this restlessness. this restless disposition. the heart of the seeker. will i ever stop seeking? will i ever feel satisfied? is it dissatisfaction, or is it wanderlust, the spirit of ecstasy drawing me towards the horizon for a lifetime?
so drawn am i by the greater, by the higher. it will never, ever abate. this is joy. chasing! chasing! chasing! playing!
ever drawn and inspired by ideas. how ruled am i by them! i am at their mercy!
the spirit of the gold rush will never leave my bones. eureka is my favorite word, destined and fated to be the most used in my lexicon. without this dissatisfaction, without my eyes fixed on the horizons, without a romantic heart blessed or cursed or both by longing, what would i be? what would i be? no, this isn’t doomed idealism. it is not. how could my idealism be doomed if i see the ideal in the plain, in the mundane? how could i ever stop shouting eureka when i see gold everywhere? when i see gold in strangers’ eyes, in grains of sand, in dirt?
i have lived my life in pursuit of eurekas, and i have one every day. i shout eureka when i roll out of bed, what a treasure to be alive. i shout eureka when i see my mother, what a gift she is. i shout eureka when i speak to my friends, for their hearts are as plainly gold as anything could be. i shout eureka when i see my cats’ beautiful blue eyes, when Gema meows and does anything he possibly can to be a menace, when Cosmo makes it abundantly clear that he has a distaste for humanity, making it ever more special when he graces me with affection, producing yet another eureka for being deemed worthy and redeemable by him. i shout eureka when i get a work text, what a gift it is to have a job that provides for me, i shout eureka at the beach, something many people never have the privilege to see. i shout eureka when i cry, what a gift it is to feel at all. i shout eureka when i read, how many illiterate people have existed throughout history? how could i have struck gold to be so lucky as to be able to read? eureka!
i shout eureka being able to walk, i shout eureka when my mother makes me food, i shout eureka when i drink water, i shout eureka at all things. why should i not?
my life is a never-ending gold rush, for there is no metal more abundant than gold.
such strength in not needing a veneer of strength.
such masculinity in not needing a veneer of masculinity.
true greatness is in scrubbing floors.
the meek inherit the Earth.
no hearts more impoverished than the greedy.
victory is only found in waving your white flag.
those in eternal surrender possess the whole.
earthly kings are peasants of the spiritual kingdom.
…
how can I ever communicate
what is in my heart
I think I am powerless to give it a voice.
I think my gaze
speaks more
than I ever could with words.
the eyes are the windows of the soul,
but rationale
is shutters pulled down
the intellect blocking daylight.
But I will shut my mouth
and open my heart
and hide nothing.
give me someone
who I can know without speaking.
where our eye contact speaks novels.
their heart made plain
I will cherish those secrets
held in plain sight.
give me your hand
and we’ll speak through Braille.
no, I don’t need to hear you speak,
but I will lay my head upon your chest
and your heartbeat will be enough
your soul’s story recounted rhythmically.
so great is my longing to merge,
to simply love and be loved.
our minds don crowns of thorns.
and in love,
those barbs descend
seated upon our hearts.
every condition our minds have set
for loving and being loved
pricking
piercing
drawing blood
draining that holy organ.
what is this thing
that our minds do?
what is the mind but a labyrinth
that places us
on its outside
our heart
as its center?
enough —
silence dissolves those walls.
and there do I reunite
with that sacred simplicity.
there do I find my home.
…
might we find our home together, as one?
Anointed am I by that Martian flame,
Pentecostal,
Purified, purifying,
Illuminating,
The sorcerer’s brazier
that knows no night —
Diamond between my brow,
Eyes wide shut,
I recline and dive inward,
Then skyward —
The Christ diamond,
quantum vehicle of light —
A smile
that speaks a thousand words
illustrated
on the canvas of my countenance —
Where am I?
Beauty and magic are one and the same, for both are in the eye of the beholder —
What is mundanity to one is high magic to another —
What is rubbish to one is ruby to another —
Magic is defined by the mundane, just as light is defined by darkness, and goodness by evil —
Supernatural is defined by what is considered natural, for its bounds can only be exceeded if the line is first drawn.
