Rebuilding...

For the past few months I have been undergoing a process of deconstruction, of tearing down everything that I count on, everything that I believe.  The destruction of my internal structures, the resurrection of unresolved memories, and the complete desolation of self had left me nothing but the core of my pathology, a crippled creature to be put down.  At one point a few weeks ago I was as far down into the abyss as I can ever remember being. 

My sister and Priestess was worried about me and said so, calling me to account and making me admit to the place I was occupying.  My brother and priest recognized that I was on the edge and pushed and poked until I lost the last bit of my control and, like a spring wound too tightly, I became un-sprung.  My beloved kinsman gave me objective guidance and tools to assist me in learning skills that I have lacked.  My lover held me and listened and talked and kept me from total isolation by giving me the comfort of his company and the wisdom of his own experience with his own abyss. 

I had lost my vision, I had lost my desire to continue to engage, to serve, I had nothing but doubt that I would ever be able to become what I need to be, even survival was not a sure thing but, I kept fighting.  And I am once again able to see the vision of what I can be.  I have remembered the desire to serve.  I have regained my feet and have discovered that I am not crippled.  I have found that lack of balance means I need to learn to dance in the void. 

Many of the ways in which I had functioned will not serve me in the work I hope to do.  I have begun new work, I am learning new skills, and engaging in new relationship with Deity.   I am rebuilding a new structure. I have a new vision of how to build a structure that will serve me and those I love.  One with more open space and less obstructions, less obstacles, with bigger windows to let in more light and to let in more air, to let the fires burn warmer and brighter, to let the waters flow more freely. 

I give thanks for those who helped me not only to survive the past few months but to rise from them ready to begin building something new.  May they be blessed and may I live up to their trust and their love.  Blessed Be

Christmas is Magick...

I grew up celebrating Christmas.  Christmas Eve was always a most magickal moment in time to me.  And while most of my life it was also a time of sadness (I did not truly understand why until recently) the magick of it is something that I cannot and will not forsake. 

I celebrate Yule, the Return of the Light but, I believe that the magick that follows a few days after is incredibly powerful.  Christmas enchants people.  People who cannot find enchantment in their world for most of the year can still find hope of it in that moment.  And that hope is a priceless treasure.

Our world needs all the magick it can find.  Our people (human people) need all the magick and hope they can glean from anywhere they can find it.  There is so much hopelessness and sorrow in this world, there is so much grief and despair, there is so much pain and sadness, there is so much anger and rage in the hearts and souls of so many of my kin (humans and others). 

People I love are in pain and it breaks my heart to see them so.  So tonight I will leave you with this one thought.  Love is real, magick is real, we are not beyond hope, we are not beyond healing. We can find our way if we just keep seeking.  Love is the law, may it reign forever.

Much love to you, blessed be.

Happiness is a Choice

“Happiness is a Choice” by Barry Neil Kaufman is a book I read about 24 years ago when I was in the middle of one of the worst depressive episodes I have ever lived through.  I don’t own it and I have never read it again but, some things I learned from that book have stayed with me.   The first is the title and the truth of it. The second is that feelings follow thoughts which follow actions.  I do not believe these things to be true, I know them to be.

I am not talking about some pollyanna placebo, or platitude.  I am not talking about some kind of “positive thinking” quick fix.  This is not about “6 easy steps to have everything you want”.  This is about how to do the work to change your thoughts and habitual emotional patters that result in chronic clinical depression; recurring, debilitating, suicidal-thinking kind of depression. 

If you are in the middle of such an episode, please seek help from a psychiatric professional, now.  If you are in crisis, you are in need of emergency medical attention.

Psychotropic medication and intensive therapy have never been a part of my healing, if they had been, I might have learned how to cope with my shadows sooner.  For whatever reason I have had to learn things on my own but, Mr. Kaufman’s book helped me to understand the patterns.  It helped me to analyze my own thoughts and the feelings that followed them and the behaviors that perpetuated them.  It helped by giving me a place to begin. 

I have learned how to take responsibility for those patterns, and how to recognize them before they evolve into yet another long term episode.  It helps to understand the mechanism of depression, and to understand that, for me, that mechanism is within my control.  It is something I can affect and change.  I can choose.

One of the most important choices is NOT to act today on the impulse to do something destructive.  I don’t have to decide never to act on the impulse, just not today.  Sometimes that is the best you can do.  Not act today.  Sometimes you have to create a reason to not act, so you find something, anything, but you do not do anything permanent today. 

Then there is the choice to do those things that you do not want to do.  Get out of bed, take a shower, go to work, go outside, talk to another person, and eat (even if you have no interest in food).  Turn off the TV and turn out the lights and give your body a chance to sleep.  Insomnia, not eating, inactivity and isolation are behaviors as well as symptoms; they perpetuate depression.

When you are suffering from clinical depression, these things are all incredibly difficult but, not as difficult as changing the thoughts that go through your head every moment of every day.  Changing those thoughts is possible and necessary but, it is not easy. 

Like I said, this is not about “6 easy steps to have everything you want”.   There is nothing easy about the choice to be happy, but it is absolutely worth the effort.  I am a happy person today.  I choose to be happy every day.  I have a life that I love and a wonderful companion who gives joy to my life every day.  I have a home that nurtures my soul; I have community and family that support me and my work.  I have work that I love and that allows me to express myself and my truth. 

