Miss Twist's Weblog

I’ve been doing urban influenced magic for most of my time as a Chaote. I lived close to the city and I still spend most my time in the city though I no longer live there. It started from the realisation that magic as I had started it in the ‘burbs just didn’t work right in the city. Energies move totally differently for a start, there’s more emotional turmoil and it generally just has more feedback magically that hinders rather than helps unless you adapt.

Adapt I did and became, over the years, reasonably good at what I do, but for all that my magic is still mostly indoor out of the way kind of stuff. Working with the flow of the city but not the city itself. After a few threads on various boards I’m beginning to look into the later. With the weather so cold (what the hell happened to those nice mild nights?) I’m doing the reading and thinking part at the moment, but I want to move beyond that.

For the curious the excellent Ekistomancy blog is a good place to start.

Here is my city, that I fully intend to get to know:

Melbourne: Southbank after dark

I plan to start talking to the city at the lights out front of Reservoir station that I cross every time I want to go into the city or go home from the city. Close to home and then work in…

Two pages of writing tonight. All on my healing work but the most journalling I’ve done willingly in some years.

At this point I’m getting the groundwork out of the way. The basics of what I’m aiming for, what I’m already doing, and what’s wrong in general.

So what am I aiming for?

I’m looking at this holistically in the sense the body and mind are connected via energies and that the problems in my mind are causing or aggravating problems within my body which is messing up the flow of energies through my body such as messing with my chakra points. I’m aiming to heal myself, properly rather than just bury the problems deeper within myself. This will be a long, hard working I know.

What are the problems?

A number of issues relating to self image, other people, sexual relations, and childhood issues to start with my mind. Physically I have a low auto-immune system, asthma, numerous general getting old issues with bones,  muscles and joints, weight, digestive-come-stomach problems and cystic ovaries.

What am I doing about them so far?

Been seeing a therapist though have discontinued that for the time being and am currently working through women who run with wolves. I’m seeing a doctor regarding some of the more severe physical problems whilst exploring other options.

What I am looking at adding to this…

A magical aid. My inner child needs healing and the past can not be undone so I need to face it. I’ll be doing this using a combination of normal cognitive therapies, energy manipulations and straight out magic. I am beginning now to explore what I can do and what I want to do. Working it all into something coherant will come slightly later as I need to be in a safe, stable environment to do this and between work being up in the air and moving being no better I am very much not in that position right now.

In early January I posted this

This is the mid year redux post in which I laugh at myself for not having even remotely done what I was planning.Lemme see… Before e start, in my defence, this year has been a complete write off so far.

Monthly Tarot - Complete fail however I have been using my decks more and more so I am getting more familiar with it and thanks to Alan Moore’s Promethea I’m enthused to really get in and study them.

Inner Temple of Witchcraft – FAIL

Meditation - Still with the leg problems but have been doing the dd bit of yoga

Devotions - Were going quite well to my little crisis of faith

So what have I been doing?

Well other than a minor melt down, my own fault now that I think about it, I did call upon Violet Grimm, I’ve been… having  a minor melt down.

Someone might want to grab that there leash of mine...

At the moment I’m delving further into the tarot, looking at some healing stuff for my minor melt down (not so minor really) and am doing some aromatherapy study. I’m still daydreaming about the personal divination deck and focussing mostly on my art.

That’s it really, nothing much to see here.

Death is with me.

Death. Metamorphosis. Change. Shedding of the old revealing something new.

I have been going through hard times of late. Ending of relationships, changes in my work place, unsettled living arrangements, feelings of being “kept” be people for all the wrong reasons and generally up in the air and unhappy. I suffer seasonal depression on top of this and, being mid-winter and therefore at the height of seasonal depression season, I’ve been struggling to cope. I started in therapy again to help get my head around things. I’m sure the therapist I see has no idea what’s with me as I just ramble incoherently at her a lot of the time.  The remainder of this post, which may get quite long, is going to explore what I’m finding out about myself, my thoughts and my feelings and also address one or two little but important things.

I try very hard to avoid huge ranty me based posts on all of my journals, and I have quite a few, this time however I’m not pulling punches in any way shape or form.

I feel used and abused by a lot of people I once thought of as friends. To be precise I feel like many of them think of me as an object for them to play with. A toy if you will. I don’t like this, to the point where the behaviour is making me want to avoid going anywhere near people in their entirety and is causing me to have anxiety issues when asked to go out to places where I know many of these people may be present. Telling them to stop appears to be a waste of time. Telling some of them to stop has resulted in petulant childish behaviour and outright anger and abuse from one or two others. I’m not very good at standing up for myself when dealing with people who move in my social circle (reasons for this below) so I’m failing to enforce the “back the fuck off rule”. This is causing self esteem issues that will be addressed in a little bit.