There is no such thing as supernatural. If it happened, it is a part of nature, if only a lesser-recognized facet.
Perhaps magic is about recognizing that we had the key all along —
Perhaps magic is about recognizing that the bounds we’ve placed on reality’s very horizons are self-imposed —
Perhaps magic is about a return to the wholeness of our being.
So many of us who feel like something is missing from our lives. What if we were right all along, and that it’s there to be reclaimed, right underneath our noses?
To put my thoughts into writing in a slightly more prosaic way, I have been rediscovering the power of certain attitudes that I may have, at one point, considered to be “toxically masculine.”
It is a mindset to be drawn upon when necessary that acts like shears towards disempowering narratives. What masquerades as compassion can, in truth, be the atrophying of one’s own potential; where is the line between self-sympathy and self-pity? Can pity, at times, assume weakness? If so, can self-pity involve seeing weakness in ourselves, when we can instead see strength? If we pity ourselves too heavily, are we refusing to claim our own power, are we shying away from discomfort?
To speak more clearly, this means that there have been many times lately where, when being confronted with discomfort, and when my instinct is to shy away from the challenge before me, I will tell myself some “toxic” things, such as:
Man up.
Grow some balls.
Just fucking do it.
Don’t be a bitch.
Is that all you fucking got? (While working out)
Cut the drama.
You’re a pussy.
Etc etc etc.
These are words that I have been offering myself when confronted with challenges or stresses.
And you know what? It actually fucking helps. It chops away my own disempowering mental narratives. I have realized how heavily my problems exist within my own head; I perceive challenge, I perceive wrongness, I perceive an issue, and then my instinct is to cling to the comfortable, like some infantile-regressive instinct inside of me who wants to cling to Mother for comfort.
It’s the equivalent of splashing psychological cold water on my face. I shake myself out of my stupor of valuing comfort over growth.
These words. They sound harmful. They sound self-hating. But, to me, I think they can be self-loving. I recognize that there is deep potential within me. I recognize that I am capable of more, and I want to see myself do my best. Out of love.
So I will come down on myself. At times hard. And I like it. It makes me playfully feel like I want to rise up to the challenge, I feel invigorated, like the masculine within is being beckoned forward, like life is demanding that my strength be used, and then I feel good because I know I can overcome. It’s recognizing my own ability to succeed, and not allowing myself to squander it.
This is where my appreciation for Saturn has been growing more and more. There is malevolence that appears benevolent, and there is benevolence that appears malevolent. Parents who are too easy on their children end up ruining them and doing them a disservice, thinking they are giving them kindness when they are only sabotaging them with “love.” Those kinds of parents are parenting selfishly, doing what makes them feel good, and not what is truly good for their child.
We must be our own parents. We must be our own mother and our own father, we must be capable of switching voices, and even blending them together as one. We must be both spheres of the Vesica Piscis, and the overlap in the middle.
There is alchemy in this. Balance of opposites in this regard is absolutely necessary and critical for any sort of self-actualization. One must harmonize and integrate both “Mother” and “Father” in their traditional roles for optimum success. There is a time and a place for absolutely everything. We must achieve the discernment to recognize when we need to be smacked in the face and stunned into reality, or when we need a hug of absolute warmth and softness.
There is a time and a place for absolutely everything, and Mercurial adaptability and mental agility allows us to recognize when we need to shape-shift into our own drill sergeant or nurse. There is a time to sit down and hug oneself — there is a time to muscle up and get your fuckin’ shit done.
What is often times the case is that we will have a heavy preference for one approach or another, and our march towards wholeness/growth is in integrating the opposite polarity of what we’ve identified with. That is to say, if we’ve been excessively soft on ourself/self-pitying, then cultivating a will of iron strength is our work. Conversely, if we’ve been excessively tough on ourselves our entire life, unforgiving, and not offering ourselves any softness, kindness, and/or warmth, then our work is in allowing for vulnerability (strength in “weakness”; weakness in “strength”).
