate programs; I’m ready, and open, and willing for massive amounts of wealth to come to me now.

That’s most of my job, right? Get ready, get open, clear all the blocks out of the way, and then wait and see if the universe will deliver on its promise.

It’s been a great exercise in following my own work. I’ve been on this whole Manifestation Magic kick for a long time. Trying to figure out exactly how it works. And I learn best by teaching, by codifying the principles, because its one of the only ways I can get myself to follow them.

This week, I’m scraping the bottom of my financial barrel once again. Only a few dollars here and there to my name. What’s illuminative is that I’ve been in this state for weeks, and everything gets paid.

There is too much serendipity around me to ignore. Like having just enough cash to pay the bill that has to be paid tomorrow. And when the next imperative bill comes up, the money magically manifests for that, too.

So I’m going with it. All my intuitions and divinations show that this is the right time, and the right move. I did a reading on the Amazing Life Formula yesterday, and this is what I got (Celtic Cross spread)

Knight of Wands
The Empress
The Priestess
Ten of Cups (Sateity)
Lust
Knight of Disks
Knight of Cups
The Lovers
Seven of Wands (Valour)
The Magus

Spreads like that don’t come often. I looked over the multitude of trumps and knights, the conscious and subconscious influences, and I was once again fortified that this is the right move for me in my life.

I keep launching these huge projects, that take me away from my core business that makes money, and it catapults me into a new class of professional and artist every time I do it. This time, when I feel like I should be scared because there’s no money coming in, I’m trusting that the money thing is taking care of itself, because its been doing so well.

Besides, I’ve opened up all the financial doors. I’m letting energy in. I am allowing.

By taking my own medicine (nice that I’ve been writing on it for the past few weeks, and creating exercises for me to use) I am moving into a place of calm, where I know there are demons around me, and catastrophe is just a hair’s breadth away.

While I was doing Parkour, I learned how to live on this edge, how to confidently trust my abilities and my judgment of risk. That’s what I’m doing now, running forward to that impossible jump, trusting in my training and willpower to get me over the gap.

The prelaunch begins tomorrow. Its open for seventy two hours. I will manifest eleven thousand dollars in this period of time.

And if that plan doesn’t work, I have trust in the synchronicity that is happening all around me, continually right now, to take care of all of the minor expenses that always seem to get paid.

Moving away from fretting and into confidence: that’s what my whole journey about money has been about.

On Evil.

The simple answer is, I don’t believe it exists.

As the storytelling goes, anyway. The concept of a dark villain, who wants to destroy because his heart is black; the fantastical Lord Sauron, who wishes destruction of all that is good; I don’t believe in these things.

That’s not to say they don’t exist, I suppose. In the context of our apprenticeship conversation, we are talking about cosmic forces; and there are many of these that are beyond my ken.

Keeping this in mind, I have a suspicion that spiritual forces that others interpret as malevolent are merely ambivalent to our own codes of morality. I once heard a Balinese mask described this way; with the big bulging eyes, and the pointed teeth, all of these masks impersonate deities in this way, because this is how the teeth of the most beautiful woman in the world would look…to a shrimp.

Evil, as we tend do define it, entails an uber-malevolence that is motiveless. Sentient beings – and even non-sentient beings – all have motives. When our motives come into conflict, that is where we create division, where we call one good and the other bad, one dark and one light. We often create villains in storytelling because we need a foil to the hero, who is the proof of the characteristic we are trying to embody. Unless the villain is given his own motives beyond ‘destroy, harm, undo all that is good’ then he is a shallow foil, and featureless in all real aspects.

I did a thesis on the Hero – Victim – Villain relationship once. (Masters in Physical Theater, and all.) These are the three main characters in traditional melodrama. They all serve their core roles. In good stories, the villain and the hero could be defined based solely on perspective. They both have agendas, they both can be brave or cowardly, strong or weak, powerful or impoverished, depending on the story; however, they both act decisively to attain their goals.

