Prayer is a creative act. Engaging with even basic patterns of ideas (... or 'thoughtforms') unconsciously reinforces them.
And if one is not paying attention to what is unspoken, assumed, and unconscious in that act, what exactly is one creating?
Humility, community, ecological interdependence, the courage to be vulnerable enough to live in the body, heart, emotions, senses, and personal connections - these can all help create the conditions for more safety. Safety being the ground of flourishing.
Whereas the tradition of Western magic mostly just seems like isolated men searching for more personal power.
I always thought the surrealists were very close to a successful technology for liberating the imaginal, magical, spiritual essence of humanity, but were hampered and still (mostly - perhaps with a few exceptions) too attached to some of the conditions of their enslavement. We have the benefits of standing on their shoulders, as well as much more connection with indigenous cultures, psychedelics, and the further general intensity of the breakdown of cultural certainties of the last 100 years...
Perhaps the key question is: what is your relationship to mystery? (Or to 'The Mystery' but maybe that's a matter of taste...)
Domination and consumption of mystery feel distinctly unhealthy and imbalanced. Humility, respect, cooperation, collaboration, flowing with, on the other hand...
Yes, we are creators - and there is a huge history of conditioning to overcome to realise this. And that same conditioning can keep us stuck there at a point of massive ego inflation. That to me feels both incredibly lonely, and a massive denial of that loneliness...
For we are also created, and part of creation. We can create time and space with our attention (ritual is partly a tool to focus this). Or rather, by choosing to pay attention to the movements of the sun, moon, and planets, and the qualities of what is living around us, and attending to how these all makes us feel in our bodies, we can cocreate our own sense of time and space. Running from fear or discomfort takes away our freedom. Giving attention to that which is wounded is the hardest part, and is the choice which gives us freedom to create - in collaboration with where our desires move us. Desire and dream have a fluid boundary, and spring from life force - Mystery.
Maybe that's not enough for some people, still driven by desire for revenge over an (illusory) all powerful father god and to usurp all his power, that is, all the power that is. In which case, there might never be enough...
well said! i've been thinking hard about the fundamental limitations of trying to (de)construct these principles in a language that grew up in the shadow of Christian ontological dualism. linguistic relativism might be an inconsistent theory in the material world, but it's a hard problem when it comes to metaphysics: i can hand you an apple even if we don't share a common language, but i can't point my finger at what i mean by "god". when it comes to the numinous, there are thoughts that we are genuinely unable to think because of the limitations of our language. elder cultures whose cosmovisions retained the indeterminacy and paradox of ontological non-dualism have a much easier time describing this reality, whereas we perceive artificial separations where none exist.
another word for a pseudo-materialist term like "applied metaphysics" (the complex of art-religion-magic) is just "the Way." that probably gets closer to how it was experienced by indigenous people who never thought of dividing the Way up into separate magisteria; it's just how life is lived. but now we have to worry about wannabe academics with an unexamined dualistic bias, griping about "the Way" being an exclusively Taoist concept, and we're being appropriative, and what authority do we have to take something from one culture and apply it to another... it's a knotty problem.
anyway, thanks for reading and commenting, and coming along on the journey.
Gosh yes, it can be so hard to find language to express these realms of experience in ways that both feel authentic and can bridge them back to the sort of conceptual world a lot of my thinking is rooted in. (Not too new-agey, not too academic... freeing the poetic and metaphorical to express authority and truth is really essential - and involves breaking a lot of conditioning. Liberation begins in the imagination... with words which bring wisdom and compassion.)
In general i don't find academic language helps that much at all, although a fine-tuned discernment feels very valuable. If I can't accept the direct, simple, subjective truth of others, or express it myself, I end up tying myself in knots trying to explain and justify my experience, to a system which to some extent is founded on a denial of the inner, intuitive, and subjective, and an anxious need for everyone to be in exact agreement over the truth of everything. (And while we're distracted with the details, who is exploiting the shadows of our attention...?)
The word 'science' 's etymological roots are the same -cide/-cise as decide, excise, suicide, genocide etc: it's a cutting, dividing game, within which one might be able to create new ways of dividing the world (and perhaps from there, a new perspective can open up from which to create), but this feels quite a long way from the full potential of creating with the flow of creation. And part of its division of the world is precisely to exclude these sorts of experience and make them invisible, so bringing them back in threatens the whole structure of Truth and Authority.
The way or Way or whatever, which is essentially expansive, generative, creative, connective - it is the life force which grows and grows, even when it's dying, an infinite yes, and.
I've been praying alongside some Sikhs for the past few years, who devote a lot of attention to swords and blades as embodiments of the divine creative feminine (and also in her more destructive aspects). There is tremendous subtle beautiful wisdom in this, in how an agent of division can be wielded in the service of creation, and even be creative itself.
Personally I would add a 4th term, healing or medicine, to your art-religion-magic group, and then wonder how they relate to Power...
