It never ceases to amaze me, as I use bibliomancy to randomly select alchemy quotes for my own growth and the titles of these blog entries, how the most relevant quotes are revealed based on my circumstances. As I write this, I am not in the verdant and icy Pacific Northwest. I am in the Vegas Vortex, where I will be residing for three months. And if you were to describe what it is I am trying to do here, outside of the pet-sitting for a friend which is a convenient hook, it is to have a Vigil of the Eye.
Vigil is the fruit of Hunger, for it expels useless sleep, often weighed down by too abundant nourishment. Now, contact between Man and the Celestial Assembly cannot succeed except during sleep, during a kind of doubling of the Soul outside of the Body. A sleep susceptible to freeing the Soul is a sleep which comes about during a serious fast. But our Vigil has another purpose. There are two types of Vigil:
a) The vigil of the Heart, which instinctively seeks contemplation;
b) The vigil of the Eye (vision), which realizes and objectivizes what is in the Heart (the Inner Temple and the Philosophical Egg), by defining it.
Vigil alone procures Knowledge of the Soul. It equates to Fire and to Faith.
I have many tasks I can accomplish here. I am trying to not use my usual ways of describing what I'm doing to see if I can find words and ways that support me more effectively. I have been on an effectiveness kick lately.
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Okay, so I wrote the above shortly after I got to Vegas in early December, and clearly I got distracted by the actual doing, and have not turned much attention to the contemplation until now. I have been more effective but the first month or six weeks here has been about helping others to be more effective and I'm only now starting to get around to just working on my effectiveness again. But I can say after my latest visit with my (literally) crazy friend E, I really am here on a Vigil of the Eye.
I think a lot of people who feel stuck in their lives could truly benefit from taking three months to step out of their regular lives and go do their thing and lots of different things somewhere else for that time period.
One aspect of this trip is looking at my daily life and what technically is important. I am trying to pare down with the goal of becoming a tiny-houser in the semi-near future. I could only bring so much stuff with me. I am living in a house that is really different from mine, where the human who lives here shares some interests but not much. Ever forget just what you have and what's important? Try living with another person's stuff, mostly. It's become clear what sorts of household tools and gear I consider necessary, because this person has different priorities. I am baffled how a chef can not have hardly any kitchen gear, but then again, this one digs on raw food, but how can she not have a colander or strainer? (Guess what I have to go find tomorrow?) How can someone who rivals me for clothing collecting not own any tools for caring for fabric and not know how to do laundry? No one is right or wrong, it's what we both prefer. But the clarifying effect, at least in my experience so far, has been great. Especially as I am at the mid-point roughly.
My life is way more about durable goods than this person. So much in this house is disposable. This small home went from having an overflowing garbage pickup twice a week to a partial can once a week when my friend left for her travels. She left me a t-shirt I could cut up to make cleaning rags after watching me grind my teeth at all the paper towel usage. I use all products for cleaning that are way more bio-safe and non-toxic. I keep things for repair and fixing in my home. We have good screwdrivers here but that's it. As much as I like tchotchkes and altars, this person likes them even more. I live with a scent-sensitive human, so I've learned to live in a way that minimizes scent. This person fixes smells by adding even more smells, while living in a house which is never opened to the outside due to living in the freaking hood. And a pet with asthma. I smelled nothing in this house for the first month due to the ever-burning incense, my nose just shut down.
One thing that people have always said to me, over and over my entire life that just got said again this week, is that I should have a pet, it would give me unconditional love and help me feel better when I am depressed. Just for the record, when I get really depressed and can not deal with taking care of myself, I think how if I had an animal I would kill it to save it from being trapped with and neglected by me. Yes, I willingly stepped up for this gig with pet-sitting, but remember these aren't "my" animals. As for that unconditional love, I have fucking buckets of that shit in my life and I wish I could either sell it to pay my rent or burn it so that it's not in my way anymore. Unconditional love never did anything to stop any of the teasing or bullying. Unconditional love just stands there and blinks and then says, "I don't understand you, but I love you anyway," and never tries to understand, leaving me feeling like unconditional love is a fucking liar. Unconditional love is one of the most passive-aggressive things I've ever encountered. Unconditional love doesn't seem to actually feel, like it's a cheap-ass way of ditching some genuine emotion that would be a lot more productive. Unconditional love is the "it gets better" campaign of feelings, where people talk a lot but don't actually take any action to change anything. I want passion, and challenge, I want someone I can fucking trust to watch my back, I want to help, I want to get helped, I want to explore, I want to struggle and grow. I want conditional love because all I have is unconditional love and it's killing me like the death of a thousand paper cuts.
Part of me feels off my *something* from not being able to observe Yule as I have become accustomed. I missed the intensity of the vigil, I missed having a fire in a fireplace all night. I'm sort of working up a series of semi-shadow exercises for myself, mini-rituals to help get connected back into some of the magickal abilities I turned off or destroyed during or after a moment of extreme self-harm as a kid. As I get some of the control and ability to discern some of The Other back, I also get these semi-magickal healing crises, just like if I was healing a mundane sickness. That's very hard to deal with not being in my own environment. As much as I can lie in bed here, it's not "my bed," and doesn't settle me the same as when I curl up in Seattle. I can't ever close the door to the room I'm in, as it has dog-protected cat space in it. And Areeya has lights that she never turns off, and I'm honoring her request to not turn them off, and that means I am not sleeping in total blackness as my body really desires. Sure I put my head away from the faint glow and yes, I even have a blindfold but it's not the same as sleeping freely in a sealed, black space. I got Areeya a mosquito net for Costa Rica, now I need to find me a blackout one. There's no outside or nature to go to when I feel I need that. Thank goodness for woodsy incense and Rainy Mood.
Imbolc will be here before I know it, as will my two Sisters-from-Other-Mothers for Mysterium. I'm so happy to know they are coming. My being here and having to tend a home meant no PantheaCon and the three of us have grown to really enjoy that weekend. And having humans who grok my shit is, as always, just such a relief. I'd like my keel to be a bit more even by the time they arrive.