The only identifiable difference between a hero and a villain, when all else is torn away, is in their treatment of the Victim. Heroes protect and save the Victim. Villains take advantage of, and harm, the innocent.

Evil, then, in mortal affairs, could be distilled to this essence; harming others who have done you no wrong and cannot defend themselves. Witches have an easy edict to remind people of the Google maxim, ‘don’t be evil’: ‘An it harm none, do what ye will.’ For if it harms none, there can be no evil in it.

A protagonist in an interesting story could be faced with a moral complication, as in the fable of the hero who has the chance to kill Hitler as a baby. Kill an innocent child, and save thousands. What is the noble act? What would be evil? Which victim do you save?

These convolutions only obscure the fact that villains are heroes with an agenda opposing that of the audience’s moral bias, and heroes share the moral bias. Forgive me for interpreting this question theatrically, but that’s where my training comes from, and for many deep questions this is the thinking to which I revert.

To take a step up in perspective, from the cosmic perspective, I know we must eventually tread into the Qlippoth. I have avoided this subject in my studies, for the same reason I have avoided invocation; I don’t like to go into places like that unprepared, and I don’t know that I would ever like to go unless absolutely necessary.

Not because I fear evil, but because upon the right scale, against certain other entities I am nothing more…than a shrimp.

Yesod review.

I’ve gone through all the notes you have sent me concerning Yesod. Most of it I had read, some I had worked with, and the last, large document of the 22 notes, I had only skimmed prior to this evening. I’d like to review everything thats happened in this sphere, so we can move on; the idleness has set in.

In many ways, I can see this sphere’s influence over so many aspects of my life. My son was born in this sphere, on the day of the Full Moon, to a clan whose patron is Artemis herself. Things have been waxing and waning, I have struggled with and redefined my defining addiction, and my lifes work has become clearer with the launch of my first information product, the culmination of four years of study.

Now I understand why I have been inexplicably drawn to Purple as the branding color for the ALF. Indigo, violet, these shades are all colors of this sphere, and I have been designing websites and PDFs with this color palette for weeks.

I had a revelation about the human experience, thanks to catching my son and considering his experience as an entity. Within the womb, he is in Earth, ensconced in the world around him. He then moves into the element of Water, where his existence is surrounded around his new digestive system, and providing and managing the liquids that come in and go out is a large part of my parenthood. For years he will be working out the consumption and elimination of resources, until he attains a state of flow.

As a child he will be hungry for learning, filling the width of his mind with Air. I remember my long decades as a scholar, relishing every opportunity to learn new things. For the time, I thought there would be no better purpose to life than to study and learn all day long.

As I grew into a man I understood the importance of Fire. The Will is what allows you, as an individual, to control your world, create your world, and define your place in it, by declaring it through Will. This is now my stage, the stage of manifetation; and this is the path of the elements that we walk to maturity.

Being mature, however, comes with a set of vices, and as co-creators endowed with Will, we can choose our vices. While there are subconscious and repressed influences behind all vices and addictions, with a proper application of will any addiction can be temporarily, and sometimes permanently, nullified.

I have made frequent periods of abstinence part of my practice in my lifelong addiction to marijuana. Spending the occasional month without smoking gives my body a chance to cleanse, my tolerance a chance to raise, and my mind a chance to clear. I typically have gone through a brief period of abstinence a couple of times every year.

Yesod has given me greater opportunity to examine my addiction, because I find myself coming up on a year without stopping daily pot smoking.

I’ve had occasion to examine this state, ask myself if it is appropriate to my life, if it needs to be changed, what the causes of it are, and how to handle these causes in the future.

[pausing, actually, to light a joint]

The only reason I struggle is because there is a part of me deep down that still believes that drug use is inherently limiting to the human system. (I won the contest in 4th grade to design the DARE program’s new poster for our classroom.) I started smoking post for predictable reasons (I was a long haired smartass in a poor suburb who hung out with smokers) and I continued smoking pot because…I like it.

A lot.

