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hkellickI think I'm going to reflect a bit on the important of the yeart 1997, or at least the beginning of the year.
1997 was an extremely important years for me on a number of fronts.
Careerwise, I had taken EAS 140 and, having heard Alan Rabideau speak about what Civil Engineers (SPECIFICALLY those with interest in the Environmental Engineering profession) do, I was.. interested. It's true, I didn't do anything about it until 1998, but it made me think anyways.
Workwise, I had recently gotten fired from Wilson Farms for something I hadn't done and had followed my friend Dave to John and Mary's
Lifewise, ChaoticMUX was JUST getting off the ground and with it a host of new people were filtering into my life. At the same time, I was slowly weaning myself off GlobalMUSH and the people therein.
Lovelife wise, I flirted with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lawchicky, tried to date a girl named Nikki and I THINK dated Jen from New Hampshire.
But that's not what I want to talk about, because most of what 1997 means to me is in spiritual development.
On the Spring Equinox, 1997, I self-iniated myself into the Wiccan Religion and decided, henceforth, to start writing a journal of important things that were going on in my life, magickally, but also otherwise. I still have this journal and I've been reading through it recently and it's amazing how important this year really was for my spiritual growth.
I'm going to rego over some important (for me) past and rethink it.. and then, I think, present my conclusions about what maybe happened and where, maybe, I need to go from here.
Of course, as I've described once before, I found Paganism and Wicca during the 94-95 school year. My beginnings were pretty quiet. I read a bunch of Wiccan books (Buckland's Complete Book of Witcraft, To Ride A Silver Broomstick, a few others by familiar names like Silver Ravenwolf and Scott Cunningahm) and surfed the wiccan web pages.
Mostly, though, I talked to people.. a whole host of different people online, in real life.. and I experimented trying to get some idea of what I could do.
I was a believer, then. I believed everything people who seemed to know what they were talking about said and I took alot more on faith than I do now.
At the time, I was pretty certain I was good at empathy, some telepathy, healing, will-working and... something in which I could sort of force fate to bring something to a head faster than it was supposed to.
I still think I can do some of this, but if I can do all of it, I doubt I'll ever know or believe. I don't plan on trying some of the shit I tried then while I was experimenting. Free will is sancrosanct and I won't fuck with it again.
In the few final months of 96, I met my first "teacher" who went by the MUSH name of Angelica. (I used to not be sure whether I should ever mention that name as people might know and talk to that person, but as the only person who might still be watching this now and know who I mean is busy with a real life, I'm not so worried anymore)
She claimed that it was her job to help lead me through a magick metamorphosis in which I'd come into my powers.
I'm not sure what I expected of her or what she was really there to help lead me through, but at the time, we'd talk about magick, about life. I read a number of things and we'd talk about them.
She was still with me through 1997 and her name is littered in the first part of my journal. Not things we talked about so much as the knowledge that she was there leading me through this metamorphosis. Truth be told, I never saved our discussions. In retrospect and as I read through this journal, I honestly wish I had. Some of what she said still strikes me as entierly unbelievable. Other stuff, probably is true.
Of course, as I started yesterday, 1997 was also the year Marci came into my life. She entered fairly quickly after my self-initiation and remained an important part for years to come. I won't go over the material I posted yesterday.
In the Summer of 1997, I met Mark, Trina and Nikki (Myrddin, Raven and Nnyxx). The interesting thing about them is REALLY their timing. They appeared in my life just as I had become disillusioned and angry at Marci. Dave and I met them Midnight Bowling one night over at Transit Lanes. He noticed Raven's Pentacle and commented. That night Dave went home and I met them out to dinner at Denny's. After Dinner, Nicki and I got.. well, we made out on my couch for about two hours.
If I hadn't been curious about them before I left Transit Lanes, they cemented themselves in my life after that. Take a poor horny twenty-something boy and show him a good time for a couple hours, promise more and he'll be yours for.. a while. Yes, I will be the first person to admit I was an idiot who listened too much to his penis and probably not enough to his brain.
The three of them together conspired to become my newest teachers and take up where I had been left off.
In actuality, the lessons were good and fair ones. They tried to teach me to visualize, to work on my shields. They introduced me to Tarot and gave me my favorite-ever tarot deck, a five-suited deal with a personality all it's own. The problem was that they were, in some very real way, crazy. At least two of them, if not three, had (or claimed to have, I guess. I don't know) Multiple Personality Disorder. And they lived in a wonderful fantasy world in which I tried really hard to fit in, but failed because I have too much common sense.
In the end, they left as quickly and mysteriously as they entered into my life, owing me money and a video game. (Did I mention I was a schmuck?)
