Magickal Correspondences
December 17, 2007
by Jeffrey Pierce
Teaching, from my humble perspective, is a path of servitude. I truly do my best to not only offer you what instruction, wisdom and insight that I can without asking for anything in return, but I also seek to be a tool of
Spirit, elaborating the landscape where I'm led.
And that landscape is becoming more and more mystical by the moment. Between my own path, the experiences of my friends and family, and the vast majority of the correspondence I've been receiving, it's obvious that I'm being invited to open the doors to my world and show you the mystical nature of the reality we live in. Not simply ritual and magick, but the things that I offer only a few select trusted students.
It's something that I've consciously shied away from teaching. To this point I've offered lessons that the vast majority of the pagan community can connect with. But, mirroring much of the correspondence that I've been receiving lately, I think it's time to begin stepping away from that - at least a certain amount. There are still basics that need to be taught. We still live our lives to mundane rhythms and it's important that we consider those patterns and how to appropriate honor the incarnation we've chosen for ourselves. But I think, here and there, it's time to begin devoting more to the mystical aspects of life.
Part of the reason behind shying away from teaching more of the mystical aspects of things is that I really dislike drawing attention to myself. I feel very adamantly that teaching is a path of servitude, not one where I promote myself or try to raise myself above anyone. The role of a spiritual teacher isn't an exalted position from my perspective, it's one where I learn to serve and unconditionally love all who come my way. That's part of why I've allowed Old Ways to grow organically, in some cases not even telling my pagan friends that the site exists or that I've written it for almost eleven years now. Some of my pagan friends don't even know that I teach. Very few people know about the more mystical aspects of my life. I carefully share portions of myself and I'm usually seen as a good father first, someone you can turn to with your problems second, and everything else... well, by that point I've often filled up all of the time that I have to share with the people in my world.
Life is incredibly mystical. And to begin to truly offer insight and instruction in that area, I'm finding it necessary to begin to share those portions of my own path.
So as the mileposts on our journey together slowly slip by, you're going to discover that I was taught nightly in my dreams by a series of teachers from the age of three or four until approximately the age of twelve. I've been prophesied over by three different cultures and several different religions. It's not unusual for me to pop up in the dreams of students - or less commonly, actually physically manifest in their homes. I've met goddesses face to face, cast evil spirits from a home, watched faeries dance in the wilderness, and have had spirits physically manifest in the midst of group rituals.
The list goes on and on.
In that light, I obviously need to share more of the mystical portions of my own path with you, as I can only teach what I know. One of the reasons why I've been falling behind a little in the publishing department is that I've been battling a normally terminal medical condition. I haven't wanted to draw attention to it as it's not the first time something like this has happened and everyone in my world will make a big deal about it if I make them aware of it before I've dealt with it. In all honesty, this is going to come as a shock to all of my offline pagan friends as I've mentioned it to exactly one person in my world. To make a long, involved story very short, I was told that I would leave this incarnation by a certain time frame (not an actual date, but sort of a window) unless I made the conscious decision to stay here and take on additional work, which I've done. I was offered a very specific medical condition that would certainly open that door for me. When that offer was made, I also definitively made my choice. I'm sticking around. But either the condition or the healing process has left me in a tremendous amount of pain. (One process is blurring into the other so I'm not entirely clear which physical sensation is related to which process.) I'm already in the homestretch, the pain has begun to taper off, and I'll be fine after the beginning of the calendar year, but it certainly tempers my energy level and can make it hard to concentrate enough to write.
As I mentioned above, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. I was diagnosed with stomach cancer when I was seventeen and then the cancer simply ceased to exist without treatment. In a similar manner, I blew out my knee (tearing both my ACL and MCL as well as ripping up some cartilage) and it was healed (much to the orthopedic surgeon's discomfort) without surgery a few short weeks later. I almost died when I was twelve of viral meningitis (the doctor actually told my parents not to leave the hospital as I wasn't expected to make it through the night) and then I was running track (I was a competitive distance runner for years) less than a week later.
(Yes, if we're in a spiritual healthy place, we have a great deal of choice where dying is concerned. When time allows, I'll gladly write about that as well, including the process I briefly touched on above - choosing to leave this incarnation - a concept that one of my teachers referred to as "slating your death.")
Part of the issue for me in this stretch is that, we normally take some time off between lifetimes to process things, sort of recentering into our authentic self before beginning a new incarnation. I didn't engage in that process before incarnating this time around. There was work to be done and I volunteered and came back without defragging the ol' ethereal hard drive. That's one of the reasons why I have such a strong connection to the spirit realm this lifetime - I'm processing on the fly and need a certain amount of help from the other side to do so properly. And, thankfully, after I processed a great deal of the material that I needed to process, that same connection remained open giving me the necessary "access" to teach with. However, as a consequence of incarnating so quickly I was also born remembering the other side, consciously recall a good chunk of my past lives, and stuff from previous incarnations regularly bleed into this one. But on a very deep level, I occasionally get really tired - not physically tired but more like my spirit is just exhausted. It's getting easier to deal with as I get older and isn't depression as I tend to normally be in pretty good spirits. I'm just tired. It's always been that way, even when I was a child.