My mind is so active, especially due to my chronic caffeine addiction, that I can’t readily ease myself into the state of mind necessary for relaxation or meditation. I use it as a segue, to step into a different mindset, like I’m changing my mental clothes.

I also react in an odd way to pot: I don’t get hungry. I actually use it to put off hunger pains, because there was a large part of my late teenage years where I sometimes didnt have enough money for food, but I always had pot. Smoking would keep my food intake down to once a day.

While under the influence of pot, I often feel the urge to do vigorous exercise, or enter deep meditation, and I slide into doing these things so easily, in a way that is totally different from my non-stoned state. When sober, I have to plan exercise, and set aside time for it, and prep for it, and argue with myself about whether I’m going to do it or not;

or I can smoke a joint, and fifteen minutes later I’m fitting yoga poses into everything I’m doing. I start juggling, and focusing my reflexes really intently.

I fall into dance.

I am called to move into ritual, and engage with the spiritual currents I can feel coursing through heightened awareness.

My accomplishments while I’m stoned are, in large part, responsible for the quality of person that I am today. I wouldn’t be nearly as healthy, as fit, as calm, or as productive without pot.

And, most importantly, I would be a shitty father without marijuana.

While I’m stoned, I can give my kids my full and complete attention. I can shut my mind up and just play. It’s become so essential to our family life now that whenever I am transitioning out of focused time (work, or running errands, etc) into a time when I am going to be hanging out with the kids, I just get stoned. I hang out with my kids…everyday.

Kids are a constant and unending demand on your time and attention. They require patience in order to handle the level of interruption that is constantly present, and patience comes easier with pot.

Most importantly, as a Capricorn, I can turn into a grumpy bitch sometimes. Pot is an easy, surefire way to turn that around, 95% of the time.

So as an emotional management tool, pot is really incredible for me, in a lot of different areas of my life. I asked myself last week, why do I keep thinking I need to stop?

Part of it is the illegality of it. Heavy drug laws here. Transitioning from having a medical card and being able to walk through downtown Portland smoking a joint – into a country where all drug users are equated with drug smuggler – it’s given me an opportunity to reassess.

Looking at everything, I’m recognizing my feelings that I should find a reason to stop smoking for a while come from the lower unconscious, which is one of the aspects of Yesod.

I thought it would be the other way around – that my addiction would have a deep seated lower unconscious root. But I really don’t struggle with my pot addiction like I do with caffeine, or like I did with tobacco. (Those are the only three drugs I’ve ever done, so this is the breadth of my addiction repertoire.) My struggle, especially since we moved into Yesod, has been over how to manage the withdrawal period, and find other ways to keep my emotional state on an even keel, because I obviously have to be quitting smoking for a period of time coming up soon. This is the longest consecutive period of smoking I have had without a break since I was probably nineteen. My habits feel off balance, since I’m accustomed to taking a break after smoking consecutively for so long.

For the first time I’m beginning to consider the idea that I could, if I chose, be a daily pot smoker for the rest of my life.

My lower-unconscious reaction to that idea is that I can’t expect to keep my wits about me or my body healthy.

This is despite the fact that while under the influence of pot, I have been able to create and sustain a business, I’m happier, and I’m physically healthier, due to my penchant for wanting to dance, exercise, and do yoga when I’m high.

And I wouldn’t be a third of the magician I am without pot.

So I’m grateful for this time in Yesod, to see that I don’t have a problem with trying to keep an addiction away; I have a problem with allowing a beneficial addiction to be a permanent part of my life.

This is a very different struggle than the one I thought I was having.

Foundation.

Appropriately, I am reassessing my foundation.

After the birth of my son, things have started to return to normal. Things that have been abnormal for nearly a year. Before I left it all and moved to Costa Rica, even. I am in the period of reassessment I knew was coming when we ascended to Yesod; finally, today, I have felt the introspection go down to the foundational level of my psyche.

There’s been some wacky astrological imbalances over the past few days. It wasn’t until Friday the 13th, your birthday, that I recognized how off everything had become. Then I looked back over the days before that, and I’ve had heightened senses ever since, noticing how things have been in a state of imbalance.