The next thing that’s been bothering me is my social circle at large. Well about 90% of it anyway. There are a handful of people from amongst the large circle of friends I had last year that I still want around. My social circle is practically incestuous, which in and of itself doesn’t bother me, but the lack of respect for other people’s privacy and personal space is starting to be beyond a joke. It makes me not want to be around them. The in fighting has begun as well, also making me not wanting to be around them. The petty little fights have started in places, as has the bad mouthing, back stabbing and nastiness that comes of knowing too much about people because discretion is a thing of the past that no one remembers anymore. I don’t want part of this so I’m actively avoiding outings and gatherings that require me to deal with it because, you guessed it, it’s setting off more anxiety issues.

I have really low self esteem. I had actually developed a reasonably good sense of self some years back, then I dated a complete prick who made it his business to destroy my fragile little tower of esteem. Being made to feel like I am worthless outside of being a toy for people to feel up and pose is having nasty consequences. I feel like it is expected that I allow people to touch me and treat me how they want to when they want to. I have had this backed up, as mentioned earlier, by people’s reactions to being told no. I’m picking at my skin constantly, fretting badly, hiding away from people because being face to face with people is etremely hard, I’m depressed (nothing new) and having a hard time coping with the things I NEED to cope with. Again, not wanting to be around 90% of my supposed friends.

What all this means?

It means I have to make a call, and I’m choosing to make it rather than hide from it. I am not putting up with this shit. The small group of people that I want to spend time with I will spend time with. The rest of them will go get fucked for all I care. I have no time for this.

In a manner this is part psych 101 and one and part major magical working.

There’s a lot of damage that’s been done over the years and it’s not an overnight fix but it’s a necessary start. It will be painful and tiring. I’ll keep rambling at my poor therapist because even if she doesn’t understand what I’m going on about, because I’m only half coherent, the sessions seem to help as a platform to work from. An unbiased mind asking the right questions to make me gather my thoughts into something I can work with rather than a huge mess.

I’ll keep seeking the company of people who encourage me to grow and change rather than expect me to fulfill a role.  I have also made my first active steps in finding new friends. I’ve applied to join an eclectic coven that meets regularly. I’m not sure how that will go, but after 10 years of solitary practice I think it’s time that I actually started communicating with others offline as well as on.

And I have already started working on my mind from that other angle. Magically I’ve done  little to support myself over the past few years. I’ve done little of anything really with my life in constant upheaval. I’ve had a very sharp wake up call in the guise of a semi-student-come-younger-peer’s actions causing me to have an old servitor/guardian become very active and with that I have been able to start working with inner spaces again. Mind temples, neurological symbolic spaces, temples of the aether, whatever you want to call them. Having not had a stable home in my life, these spaces were once very important to me and easy to work with, with all the turmoil I’d closed down my ability to access that. Having it reopened gives me a place to work in ways I can’t in the physical. Some interesting experiments to follow…

Eh you’ll hear about enough of them I’m sure.

Things aren’t good. They really fucking aren’t, but I’m going to put it back together. Slowly maybe, but I’ll raise hell if I have to. It wouldn’t be the first time, no one ever taught me to lie down and die without a fight.

So I was just answering a reply on my blog when it hit me: I have been practicing magic in one form or another for 10 fucking years around December this year.
10 Freaking years.

I’m certainly no community elder but that’s nothign to sneeze at. I then thought some more and laughed at myself because all I could think is that 10 years of this shit and I STILL have no freaking clue. Ah well, that’s what keeps it fun I suppose.

Part of a stupidly long post I made on face book in response to the initiated Wiccan crap. I had responded initially to someone who added his two bob regarding Shaministic initiation which is quite often not given by another human being, but rather by the spirits or through events. Said person shot back with the fact that he was referring to the calling to the path etc etc. Here is my response. I was curios to your thoughts regarding it….

As to being “called to a path” we all are. It’s a given, we were called one way or another to paganism in the first place. Being called to a path and being initiated into a path, again, are totally seperate things. I spoke of what the initiation was like after I found my calling, and while the experiences varies tremendously from person to person it is still not a case of performing some pleasant ritual when “you” (generic you there) feel like it.

