On top of that I’ve got all my personal work that I want to do, including some training with Amatheon, a more comprehensive study of TCM (long term, not immediate), and the fact that I’m trying to learn how to be a better friend to the people in my life. Oh, and I want to lose weight too.

I might as well plan on buying a pony while I’m at it, right?

But I’m not really discouraged. Having a full plate keeps me focused. George often comments that I’m too hard on myself about getting things done, about making good use of my time. I don’t think so. I’m actually very gentle with myself. I take the time I need. If I need to let something fall I do. I don’t typically hurt or overwork myself.

I do sometimes have a tendency to get overwrought about things that are stressing me, in particular conflict type stuff. Sometimes I don’t sleep so well, but only occasionally is that because I’ve got too much on my plate. I am also stern with myself, because if I’m not, many things would never get done. Things that I want done. I don’t flog myself over letting things slide, but eventually I do have to get up off my ass and get it done, and it helps to say to myself, “theo, stop fucking off and focus. Just do this one thing right now.” It’s more effective than you’d think.

I need to clean my room tonight though. It’s not dirty, just a little laundry needs to be straightened. I’ve managed to keep it quite neat for 10 days now. This is possibly a record. If George and I can keep the whole house relatively clean for a while we might even manage to make a habit of it.

Ah, almost home, time to get things done now.

John and I just watched the last two episodes of Dollhouse, Season 1. I’ve seen them before, John hasn’t. Beware, if you haven’t seen it the rest of this post might spoil some pieces of it.

Now that the spoiler warning is out of the way, we can get going. The premise of Dollhouse is that there is a secret corporate project that takes people, supposedly volunteers but the line is obviously not demarcated well, and backs their memory/personality up to a disk. Then takes posession of the body for use in whatever they are currently being paid for. The Dollhouse imprints the Actives, or Dolls, with a constructed personality and a set of parameters that will govern their behavior when out on engagement. When not on an engagement the Actives live in a paradisical building where they are sheltered from all forms of stress and their every need is cared for.

One of the big themes of the first season, and strongly highlighted in the last two episdoes is responsibility, culpability, and self-responsibility. We see the responsibility card played time and again. From a woman who nobly understands the necessity and value of death and accepts her end with grace, to a little girl who blames herself for not escaping her abusive guardian, to a religious sect abdicating their own reason in the name of faith in their leader.

The last two episodes spring upon us the idea that the people who volunteer to become Actives are doing so to escape their troubles, but could be seen to be abdicating all personal responsibility, which is of course a dream that many of us have had at one time or another, so it strikes kind of hard.

The main plot element of the last episode involves an Active finding herself confronted by her own original personality imprinted upon another body. There is discussion of evolution, and of the betterness of the imprinted (compositely imprinted) active versus the weak-willed person who ‘abandoned’ her body and life to the care of the Dollhouse.

We could examine these elements, and many supporting elements for days, and it would be great fun, but I’m not as interested in the analysis of this theme as I am a comparison it brought to mind.

There is a technique used in many neopagan communities, known as soul retrieval. The idea is that at certain times in our life, for one reason or another, a piece of our soul, part of our personality, splits from the primary personality and runs away somewhere. This is often caused by some sort of traumatic event, but often these events are seemingly insignificant, and actually trigger an unseen current or hotspot.

I’ve seen soul retrieval done well and poorly, and I have my own thoughts about it’s use (and abuse, and overuse). But the technique is essentially a method of finding the missling piece(s) of a persons soul, dialoging/interfacing with them, and inviting/convincing them to return to the person to help make them whole.

The paralell between a person who abandons their body to escape their challenges, living this husk, this physical shell to be filled by another light, and the hidden/severed part of the soul in a soul retrieveal context is interesting. As shown in Dollhouse, the super-personality that evolves after the piece of the soul has left can turn out well, or very poorly. In some ways, protecting the lost pieces of our soul, recognizing they are their and yearning to be whole again is a primary responsibility of the surviving soul.

But another paralell is the realization that Alpha nd Echo, after being imprinted with all their prior personalities, find themselves in the situation of being the consummate actor. Like we must do, they explore the lines between welf, and the masks that we wear for ourselves and the people around us. Assuming the personalities and masks we do is an important and powerful skill, but who are we when we allow ourselves to be.

I suspect that one of the reasons so many people work so hard to never be truly alone, is to avoid facing themselves. If we assume that the concept of soul division as postulated above is true, then perhaps many of us are living our lives as relatively mindless people, moving from one costume to another, filling the roles we must to survive and succeed, and tending to our inner soul, the escaped truth of self when we can, often scarcely.