Finally, today, things began to right themselves again. It felt remarkably similar to a Mercury Retrograde; if you have any insight on what’s been happening, I’d love to hear it.

Recently I’ve reinvigorated my ritual practice, which has been necessary. I went a day or two too long after the birth before cleansing the house, and it was sorely needed when I finally did it. I love this small house, because i can smudge the entire dwelling in under twenty minutes. I’ve even got a secluded meditation cove in the jungle, just a short stroll from my back door. I went here today, as I go most days, but at a different time of day, and with a different purpose. Instead of cleansing myself and resetting myself through my daily rituals, I went to listen. To become one with the world around me.

I chanted Om for a long time, letting the vibration reverberate all of the resonators in the front of my body. The jungle represented the highest culmination of that vibration, abundant and overflowing life. I vowed to return daily, and I am upping my Qabalistic Crosses to three times a day, morning, noon and night.

I’ve also been reading more on The Middle Pillar lately. I picked up an English book here titled Yoga and Magick. Just my kind of reading; finally, after ten years as a student of yoga, I read someone describing the theoretical underpinnings of yoga from an occultist’s perspective. I have never been drawn to the eightfold path because it’s always been described with a cultural and religious context that is too foreign to me; but when described in terms of esotericism, I finally got it.

I realized that the energetic blockage that produces my seizures, which I suspected was around my throat, was not in my throat chakra, but in one of the nadis. These are intertwining energy currents that rise from the root, revolving around the chakras in opposing directions, to meet at Visshudha, the 5th chakra.

A brief psychic exploration showed me that, yep, that’s where I’ve got something going on. Big victory to find that out. I have no idea how to move energy through the nadis, but now I’ve got some homework to pursue in the near future.

In the appendix of this book it described the Middle Pillar ritual, as given by Regardie. I expected to flip through it, as a review. I was surprised to see omissions that I considered integral to the ritual, and a large devotion of description to something I had always glossed over, the Three Circulations.

With the necessary work on the nadis, integrating these three body-wide circulations around the aura will be most useful. I will likely wait until the new moon to try it; I have some reading to do first. I have downloaded a PDF of Regardie’s The Middle Pillar, and I’ll study that for more visualizations on the Circulations.

My ramble here has served mostly as catch-up on where I have journeyed as of late; I will engage more fully with the work you have given me over the next few days, so I have more relevant things to report to our present discussion.

I invite you to describe your stages of experience and your revelations to me. While it is very helpful for me to have someone to tell these stories to, I gain nearly as much from hearing of another’s perspective; and you too, I suspect, would benefit from having a friendly ear.

Talk away.

Housekeeping

I’m pulling you into WordPress.

You have no choice in the matter. I’m going to start writing exclusively on this blog for our communication, and by Hod, you’re going to be doing the same.

The purpose of this blog will be for us to communicate. I can even change the settings so it’s private, and only logged in users can see it. (I don’t feel a need to do this, but if it would help you be as candid as you would in an email, it’s what I recommend.)

I’ve sent you an invitation to contribute to this blog. Accept it, get a WordPress account, and add a post.

Also, be sure to click ‘Follow’ in the upper left hand corner. Then you will receive an email anytime I post – since I ‘Follow’ this blog, I will get an email anytime you post.

It’s like we’re emailing each other, but we are keeping the correspondence on this blog for review.

Eventually, you will be able to post the correspondences as clickable attachments on this blog.

It’s inevitable…you + wordpress.

Yesod. Moon. Water.

This has been a very auspicious time.

My wife is having a baby any day now. (Tomorrow? My birthday? I hope so.) I follow the Mayan calendar a bit, and there’s a supercharged period going between Christmas Eve 2011 and Sunday, January 8, the next full moon.

I’m hoping my son is born sometime in this timeframe.

Last night, I made a fire in front of our house. We sat around, the entire family, watching the flames, and above us the bright, waxing moon looked down at us.

