I don’t link to her often, but Deborah Castellano is fucking brilliant. She has, in a sense, said to the magical community: “You can fucking do it. I dare you.” And rightly so. Sometimes our armchairs are too cozy, our libations too tasty, and the Work too … well, hard. And we lose track of what we can accomplish if we set our minds to it.
In a sense, I have already set myself to something like this. In a sense, I have already stumbled. But the great thing about cyclical time is that I can have as many New Years as I want. So I’m in. I’m going to double-down. I’m going to refine my intent.
Here’s what I’m going to do:
* I’m going to continue my experimental forays into Western Ceremonialism, though I’m going to throw the time table out the window. The subject is just too big for any year-and-a-day bullshit.
* I’m going to dive back into the witchcraft that’s gotten me this far. I’m going to dig into my old notes and try to find all the wild and crazy shit that I knew to do but not what to do with back before I blew my fuse.
* I’m going to push the boundaries of my art-as-magic thesis and praxis. That means more wild, wacky, and surreal images. More speculations as to what sort of magic I can accomplish through art alone.
* I’m going to resume the shamanic aspects of my practice, which have been falling on the wayside under the pressure of my ceremonial and academic studies. This may seem strange to some people, but … I miss the Underworld.
* I’m going to pick back up my formal Book of Shadows project—better known to my meatspace friends than you year readers—and I’m going to restart it from scratch. I’ve spent a lot of time on that project over the last couple years, and if it’s taught me nothing else it’s that I’m still laboring under a whole lot of bullshit pretense.
* I’m going to see what I can do about that bullshit pretense. Please bear with me through the painful and embarrassing parts of that process.
* And, finally, I’m going to do all these things SOMEHOW without letting my GPA suffer.
Balls to the wall, y’all.
New Year, New Me.