Which is why the whole medical thing just isn't a big deal to me and why I've hesitated to mention it to anyone. The First Cycle will be written by the window that I was given where I could check out and I would have done enough by then to make sure that Sparrow, Bear, and Otter have received from me what they need to have a good lifetime. The terminal condition is my exit sign, simply an offer to step out of this realm and go back to the other side to process and catch my breath. As I mentioned above, I've chosen not to take it and the healing process requires a certain amount of my energy. I'll have another window in about fifteen years and, if I choose not to take that one, will live to a ridiculously old age. Right now, I'm thinking it might be interesting to be the crotchety old witch that is fond of saying things like, "Back in my day," and "I remember when I was just a young shaman, back before I celebrated my fiftieth birthday in the Craft." However things play out, I'm committed to writing and teaching to the very end.
So, many apologies for falling a bit behind. Pain management (without drugs) and the healing process has been taking a lot out of me. The next lesson in The First Cycle is a bit of a bear to write (you'll see why when you read it) but I'm hard at work on it and I assure you that I'm giving you everything that I have to give. I'm hoping to have the lesson and the next article finished and out to you by Solstice. I just have a little more on my plate at the moment that I usually have to tackle and the pain level (which has peaked and is now tapering off with each passing day) has made it hard to write.
But we'll get there. No worries. Remember, I chose to stick around. Trust me on this one.
And now on to your email.
There was a question nestled in Elizabeth's very thoughtful email. (Thank you so much for your kind words about my work and the site. They're greatly appreciated.) She noticed that, "...you focus a lot on relaxation, and was wondering if you had any tips for a hopeless relaxer." That makes two of us and there's a very fine line between "relaxing" and simply "falling into a comatose sleep" in my world. "Clearing my head seems all but impossible," Elizabeth continues. "I've tried music, but I get too involved in the melodies, harmonies and counter melodies to properly focus, and without music, my mind wanders with the precocity of a toddler in Candy Land."
If you're just looking to relax, the worst thing you can do is try. Instead, do something that's fun. In the end, it achieves roughly the same thing. However, if we're talking about trying to reach a state of relaxation to do ritual work (which I'm pretty sure is really the focus of the question), my response would be, "Why are you trying to clear your head?" All of us are wired differently. What works for one person will often be an alien concept to the next.
Every concept has a flip side to the coin. Where the Goddess teaches us of the phases of life (through Maiden, Mother, and Crone) the God teaches us of duality. Darkness and Light. Flip sides of coins. Good stuff like that. There are those who can clear there mind with very little instruction or practice and those (like you and I) who simply can't let go. My advice? "DON'T TRY!!!" (he shouts with a mischievous grin.) Seriously. Think about it this way. Those who can clear their minds are like trees - their roots go deep into the soil, their branches reach to the sky and they can just be. Then there are folks like you and I - our thoughts run around like wolves, howl at the moon, and race through the forest, weaving in and out of the trunks of the quiet trees when we're told we should just sit and be still. But have you ever seen a predator on the prowl? Even if it's just your housecat? In the moment that they have the prey in their sights, when their entire body is focused on that instant, they've achieved the flip side of the clear your mind coin - one side is pure emptiness, the other, pure focus. Both can achieve much the same result, similar to how relaxing or simply doing something fun can take you to roughly the same place.
Instead of clearing your mind, focus on making your mind's eye completely black. Paint it with big strokes of an imaginary brush, turn out a light in your head - whatever you need to do, just consciously and assertively make it black. You're in control now and clearing your mind does not have to be a passive process! Once you have it black, notice where its "borders" are found and push them out. Just stretch it as far as you can, hopefully until it's edges are lost to you. It's not unusual for your awareness to expand so that you're actually "seeing" the furniture and objects in your mind's eye. Obliterate them! Black them out! This is your mind, you're in control! Then, when you've done that, you'll probably notice where your body touches the floor. Don't let go of your body like they teach you in meditation classes. After all, you're a wolf, not a tree - you want to consciously block the feeling of your body. Literally block or turn off your awareness of what's there. Just shut it down. And when you've reached the point that you've consciously erased everything in existence, in a single instant let go of the focus that you're using to achieve that all at once and let yourself fall backward in your mind like you're standing at the foot of your mattress and flopping backward onto the bed. At first, it's going to be a coin toss - half the time it's going to be one heck of a rush as the world comes flooding back in and the other half of the time you're going to hit a place of complete and total relaxation where there is nothing, absolutely nothing, and your mind is absolutely and completely still and you don't have the slightest awareness of your body or the world around you. With practice, you'll get to the point that you'll not only hit the point of complete relaxation consistently, but you'll find that you're able to do it almost instantly.