I feel great connections to the moon. Artemis is the patron of our House. She is also the goddess of childbirth, and as my son waxes full in his mother’s belly, I feel her protection covering us.

Moving into Yesod for this period has been especially comforting, because here, I can comfortably operate in the field of the unknown. Mysteries don’t scare me, because there is an odd strengthening of faith within the acceptance of the unknown.

Yesod, the moon, and the unknown, are watery elements. This is the element I have always felt least balanced with, and swimming in the pool on my mountain has been very helpful to soothe that imbalance.

Last night, after the fire, when everyone went to bed, I took a hot bath. Immediately I felt un-agitated, although I didn’t know that I was in a state of agitation before. This happens a lot with immersing myself in water, so I am going to do it more often.

There is a lot of water in the air here – it is a very humid place. During the rainy season (Sept-Nov) I was uncomfortable in my body a lot of the time, and cold, and I took lots of baths for relief.

I’m spending this time ruminating on the elemental correspondence of this sephirah, because I’m having realizations about my own elemental tendencies. I only realized it about a month ago, Air is where I feel most comfortable, and I didn’t expect that.

In my birth chart there is no Air. Earth and water, through Capricorn, and plenty of Fire (moon in Sagittarius) but no Air.

However, it is a masculine element that deals with intelligence, and this is the personal skill that I am most confident in.

My body was weak before my twenties, and my emotions have always been unstable; my will, a forceful and stubborn thing, is only controlled by my rational mind. And my mind is incredible.

I aced the SATs. My IQ was off the charts in third grade. I never studied for tests before college, because I just…got it. I learn so fast, and I have so much enjoyment of learning, that my intelligence has always been my favorite cardinal skill.

So of course, Air, right?

But I never thought of that, during all my years of magical study. I never compared this element as my favored cardinal element, but it makes plenty of sense.

My business is all about communication. I spend all day on a laptop. I praise my children for their cleverness above their caring. (We have a house rule: if it’s really funny, you don’t get in trouble.)

Despite all of these obvious indications that Air is my element, I’m still surprised by it, maybe even a little abashed. I learned a lot about myself as an Earthy capricorn, and assumed that as an Earth sign, this must be the cardinal element that guides my steps.

But I was wrong. It’s always been Air, and short of brain damage, it will always be Air.

During the Elements class, I was so uncomfortable in Earth and Water, and the period of Air gave me so much relief and joy and energy that I was surprised by it. In retrospect, it was like coming home.

While watching the fire the other night, I became entranced by the smoke, watching it chaotically curl and churn. Air is fast, and follows patterns that are too complex to comprehend. That’s my world. That’s my speed. That’s my element.

I come to this realization within Yesod, in the realm of the unknown, except I come to it as the unexpected. As a tool for self-knowledge, the Tree is certainly providing itself as a fast way to learn.

I’m prepping for some thoughts on addictions, which is another essential signpost on the path through Yesod. More later.

The Lower Triad

As happy as I am in Malkuth, I think we have reached a point of stagnation. Looking not only over our correspondence over the last couple weeks – distracted with holidays, new work alliances, and the coming new year (not to mention some powerfully astrological days recently – we’ll be in a boom time until the 8th) I want to revisit our timeline, and relate some revelations during my meditation today.

I’ve done a good amount of chakra work, through an intense study of yoga, and also in magical-related reading. I’ve had some Kundalini flareups that are peripherally related to chakras in their nature, so I’ve been sure to devote a good portion of my spiritual study to chakras over the years.

One of the common omissions in chakra study is neglecting work on the lower chakras. Teachers often chide their students to spend more time on the lower chakras, since they are the foundation of the energy flow, and while not as ‘glamorous’ as the higher chakras, offer an abundance of rich introspection for the student. Many people get into their later years with only a passing understanding of the lower chakras, with most of the energy and interest focused higher.

