It took the man who was _____ mentioning it for me to realize, but Beltane is upon me—and this makes sense. It feels like it should be Beltane. But how is it so? Is this day different? Yes. I knew it was a good day before I set out, but I was distracted by setting appointments. Is there something in the air? In the day and the sunlight? Ayah. Does my knowledge seem to amplify that sense? I think so. Does my awareness/knowledge (is there a difference? What is it?) touch or rebound upon some Beltane force/influence/presence?
Beltane is a marker of time with sentient significance attached/assigned to it. Any special day is such, though who notices/cares may not be the usual human concerns. Obviously, most people don’t give a fuck, but I and some others, including fae, gods, and spirits do. Is that sufficient? Well, why not?
IS it the significance I feel/sense? And if so, how and why? How do I do that with significance and meaning? That’s—one of the most significant questions I feel I can ask? And how do we create or invest that kind (is it a matter of kind and type?) of significance/meaning?
That’s a kind of magic. That’s one of the fundamental forms/acts of magic. Is this what I sense/want with my work/investigation into shadows? In part.
Hine and Carroll and others would say “habit”—repetition. Burn or grind significance into our minds and souls. Sometimes, though, it is rarity: something precious, but this smacks of reification to me. Commodification. Supply and demand. Significance is not value. Meaning is not value. To do so, I suspect, buys into the paradigm.
But somethings gain it from habit/repetition—iteration? Perhaps it depends on the idea. Beltane is an idea we have attached to a particular calendar day, a particular significance emerges in part to its relationality to the rest of the year (it is a special day) and to other special days (it is not solstice, equinox, midsummer, etc.).
I am trying to look towards TS, and I note the presence.
* * *
If poety, magic, and other evocative pursuits draw on the same “fire,” the same resource—I see, in my mind’s eyes the “artron” fire from [Doctor Who], what I draw down from above when aligning—then the daemons, the thoughtforms, those demons within me, they feed upon the same fire of Chaos.
These incidental anxieties, thoughts, and fears gnaw, almost quite literally, at me. And while I have worked to subject _________, I must recognize that he is but one demon, and if he is corralled for the time being, others may try to suck at the teat he once suckled my fire. (There’s a “mixed” metaphor.) The key is not to eliminate/control them all but to be vigilant and aware, dealing with them as they rear their heads.
Also, blood sugar—food—helps fuel me, as does other things. Poetry. Socialization. Activity. Sleep. The body is the conduit for the fire. It wants/demands attention. You have taken forever to see past Cartesian mind-body dualism. Don’t forget that. (And water.)
Earlier, I found some dread start to creep on me, my mind fretting over some vague worry about the dissertation, or money, or what have ya. But when I realized some daemon/thoughtform had been feeding on me, I forgot it. I could not recall what I had been fearing.
I should also avoid seeing my fire as a limited resource. While my capacity to channel it may need attention, it is something that can be fed, exercised, and enhanced, and reframed. To view myself as limited, as having to choose between poetry, magic, and even gaming is to compartmentalize these pursuits, to make my choice, my desire, an either-or binary, even trinary decision that belies the reality while pushing me to follow only one, arbitrary path. The fire is my spark, my creative power—to only draw upon it for these three pusruits denies I could/can do so for anything else. And that, I think, reflects another lie of Halthaya.
* * *
I have sought refuge in habit and schedule, in banality, really, but rather than use them as a tool, as discipline, I let them become a crutch. And when the crutch is taken away…
I spent a lot of time relaxing and meditating tonight. However, I decided to invoke Angus and [the] Dagda. Both were silent, but I felt their kind smiles. They will be the gods I invoke as Gods to the Goddess. [automatic sigils]
This, by the way, is Tengwar. It’s just handwritten rather than calligraphy.
WM also reminds me that I have been sputtering in the wind—fire and air—without a grounding. My awareness, intellect, goes everywhere, dragging my fire into confusion and after seeking truth, or so I can’t see the truth. BM says I need connection and grounding
Family, friends, community, environment—here and beyond.
I also don’t touch things—am worried about getting dirty or dirtying—and a general lack of touch/tactile input.
* * *
Meditation has been termed, in my experience, as the stilling and silencing of the chaos of the mind. The emptying of it. I wonder, though, how much that is BS. The typical state is, yes, frenetic thought, but under the mundane surface of existence is Chaos—Law, Order, is either a surface veneer, an illusion (Halthaya), or an imposition.
But perhaps the mind is Chaos, a reflection of the Chaos all around us—which is also the magic of the world to a good degree.
But, as I think about it, only when you try to keep the mind still is its Chaos most apparent. But sitting here, writing, I find myself focused, as if the turbulent waters were directed to some, well, direction.
A stream of thought has focus, is Chaos shaped to some end—which is all Law is. Law, Chaos, and Art. Law replaces, and we confuse it for Art.
My point is that, really, Halthaya blinds us, and we need to recognize what lurks underneath, and how aesthetics, magic, shaping molds Chaos into Actuality.
Or something.