I wanted to continue the essay regarding magic as a practice. In a previous post I brought up what magic meant to me and why I felt it was as valuable an approach within life as any other practice or belief and, in many cases, how it is actually more valuable. I am thinking I may use this space to jot down a few more thoughts, obviously from my personal experience, about magic and its practice. I approach magic from a left hand path point of view. In overly simplistic terms this basically means that I take responsibility for myself and my own actions. I do not lay my successes or failures at some deity’s feet nor do I worship or put my magic and/or fate in the hands of any god(s). I may use these god(s), deities, and figure-heads as a mechanism through which I work magic or as forms which I model in order to create the space needed to power my Will. The important factor here is the responsibility. I have to own this practice. I have to own the work to produce the energy that might create an effect in the world. I have to own the results of the work, whatever they are. This is not easy. It forces the mind to really think about what it is that I want and how I can most effectively approach a problem in order to make magic an effective part of the whole problem solving approach.
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I am all for live and let live. I do not find it difficult to allow people to be who they are so long as they are not putting those I love in danger or making their lives just plain miserable. The world is talented enough as it is in making our brief stay here challenging to the extreme in the vast majority of cases. We struggle through life, finding small pockets of happiness and moments of glory mixed in with the dream crushing reality of the lives we lead. Life is a mixed bag. It always has been and always will be. Because of this, I simply do not understand the need for cruelty in people. As has been made clear, I am a transgender female trying to make her way through the process of transition without utterly destroying the world I have now. There is no way to make it through this with everything intact, but I am doing my best to hold it together enough to have some semblance of the life I had before. This is utterly exhausting and painful in the extreme. It is with this in mind that I now travel to Salem, MA to meet with some friends of mine in March of 2014. So, in Salem, MA, of all places, you would expect the oddness of the place to allow for a greater flexibility of mindset. One would think, short of seeing a UFO land and E.T. wander out to set up a flower vending booth, no one would blink an eye at anything. Yet, this did not turn out to be the case. At one point, I am walking from a coffee shop and pass by a young couple in their mid to late twenties. In most all cases, so long as I do not interact directly with people, I believe I pass just fine. For some reason, this young lady looks at me and can tell. So, rather than just letting it go, she decides to make a big spectacle about it with her boyfriend/companion/husband. “I think that is a guy dressed as a woman!” She points. They giggle. They stare. I don’t know how she knew. I really do not care. Well, that is a lie. I want to be able to pass no matter what. However, I realize the reality of my situation early in the process. That being said, I am really careful about my public presence. I also rely on common decency. Why is it necessary to make such a spectacle? What do they gain from it? Do they stop to think how difficult a situation it is if the person they are ridiculing is transgender or a cross-dresser or, hell, even an actor going to their job/rehearsal? There isn’t enough pain in the world so we need to top off the tank? I have seen good people. I have seen those who understand my situation, who have gone through the hate and come out the other side stronger for it. I am walking through my abyss now and have been for some time. It is a dark night that I have created for myself and the alchemy of it can only forge a greater being. This self-immolation is necessary for growth and I, as its instigator, understand this. This does not, however, grant license to others to be negligent in their mud-slinging. I am singling out these two ignorant people because they are the most recent. There have been others and there will be others. This is a sad fact. Fortunately for them, though I was in the home of witches, I opted not to turn them into toads. I should start this off with dear diary, after all, isn’t that kind of what blogs are? However, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Oh, wait, I just did. Oh well. I want to put into words two related items in my life. Fear and Transgenderism. The crux I want to discuss is the necessity of fear. How it drives and inform us and the medium through which this is best expressed for me is my transition. When the realization that there was something not comfortable with my state of being, I did a lot of searching internally. The end result of the discovery that I might be transgender was horrifying, painful, and led to a hard turn downward. Fear drove me to attempt to bury this. To deny it. To push it away in any way possible. In doing so, I began magnifying the problem. I experimented with clothing, make-up, trying to prove that I wasn’t this other person. I would realize I was comfortable that way and the fear would rise and generate shame and I would throw this stuff away. It only created a scenario where I would buy it back and start over. I was in a downward spiral and the bottom was coming up fast. This is the bad side of fear. This is using it wrong.
What is all this occult business anyway? I think people get caught up in the associations that the term has with the notion of magical practice. This practice can range from hermeticism to parapsychology to shamanism and a vast array of others across every culture in existence. Occult is a term that simply means secret. It is intended as a way to define a group that wishes to keep its knowledge within the confines of the group. This may mean until it is refined and can be released to a wider range of people. By this definition, many scientific groups are occult. They work experiments toward the synthesis of a theory/hypothesis and then they release it to a small group to be peer reviewed and validated before publication. Of course, the public and, let’s be honest, many magical groups have taken this word and skewed its meaning. It is now, in the mainstream public, a pseudo derogatory term to imply the belief and practice of magic. I will concede that society has become a little more flexible and tolerant of magical practices and beliefs, but these occult (secret) practices are still, for the most part, misunderstood and giggled or eye-rolled at by conventional society. Personally, I want to point them at some of the mystery rites of the church, especially catholic and its various flavors, and ask them what they think of those. Are they so different? I think not, but that is a rant for another time.
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Lasciel AnnwynnI am one of those. Yes, that kind. I poke around in the corners and lesser explored paths of life looking for it's mysteries. There is so much magic in the world when you open your perception to it. Look with eyes of wonder. Archives
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