When I said I hit a wall a couple weeks ago, it was even more true than I realized at the time. The cold I was fighting weakened me slowly, until Tuesday when I was too sick to go to class. When the fever passed, it was followed by a wave of insomnia and depression. Although I’ve managed to largely maintain my banishing practice (about three days out of five), meditation not on the weekends has been sporadic at best, as has dream journaling.
In line with the depression has been the bouts of obsessive behavior: after buying and finally watching the Avengers when it came out on DVD last week, I proceeded to plow through the Marvel Ultimate reboot—an exceptionally dystopian vision, full of (and uncritical of) contempt for consent and creepy sex-negativity, which did nothing whatsoever for my state of mind. I’ve dreamed about superheroes for at least three of the last seven nights. I don’t think the Chaos Magic is in any way to blame for this round of madness and obsession: I think the length of time since I last saw my lovers, and my paucity of friends on campus, are owed full credit.
In the middle of all this madness, though, was some actual interesting and productive work. I have begun experimenting with psychic shields again for the first time in years. I make very, very effective shields, but I hesitate to say that I’m “good” at it: when they’re up, it’s like living in a mad tyrant’s castle: nothing gets in, nothing gets out … even if it probably ought to. But the escalating magic of the last couple years has re-opened psychic senses that I don’t want to loose again, either through atrophy or burn-out, and re-learning effective shielding has become an imperative. That’s a post in and of itself.
This weekend, I honored the Full Moon by completely disassembling and cleaning my altars and by putting them back together in a slightly more effective arrangement. I started two batches of mead. And I have successfully incorporated underworld journeys into two Esbats in a row, now, culminating in a journey into the very strange places opened up in my Inner Temple by my self-initiation into the Chaos Current. No, that wasn’t what I was trying to do there, exactly, but … that’s basically what it amounted to. That, too, deserves a post unto itself.
After firing off a few rounds of sigils, things in my life are starting to get moving. I need to keep at it: exercising my will and manifesting the world I want. A lot of the specific desires have not yet manifested fully, but they’re complex and delicate this time, and I’m not in a hurry. I can see things working and that’s good enough for me. Fuller reports will become available as they manifest.
All this has put me a little behind on my original schedule, and it’s time for me to start in on Liber Lux and Nox if I’m to have any chance of being even half done by the end of October. The madness and illness, though, are not actually to blame for that tardiness. Instead, they share a common cause: I’ve overextended myself a bit this semester. I’ve almost got a handle on the work load, and I should be okay by the time I’m done with Midterms, but … well, I’ve already complained about that shit enough, here and elsewhere. Unfortunately, everything has to take a back seat to my classes.