Somehow, in the middle of all this, I decided to takesoreth under my proverbial wing as a student. I think I tried to do for hiim what arabella did for me. He asked questions and I did my best to answer them. I did my best to suggest things he could do magickally and how he could go about doing things. The problem, of course, is.. magick is a highly individual thing and what works for me may not work for you.
In the end, I'm not sure if I was much of a teacher. I was there when he started taking his first steps towards psychic awareness (though, not the only one) and maybe I should give myself credit for the fact he doesn't seem too badly scarred.
Where that left me, though, as I look back, was confused and doubting. What did I REALLY believe? I couldn't believe Marci. I couldn't believe Mark, Trina and Nikki. I wasn't sure I could believe Angelica.
Could I believe myself? Could I believe arabella, the first person I'd listened to and asked questions of? The one who had set me on the road I had followed into that big mess.
I guess, if anything else, this level of doubting not only never really got deal with, but got worse. I still don't know the answers to these questions.
Now I'm going to backtrack and suggest what may actually have happened 6 years ago.
Let's start with me. I think, now, the facts are.. I really was.. really AM able to do some of the things I claimed I could do. I think that my experimenting defiantely opened me up to the fact that these are things I could do for myself.
I think that between the end of 96 and the beginning of 97, I actually went through SOME sort of psychic metamorphosis and in that period of time, I actually DID grow in power and have continued to grow in power (no idea how much) since then.
This leads me to Angelica. Was she for real? I think, to some limited extent, she was. She claimed to be part of some top-secret cabal of ultra-powerful magick-workers. I suppose that if I am what I think I am (able to do magick and with the sort of power levels I think I have), then if I were a cabal of ultra-powerful magickers, I'd want to at least keep an eye on someone like me.
I don't know if she actually helped or hindered my metamorphoses or whether her answers were any help or hindrance (I don't remember half of them anyways), but I don't think she was malicious or a hanger-onner.
The worst I'll say about Angelica is it's possible she, too, was living in a fantasy world and that she had the.. ability to see that I was metamorphosizing, but was maybe not part of the super-secret society she claimed to be part of.
Now Marci.. Marci was malicious. I suspect that Marci was a psychic vampire who, had the ability not only to scout out those with enough psychic power to live on, but the ability to bind them (much like a spider binds her prey before she eats it) She gave me bait and I took it and while under her spell, she tapped into me for her own purposes. I was probably the perfect bait too, especially if I was as powerful as I think I am. That would explain why she kept attacking me too, if her purpose was to bring me back in.
I have no idea. Chances are I never will.
Mark, Trina and Nikki... they remain enigmas. I'd guess they, too, were attracted to my energies. I don't know if they were malicious or just.. typically stupidly human (and crazy to boot. Let's not forget crazy.) I think they maybe meant well, but they lived in a world of fantasy that, after a while, I just couldn't live in. I don't think they were malicious, but they may have been hanger-oners.
In the end, I think if 1997 taught me anything, it's how subjective "reality" is, especially when the only way to prove or disprove it is through subjective means. I may never know the full cosmic truth, even the full cosmic truths about my own life or self. I guess where this leaves me now, though, as someone who wants to actually pick up his pieces and find his faith is.. figuring out, I guess, what to believe in.
I have faith in me. Especially me now. I have faith now that if I seem to be able to do X than I can probably actually do X.
Maybe that means I have to go back to experimenting and seeing where I stand. I guess that does make some sense. Just no even TRYING to fuck with free will (if it's even possible. I'm not sure it is. I don't really want to find out anyways.)
Time to go home, I think. This is.. a much longer post than I thought I'd write. I may write more, about specific things I used to believe and see if I believe still.
*gives a golden star to anyone who actually read this far and hasn't gotten bored or annoyed at the length of this :)*
1997 was an extremely important years for me on a number of fronts.
Careerwise, I had taken EAS 140 and, having heard Alan Rabideau speak about what Civil Engineers (SPECIFICALLY those with interest in the Environmental Engineering profession) do, I was.. interested. It's true, I didn't do anything about it until 1998, but it made me think anyways.
Workwise, I had recently gotten fired from Wilson Farms for something I hadn't done and had followed my friend Dave to John and Mary's
Lifewise, ChaoticMUX was JUST getting off the ground and with it a host of new people were filtering into my life. At the same time, I was slowly weaning myself off GlobalMUSH and the people therein.
Lovelife wise, I flirted with
lawchicky, tried to date a girl named Nikki and I THINK dated Jen from New Hampshire.But that's not what I want to talk about, because most of what 1997 means to me is in spiritual development.
On the Spring Equinox, 1997, I self-iniated myself into the Wiccan Religion and decided, henceforth, to start writing a journal of important things that were going on in my life, magickally, but also otherwise. I still have this journal and I've been reading through it recently and it's amazing how important this year really was for my spiritual growth.
