12/5/2022 Monday the day of the Moon
7:56pm Hour of the Moon
Waxing Gibbous Moon

Friends,

I am doing much better. In retrospect I was rather optimistic that I was done processing all the stuff raised for me by the news of the Club Q shooting. I was done with the worst of it, I guess?

One of the things that helped was pulling back and into other focuses for my mind, working on a collection of essays & poems that I will be trying to get published next year, doing some real world stuff to get my finances back in order. I have also been trying to re-evaluate how I am engaging in digital citizenship and communication with others online and off. I am trying to be more open and genuine and to a degree more vulnerable in my interactions with others.

Obviously, there’s some risk involved in that, and I did end up blocking someone in one of my social media streams for only the second time ever, but I believe that sometimes by risking we can find great reward.

An example of this comes from a conversation I had with a new online friend Cooper.(@witchkingcooper on Twittter), he’s an interesting and creative guy with some very interesting projects going on around media and magick.

Cooper tweeted:
“It must be so comforting to believing in a Guiding Force to the universe that tends toward good.”

Pax responded:
“On it’s own? Oh F no! Bending the arc of the universe towards the good is work. Work in body, work in & with spirit, & work in society; in ways as great or as small as we can manage, individually & collectively, day in & day out.”

Cooper:
“Exactly! I’m struggling to give an answer to “why practice magic?” that isn’t “it’s possible to make the world better by changing it.””

Pax:
“When one engages fully & sincerely in the practices of magic, one is forced to learn about oneself. Our best, & our worst. As we learn about ourselves, we are developing our intuition and instincts, we learn to see & interact with the world differently, more effectively. 1/?”

“It is not just about self knowledge, or self improvement; it changes how we carry ourselves, it changes how we interact with others & the world around us.
It opens our eyes to new possibilities & ideas. 2/?”

“To paraphrase a very wise author; humans need magic to be human, to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape. The fact that it also appears to have affects on the world around us, all so often for the better, is the merest of side effects of the journey. 3/3”

December 2022 exchange on Twitter

Now I blog and write and have done so for many years, on and off. I have some confidence in my ability to string words together, although Gods know I sometimes get ridiculously wordy and convoluted… but at the same time that is how my mind works and I do take a delight in the complexity and poetic possibilities of the language. I would rarely call myself eloquent or inspired, but in this one tiny conversation, I am rather proud of what I wrote.

At the same time as a result of this little conversation, I find myself realizing that some of my best work has been the result of conversations and dialogue with others. This can be tricky and dangerous in our digital world where take downs and out of context quotes and a lot of shady behavior is the new normal.

At the same time though? I am remembering that growth doesn’t come without complexity and risk and messiness. You’d think someone whose built a portion of their spiritual and life path around metaphors of the Journey and of Chrysalis would remember that.

Anyhow, look for me to be speaking up here and there a little more often, and let me know if there are any lessons you keep having to learn and re-learn in the same way I am in the comments here.

Bliss & Blessed Be,
Pax/Geoffrey