I have never been at risk for this omission. Most of my chakra study has been in the lower chakras, and I feel that I have a disconnect from my own higher chakras due to my diligent focus on the lower half. See, when I have those energy bursts that cause me to go into a seizure, they shoot energy from my lower chakras up my spine.

This phenomenon started when I experimented with an advanced yogic breathing exercise, breathing deeply, envisioning energy flowing in through my crown and out through my root chakra, into the earth; as I exhaled, the energy would reverse flow, coming up from the earth, and branching out of my crown into the sky. Once an adequate channel of energy flow had been developed, I would focus on my root, clenching my sphincter while visualizing the red chakra wheel spinning. Breathing in, I would draw in energy from my crown chakra down, and it would not flow through my first chakra into the earth; it percolated in my root, and built.

Now I understand that I was awakening the Kundalini at the base of my spine. My first seizure happened after a yoga class, where I spent an hour and a half working my body and breathing hard; after the class ended, I sat in meditation, and felt the energy shock from my spine up to my skull overtake me. It was pure, ecstatic bliss, and I am grateful to have had the experience.

Like most people who have a kundalini awakening, mine lasted for a few years, and the seizures have tapered off recently. Other than coming close to having one once in Costa Rica, after being in proximity to a faith healing, I have not had one since moving; at least seven months. Actually, I think the second-to-last seizure I had was the one you witnessed.

I am going through these recollections to juxtapose the familiarity I feel with the lower half of the Chakras to the unfamiliarity I feel with the lower triad of the Tree of Life.

Since this is where we will be venturing next, I am going to record some of my connections (and disconnections) with this area of the tree.

Regarding the different sephirah, I have a good understanding of Kether (full on ecstatic chakra energy pipes in your spine will do that to you), and after my philosophical studies of Plotinus in St Johns College, I have a good (sacred-geometry-ish) understanding of Chokmah and Binah. I relate to them primarily through the ideas of duality, and observing (and understanding) that duality, 2 and 3.

Over the last year or two, I have become very comfortable with Chesed. It is the sephiric energy I invoke the most, now that I am a provider for a large family. The Jupiter / Santa energy that provides abundantly for all has been very comforting to me.

During my P90X phases, I became well acquainted with the energy of Geburah. I have a strong understanding of the energies within this sphere; being a strong male, who had occasion to throw himself into extreme fitness, was my time of greatest connection to it.

Tiphereth…oh, what a beautiful place. I count my meditations in strong heart energy as some of the most fulfilling and transcendent of my life.

And then below that…we get to this lower triad, that I belatedly realize I don’t have strong connections to. I mean, I know what they all are, and what they house, and embody…and I know I manifest plenty of it (especially from Hod), but I feel that when I develop my connections to these sephirah, I will finally understand how to wield these energies properly.

Right now, I feel like the aged chakra student without a good connection to the second chakra…and at that point, you are bereft of the youthful vigor of a strong libido to indulge in the energy that has been missed.

I don’t want to skip over these important energies, and find myself too late to indulge in their study later in life. So I am looking forward eagerly to the entry into Imagination, Intellect, and Emotion.

Here, in the Kingdom, I have noticed a progressive stagnation of energies. This could be compounded by the ‘any day’ now stage of my wife’s pregnancy, as well as the mold growing in my home. I need to sage stick my whole house, and scrub the walls with bleach again.

Just by cleaning the one spare bedroom, and smudging it today, I feel a release from the stagnation that has been holding my finances, my business, and my emotions in a mire. I know this is one of the risks of the earthly realms, so I’m alerting you to the fact that it’s happening strongly for me right now.

If you have any other Malkuth-related exercises or activities, let’s go through them quickly, so we can move into imagining.

Rewriting my Script relating to Money and Abundance

Don’t fret. Go make more.

This has become my paradigm. My guiding principle. The rudder of my ship.

I have left behind the mindset that worries about splicing a limited pool of resources into more expenses than it can cover.

That was the way I used to work. I honor that I went through that time, and I acknowledge that I have moved beyond that mindset in order to work on higher-level problems.

Regarding money and abundance, I allow into my life more resources than I need to meet all of my obligations.