I'm going to rego over some important (for me) past and rethink it.. and then, I think, present my conclusions about what maybe happened and where, maybe, I need to go from here.
Of course, as I've described once before, I found Paganism and Wicca during the 94-95 school year. My beginnings were pretty quiet. I read a bunch of Wiccan books (Buckland's Complete Book of Witcraft, To Ride A Silver Broomstick, a few others by familiar names like Silver Ravenwolf and Scott Cunningahm) and surfed the wiccan web pages.
Mostly, though, I talked to people.. a whole host of different people online, in real life.. and I experimented trying to get some idea of what I could do.
I was a believer, then. I believed everything people who seemed to know what they were talking about said and I took alot more on faith than I do now.
At the time, I was pretty certain I was good at empathy, some telepathy, healing, will-working and... something in which I could sort of force fate to bring something to a head faster than it was supposed to.
I still think I can do some of this, but if I can do all of it, I doubt I'll ever know or believe. I don't plan on trying some of the shit I tried then while I was experimenting. Free will is sancrosanct and I won't fuck with it again.
In the few final months of 96, I met my first "teacher" who went by the MUSH name of Angelica. (I used to not be sure whether I should ever mention that name as people might know and talk to that person, but as the only person who might still be watching this now and know who I mean is busy with a real life, I'm not so worried anymore)
She claimed that it was her job to help lead me through a magick metamorphosis in which I'd come into my powers.
I'm not sure what I expected of her or what she was really there to help lead me through, but at the time, we'd talk about magick, about life. I read a number of things and we'd talk about them.
She was still with me through 1997 and her name is littered in the first part of my journal. Not things we talked about so much as the knowledge that she was there leading me through this metamorphosis. Truth be told, I never saved our discussions. In retrospect and as I read through this journal, I honestly wish I had. Some of what she said still strikes me as entierly unbelievable. Other stuff, probably is true.
Of course, as I started yesterday, 1997 was also the year Marci came into my life. She entered fairly quickly after my self-initiation and remained an important part for years to come. I won't go over the material I posted yesterday.
In the Summer of 1997, I met Mark, Trina and Nikki (Myrddin, Raven and Nnyxx). The interesting thing about them is REALLY their timing. They appeared in my life just as I had become disillusioned and angry at Marci. Dave and I met them Midnight Bowling one night over at Transit Lanes. He noticed Raven's Pentacle and commented. That night Dave went home and I met them out to dinner at Denny's. After Dinner, Nicki and I got.. well, we made out on my couch for about two hours.
If I hadn't been curious about them before I left Transit Lanes, they cemented themselves in my life after that. Take a poor horny twenty-something boy and show him a good time for a couple hours, promise more and he'll be yours for.. a while. Yes, I will be the first person to admit I was an idiot who listened too much to his penis and probably not enough to his brain.
The three of them together conspired to become my newest teachers and take up where I had been left off.
In actuality, the lessons were good and fair ones. They tried to teach me to visualize, to work on my shields. They introduced me to Tarot and gave me my favorite-ever tarot deck, a five-suited deal with a personality all it's own. The problem was that they were, in some very real way, crazy. At least two of them, if not three, had (or claimed to have, I guess. I don't know) Multiple Personality Disorder. And they lived in a wonderful fantasy world in which I tried really hard to fit in, but failed because I have too much common sense.
In the end, they left as quickly and mysteriously as they entered into my life, owing me money and a video game. (Did I mention I was a schmuck?)
Somehow, in the middle of all this, I decided to take
soreth under my proverbial wing as a student. I think I tried to do for hiim what arabella did for me. He asked questions and I did my best to answer them. I did my best to suggest things he could do magickally and how he could go about doing things. The problem, of course, is.. magick is a highly individual thing and what works for me may not work for you.In the end, I'm not sure if I was much of a teacher. I was there when he started taking his first steps towards psychic awareness (though, not the only one) and maybe I should give myself credit for the fact he doesn't seem too badly scarred.
Where that left me, though, as I look back, was confused and doubting. What did I REALLY believe? I couldn't believe Marci. I couldn't believe Mark, Trina and Nikki. I wasn't sure I could believe Angelica.
Could I believe myself? Could I believe arabella, the first person I'd listened to and asked questions of? The one who had set me on the road I had followed into that big mess.
I guess, if anything else, this level of doubting not only never really got deal with, but got worse. I still don't know the answers to these questions.
Now I'm going to backtrack and suggest what may actually have happened 6 years ago.
Let's start with me. I think, now, the facts are.. I really was.. really AM able to do some of the things I claimed I could do. I think that my experimenting defiantely opened me up to the fact that these are things I could do for myself.
I think that between the end of 96 and the beginning of 97, I actually went through SOME sort of psychic metamorphosis and in that period of time, I actually DID grow in power and have continued to grow in power (no idea how much) since then.