Well that’s a depressing thought. I can’t keep my eyes open, you get where I’m going I’m sure.

Share the Gift.

I got an email from Lizzie this morning, in which she said “you’re one of the more narcissistic men I’ve ever met.” Before you rush to leap to my defense, realize that this isn’t an attack, just a fact.

My immediate response, even before I finished reading the email was to think, “You think I’m narcissistic now? Wait until I’m happier with my physical appearance.” It’s true. I’m a narcissist. I have been for most of my life. I love myself, even though I don’t always like myself or think I’m beautiful, I really love myself. At times, sometimes often, I am incredibly self centered and self-focused. And I primp and preen in any reflective surface on a pretty consistent basis.

Which brings up something that I’ve been thinking about off and on for a while now. I may have already mentioned this, but I don’t recall for certain. Given my innate narcissism, I wonder if one of the reasons why I’ve been overweight and picked on most of my life is because a healthy dose of self-loathing was something I needed to temper that narcissism.

I’m not one to generally be fatalistic, predeterministic, or as though everything in my life is an event manipulated by the hand of the prime mover. I’m not really feeling that way here either. But I do believe that the universe conspires to aid us. And I also believe it conspires to challenge us. And I do believe that our higher selves, the spirits we engage, and the gods we engage, do sometimes pull a string or two to help make us who we are.

It’s our choice how to react to those events. I can say with absolute surety that my self-loathing and self-hate has made me a far stronger person than if I hadn’t had to fight for the ability to love myself. I’m a much stronger person for my battle with my weight and physical health. And I’m less prone to letting my narcissism overwhelm me or take the most important spot in my life. And I’ll be honest about this, even with my self-loathing, there are times when my narcissism has overwhelmed me. There have been a few glamours that I’m not proud of, and even an occurance where the spirits stepped in and said “Fuck no.”

I wonder how the world would be different if more people looked at their natural inclinations and interpreted their challenges as related events. Or perhaps the other way around. Take the challenges we face, and look at how they have affected our natural tendencies. How has my struggle with self-worth interacted with my narcissism and my egotism. How has my struggle with discipline interacted with my innate talent for mysticism? How have these things shaped my spirituality? My Worldview?

Sometimes I think the biggest problem with the world is that people don’t seem to think about these things, ad the interrelationships of their lives. Time for work, gotta run.

Today foreknowledge is testing my patience.

I believe that what you do is important. But I believe that when you do it is just as important. Addressing conflict with someone when you’re both in a bad mood will likely have unpleasant results. Addressing that conflict at a different time may bring very different results. You may say the exact same things, go through the same process, but have radically different experiences.

For me, this is the core of patience. Knowing what to do is very easy. Knowing when to do it is much more difficult. For instance, I’ve never been good with money. In fact, I’m pretty lousy with it. I don’t value it very much, other than for the comforts and pleasures it can purchase in my life. As a result, I don’t live as frugally or carefully as I probably should. Knowing this, I also know that I need to make some adjustments to correct that pattern and become more responsible with my money. But when to make those changes, that’s an important question.

Before I go any further, let me be clear, I am a procrastinator. I tend to put things off. I’m not going to try and tell you that my ‘wait for the right moment’ strategy is the source of my procrastination. In fact, my habit of procrastinating sometimes makes this strategy very difficult to implement, because I have to discern the right moment and act immediately. I also have to be able to discern when I’m waiting because it’s not time yet, and when I’m waiting because I’m procrastinating. Needless to say, this can be very challenging.

So looking at my money challenges, there are two things that can alleviate them. One, making more. Two, spending less. Ideally both of these things can happen. There are lots of things I can do to address them. I can eat out less. I can put together a savings plan. I can trick myself, or put some of my money out of reach. I can look for a better paying job, or ask for a raise. I can start doing some more consulting work, or trying to make money in other ways.

The trick here is applying those possible courses of action at the right time. Now is not a good time to look for a new job. I could find one, but I’d be abandoning a lot of potential where I am now. It’s also not a good economic time to begin career hopping. Now is a good time to try and cut back on what I’m spending, so I’ve begun taking a good portion of my income and socking it away and not spending it unless I absolutely have to.

But now is not a good time to make my life more challenging by being too hard on myself. I’m very busy at work and I have several spiritual matters that are taking a great deal of my attention coming to a head in the next several weeks. Cutting back or adjusting my pattern too severely would hurt those other efforts, not to mention make it difficult to continue taking karate, and cultivating the new projects and relationships I’m trying to develop.