In a manner I envy those who ARE initiated into a coven. Having other people around to guide you through the initiation process and help you develop steadily at a pace you can handle is probably a great deal easier to handle than being thrown in head first. The issues that arise I can imagine would actually be the same ones and the challenges similar but rather than it being a sudden, forceful change it’s something stable that is prepared for an guided by those more experienced. I’m solitary so again this is just my opinions built of my talks with the initiated and other solitaries ont he subject *Shrugs*

I hold solid my opinion on being inducted into Wicca. I’m easy enough to please, if you add neo or eclectic to the front I know what you’re talking about, and I’m not such a fuss that I’m going to jump up and down because “OMG you can’t use the term Wiccan if you’re not initiated” provided the clarification is clear that you practice neo/eclectic-Wicca not traditoinal (initiated) Wicca. And if you claim to follow the latter I expect you to be able to back it up.

I can back up the claims that I practice Chaos magic through my knowledge of the path, it’s tenants and it’s core values/practices (however few and far between those are) and through my magical practice. Chaos magic doesn’t require any form of initiation, but you still have to be able to prove your claim at the end of the day if you want the title. If you can’t, if you walk into a gathering of Chaos Magicians, and you’re a kitchen witch who calls her/himself a chaos witch and have absolutely no connection with Chaos Magic at all, you’ll be told as much. I wouldn’t expect any less of any other path.

You can’t just claim to be anything you want to be, you have to be able to be that and prove that you are that to others who are of that path or are involved in the community at large. It’s akin to claiming your an accountant if you’re an accounts clerk. Their similar but not the same. An accounts clerk doesn’t have the knowledge of an account clerk, unless of course if they’re an accountant working an accounts clerk role which I’m sure does happen from time to time. One requires qualifications that the other doesn’t but at the same time that doesn’t make one role better that the other. It’s simple as that.

Just because we’re talking about paganism not accounting jobs doesn’t mean you can just throw the basic structures out the window, they still apply. This is one of the biggest problems with the pagan community. The minute you step into paganism you seem to step out of the real world for some reason. It doesn’t work, we are part of the real world, we should be more so than those who aren’t pagan if you ask me. There is no dividing line that says real world this side, pagan world this side that you step across when you put on your robes. It’s the same world, with the same rules, we just see things others don’t because we’re awake and aware of them.

You are not cute

You are not a special snowflake

You are not fucking adorable enough to get away with it.

Neither am I. Difference is I know it.

This is starting to piss me off. The number of people around me that act like fucking morons and expect me and others to accept it because they’re cute and adorable.This actually goes hand in hand with the personal space issues from my last rant.

People are asking me why I’m coming out less and less. Here’s why…

You’re acting like morons.

Giggling, squealing, gropy people are not the be all and end all of my life.

Bratty, snippy, bitchy people annoy me.

In fact the more I deal with my own shit the less patience I have for it. I’d really like some adult company. Really really really like some. On a regular basis even. Thing is treating someone like dirt is not nice and no matter how much you bat you’re eyelids I’m not buying it. Treating someone like an object is rude and giggling coyly doesn’t make that ok.

Fart and sex jokes are not funny, stupid catty remarks are not going to win me over, and for the love of gods stop hitting on me. I am currently interested in six people. If you’re not in a realtionship or a male I have already slept with/ am currently sleeping with you’re not one of them. Sorry, thems the way the dice fell ok?

Get over it. Get off me. Leave me the fuck alone.

You want me to be interested in you talk to me. Not whine at me or giggle or make moves on me but actually fucking talk to me. I may not have the education of some of the people I know but I am far from stupid, I am capable of saying when I don’t understand and I actually like to hold adult conversations. If you actually get your eyes above chest level and the conversation above the sex jokes you may actually notice that I am an intelligent person with interests outside of goth clubs and petty but pretty shiny things.

If you’re really stuck try art (I’m rather fond of it, you may have missed that) or magic (as in the pagan version) or even sewing (I like to do this). Seriously. Stop being twits. at the moment for all the friends I have I actually look forward to seeing and want to spend time with less than ten of them…

This is another figure it out for yourselves.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=647r1kCw384]

Tell me what the rain knows
 O are these the Tears of Ages
 That wash away the Wolf's Way
 And leave not a trace of the day?


Tell me what the rain knows
 O is this the flood of fortune
 That pours itself upon me?
 O see how I drown in this sea


Hark, hear the howl that eats the moon alive
 Your fur it is on fire
 The smoke turns the whole sky raven black
 And the world upon your back will crack


Where will you go
 Now you've no home?


