![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
laurelinde: since we didn't manage to hook up when I was down in Maryland, I hope this will give you some fill-in on what we did. Please ask me to expand on things if you need it.teinedreugan and I went to pick up yezida at the airport on Friday. While we were there we encountered jennaria, who was seeing ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif){kind=small}
irisbleu off to the UK. Mild chattage, then yezida came out the gate, and we were off to NH. Side note of introducing Thorn to the Crüxshadows which amused me.- And I am the face you see within the mirror
And I am the hand that holds the fist away
And I am the dream forgotten in the morning
And I am.... I am.....
We are the faith of your tomorrows
let us breathe, let us see, let us be...
We are your prayers engulfed in sorrow
let us breathe, let us see, let us be...
Let us be...
("Breathe", The Crüxshadows. Which is a goth-electric-rock treatment of "The Dispute with the Ba". Mightily, mightily Egypto-geeky.)
I was twitchy and anxious. Too much overload in my life at the time -- I'm still overloaded, now, but I'll note that the weekend actually helped with it rather than pushing me over critical -- and that awkward hanging out on the edges of groups I don't feel entitled to be a member of thing. After we got to the Feri B&B (an empty apartment that we were being permitted to use as crash space), I got some food and settled into the quiet and . . . it was very lonely. Not just the quiet of northern NH, but this sense of profound, aching solitude.
I wound up shaking and on the edge of tears, settled on the air mattress and wound up in my blankets.
Then He arrived. In the distance, on the horizon of my mind -- I want to say it was sunset, but the fact of the matter is that the background wasn't really a presence there, I'm just filling in. A silhouette in a robe with flared sleeves, tight-fitting to the hips and broad at the bottom, wearing a tall, slightly flared cylindrical hat. He danced on the edge there, just within sight, just so that I could see I was not alone.
So I met Melek Taus, and He kept me company until I could sleep.
A number of people have commented on the scattered, distracted energy of the group; I know I certainly didn't help, because of my generalised state of overload. This entry will be likely scattered and distracted.
One of the things that we wound up discussing was choice, fate, and destiny. I have in my notes the line "shai as compass needle". The idea that destiny, to the extent that it exists, is not something absolute and ordained, but the direction of the road one feels a need to walk . . . that was a good thought.
Discussion of will, one of the other students: "Never have a wishbone where your backbone ought to be." The capacity to choose gets in here, the ability to stand and be. (And in one of our breaks I had a discussion with
lady_and_lion about my perception of depression as a disease of the will, which queenofhalves and cangelo also were involved in.)Humor value:
cangelo and lady_and_lion having lengthy debate about whether Aries(es? the hell is the plural of Aries?) or Leos were better in bed. Many people's opinions were solicited; mine was, "I haven't slept with an Aries, so I don't have the data to judge." Also, "I'm an Aquarius, I'll just look at you funny." This persisted through the weekend, Not Being An Argument. It was a Discussion.The fire of the Tarot -- that will which is tied up in one's life-force. I am going to have to keep this in mind when doing readings, just as a concept to work with.
Another random note: "What does love of self look like right now?"
We did another meditation and sitting with one of the Guardians, this one with Shining Flame. I have notes, scattered ones, about how this was; I didn't manage a very deep trancestate. "Illumination is the first step of will". A passage from "The New Colossus", with "I lift my lamp beside the golden door" underlined. "yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil", an Elton John lyric, and some kinesthetic impressions about light and Way.
