Time seems to be speeding up, contracting and expanding. So many changes have happened. It is impossible to keep up and it is easy to lose my balance in the onslaught. It feels like it was just weeks before – not almost three years ago – that I sat in front of election results with an old friend on the phone. We both sat in horror and fear. I was in a panic, but eventually, I learned to lean into it, like standing in the waves at the beach. Remain standing and don’t turn your back to the incoming tide.
Fifteen years ago, I lived in San Francisco. Having a MUNI pass meant that I could use any public transportation within San Francisco’s borders, including the cable car. Taking the cable car regularly, I quickly gained my cable car “legs” – like growing springs in my calves. Every sharp turn or steep hill, I learned to surf the rails with the car by staying light on my feet. You can tell the tourists from the locals by how they are tossed about by ancient suspension – or not. Living through this last 200-ish year cycle of cycle Jupiter-Saturn in Earth signs (Austin Coppock explains in this excellent post here.) is much like this. We must all stay light on our feet and ride with the cable car, or suffer an uncomfortable trip.
You know how you get really busy at work and then one day, you think to restart your computer. There are like 30 updates to your software waiting to be installed. Some download and update really fast. Others seem to take an agonizingly long time. You know what I’m talking about, yeah? It’s been like that.
But if I can continue with my horrible analogy, there’s no time to read about these new updates and add-ons. No time to take a tutorial. There are all these shiny new tools – some may even be more effective – but no time or mental bandwidth to explore and possibly rethink approaches or methods.
Unfortunately, there is no time to sit with anything. I keep thinking that there will be free time to process and put the pieces together to make a pretty puzzle picture, but there is none to be found. I’m on to the next crisis or opportunity. It sounds dire – and there are moments of real joy which I cherish and use to recharge and get ready for the next wave – but it doesn’t matter much, I press on as best as I can, having faith that someday, I can take a breath and actually think about how all my pieces – new and old – fit together.
I’ve been at this a long time. My whole life. By it, I mean alternative spirituality? Magic? The occult? My typical modus operandi is to dive right into something that I find alluring. I once explained to a friend that my way of approaching a spiritual or magical tradition “belief” is like trying on a piece of clothing. I adopt wholesale the new perspective, the new method, the new belief and see how it feels. Does it bind? Does it itch? Is it too big? Too small? It’s so hard to talk about my experiences of the numinous and the occult because I simply lack the language to discuss it, so I opt for full immersion experience to see if it works for me. I’ve had a massive upgrade in the past two years and between the apocalyptic onslaught we’ve all been trying to survive and the utter lack of ease in discussing it, I can feel my inner worlds expanding and drinking champagne because I’m not in coach anymore, darling.
I’m pissed off at the same time. I’ve been “trying on” some subpar spiritual clothing and suddenly there are all these quality books and other resources. I’m approaching my fifties and I still feel like a foolish dilettante. Better late than never? I like to think so.
It’s also fun. I can be a beginner again and start over. I feel like I can both deeply immerse myself in new approaches, but also think about them critically. I’ve been lucky to be blessed with a strong intuition and it has served me to heed its warnings or beckoning. While I may not have the professional grade toolbox of discernment, I feel like I at least have a few quality instruments with which to rule out the utterly stupid or nonsensical.
My practice doesn’t have a name, but it sure gets results. I hope to share some of that here in the future.