(And I would also personally do my best to ignore anyone who tried to gatekeep or ring-fence or trademark an idea or words like 'The Way' - they're welcome to whatever stress they feel about that! Honestly, it's like people trying to claim ownership over concepts like mystery or god - oh, wait... ;))
Thanks for all this - I'm grateful for a space to think some of these things out loud, especially at this particular moment
absolutely! it takes a village to figure this a stuff out, stop by anytime. i'd love to learn more about the Sikhs and their swords. and you're definitely right about including healing as part of the Way.
academic language only seems useful as a way to deconstruct all the conceptual barriers that have been built up over the past few centuries. i'm convinced that Western philosophy is just the agonizingly slow process of reversing our indoctrunation and re-learning the things that indigenous cultures taught their toddlers, rather than a genuine progression in human understanding.
At or near the solstices a group of us (around 15-25 ish) gather to chant Brahm Kavach for 48 hrs. Occasionally there are longer gatherings, and we've gone to particular places together to chant there (most memorable was in pitch darkness for 6 hrs by an underground lake deep inside a cave, emerging covered head to toe in sticky red ochre). There is a specific form for the ceremony which involves a lot of attention for the fire.
The prayer is to the divine feminine, supposedly in 32 of her aspects, creative, destructive, nurturing, cruel, etc. Many of those aspects are represented as various types or aspect of sword.
I have never felt as much peace and safety as inside the whirl of this highly rhythmical chant (chopchopchopchopchopchop...) which often gets incredibly fierce.
To me it is an amazingly high-level spiritual technology, very powerful, very precise.
I could go on for a long time about this, it is very subtle, and it keeps revealing more and more for me.
I'll say a couple of things though, about what this prayer has helped me with regards to blades: achieving mystical states of union with the oneness of all is a lot easier when the parts of our lives in duality feel safe, and have a clear idea of the boundary between self and other, and are able to protect this without shame or guilt or fear. This feels like it leads to an absolutely rock solid grounding in this existence - an excellent state from which to expand. And we cannot help but divide the world all the time, and we need to for our safety on a very basic level - so best we work with this, rather than deny it and push it to the shadows. Let's own our capacity to destroy, lest it begin to control us. The more we can do this, the more we can bring our attention to the sharp gleaming focus of a really sharp sword-edge, and so, be incredibly delicate, and responsive with it, and disentangle ourselves from murky attachments at the incredibly fine level they are often enmeshed at. It can feel like it is the light shining from or through the blade that is doing this, rather than the material body of it (I'm still talking symbolically here!).
I love everything about this.
Thank you, nails' heads very accurately hit.
Prayer is a creative act. Engaging with even basic patterns of ideas (... or 'thoughtforms') unconsciously reinforces them.
And if one is not paying attention to what is unspoken, assumed, and unconscious in that act, what exactly is one creating?
Humility, community, ecological interdependence, the courage to be vulnerable enough to live in the body, heart, emotions, senses, and personal connections - these can all help create the conditions for more safety. Safety being the ground of flourishing.
Whereas the tradition of Western magic mostly just seems like isolated men searching for more personal power.
I always thought the surrealists were very close to a successful technology for liberating the imaginal, magical, spiritual essence of humanity, but were hampered and still (mostly - perhaps with a few exceptions) too attached to some of the conditions of their enslavement. We have the benefits of standing on their shoulders, as well as much more connection with indigenous cultures, psychedelics, and the further general intensity of the breakdown of cultural certainties of the last 100 years...
Perhaps the key question is: what is your relationship to mystery? (Or to 'The Mystery' but maybe that's a matter of taste...)
Domination and consumption of mystery feel distinctly unhealthy and imbalanced. Humility, respect, cooperation, collaboration, flowing with, on the other hand...
Yes, we are creators - and there is a huge history of conditioning to overcome to realise this. And that same conditioning can keep us stuck there at a point of massive ego inflation. That to me feels both incredibly lonely, and a massive denial of that loneliness...
For we are also created, and part of creation. We can create time and space with our attention (ritual is partly a tool to focus this). Or rather, by choosing to pay attention to the movements of the sun, moon, and planets, and the qualities of what is living around us, and attending to how these all makes us feel in our bodies, we can cocreate our own sense of time and space. Running from fear or discomfort takes away our freedom. Giving attention to that which is wounded is the hardest part, and is the choice which gives us freedom to create - in collaboration with where our desires move us. Desire and dream have a fluid boundary, and spring from life force - Mystery.