So I make some further plans for after the current events are resolved, and sit on them until then. Thus comes the waiting. Usually it’s not too bad, but sometimes it’s a major challenge in life. Who likes to sit around doing nothing and stare at an unavoidable event when you’ve already done everything you can to prepare for it? I’m feeling a lot of that right now.

One of the things that is also important to keep in mind, is that just because you’ve made a plan that you can implement later, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t review and adjust it as needed. Situations change. You may be able to implement your plan, or a modified version of it, sooner than you thought. Or you may have to wait longer. Sometimes I make several plans, and wait until a situation arises that one of those plans applies to, then I act.

This is all well and good for dealing with your finances, but where it really comes in handy is dealing with people. Perhaps another time I’ll share some of my thoughts or approach on that, but tonight I’m feeling tired and want to cuddle with my kitty.

That said, I have been thinking a lot about the different types of created spiritual beings and how I understand, interact with, and talk with others about them. So here is my partial list of the terms we were discussing today on Twitter, along with my definitions, conceptual uses, and conceptual inter-relations.

(On a side note, I will admit that sometimes I can’t think of interesting things to write about. If you ever note a topic or idea that I gloss over, or that just interests you let me know in the comments and I may elaborate.)

There are three essential types of created magical entities as I classify them. Servitors, Golems, and Egregores. I name them in order of the amount of consciousness or free will each possesses. Please note, these are fluid concepts. Servitors may have some aspect of free will, and Egregores may not have much at all.

A servitor is one of the primary types of magic that many chaos magicians work with. It is an artificial elemental, an astral being created for a specific purpose or use. Many people compare the energy and force of a servitor to a computer program. When it is created you give it certain rules that govern its behavior. When something happens, the servitor reacts in certain ways. The complexity of these rules generally governs how lifelike the servitors behavior appears. An important thing to note is that in many complex servitors the magician who has made them does not specify or define all the specific rules, but lays out a series of principles or measurements that the servitor will obey. The more complex or loose the rule set, the less predictable the servitor will be. Most servitors are given a name that somehow reflects or is composed of their purpose for being, and they are commonly controlled via the use of a sigil created with the spirit.

A golem is similar to a servitor in that it is often created by the work of a single magician, and often for a specific purpose. However, that purpose is often of a more general nature than the severely specific purpose of a servitor. Technically, a golem is a being from Jewish lore, created in the shape of a man and given a life of its own, remaining obedient to its creator/master. (One could delve into the Yaweh/man parallels for hours if one wanted to.) Most often a golem is made of clay, but it can be made of other materials. While I don’t think it’s required, traditionally a golem must be man shaped. If it’s not man shaped it is not a true golem, but some other type of quasi-living spiritual construct. The golem, and it’s non-man-shaped kin are interesting because they almost always have a physical representation or home to which they are irrevocably bound. Some magicians will create a physical home for their servitors, but many do not. A golem, unlike a servitor, generally has a sense of personality and a concept of self (albeit often very limited). As a result their actions and behaviors can be very unpredictable, but they are also much more resourceful and useful than your average servitor. A golem is generally created to serve a specific area of functions, such as keeping a house clean, or searching for job opportunities.

An egregore is both similar and dissimilar to servitors and golems. As with servitors and golems an egregore can be created either intentionally or unintentionally by either one, or a group of magicians. Unlike either a servitor or a golem, an egregore is usually fully ensouled, and serves in a much fuller capacity. The most common example of an egregore is what we often call group-consciousness. As individuals come together and form social circles or groups aligned with similar thoughts and purposes, the effort of their thoughts and will often manifests an egregore, which over time grows to guide and nurture that group of people, or that cause. When groups disband or fall apart the egregore often falls apart with them, which is one reason so many people feel a great deal of energy loss when they leave behind any tight-knit group of people, or worse, when that group of people self-destructs for some reason. (I’m currently facing this as one group of friends I’ve had for 6 or 7 years is slowly becoming a different type of group of friends. The group-consciousness is fighting against the changes that are happening, and occasionally making us miserable in the process.) An egregore can be created by one person for a specific purpose, and there are valid reasons to do so. When the creation is intended to serve for a very long time, or to fulfill a goal that has a clear outcome but no clear path, an egregore may be the right approach, as they are fully living beings (which don’t always have a physical manifestation, but if you’re creating one yourself definitely should).