I allow myself to live free of fear, and to confidently know that all of my financial needs are met.

I am entering the most lucrative stage of my life thus far. I have a scalable business, doing work that I love, and is in high demand in my current vicinity.

My skills are rare, and I can demand high prices for them.

I have outsourced those tasks that make me feel scarce, and my money will take care of itself.

So long as I focus on what I do best (writing, selling, and ideating) then I will continue to remain in the state of flow.

My position is not to worry about where money is coming from. I KNOW where money is coming from: I am the source of all wealth.

I am rich with creative ideas.

My mind abounds with new, original, inspired thoughts.

What I have to offer is unique, and the world desires it.

My value is beyond reckoning.

What the world needs and desires, I am ready to produce and to give.

What the world needs and desires, I recognize and fulfill.

The bounty of my mind is without hindrance or limit.

Nothing can stand in the way of my inspired creativeness.

The overflowing power of God life energy overcomes every obstacle, and pours out into the world, blessing and prospering everyone and everything through me.

I radiate blessings.

I radiate creativity.

I radiate prosperity.

I radiate loving service.

I radiate joy, beauty, peace, wisdom, and power.

Humanity seeks me and reqards me.

I am beloved of the world. I am wanted wherever I go. I am appreciated.

Through my vision the world is blessed.

Through my clear thinking and steadfast purpose, wonderful new values come into expression.

My vision is as the vision of the mighty ones.

My faith is as the faith of the undefeatable.

My power to accomplish is unlimited.

I, in my uttermost God source, I am all wealth, all power, all productivity. I hereby declare my financial freedom, now and henceforth forever.

Welcome to the Jungle, baby.

I have moved from the city to the tropics, changing latitude by more than 40 degrees.

The equinox is coming, and the sun is pretty much in the same place. I am only a few degrees above the equator. Astrologically, I can’t tell how this is affecting me; I am overwhelmed by the difference in energetic environments.

Here, in the jungle, it is wild.

Here, in the jungle, the unexpected happens as a part of the daily existence.

A spark of life, a butterfly, a bug, a bird, traverses this landscape, and could be eaten by a predator at any moment.

For the first couple of weeks I was here, this was manifesting as strange vision flashes of catastrophe that could potentially happen to me and mine. Anticipation of devastation.

Thanks to my training, I have been able to let this go rather quickly, and focus on what I choose to focus my intent upon. But the barrage of catastrophic visions has taken fortitude to withstand; so today, the jungle and I came to an understanding.

I live on a mountain. The house was built by an American, so the space is well delineated between what is man’s space and what is the jungle’s.

The road to my house is paved. There is a wide tile porch and lights that flash on when a frog comes nearby. My space is my space. For weeks my two dogs have ranged around my house, chasing away creatures, marking territory, and acting as proxy extensions of my presence, helping to claim my space.

After first arriving, I hesitated to clear the space, declare my presence, and put up my flag for any and all spiritual beings in the local environment to see. I waited to feel it out first. When I finally did my first LBRP, it was an expected stirring up of the energetic pot.

I felt beings taking notice, and minor conflicts over space, but it was not until I performed this ritual in the jungle itself that I ran like hell.

I did this at night, in a foreign environment, in an unsanctified space. But I declared my presence, threw up some wards, and energetically walled off my house and property when I returned.

Whether this was a mistake or not, I am not sure. But today, I made a good connection with the jungle, using symbolic imagery.

There is a panther nearby. He lives on a mountain a few miles away, and the locals toss him a chicken every once in a while to keep him sated. This way their own goats and chickens have nothing to fear, so long as the jungle is sated.

I returned to this magical bower on my mountain, and went through my basic rituals: laying the circle, Qabalistic Cross, the affirmation to healing. And then, I listened.

There was a presence inspecting me, sniffing me. It was immensely powerful, but it was not hunting me; it was sensing me.

I personified this presence as a panther. Then I reached inside myself, and got a chicken, and tossed it to him.