This leads me to Angelica. Was she for real? I think, to some limited extent, she was. She claimed to be part of some top-secret cabal of ultra-powerful magick-workers. I suppose that if I am what I think I am (able to do magick and with the sort of power levels I think I have), then if I were a cabal of ultra-powerful magickers, I'd want to at least keep an eye on someone like me.
I don't know if she actually helped or hindered my metamorphoses or whether her answers were any help or hindrance (I don't remember half of them anyways), but I don't think she was malicious or a hanger-onner.
The worst I'll say about Angelica is it's possible she, too, was living in a fantasy world and that she had the.. ability to see that I was metamorphosizing, but was maybe not part of the super-secret society she claimed to be part of.
Now Marci.. Marci was malicious. I suspect that Marci was a psychic vampire who, had the ability not only to scout out those with enough psychic power to live on, but the ability to bind them (much like a spider binds her prey before she eats it) She gave me bait and I took it and while under her spell, she tapped into me for her own purposes. I was probably the perfect bait too, especially if I was as powerful as I think I am. That would explain why she kept attacking me too, if her purpose was to bring me back in.
I have no idea. Chances are I never will.
Mark, Trina and Nikki... they remain enigmas. I'd guess they, too, were attracted to my energies. I don't know if they were malicious or just.. typically stupidly human (and crazy to boot. Let's not forget crazy.) I think they maybe meant well, but they lived in a world of fantasy that, after a while, I just couldn't live in. I don't think they were malicious, but they may have been hanger-oners.
In the end, I think if 1997 taught me anything, it's how subjective "reality" is, especially when the only way to prove or disprove it is through subjective means. I may never know the full cosmic truth, even the full cosmic truths about my own life or self. I guess where this leaves me now, though, as someone who wants to actually pick up his pieces and find his faith is.. figuring out, I guess, what to believe in.
I have faith in me. Especially me now. I have faith now that if I seem to be able to do X than I can probably actually do X.
Maybe that means I have to go back to experimenting and seeing where I stand. I guess that does make some sense. Just no even TRYING to fuck with free will (if it's even possible. I'm not sure it is. I don't really want to find out anyways.)
Time to go home, I think. This is.. a much longer post than I thought I'd write. I may write more, about specific things I used to believe and see if I believe still.
*gives a golden star to anyone who actually read this far and hasn't gotten bored or annoyed at the length of this :)*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-15 01:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-15 02:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-15 01:58 pm (UTC)That aside, one's spiritual evolution is an important part of everybody's life, and I encourage you to follow the path you have chosen to it's fullest.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-15 02:47 pm (UTC)Sometimes I wish that I had more religious/spiritual beliefs...sometimes I don't. I definitely tried Wicca for a few months back in high school (I bought and read a few books), but I don't think it was for me. I definitely agree with a lot of Wiccan beliefs, but I'm not enough of a practicing person to actually practice Wicca. And I never did feel any sort of magickal tendencies, no matter how much I tried. I felt like I was fooling myself.
Now, I don't have a religion or set of beliefs, really. I know that I really like animals and that they have something to do with my spiritual beliefs (I read a lot of books about real people who could talk to animals...and I definitely felt like maybe I could talk to my dog at times). But, yeah. I have no idea why I'm talking about my beliefs in your journal, but I got off on a tangent. ;)
Good luck figuring things out. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-15 02:51 pm (UTC)Animal Empathy sounds like an interesting gift, but I'm confused how you build a.. spirituality around that. Or are you still busy trying to work out the answers for yourself?
It doesn't bother me at all that you're talking about your beliefs in my journal. I encourage all well-thought out discussion and always have :)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-15 03:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-15 03:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-15 03:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-16 09:55 am (UTC)Where I am now, I still believe in magic. I still believe a lot of "pagan" things. I believe some people spend more energy constructing the fantasy world that often walks hand in hand with such beliefs, than they do in constructing their everyday mundane life. I admit, I did that too for a few years. It was much more interesting to think that there was so much underlying regular life and too easy to shirk responsibility as a result.
Though the turnaround for me started earlier, what really grounded me was becoming a wife and mother. There is so much that is worth not being escapist from. There are so many important responsibilities that are unique to being Mom.
As I sit here today, I can still sense things. I can still shield from, and work with energy. My affinity with cats has grown exponentially. But more than any of that, I've decided that I will never find where I fit in spiritually. I, like every human being, am in a constant state of change. Even though I have an enduring framework of beliefs (http://www.livejournal.com/users/blackfelicula/31379.html), some of the details inevitably shift. Some of the ways I practice, and the words and images I use to describe what I do, evolve with me.
I wish you well in your work. Taking stock of where you are spiritually is an important thing.