We did some discussions about the blade as a tool, and fire and the blade and will. Thorn made the parallel of a forged blade and forged intent. There was some discussion of cutting away the extraneous, and the idea of the blade as a thing that is intrinsically a tool, a thing made for doing. We studied the blades we had and discussed in what ways they reflected ourselves -- my comment on mine (an iron kris-shaped dagger given to me by
keshwyn) was "I never do anything straightforwardly" and later a comment on the support and development of mutual strength through community ties.Then there was the hard part, the bit that broke me. The exercise was to dig within and find what the Will wanted right at the time, and then to live in that space for a while. We spread out on the top of the hill a bit. I had a calling to my music, and a sense of inappropriateness of most of what I could sing; I wound up singing fragmentary bits of the Crüxshadows' "Citadel" and VNV's "Joy". (My state of mind was not the best.) At one point, I used the blade to cut away a little pocket of energetic space, a bubble for myself, without thinking of what I was doing; it was just an automatic thing to do, a response to the pain, to do one of the things that I had been wanting to do for months and shut myself away, wait for it all to pass . . . I carefully took down the bubble, because I knew that that wasn't a good thing to do. (And realised at that point that while the weekend was hard, most of the other stuff that was bothering me wasn't present there -- I was doing the work, not dealing with the other stuff, so I could put it down.)
So we went on like this for a while, and then paused, and . . . the rage bubbled up, the place where the raw feeling is nothing but smite and destroy and there was a weapon in my hand. And no target. No legitimate target. It was a terrifying, overwhelming rage, one that was guttering and toxic because the flame was stifled in an old chimney and full of tar. I shook for a while, trying to figure out what I could do with this, and eventually drove the blade -- hard -- into the earth, drove it and tried to pour the fire out of myself and down into the soil, which could take it. I burned, it couldn't get out, I could only drain off the top layers, the fire was infinite and it hurt and . . .
Eventually we went back into group work, and talked about it, and I couldn't hold back the tears. it hurt so, and this was part of why the weekend had been frightening me, the chance of this uncontrollable pain and anger coming out.
yezida asked me some questions, pulled me through a bit, why I wanted to get it out (it burns it burns it hurts) and what I needed -- rest, comfort, peace were the answers I gave.Bonnie gave me some kleenex. Thorn came over and held me for a bit and did something energetically that I'm not sure I quite understood, I think diagnostic, and said that I was badly heart-wounded and asked if I was seeing a counsellor. I said I wasn't; I made excuses for my weakness, I recognise that, but so scarred up and tangled around the pain. And over the course of the next day or so, a huge chunk of my classmates came and spoke to me, offered me comfort and support, and . . . I'm not afraid of the group anymore, at least. (Because I do everything the pigheadedly hard way, huh?)
My next note in my journal is just, "Speak ma'at, do ma'at."
The next exercise we did was a bladewalking meditation. I've done this one before with Thorn -- she did it in a panel at PantheaCon this year -- and it was a fairly interesting little thing. Low-stress.
It was terrifying.
The visualisation begins with laying the image of the blade out in front, big old knife, with the visualiser standing on the hilt. Lay the choices on either side of the blade. Walk out along the visualisation. Reach the tip, the place where the choices meet. Turn around. Walk back. Feel the shape of the choices on either side, work with that; see how they feel on the other sides. Repeat. Then turn the blade so as to be walking down the *edge*, to the tip, with the choices right there.
Terrifying. Of course, when I did this before it was with something trivial, but I found myself consumed with terror of falling off: this was probably a 'losing control' thing, a 'having the choice taken away' thing, a 'catastrophic fall into unintended consequences' likely too. I had no way of sorting out which bits were real, which were manufactured, which were shadows that I was using to coddle my weaknesses.
At the end of the work, we pick up the visualisation and use it to cut away whichever we're not choosing -- or make some third choice, some union perhaps. I chose to work on this and clear away the fears so a non-fearful choice was possible.
In discussion, a book title: What are you afraid of? author Lavinia Plonka. (*remembers to go add that to her list, heh*)
After dinner we just did some meditation work. Thorn was hoping to get some good ritual work in, but we were waaaaay too scattered for it and running out of time. This was the four flames meditational work.
