The cat has gotten tired of listening to me type and has left the room to cause some form of mischief. I’m sure her life is very exciting when I’m not paying attention.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the past lately. A large part of being able to safely perform Goetic operations is controlling your own demons. The injuries and injustices of your past, along with your own blunders and wrongs.

From about fifth grade on I was pretty much universally known as the fag. Needless to say, this was very painful to me. It was especially painful to me being a very self-absorbed and private boy who had few friends. Even more so being as sheltered and insulated as I was. I didn’t know what a fag was, not really. I knew it was wrong, and dirty, and a nasty name. I didn’t know that fucking men was an option. If I had, I like to think that I would have realized I was gay and come out of the closet many years before I did.

Anyway, I spent a lot of years being the pariah. The outcast. The fag. And though I like to think I’ve overcome many of the tortures and memories of those years, the truth is that they have shaped a great deal of the person I am today. My devotion to protecting and helping gay youth, to organizations like the Trevor Project. My unyielding stance that homosexuality is no more or less than another variety of existence, and my refusal to let anyone shame me for my sex.

A lot of really positive traits have grown from the years of abuse I endured at the hands of my peers, and the blind-eyes of the faculty. But there are very deep wounds as well. When I spoke to Amatheon about those wounds he had much to say. The one thing he repeated over and over again, that I remember more than anything else is “No matter how deep the damage, your wounds can heal.”

I’ve come back to that statement more than a few times in the past year. I’ve looked at the damage that was done to hy heart, and I’ve realized that I’m not to blame for it. But I’ve yet to prove that statement true. As much as I want to believe it, I do not KNOW that I can be healed.

Something Coriander said to me earlier this evening (yesterday now) resonated with all of this. One of the core benefits of disciplined practice of ceremonial magic, of goetic operations, is the balancing of chaotic forces in your life. The skills needed to perform Ceremonial Magic well lend you authority in balancing the various forces in your life.

Coriander, in his wise-fool way said something along the lines of “It’s not about ‘Oh, this will balance my chaos so I’ll do that.’ It’s about ‘here I am doing what needs to be done. Oh! look, my chaos is balanced.’”

He’s right. I can’t go into things planning to fix the uncontrollable influences. Chaos is chaos because it can not be predicted. Balancing it is a function of an ordered experience in life, not of an effort to balance it. Similarly, I think I’m finding that the truth in Amatheon’s statement, not through finding methods to heal myself, but through observing that healing is happening. I don’t really know how. I know I don’t cry every time I think about those times anymore. (Sometimes I still do, but not every time.)

I’m also realizing that healing those wounds can not be the goal. They are too deep, too much a part of the person I’ve become to be approached directly. Their healing must be the result of life and learning.

One lesson I’ve learned, perhaps one of the most important lessons of my life, is that my concept of self may not be dependent upon those around me. It is a hard lesson to learn, particularly when one adores praise as much as I do. It is an even harder lesson to practice. Distancing myself from the long-standing pattern of feeling as though I’ve failed if I’m not stroked for my achievements is something that I struggle with every day.

It is even harder to accept praise with humility and gratitude, particularly when trying not to depend on it. It would be far easier to pretend not to hear it, or demean it’s value or intent. Of course doing so would be a rudeness and disrespect that I’d prefer not to commit.

And so it goes.