I don’t really feel like I have much to say, although I know I do. I’ve been feeling a bit stifled lately, creatively. I’m not sure what’s behind it. I think some of it is simple despair. I’ve been having that small feeling, as though I don’t have the power to change the world around me. I know that’s not true, but sometimes it’s hard to feel it.

I feel much better tonight. Now that the full moon has passed and the pressure has eased. The membership meeting for the Brotherhood on Monday helped too, and working with @Si_Storm last night on our workshop for Saturday got things moving for me. Today I couldn’t stop with the ideas, but I need to take a step back and decide how best to implement some of them.

I’m spending a lot of time focusing on changing very small things in my life to put things in order. As I mentioned, I’m trying to get up and go to work on time every day in July. So far I’ve succeeded. I was about five minutes late today, but I’m not concerned with small variances. Later this month, or in August I want to add the gym back into my schedule, possibly a few mornings a week before work.

I also need a vacation. Badly. I need some time without being scheduled. Ideally I think I want to get away, out of the city for a while. Maybe this autumn I can take a trip alone to New York. I could take the train. I think I need some time off sooner than that though. I might take a few days off while George is in Canada later this summer.

It’s very unusual, but I’m finding that I have writers block, after a fashion. Normally I don’t need to try to write. I just sit down, and open up this little internal valve, and shit comes out. Sometimes it’s good shit. Sometimes it’s terrible shit. Part of the trouble might be that I just spend a couple hours hammering out the script and text for the workshop saturday (transcribing from notes and fleshing out). But that’s only a part of it, if it’s involved at all.

I suspect that a part of me is wondering if writing is worth the energy expenditure. At least, writing publically. I’ve been wondering lately if public blogging is really very useful at all. I get some feedback, and sometimes people find what I write useful or interesting, but is it worth the investment?

As I mentioned in a recent post, the immediate benefits of something often seem insignificant compared to the effort expended on them. That doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy though. It just means that we have to be big enough to sustain ourselves. I am definitely big enough. Ah, self-deprecating wit. Very comforting.

But it’s not just about sustaining ourselves. Or doing work for the world around us. It’s about a community, a world that I serve, whether they know it or not. There’s a few lines in a Firebird Arts and Music Song (I can’t recall the title.” The song is about a mage who is scorned and cast out by the people he protects.

they don’t know they need. They don’t know I serve. They don’t know I keep them safe from harm. … and that’s how it should be.

My ego hates it. It is a definite point of suffering, but I recognize a singular truth here. The best service is often unnoticed, either by design or expectation. That’s true in any service industry or interaction with a business.

It’s even more true on the mystical path. I am called to help people. To teach. To heal. To guide. But more often than not, that work is subtle. It is the work of friendship. Of a kind word at the right time. Of a careful insult or pointed question. It is the work of prayer and blessing. It is the work of the Spirit, and some days it leaves me alone on the floor, exhausted and crying.

Perhaps that’s a bit overdramatic. I have a penchant for drama. I’m gay, we should expect this. It’s very rewarding, but there are days when I want to turn away from it all.

I don’t talk about it often, but I have some past life memories. I don’t pretend that they are supremely valid, factual, or that I can prove I was so and so at such and such time. As with many things, I believe their value is in the lessons we learn from them. Some of those memories tell me about the places I could go if I’m not careful. The gifts I’ve nurtured and trained, the study I’ve put in can just as easily be a force for distress and destruction as a force for the benefit of those around me. More easily perhaps, since so many of us tend towards negative beliefs. It’s much easier to push someone into an unhealthy pattern than a healthy one.

Ah, that’s dramatic again. I don’t want to make this about some epic battle between my own potential for good and evil. I just have memories of manipulation in the bad way, of doing what I can to destroy people, primarily for my own amusement. And as George will tell you, amusing myself is a very serious motivation in a lot of what I do. Fortunately, I don’t generally get a kick out of causing people suffering. If I did, I suspect I’d be a very different person.

SJ’s Blessings is almost over. I’ve been writing for 30 minutes or so. Time has passed. I’m very tired and I’m going to go to bed now, but I feel as though I’m less constipated.

And brightly did he go away, alive and somber eyed;
A moonbeam woven in his hair, a knowing in his stride.