The idea here is that there are four flames to sustain the self -- the ember (basic life-force, feeds from the stuff that is fed in to support flame level in significant part and food, rest, exercise, sex, that sort of thing), flame (daily vitality; the work that supports the life that supports the work; relationship), arc (lightning, inspiration, creative connection), and starfire (divine ecstasy). We did meditational work about the state of our fires, and then card readings about them. Four cards, one for each, and then the option of pulling two more cards -- one for what will help, one for what will hinder.
I would like to state that I am really liking this new tarot deck, so I'm glad
erispope bullied me into getting it when I was in Atlanta. Very clear and precise responses.Ember: the Lovers. Helped with the Queen of Pentacles (inverted): shameless greed. Harmed by Ace of Pentacles (inverted): wastage and frivolous spending. (This one had me laughing and laughing.)
Flame: 2 of Pentacles (inverted): overextension. Helped by 10 Pentacles (stability and tradition), hurt by Queen of Wands. The last one is a hard one to handle, as Q Wands is one of the cards I associate with myself; her significance is given as benevolent love, energy spent in the support of others. (Translation: fucking ow. Also, back to greed.)
Arc: Page of Pentacles (inverted): closed off to others, isolation. Helped with the Page of Swords (openness to experience), hurt by the Devil (inverted), destructive power of the material.
Starfire: Wheel of Fortune (luck riding high). Helped by Ace of Cups: creativity, expression, love. Hurt by 4 of Cups: complacency and taking it for granted.
We broke for the night there, and I had company in the Feri B&B. We stayed up too late talking about the theories of the natures of gods, rituals, and things. Also, the sky in northern New Hampshire is so perfect and clear it hits me like a punch in the gut. Hello, Mother, you're so beautiful . . .
We did Iron Pentacle on Sunday, mostly, working with Thorn's devotional dances for the points (which get me physically confounded), doing work on each of the points. I have some writings about pride in my journal -- we freewrote around that.
We also did an exercise I didn't care for much, one of cutting away words of self-description, names, masks. I think part of why I disliked it was that this is something I try to do independently in a different mode, so it was redundant and slightly alien work -- I got a few things that I didn't mean to be carrying, but not much. The other thing is the really alien part, the bit that gets tangled up in words being part and parcel of existence, and discarding the words cutting dangerously close to unbeing.
teinedreugan came to get me. We wound up not giving lifts home or to airport to anyone, so we spent the trip back talking about the stuff in the work that's relevant to us.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
This recalls you and I discussing the nature of overextension about two weeks ago; "you can reach, and overreach, but if you do so, you damn well better know that it will hurt you to do so. Think carefully before you commit to overreaching yourself."
From:
no subject
And the overextension has huge bleeding chunks that have to do with self-sacrifice in relationships.
Fixing this is also bloody.
From:
no subject
Oh, and Leos are definitely better. Yep.
From:
no subject
;)
From:
no subject
(I suspect
From:
no subject
(I maybe have other thoughts but they're not trickling to the surface yet. Thanks for posting this; it's given me stuff to ponder.)
From:
no subject
I have to say I'm tickled to have inspired stuff-to-ponderness. It's affirming, y'know?
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I'm an Aries (just barely :) ) - it seems that the plural form might be Arietis (or at least the genitive form) or Arietes.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I guess that would show where he would side, except he'd probably note that he's not had a chance to experience the other option and therefore really should get more data that before coming to a conclusion.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
(I also noted that deciding in the other side's favor would likely bring out the God of War aspect of being an Aries. It's all fun to discuss these sorts of things when it's not talking about -me-. [g])
From:
no subject
Aries is the center of the Big Vacant Part of my chart. (Yes, I do have a computer-generated astrological chart for myself on my hard drive, why do you ask?)
I really need a symbol-dinking icon.
From:
no subject
Normally we'd have to start by designing double-blind experiments, but somehow that seems less effectual... At least one party in any given test group should know what's going on, else we not get quality results.
Plus, though I haven't begun gathering data on Leos yet, to confine Aries subjects simply to skills "in bed" would be inherently limiting on the group's potential. Perhaps a better descriptor is in order?
From:
no subject
From:
no subject