Small Things & thoughts on the art of the blog

Friends,

Sipping some coffee and savoring some quiet before the tumult of a busy day at work I take a moment to splash some Florida Water into the offering cups. A brief moment before the window-sill altar breathing in the perfume scent and seeking some small comfort with a moments connection with the Holy Powers. A micro-dose of magick and ritual.

These tiny magicks, snippets of ritual, they are the building blocks of greater things. At the same time they are also worthy and worthwhile practices all on their own. Bit by bit, rung by rung, we ascend or descend into our higher or deeper selves and through the layers of Creation. I think it can be very easy, sometimes, to forget the value of the smaller puzzle pieces in the art of Magick. Especially when we are starting out or renewing our practices or working to reclaim our path. It is the same with reclaiming any practice we have let slip away in the mad rush of days that life can sometimes be.

In the afterglow of the golden moment I opened todays post with I felt the urge to write *something*, to post *something*

In my spiritual practices I have been using smaller simpler practices for a while now, even as I wrapped myself in needless worry and shame at not managing a larger monthly practice or ritual.

Similarly, in my writing I have been struggling to write larger essays and posts on topics I find myself drawn to, only to find myself struggling to write coherently about what is on my mind and to leave the work for some theoretical later, allowing this place to lay fallow for long periods of time. Alternately, I will jump from media form to media form; my ADHD blessed hummingbird of a brain seeking the nectar of dopamine in some new thing only to find myself as creatively blocked in the new medium as I was in the old. The answer of course is smaller and simpler exercises on a more regular basis. Journaling can work for a while for me, but it can be a tricky practice to maintain for me.

As I have been flailing around splashing bits of effort and creativity here and there, I have also been looking to my creative past. When I started this blog, I was posting daily or nearly daily sometimes. Not every post was some essay length piece of brilliance. Even some of the essay length ones from back in the day look so much clunkier to me now, but part of that was the creative flow and enthusiasm of the inspiration to posting pipeline. Sometimes one does need the safety valves of proof reading and editing, a practice I did not always engage in back in the day. At the same time though…

At the same time part of the art of the blog, as with any other regular and sustaining practice, is that sometimes we do not have a lot to say. Not every post, or bit of magick, or ritual, needs to be an essay length masterpiece. Sometimes in our writing as in our relationships with Spirit we ramble, sometimes we are briefly checking in, sometimes we are being reminded of something by Spirit or Higher Self that we need to recall, and sometimes without realizing it we are faffing about! Yet we do not get to the destination of a masterpiece, to a Great Work (or Working), without these smaller steps.

Bit by bit, rung by rung.

Bliss, and Blessed Be!
Pax / Geoffrey

The Gods of Small things

Friends,

A few of the many, many, needed chores have been done. I would have liked to get more accomplished but at the same time I am feeling good about what was accomplished. Part of that is the dopamine from actually doing something about this train wreck of a home, and some of it is because what I did do lays the ground work for me to (hopefully) be able to do more of the things later. As i was cleaning I was feeling a strange mix of elation from FINALLY doing the thing, and…fear?

Stasis and not dealing with things had become my standard operating procedure. Too many trials and tribulations and traumas had left me not so much paralyzed as shell shocked and numb to the thought of dealing with anything that I did not absolutely have to to keep an income coming in and food in the fridge. This realization, that I was unnerved and a little afraid of trying to bring order and cleanliness back into my daily life led me to thoughts of the household Spirits and Spirits of place. It also led me to musing about how we have names for Gods and Goddesses of big things and things that different cultures considered important or sustaining; what about the smaller Gods? What of the Holy Powers of Dusting or Decluttering?

So as I took a brief break from my work, I lit a stick of incense in offering to the Holy Powers and made a special mention of the Household Spirits and the Gods of Small things. I spent a few moments enjoying the scent of the Mugwort.

Then I got back to work.

Bliss, and Blessed Be,
Pax / Geoffrey

Excavating the Time

Friends,

Today I woke up before the alarm. It was close enough to the time it would go off that turning over and going back to sleep/nap, while always tempting, was not a practical option. I have stumbled about my morning, drinking some coffee, scrolling through the news headlines to see which horrors are persisting in the world even as I try to persist through my day, I also got a few needed chores knocked off the list!

*Sips a celebratory sip of coffee.*

The last couple of weeks have seen a seemingly continued upswing and stabilization of my mental and emotional health and stability. At the same time new medications and the onslought of allergy season here in Central Florida, along with the wild upswing in business that comes each year with the late Winter/early Spring travel season have left me tired and feeling as if I have little time or energy for writing.

I keep remembering the snippet of thought I shared a few weeks back when I was feeling my Higher Self…

“The time for us to do the things we need to do, the time for us to do the things we want to do, will not simply emerge in our lives like Athena bursting forth from the neck of Zeus. Much like a sculptor’s masterwork laying dormant in a block of marble we have to go digging for it.”

Geoffrey S 2024

So for the last few weeks I have been making a practice of trying to get up early each day, giving myself around 3 hours before I need to get ready for work. This work is made easier by the fact that I have been in a habit of giving myself plenty of time to wake up and make myself ready for my day for a few years now… off and on. Sometimes this represented time spent journaling and meditating and pulling cards and otherwise trying to reconnect with myself and perhaps seethe with occult power. (A bear can dream after-all) At other times I was simply drinking my coffee, listening to the news on the radio, and spending a few moments grounding and centering. Often it would simply be quiet time, sipping coffee and drinking water and just trying to listen to my body and heart and mind and figure out what they needed in general and in the moment. A little too frequently for my own development and comfort, this ‘me’ time was spent scrolling through the various social media simply consuming and fretting over information and outrage.

It is not enough to excavate the time, we must be conscious of how we are filling it!

There have also been times where I have let this practice slide away in the rush of work and life. Times where I would let my inner critic and saboteur remind me of all my past foibles and failings and faults. Times where insomnia and the mad rush of days overtook me.

So now, once again, I am returning to this practice. To carving out some time for myself. To be. To think. To write. To listen to my body. To clear my mind. To do things that I need to do. To do things that I want to do.

Do you engage in this sort of work as well? What times of day do you take for yourself out of the day?

Bliss, and Blessed Be,
Pax / Geoffrey