Let the rain wash away your last days

I guess I’m having a crisis of faith of late in a way…

I copped a mouthful off of someone who I have quite a bit of respect for, and who I feel I have lost a great deal of respect for now, over a comment on LJ. Now it seems silly but as I only know this person via LJ and have no other way to judge his character this is it. This person, J, is a very intelligent atheist with some very definite opinions regarding religion which I personally have no problem with, however I do take issue with an uncalled attack that shows no ability nor willingness to engage on a matter. He was right, I was an idiot. I object to being called an idiot by a someone because I expressed an opinion he disagreed with due a difference of faiths. I can see where he would be coming from had I posted this opinion on his blog, yes, but it was a mutual friend, one whom I know and am close to who was seeking advice from his own blog not J’s. The point of this rambling is it really bothered me…

I gave a slightly facetious yes dear *pat pat* response then went and got on with it, but I’m a slow burner and when someone does something that doesn’t sit well with me I tend to linger on it. This did not sit well. It did not sit well at all. His response was the one I consistently get from atheists. You have faith, you believe in something, therefore you’re an idiot. Never mind that they, including J, actually have no idea what I believe nor why. So lately I’ve been thinking long and hard about faith.

There are a few different forms of faith as I see it.

There is the troubling blind faith. Blind faith, in my opinion, is dangerous. Belief without question as an adult shows an inherent unwillingness to think for ones self. To place everything in another beings hands, your life, your actions, your family is to put aside all personal responsibility. Destiny is at fault, fate is at fault, God is at fault but never you. You don’t have to think you just have to follow and, of course, the man telling you it’s ok to marry a 12 year old girl and consummate that marriage is not lying to you at all.

There is the well experienced faith. The faith of someone who believes utterly because they know. You find this kind of faith amongst those that have come out of huge life changing events, whether deliberately inflicted or otherwise, and know beyond all things that there is a truth. What that truth is varies, but it’s a truth. This kind of faith often falls over into the former blind faith with overzealous religious fanatic types, but with many it’s a simple comforting thought that this is how it is for them. Some will go on to preach to others and some will just get on with their lives comfortable in their knowing.

And finally there is faith questioned. Not necessarily questioning whether there is something bigger but questioning what it is, what it does, why we should believe in it, how it should be allowed to effect our lives. It is the type of faith where destiny isn’t an option, fate doesn’t exist and God can be as almighty as he likes but we’re still responsible for our actions.

Of course there is also the complete absence of faith.

I’m in what I guess is a reasonably unique predicament yet at the same time very much not. I am, as usual, questioning my faith. I keep a fairly tight reign on myself. I don’t follow blindly, I have no belief in destiny and fate is for those who can’t walk to their own beat. I accept that not everything is under my control but what is under my control is how I react to those things. I act accordingly. I make sure to deliberately question my faith and beliefs regularly so as not to fall into the trap of being stuck and unable to grow, or accept others points of views.

What is bothering me lately is not an absence of faith per se, but a questioning of it. I believe(d) in deity. I do not think deity holds huge sway over my everyday life but I did believe in it. Yet now I’m beginning to question that belief, that faith, in something higher than I. Not because I don’t believe it’s possible but because all my personal experience with it can be bought back to me.

I believed therefore it was real.

This is pretty much the one solid truth of magic if you think about it. Your reality is your own, effected by your beliefs and shaped by your perceptions, and, should you so choose, changed by your will. Many people do this last indirectly. A magic user of any kind does it directly and knowingly. With this in mind it’s easy to see how a deity and ones experiences with deity could be a direct creation of ones mind.

If someone can believe enough to make Mr Spock a deity for a time in their minds why not Quan Yin or Zeus?

Are the deities I have always thought of as separate entities truly so or are they simply massive thought constructs?

My thoughts are not covering new ground here, yet at the same time, for me, they are. I’ve always just believed in deity, the very concept of it at least, and now I’m querying that.

Yet all this questioning does not take into consideration a few other things. Who are the wanderers in my head, the people and creatures that show up time and time again? Are they something I created that have become something more or something more that has taken interest in me? Why me? Why them? and so on and so forth. What are they?

They could just be figments of my imagination, but then where does that leave, well, everything within my practice… and so the thoughts go on.

I’m a solid believer in slow process. Faith doesn’t sneak up on you, nor does it suddenly vanish, even if it sometimes feels like it does. The relaisation that you’re beliefs have changed is not earth shattering nor is the actual change, it’s just a shift in awareness, but the bit in the middle where you do all teh questioning really does drive me mad.