{"id":189,"date":"2012-02-02T09:35:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T15:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.wordpress.com\/2012\/02\/02\/ny-ny-checking-in-with-my-goals-and-keeping-my-shoulder-to-the-wheel"},"modified":"2012-02-02T09:35:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T15:35:00","slug":"ny-ny-checking-in-with-my-goals-and-keeping-my-shoulder-to-the-wheel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/02\/ny-ny-checking-in-with-my-goals-and-keeping-my-shoulder-to-the-wheel\/","title":{"rendered":"NY, NY: Checking In With My Goals and Keeping My Shoulder to the Wheel"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, I set myself a number of goals to have complete by the end of the New Year, New You project\u2014almost exactly two weeks from today.\u00a0 Up until now, I have been dong a fairly good job<\/a>, even if there has been some last-minute completion, but let\u2019s check back in:<\/p>\n

\n

1) Finish interpreting my own natal chart.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been working on it off and on for half a year, but my ego keeps getting in the way.\u00a0 [Hahah.\u00a0 No.]<\/p>\n

2) Illustrated meditation on the Element of Earth and finish my meditation on the Element of Water.\u00a0 [Oh, right.\u00a0 I forgot about that one.]<\/p>\n

3) Develop an outline for the new book of shadows.\u00a0 [Uh \u2026 been thinking about it.]<\/p>\n

4) Transport this blog to wordpress.\u00a0 Blogger is getting on my nerves.\u00a0 I hope this won\u2019t irritate my established readers too badly, but there are just so many technical advantages to wordpress.\u00a0 I wanted to use it originally, actually, but it was broken the day I decided to register my domain.\u00a0 [WIP<\/a>.\u00a0 Any thoughts on improving the layout while it\u2019s in beta?]<\/p>\n

5) Successfully achieve astral projection.\u00a0 [WIP<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

6) Complete (for the purposes of my survey of ceremonial magic, though not in any larger sense) my studies of Earth\/Malkuth and Moon\/Yesod. [Houston, we (may) have a problem.]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

With two weeks to go, I haven\u2019t actually gotten very far on these.\u00a0 Ironically, this is in part because I\u2019ve been working at the long-term master list from which it was derived from other directions.\u00a0 But only in part.<\/p>\n

My natal chart has been derailed by having too much work to do.\u00a0 As much as astrology interests me, the fact is that it\u2019s fairly tangential to everything, and it\u2019s disproportionately time-consuming.\u00a0 Because of the degree to which I\u2019m an amateur, I can write an A paper in the amount of time it takes me to write a D natal chart.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

As far as the elemental meditations \u2026 I\u2019d love to pretend that I\u2019ve been too busy, or working on other things, or \u2026 But, no.\u00a0 I just fucking forgot about them.\u00a0 I should get back on them if for no reason other than that they\u2019re fun.\u00a0 Also, my newly stripped-down altar<\/a> needs more pretties.<\/p>\n

The Book of Shadows thing has gotten derailed by some of the same things that have derailed my ceremonial studies as a whole.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I\u2019m not thinking about it; it may be that I\u2019m thinking too much about it.\u00a0 More on that in a bit.<\/p>\n

Migrating the Dream to wordpress is one thing that\u2019s actually seen some action.\u00a0 So is astral projection, though I doubt that I\u2019ll managed \u201csuccess\u201d at the rate I\u2019m going, it still counts for something.\u00a0 The work speaks for itself.<\/p>\n

Finally, we come to my ceremonial studies.\u00a0 By one way of counting, they have ground to a complete halt: I haven\u2019t opened Penczak\u2019s High Temple of Witchcraft<\/em> since I wrote the review<\/a>, let alone made any progress through that rubric.\u00a0 On the other hand, I haven\u2019t exactly been idle.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been pawing through Donald Michael Kraig again, dabbled in some Israel Regardie, made myself some Mercury talismans<\/a>, read the Arbatel in its (surviving) entirety, and performed<\/a> the rite of the Stele of Jeu the Heiroglyphist (and a few less interesting things as well).\u00a0 As my ceremonial studies shift from theoretical to practical<\/a>, my methods are necessarily in flux and I find myself searching for, among other things, a new rubric that isn\u2019t hip deep in the assumption that I\u2019ve never cast a spell before in my life (sorry Kraig) \u2026 but which doesn\u2019t assume I already know everything, either.<\/p>\n

Here we see a glimpse of the thing that\u2019s hard for me: pick a thing and stick to it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a large part of what\u2019s gone wrong with my daily practice.\u00a0 I\u2019m damn good at whipping it out and getting shit done.\u00a0 I\u2019m not so good at keeping on top of things.\u00a0 This is why I take yoga classes instead of just maintaining a practice in home; after three semesters, I ought to know what I\u2019m doing well enough to follow one of the countless routines on YouTube.\u00a0 This is why I\u2019m blogging instead of doing homework or sleeping.<\/p>\n

In theory, of course, I could continue with the Penczak psuedo-GD structure, just adding bits and pieces to compensate for his failures.\u00a0 Like, say, conjuring the planetary spirits using Kraig\u2019s system in conjunction with Penczak\u2019s visionary work, and\/or making a Planetary Talisman like I did with Mercury.\u00a0 After all, there are a lot of things about Penczak and his system that I do like.\u00a0 But \u2026 I\u2019m mad at him.\u00a0 Which is absurd and immature, but there you go.\u00a0 Also, I\u2019ve absolutely run out of patience for his fluffy-bunny-bullshit, which essentially means that in order to use his shit I\u2019ll have to re-write it from the ground up at which point I \u2026 may just be on to something.\u00a0 But it\u2019s also somewhat beside the point, because I\u2019m this is the means<\/em>, not the ends<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The ends, the actual goal, is this: to become a more competent and well-rounded witch.\u00a0 To get closer to the Mysetery I can\u2019t name, but whose call I can\u2019t ignore.\u00a0 To live well, and to die well.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

And what do I need to achieve those ends?\u00a0 Work.\u00a0 Every day, at least a little bit.\u00a0 Keep the Sabbats; mark the Moons; struggle to do something, even a little bit, every day.<\/p>\n

Nose to the grindstone.\u00a0 Shoulder to the wheel.<\/p>\n

Do the Work.\u00a0 Let the serpent bite its tail.<\/p>\n

On it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, I set myself a number of goals to have complete by the end of the New Year, New You project\u2014almost exactly two weeks from today.\u00a0 Up until now, I have been dong a fairly good job, even if there has been some last-minute completion, but let\u2019s check back in: 1) Finish interpreting my own … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-33","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}