I’ve realized something lately. The crux of my dissatisfaction with life lately is due to something very simple — at some point I stopped living a magickal life. As we grow up we lose this as part of our natural being. Most kids naturally do this — they believe anything is possible, because they haven’t experienced enough for that to not be true. As we grow up, we experience disappointments and what we perceive as reality. We stop just moving forward and making our lives the way we want them to be.
I think this is part of the reason that Jews were instructed to create a separation between themselves and the rest of the world. That separation is supposed to keep you in a magickal (spiritual) place so you can do the work of tikkun olam.
I’ve been so caught up in my process of living, that I forgot to actually live. I think it’s one of the reasons that I through so much into ritual — my daily life was just lacking that sensation so I had to glom onto it where ever I could find it. I’ve also been wildly reaching out to connect to people, which has left me feeling psychically rejected and then I reach out even more. This has created a cycle where my spiritual/magickal self has been more and more neglected and more separate from the whole.
What brought this to my attention was a sparkly ring I wore a few weeks ago. This ring gave me a sense of “different” it pulled me out of the world that other people live in and helped feed the magickal self. It think this is why so many of my Pagan/Magickal brethren dress the way they do, even if they don’t realize it. It’s an expression of magickal intent in the world. The problem I’ve had is that the “Pagan” look doesn’t suite me. Now I’ve started to explore how I manifest my magickal nature in my outward appearance in a way that is true for me.
I also have stopped reading the news as much. One of the biggest changes is to stop grabbing the free paper at the Metro in the morning. It’s mostly light trash and the most depressing stories of the day. The important news I hear on NPR or get in a news feed when I get to work, I just don’t need to be assaulted by that much useless information. I’m also turning off the TV more. I really don’t need to know anything that Access Hollywood has to tell me. I’ve turned back to reading good books on the train, especially anything with a magickal/fantasy/spiritual bent. I’m mostly reading fiction, because it feeds my imagination, but I also have a series of non-fiction books on the list too.
One of the final changes is to the most mundane part of most peoples’ lives — work. I’ve realized that the role “they” say I should play is just not something I’m interested in. Modern American society says we must want that next promotion. We should always be looking to move up the corporate ladder. I’m really uninterested. I like being a specialist. I may want to move into a director level position at some companies, but at my current employer — I’m just not interested. I have enough areas of my life where I’m the leader and people are looking to me. It’s not something I need added to my 9-5 life. There have also been other changes at work, which mesh too well with my current awakening to just be coincidence. My work life used to seem charmed, and hasn’t for a long time. I think getting back to path, instead of bushwacking through the hills, is beginning to be reflected in other areas in my life.
My question to all of you is how do you deal with this, if you do? What outward expressions of a magickal nature do you have? How do you feed your magickal nature?
