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I am just not having a good weekend. The material in the Underworld workshop has been good, but aside from the annoyance of getting up in the morning, I sat there the whole afternoon feeling very out of place because with only a couple exceptions, I am easily 15-25 years the junior of everyone else in the room, and feeling like I shouldn't even be there because I was not having deep, interesting experiences and in fact was often failing to have the basic part, that of feeling I was actually within the Underworld. It's making me seriously question whether I want to spend another $180 to most likely repeat the experience in July. I thought going to actual workshops would be helpful, but when it's clear I'm far behind everyone else, it hardly makes it worth it, because I feel so bad. In fact I'm rather questioning my right to be in any such place, including gathers. I remember in one of the workshops at Pantheacon that Orion Foxwood was talking about having Sight, and how this is something one is either born with or is not, and it's either awake all one's life, or shows up in puberty. As I'm now 25 it seems highly unlikely I'm suddenly going to "bloom" someday, so lacking even the basic aptitude that would be necessary to work in magical tradition, it makes me wonder what the fuck I think I am doing? Similar with gathers.. obviously that is also something one is, or is not, and it seems like jazz ("if you have to ask, you'll never know")... something where "if you have to question whether you are, then you're not".
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Date: May. 30th, 2004 12:21 am (UTC)From:There's a large pool of us... who feel a connection to magick, to the otherworld-realms, but don't perceive it the same way it's being described by the mystics. I can feel something, I can tell when the conduit is open, and often I can describe it...but I don't really see it. Don't hear it.
I must be getting something, because people who say they can see it tell me I'm describing it right. And I can perceive patterns... but patterns aren't images, aren't sound-and-touch that get past my Skeptometer to tell me This Is Real. I'm never sure how much I'm "perceiving" and how much I'm "making up."
(Am told by some experienced mystical types who go on tremendous vision quests that they get the same problem. At the core, there's always this little voice saying "did that really happen, or is my mind playing tricks on me?" When the little voice shuts up, the nice men in the white suits bring you a nifty extra-long-sleeve jacket to wear...)
Anyway. I'm regularly annoyed that some pagan communities shun anyone who doesn't dive into the uber-Mystic dreams-n-visions, trance-to-divination, intuitive inspirational style of magic & ritual. (Shunned, or they get slowly but firmly pushed at Qabalah. "Don't you want something more structured, dear?") I used to think it was just me... I don't get this "sight" thingie; maybe I'm just not very "magickal;" maybe I'm trying to force this connection instead of it being something I'm pulled toward.
Then I see several other people tackling the same issues, and some of 'em are ones I feel are truly magickal, very powerful, the Gods move through them & speak through their lives... and still, we've all got these weird self-doubts that boil down to "what are all those chanting people pointing at, and why don't I see it?"
(Maybe I'm way off on all this, and I've just outed myself as a big phony. Oh well.)
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Date: May. 30th, 2004 08:44 am (UTC)From:Tangentially related, I've found that the degree of true "magicalness" a person possesses and radiates is inversely proportional to the number of times they've claimed to have been "psychically attacked" or engaged in "magical battles" or tussled with (and won, naturally) some incredible otherwordly strange beastie.
I used to fall into that nonsense trap with my ex (whom Tass would remember). He had the approximate magical Presence of a brick, and would constantly talk about all these things he was doing, defending against, experiencing, etc. along with occasionally poking at me along the lines that I was somehow lacking, weaker, beneath notice, etc since I wasn't experiencing massive magical/psychic attacks every other day. So naturally, I started going along with what he was saying.
Truth is, he wasn't experiencing them either. He was just a dreadfully insecure and pointless little drama queen trying to make himself look bigger and more powerful than he really was.
You have to watch for that, for people in pagan communities who insist that magic involves being smacked over the head with anything. It's very subtle and each of us perceives it in ways that are unique to us. Me, I do a very significant amount of my work in the dreamtime, and I do use trance for visionquest but that's because it works for me. I can't do jack for readings using physical media such as cards or runes, and my "Sight" as it were is almost entirely intuitive. I've never "seen" a lot of things many pagans claim are so commonplace as to be de rigeur for anyone with "talent" to see, but I've learned over the years to trust my own inner promptings.
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Date: May. 31st, 2004 12:34 am (UTC)From:LOL. By that logic I should be God, or something equally magical, since anything over 0 equals infinity. ^_^
since I wasn't experiencing massive magical/psychic attacks every other day
Odd. Dysfunctional, really (coming from me, this is!). If I were to make such a statement (which I wouldn't) I would be more likely to base it on how many positive experiences one was having daily. I put far more value (if the same amount of skepticism) on "I was healing the planet with the Goddess!" than "I was being attacked by a mutant artichoke from Pluto". (mmm.. get the butter)
He was just a dreadfully insecure and pointless little drama queen trying to make himself look bigger and more powerful than he really was.
But see, I do this too... just in more subtle ways, usually having to do with trying to please people. I dunno, maybe all but the most developed of us do this, but somehow I feel like it's only people in a certain.. state.. or something.