“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else’s liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.”
― Peter S. Beagle
That’s right. If we define magic as the ability to make changes according to will, then the only way to effect change is to know and understand (grock in fullness) whatever it is we wish to change. If we wish to make changes in ourselves than we must be willing to tear ourselves open and examine what’s inside. Of course the very act of understanding ourselves to that extent will cause changes so that the live we get back is never quite the liver we offer (metaphorically speaking anyway). Understanding, transformation, consequence and balance are each steps in performing any kind of magic whether ritual or psychological.
Blessings, G
“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”
― Alan Wilson Watts
How often have you heard someone say that they were ‘speaking their own truth’ or ‘expressing their reality’? Are our thoughts truly our own or are they a combination of our religious, cultural and societal upbringings? We often feel we have rejected our past in terms of our own free thought. I know for many years I felt that only to realize then that most of what I thought were my own ideas were indeed reactions to my past. Either way I looked at it it felt like I was either fighting the tide or embracing it. It was only when I realized this that I was able to start weighing information taking my own upbringing as a factor in how I react to things I’ve learned. It will always have an influence. We are never free of our pasts and that is probably a good thing but understanding that patina has led to a greater understanding.
Blessings, G
“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. ”
― C.G. Jung
Tuning in, turning on, tuning to, Are we ever striving towards perfect pitch and perfect tune? Is there not beauty in cacophony? Are we tuning to each other, the universe or both? Are we tuning to our own subconscious? What kind of harmonies go on beneath the surface in notes we may never hear until they become conscious? I heard your song the other day and wanted it to blend with mine. How do we agree which not to tune to? What is the universal note and how do we denote it? Does it sound like an Om spoken by every being simultaneously ?
“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.”
― Mark Twain
If we combine our imagination with a bit of will reality bends our way. Perhaps the change will be one of outlook. Quite often how we look in our lives can be the difference between a life that is less than satisfactory to one with endless possibilities. Perhaps the change will be one of action, where the dream itself gives us the impetus to make it happen. The change may be an inspirational one where our imagination inspires others to make changes with us and thus we create a better world.
Blessings, G
“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry. It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.”
― Jack Kerouac
Things I can’t accept
the mountain teaches wisdom
Temporal things pass
A few days away
lonely with family
exploring mountains, peaches
and my own being
If I could remove the inner peach core
and let my outside be devoured
would that bring me greater peace?
or do I with stony exterior
address the world with hard wisdom
and acceptance of all.
My peach self will pass
and the mountain abides
I scatter to the wind
knowing that scars heal
and new fruit grows
something greater remains.
“I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.”
-Harry Emerson Fosdick
I have a lot of compassion for people who believe they understand it all. I know what its like to have a burning desire to make sense out of our existence and know what its like to feel frustrated when things just don’t make sense. At some point in my life, I started enjoying when either life in general or people acted differently than I expected. Now when it happens I see it as a new path to explore or a new chance to learn something new both of which I enjoy immensely. I realize that the universe is way too big for my physical mind to understand and sometimes in peak experiences I am lucky enough to grasp at reality’s shadow. My world grows and expands as the puzzles build up and I would not have it any other way.
Blessings, G
“If you want to shrink something,
You must first allow it to expand.
If you want to get rid of something,
You must first allow it to flourish.
If you want to take something,
You must first allow it to be given.
This is called the subtle perception
Of the way things are.”
~Tao Te Ching
It’s nigh impossible to get rid of a bad habit of which we are unaware. It is only by realizing that the habit exists, letting it manifest and then playing it out that we can truly transcend it. If we restrict or repress it, then it will find subtler ways of manifesting. This among other things is one of the problems with enforced political correctness.
If we are sad or angry, clamping down on our emotions will not help us get over them. If anything, it just builds up the problem for another day. It is only by letting ourselves feel the emotion in its fullness and doing it mindfully that we can get past it.
Blessings, G
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White
Knowledge is power. When something knocks the wind out of our sails, whether in sorrow or anger or even joy, it contains a lesson about what pushes our buttons and by extension what pushes the buttons of others. Anything that pulls us from zero contains this lesson. For heavier sadness, sadness that won’t go away finding the lesson contained might not be enough. In those situations, I have found it best to feel what I feel until I don’t need to anymore. Riding out the storm in a place where I won’t bring others into the pit. Chocolate might help. So might either a good book or a comedy tape. Eventually I find myself ready to move on with my life and the fastest way to do that is to throw myself into something new.
Blessings, G
“I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of ‘thinking’ and ‘enjoying’ what they call ‘living’, I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.”
― Jack Kerouac
“Stop this ride and let me climb off.” I tell this to the conductor who is also me. He gives me a weary look and slows things down. He knows how often I have asked this before only to demand things start up again as soon as it came to a complete stop. Do I know my own mind? Better than most but I need to know it from the outside to see if TARDIS-like it expands eternally internally. The ride pauses if not stops completely and I grit my resolve and leap off. I hit the ground or I would if I wasn’t suddenly falling through the clouds. How often I’ve watched them outside an airplane window wishing somehow I could walk in that solid-looking illusory kingdom. It
s colder and moisture than I expected and not nearly as solid when you fall rain like. The ground comes rushing up to me and I have always been terrifying of falling or is that landing? Just like the ride tho, I slow to a float just above ground level. I step down.
There is a fire there. I sit down by the fire and look out and the stars are spectacular. They shift patterns and colours and I find myself entranced. At first I avoid inner quietude by naming unknown constellations but slowly out there lost in immensity my breathing slows. I let thoughts cross my mind without chasing after them. People pop in and pop out but they don’t stay long and after all its only me. Slowly I find peace and resolve.
She Lives in Multiple Worlds by G A Rosenberg 