He was very satisfied. I visualized myself encased in shining gold, and I reached out to scratch the panther’s ears. He rolled over on his back, so I rubbed his belly.

The jungle and I, we have come to an understanding.

I will appease this energy and these beings, and I will go about my merry way, unaffected by the chaos of nature that can bring unexpected destruction. Because I have paved my place, according to my rules, and we are but neighbors.

Solstice release

There was a lot going on tonight.

Considering everything that is happening cosmologically this evening, I am surprised I didn’t have the night planned out. But tomorrow, the day of the actual solstice, I am taking a trip to Eagle Creek for a sweat lodge. Tonight, the full moon and lunar eclipse, I could not find any magical event or happening that was scheduled elsewhere, and didn’t have the wherewithal to plan anything myself.

So I was taken by surprise this evening when I felt a calling a good half hour before the eclipse was to start. I entered my sanctum in a near trance, unwashed and unprepared, with just enough time to go through my protective rituals before it started.

Someone is doing something very clever.

The Shamballah community has been given homework; every sunrise and sunset, we meditate for seven minutes on the golden pyramid, floating above our heads. This image creates a beacon for someone to reach out and use to access the powers of all the initiates who participate.

I felt this happening, and rather than try to amplify my energetic output into my visualization (a bad habit which is my custom reaction) I decided to observe.

What I felt was the components of an advanced working. My pyramid, and those of several other initiates (dozens? thousands? a few? who knows) were taken to put into a round amulet. I felt Saturn, and the color black. It did not seem to be the device for use in the culmination of the working, but rather a protective measure for something to come later.

I allowed myself to be used as raw material, for I was a brick in someone else’s wall, and to integrate my will or wishes with my small part to play would have either ejected me from the working or disturbed it too much to allow it to continue. Either way, I was more interested in participating on the level I had access to.

There were definite amplifications of force, and while I don’t recall too much about the process, and I couldn’t sense too much, I could also tell when I was done. My energies, accessed through the golden pyramid I have been visualizing day and night, were put to good use and I was not needed further. The entire time was probably twenty minutes.

I went out of my office in a daze, had some brief interactions with my family, most of which centered around the movement of moderate sums of money. We had roughly outlined these movements over the past day or week, but they were agitated by the movement, as I was not. I took the opportunity, and the cash, into my office to cement the feeling.

I had the epiphany earlier this week that I once pined for love endlessly, obsessing over my lack of intimacy with all of my being. It was only when I made the conscious decision to let this go that I found my life mate, and our romance has been a fairy tale ever since.

For the last few years I have had a comparable obsession with lack of money. By consciously deciding to let this go, as well, to no longer let the lack consume my every thought, emotion, and decision, I feel I will similarly catapult myself to a different state of being.

This was confirmed when I returned to my office to meditate, cash in hand, and added it to my supply of money saved for a trip to the tropics. I adored this money, felt gratitude for it, and will be letting it go when I exchange it for colones and give it to my bride for christmas. I set the open box on my altar, and looked at the fat stack of bills through the candle flame, and I was urged to move through the flame spiritually.

I merged with the flame, became one with the light. It is during such a state that impurities are burned away, and I fascinated my inner gaze upon that separate part of myself, my lack, which could now finally be recognized as other than me.

I went through the fire, emerging on the other side purer, without the gnawing anxiety of monetary lack clutching at my brain and soul. I was free.

I examined my new state curiously, happily, refreshed. I reached down to the stack of bills, some of which were large, other small, and new, relaxedly, that the stack I picked up was only large bills. Sure enough, I had three hundred dollars in five bills, with a five dollar bill left in the box atop the rest of my new money. The knowledge that what I was grabbing was somehow important, because it solidified that I could relax into abundance as a state, and didn’t need to second guess it or fear for its lack.

It simply is there.

So this solstice, this lunar eclipse, I have let go of one of my greatest blocks over the last six years. My fear of money, as useful as it was to me for that time, is no longer necessary. And I bid it farewell, goodbye.