Sometimes I don’t enjoy going to my job but, it allows me to support myself and my companion.  Sometimes I experience disappointment and stress.  But happiness is not about having everything that you want nor is it about ease and leisure.  It is about being happy with what you have and making choices to change what makes you unhappy.  It is about taking responsibility for your life and pursuing your own happiness.  It is about being grateful for the blessings you have and choosing to release those things that harm you.

I find it wonderful that I can choose every day to be happy about the sun shining or the rain falling or the snow or the wind.  I find it amazing that I can get out of bed and go to work and pay the rent on my little tree-house.  I find it beautiful that every day I can choose to be happy with the life I am creating and that I can have faith and hope that I will find that which I desire in the future if I continue to follow the path my heart sets my feet upon.  I find it magickal that even through the long nights of darkness; I get to choose to be happy in the night and in the morning.  I find it a miracle that I can choose to love.  I choose happiness.

Climbing the Stairs

Having crossed the barrier of fire and ice, the Tower that is my familiar vehicle and my comfortable and reliable haven was locked to me and I was lead into the abyss that is the “Dark Night of the Soul”.  Every connection I have was severed, removed, separated from me until I was utterly alone.  I was not left there however.  I was lead out of that dark, cold, grey wasteland to a place where grass grew under my feet, thicker and thicker until I came to the place of beginning.  I was told that I needed to climb a new Tower.  A Tower made of crystal and light rather than stone.   

As I began to climb, whispered challenges floated to me from voices that I could not be sure were truly there.  And then the Voice of the Crone, clear and undeniable, demanded to know why I had chosen to hide in shadows, and when and why I had made that choice.  I told her that it was safe and comforting to be hidden, to be invisible and therefore untouchable.  That in the shadows no one can see my defect, or be damaged by it, or use it to hurt me, or reject me for it.  She challenged me to name it.  “need, anger, confusion, pleasure, shame, fear”  She gave me chains to carry; I think those were their names.  She released me and I began to climb again and the whispers returned.

The Dark God, the Sage, Commanded me to stop, and the whispers were suddenly silent.  His hands were immediately around my throat and at that moment I should have been terrified but, I do not remember being afraid.  I remember feeling safe.  I remember feeling that in the hands of My God, I could not be anything other than safe and protected.  I remember feeling very calm and still and quiet, and I remember swearing an oath in my heart that I would not fail Him.  He challenged me to remember who I was before I chose to hide in shadows and at first I could not.  I had to look for it but, finally I found the child there in the past, in the light, and He released me to continue on my ascent and the whispers returned as I climbed the stairs until I reached the top.

 I have spent the past few weeks remembering the person I was when I was eight.  I can remember many of the things that I thought were fun, and how I loved my brothers, and mud and cleaning my closet (I loved to collect things and hide them in boxes in my closet, I suppose Saturn has always been my friend)   How I dreamed of dancing and how I loved making costumes out of scarves (I still have a beautiful scarf collection)  I really am the same person, I still love the same things and I have promised to play a lot more from now on. 

I have also spent time being the person I was when I was nine.  I have relived and remembered the things that happened.  I have re-thought with my nine year old rational, logical brain the conclusions and decisions I had come to then.  I have re-examined the evidence from then and from the past six months (I give thanks for friends that have taught me that it is safe to touch and be touched) and have been able to come to more accurate conclusions and a better approximation of truth.  This has not been a time of trauma but, of healing my Self, my mind, my beliefs.  This has been a time of rediscovering the whole person that I have always been and the beauty of my own soul, at eight, and at nine and at forty-seven.

The God and the Goddess required that I return to that place and time and so I have.  Now it is time to face the light.  May I go forth Shining.

Keeping Faith with the Shadows

In the past ten days it seems as though every fear I have ever had has crept out from every crack and crevice and closet to become obstacles on my path, to make me trip and stumble.  I have not been able to do more than the most simple and rudimentary practice.  I have not been able to hear or to travel.  I have not wanted to leave the safety of my home. Going to work has been an exercise in anxiety.

 I have tried to write letters to loved ones without success.  I have tried to journal, but have only been able to scratch out the most clumsy and awkward of phrases to document the banality of my daily life.

This life feels completely void of magick, poetry or joy.  There is no pleasure or hope or connection.  It feels as though I am completely disconnected from all that I love.  I am trapped in a gray wasteland with no color, no warmth, no light.

For me this is the “Dark Night of the Soul” This disconnection, this cold numbness of my heart, this deafness of my soul, this crippling of my mind and muting of my voice.  This despair brings moments when I doubt there is any reason to keep living.  If this is what my life is to be, I don’t want to face the future, I would rather quit this life altogether.

But I have been here before, many times before.  I may not truly believe at this moment but, I will find a reason to wake up tomorrow.  I will keep waking up until this grayness passes.  And it WILL pass.  I know that it will because I have been here before and if I keep waking up, the magick will return to my life.

I tell you this because this is a part of living with the shadows and I know that I am not the only one.  I tell you this so that you will understand that even in this wasteland, there is hope, even when I cannot see it, or feel it, or hear it, the light is there.  The beauty is there.  This is faith, to keep waking up until the magick returns.  I will keep breathing until it returns.  I will continue to keep faith with the shadows.