Maybe that's not enough for some people, still driven by desire for revenge over an (illusory) all powerful father god and to usurp all his power, that is, all the power that is. In which case, there might never be enough...
well said! i've been thinking hard about the fundamental limitations of trying to (de)construct these principles in a language that grew up in the shadow of Christian ontological dualism. linguistic relativism might be an inconsistent theory in the material world, but it's a hard problem when it comes to metaphysics: i can hand you an apple even if we don't share a common language, but i can't point my finger at what i mean by "god". when it comes to the numinous, there are thoughts that we are genuinely unable to think because of the limitations of our language. elder cultures whose cosmovisions retained the indeterminacy and paradox of ontological non-dualism have a much easier time describing this reality, whereas we perceive artificial separations where none exist.
another word for a pseudo-materialist term like "applied metaphysics" (the complex of art-religion-magic) is just "the Way." that probably gets closer to how it was experienced by indigenous people who never thought of dividing the Way up into separate magisteria; it's just how life is lived. but now we have to worry about wannabe academics with an unexamined dualistic bias, griping about "the Way" being an exclusively Taoist concept, and we're being appropriative, and what authority do we have to take something from one culture and apply it to another... it's a knotty problem.
anyway, thanks for reading and commenting, and coming along on the journey.
Gosh yes, it can be so hard to find language to express these realms of experience in ways that both feel authentic and can bridge them back to the sort of conceptual world a lot of my thinking is rooted in. (Not too new-agey, not too academic... freeing the poetic and metaphorical to express authority and truth is really essential - and involves breaking a lot of conditioning. Liberation begins in the imagination... with words which bring wisdom and compassion.)
In general i don't find academic language helps that much at all, although a fine-tuned discernment feels very valuable. If I can't accept the direct, simple, subjective truth of others, or express it myself, I end up tying myself in knots trying to explain and justify my experience, to a system which to some extent is founded on a denial of the inner, intuitive, and subjective, and an anxious need for everyone to be in exact agreement over the truth of everything. (And while we're distracted with the details, who is exploiting the shadows of our attention...?)
The word 'science' 's etymological roots are the same -cide/-cise as decide, excise, suicide, genocide etc: it's a cutting, dividing game, within which one might be able to create new ways of dividing the world (and perhaps from there, a new perspective can open up from which to create), but this feels quite a long way from the full potential of creating with the flow of creation. And part of its division of the world is precisely to exclude these sorts of experience and make them invisible, so bringing them back in threatens the whole structure of Truth and Authority.
The way or Way or whatever, which is essentially expansive, generative, creative, connective - it is the life force which grows and grows, even when it's dying, an infinite yes, and.
I've been praying alongside some Sikhs for the past few years, who devote a lot of attention to swords and blades as embodiments of the divine creative feminine (and also in her more destructive aspects). There is tremendous subtle beautiful wisdom in this, in how an agent of division can be wielded in the service of creation, and even be creative itself.
Personally I would add a 4th term, healing or medicine, to your art-religion-magic group, and then wonder how they relate to Power...
(And I would also personally do my best to ignore anyone who tried to gatekeep or ring-fence or trademark an idea or words like 'The Way' - they're welcome to whatever stress they feel about that! Honestly, it's like people trying to claim ownership over concepts like mystery or god - oh, wait... ;))
Thanks for all this - I'm grateful for a space to think some of these things out loud, especially at this particular moment
absolutely! it takes a village to figure this a stuff out, stop by anytime. i'd love to learn more about the Sikhs and their swords. and you're definitely right about including healing as part of the Way.
academic language only seems useful as a way to deconstruct all the conceptual barriers that have been built up over the past few centuries. i'm convinced that Western philosophy is just the agonizingly slow process of reversing our indoctrunation and re-learning the things that indigenous cultures taught their toddlers, rather than a genuine progression in human understanding.
At or near the solstices a group of us (around 15-25 ish) gather to chant Brahm Kavach for 48 hrs. Occasionally there are longer gatherings, and we've gone to particular places together to chant there (most memorable was in pitch darkness for 6 hrs by an underground lake deep inside a cave, emerging covered head to toe in sticky red ochre). There is a specific form for the ceremony which involves a lot of attention for the fire.
The prayer is to the divine feminine, supposedly in 32 of her aspects, creative, destructive, nurturing, cruel, etc. Many of those aspects are represented as various types or aspect of sword.
I have never felt as much peace and safety as inside the whirl of this highly rhythmical chant (chopchopchopchopchopchop...) which often gets incredibly fierce.
To me it is an amazingly high-level spiritual technology, very powerful, very precise.
I could go on for a long time about this, it is very subtle, and it keeps revealing more and more for me.
I'll say a couple of things though, about what this prayer has helped me with regards to blades: achieving mystical states of union with the oneness of all is a lot easier when the parts of our lives in duality feel safe, and have a clear idea of the boundary between self and other, and are able to protect this without shame or guilt or fear. This feels like it leads to an absolutely rock solid grounding in this existence - an excellent state from which to expand. And we cannot help but divide the world all the time, and we need to for our safety on a very basic level - so best we work with this, rather than deny it and push it to the shadows. Let's own our capacity to destroy, lest it begin to control us. The more we can do this, the more we can bring our attention to the sharp gleaming focus of a really sharp sword-edge, and so, be incredibly delicate, and responsive with it, and disentangle ourselves from murky attachments at the incredibly fine level they are often enmeshed at. It can feel like it is the light shining from or through the blade that is doing this, rather than the material body of it (I'm still talking symbolically here!).
So, what a gift from the goddess is the sword...