And if your mind is as active as you describe, turn the lights off and listen to Byron Metcalf's, "Helpers, Guides, and Allies." It's an older composition but still pretty easy to find. He's a percussionist and a shamanic practitioner. Just put in the CD, let go, and see where you end up. It's a trip.
One of you (and I'm choosing to withhold your name as the email wasn't clear which parts of what you shared were sensitive and which parts weren't) wrote to ask, "I know that you can't write an article on everything that everyone has an interest in, but if you find a way, can you squeeze in how to deal with the guilt associated with working with multiple divine beings and going for long periods not being connected to others? I know the guilt is a human condition but I'd love to hear your take on it."
A huge portion of that sort of thing will be dealt with in The First Cycle. The biggest issue that I see is that you need to allow your perspective to expand a little bit bigger than where it's at now. When the next lesson in The First Cycle hits your inbox, make sure to read it, because I have the room to explain the concept in more detail in the lesson than I do in this column, but here goes for now.
In order to incarnate into this lifetime, we willingly adopt and accept a very limited perspective on reality. There are a number of reasons for this. Without these limitations in place, it's extremely difficult for us to engage in personal growth. Until we reach a certain point in our personal and spiritual evolution, we literally can't accept the fullness of the reality we exist in. First of all, it's too big. We can't even fully understand that it's too big to grasp when we're still on the early portions of our path. Second, until we let go of a couple of really engrained preconceived ideas, reality seems to bluntly contradict itself at numerous turns.
One of those contradictions is the nature of the divine. It's simultaneously individual and all encompassing. Yes there are all of those individual deities and, yes, they are all one deity. Without the space to go into the concept in detail (read the upcoming lesson), think about it this way.
Let's say you brought me a gift. I love you. I love teaching you. The student/teacher relationship, at its best, is like the connection between a parent and a rapidly maturing child. What I have to offer you I do my very best to offer with unconditional love. You come to me with the perspective of a student and, by the time you've spent a certain amount of time here, you grow into the perspective of a friend and a peer. After all that, even though you know that I freely give all of this to you, you bring me a gift to say thanks. Now, imagine you found a really cool rock in your garden and you knew that I have a thing for cool rocks and that I'd really be touched by the gift. But, just before you give it to me, you think, "But Jeffrey's a father too. Maybe I should give him a gift that connected with that part of him." And then, as you're contemplating that, you remember that I love to backpack. And that I carry a camera with me nearly everywhere I go. And suddenly you're worried that I'm not going to be receptive to your gift because it says, "You're my teacher," and I've grown to be more to you than that.
The first thing to remember is that all deities are one deity - we just use the definitions we create to bring out specific aspects of the divine. We need to do that because we connect with those aspects easier than we do the whole, because we are comforted by the individual aspects, and because we use that individuality as a mirror for our own personal growth - all valid, appropriate reasons to work with specific deities. But much like giving me the rock you found in your garden, when you give me the rock, the only division in who I am is how you see me. I accept the rock, not as a teacher, not as a father, not as a backpacker or a photographer, but simply as the person who I am. And that person is touched by the gift. When you're working with a specific aspect of the divine, such as a goddess or a god, that definition is created by you. It's why when we each work with The Mother aspect of The Goddess all of us experience Her in a different way. We create those divisions and definitions; there's not a pre-existing aspect that we all connect with in varying degrees of accuracy. The gift of your time and energy is received by the divine as a whole. You're not leaving anyone out. With that in mind, whenever you're ready, you can let go of your guilt and simply enjoy the connection you share with the divine.
And that's it for this time. There's more email to answer, but I'm trying to get back on track as far as the publishing schedule is concerned and until the doorway out of this lifetime is fully closed, I'm still dealing with a certain measure of pain that makes it hard to write. That said, I'm hoping to have the next lesson in The First Cycle out to you by the end of the day on Tuesday. If the gods are kind (and my healing continues to go smoothly) I'm hoping to have a second article out to you on Thursday. The weekend should be quiet on my end. There's Solstice to celebrate and two very eager children who are nearly begging to start their training. If time allows, I'll share all of that with you somewhere in the near future - after all, Old Ways predates both Sparrow and Bear and they've both appeared here and there in these pages, almost from the beginning, and I know that there are a bunch of you out there who feel like you've been watching them grow up before your eyes.
As always, I truly hope these words find you and yours well and filled with joy. May you be well and truly blessed.
In peace and light,
Jeffrey Pierce
www.oldways.com