So, lately, I have been feeling the glory of smacking myself around a bit. And it feels good! Because there is a subtext behind talking to myself in such a way; it carries and reinforces the belief that I need less, that I am not a weak and helpless being in need. It’s about demanding the strength that is already there to come forward; shining a light on the reality that I am strong, I am resilient, I am built of brick and mortar, and I can treat myself like it.
Fascinatingly, too, this period has been correlated with something seemingly oxymoronic: I’ve never been more vulnerable with others in my life. Never have I ever let myself receive so much love from others. I have been hanging out with my mom, laying on her lap at night, letting myself be her boy. I’ve been cuddling and snuggling with all my friends, opening up to them myself, and being there for them when they need me. And, somehow, this time has been correlated with what has felt like a peak in personal strength and vitality.
How? How can this be?
I would say that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The more I have allowed myself to participate in “traditionally feminine” behaviors, allowing my cup to be filled, and doing things that feed me on a deep-seated, emotional level, filling the well of personal need, the more fuel I have for a fire of genuine strength. Integrating the feminine allows for true masculine integration.
This honestly reminds me of when I came out as bisexual. Never did I feel more fiery, nor more capable of handling confrontation well, than when I allowed myself to act flamboyantly gay. I went to school in eyeliner, chokers, and nail polish; simultaneously, I had a peak of athletic success, I felt bold, I felt confident, and by other traditional measures of masculinity, I felt like iron.
This is the alchemy of opposites, this is the caduceus in action. Opposites being true at once; transcending duality through embodying both sides of the coin in one substance, being able to dance with yin and yang, making them as one.
Consider, for a moment, how the mind-body-spirit connection relates to the power of breath work.
Why does breath work, well, work? To explain it in one particular way:
Different states of consciousness and emotional wellbeing (or the lack thereof) have correspondences with different paces, depths, and qualities of breath. The typical flow downstream is that one quality of mind will create a related quality of breath. When our emotional self experiences anxiety, the breath reflects that. When the emotional self experiences joy, or calm, or deep wellbeing, the breath reflects that. It is Hermetically so how the outer reflects the inner.
So, then, breath work is about consciously wielding this process to our desired benefit, in an act that I would consider alchemical transmutation. Even if our emotional state is, for example, tense and stressed, we control the breath, and breathe as if we were experiencing calm and deep wellbeing. Eventually, the emotional self reflects what the breath is telling it that it is.
We breathe how we desire to feel.
How does the power of symbols relate to this?
With the example of breath work, we discuss how different states of breath have what we can deem sympathies to different states of mind. Across different levels of reality, one energy or quality can express itself. By altering one level of reality, we create its likeness across the other levels. We can choose positive thoughts to alter our emotional state; we can choose calming breath to alter our emotional state — but do you see how affecting one of reality’s “levels” incurs changes in the others?
(This, by the way, is how astrology works — one level of reality, the macrocosm, affecting another, the microcosm. As above, so below. Consider magic, then, to be reflected in the caduceus: the many different loops of the intertwined serpents reflect different levels of reality. The serpents are the vibratory strings across existence. Plucking the string, and creating a specific vibration, at one location, will cause alterations at the different locations or “knots” of the caduceus, or reality. This is Hermetics.)
So, as for symbol: like states of breath and emotions, symbols have sympathies with varying “configurations” of the Spirit. A symbol is a natural key for a higher spiritual essence/archetype. By altering the physical realm via symbol, we alter the spiritual realm in a way that has sympathy with that symbol, just like altering our breath can change our emotional state.
This is talisman usage. This is magick.
The ancient term for these symbols or talismans is sunthemata. They are tokens that have correspondences to certain divinities.
The ancient term reflecting this system of correspondences between varying levels of reality is sumpatheia — or sympathies.
There is really no limit to how far you can take this. The principle of sympathies means that we will absorb our environment. The people and energies we surround ourselves with. Choosing to be in nature — our spirit will adopt the qualities of the elements that surround. This is our natural-born creative power. The world is our sandbox, and it is truly turtles all the way up.
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Though I learned about sunthemata and sumpatheia from Liz Greene’s Jung’s Studies in Astrology, here are some other resources on the topics for those interested:
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 