One a related note to all three of the above. As a magician we put a lot of energy into our creations. We give them love, affection, and in many cases, life. That said, it is our responsibility as creators, to end their lives when the time has come. Creating any magical construct and then releasing it into the wild when you’re done with it is generally a very bad idea. The energy that you’ve given does not merely dissipate. It was formed and shaped, and if you’ve done your work well it will continue to try and fulfill its purpose. The more free will/consciousness the entity has, the more dangerous this is. Your creations will do whatever they have to do in order to survive, much like yourself. Do not underestimate them or allow them to survive beyond their purpose or usefulness. If you don’t know how to kill your creation a general rule is to go through the creation process backwards and banish with extreme prejudice.

I still feel alone. Often. Sometimes I feel as though my alone-ness will be the end of me. But these times seem to be growing less frequent with each passing year.

When I was a teenager, having only just begun to realize that I am called to something greater than myself, having just started to show painful signs of strong psychic talent, I spent a lot of time obsessing over my alone-ness. In fact, one of the oldest pieces of writing I have is this poem, written during that rather emo period of my life.

Alone

I am alone
I am here
sitting in the ashes of creation
destroyed by my own hand
Lying in the leftover muck of the universe
destroyed by my own hand

He left me
to do what was left to be done

He gave me strength
He gave me power
and will to use it
He left me to control myself
and that which I had no right to control

He left me to destroy myself
with my own futile efforts to save myself

I look back to where it began
I see the place that I often see in my dreams
The place I have looked back to a thousand times
The Beginning

But that is past
and I am left with my mistake

Alone
No more power to change
No more power to heal
No more power to give
No more power to live

I am alone
I am here
I destroyed what I had created
I destroyed,
Our Chance
In a single fit of futile rage at myself
and my own selfish mind

Destroyed by
My will
My freedom
My choices
My rage
My life
My hand
My mind
My self

Sitting in the ashes of my great accomplishment
Alive
Alone

I have no illusions about my skill as a poet, but there are words here that speak to me today, and though the final affirmation holds despair, I also detect a glimmer of strength. It’s a strength of purpose, of character that I would not come to find in myself for many years yet.

Alive.
Alone.

I’m fast approaching thirty years of age. Nearly twice as old as I was when I first wrote those lines. Am I any better off?

I destroyed what I had created.

In some ways my dismal prophecy has certainly come to pass. I believe it is the duty of all men to become who they are. In the process of individuation, of becoming myself, I have been many people and created many things. And to become the man I am today, I have had to destroy those other men and many of their creations.

Though I was not religious, I feel it is clear that I spoke both about my physical father, and the concept of father-god as I reference “he.” I was given many things by my father, and many blessings by the divine.

In the intervening years I have torn down, burned away, and annihilated the legacies I was given, and some of those I’ve created. The truth is, I’ve never really been alone. I have been always surrounded by the trappings of legacy and destiny. The two hand-me downs we all receive from our parents and the divine.

Maturation is the effort and process of learning to be alone in the universe. To be alone one must not be encumbered by the past or the future, although he must have knowledge of both.

And while I am not alone, and may never be, it is the struggle to become so that drives me.

And there we find the paradox that lies int he center of all things that are true. In becoming Alone, I am becoming less lonely.

I wrote yesterday, and I will write again: we often walk alone, together.

In the great journey, we are alone together.

I will not pretend to understand it. I reckon a conscious comprehension is beyond me, and far beyond my skill with a pen. But it is a great truth, and remembering it gives me a peace greater than death.

I’m in kind of an odd mood. I’m working through some shadows tonight. The moon is barely waning and already I am getting depressed. I’m not sleeping so well either. The next two weeks promise to be challenging. Which is good, but also hateful.

I wonder if it’s always this hard to reconcile self-perception with the perceptions that people have of you. The person I am can only be self-defined. If I am to have personal strength I can not let myself be defined by the people around me. I can not let ascribed motivations supersede actual motivations. Self-definition, self-awareness is the core of individuation.

I think I see a hole that a lot of magicians before me have stumble into. It has me caught because I haven’t found a way around it yet. Must everything be a tight-rope walk? It would be really easy for me to isolate my perception of self and deny the veracity of perceptions given to me by others. In the core of things, this must be the goal. Nobody else has the right or power to define or constrain the person I am.

But I have no desire to be alone in my life. I have no desire to estrange those few people close to my heart, and their feelings and thoughts are valuable to me. It’s hard to tell someone you love that you aren’t the person they think you are. Or that you aren’t acting from the motivations they place upon you.

It’s harder to try and take criticism or observation at face value and try to reconcile it with self-perception and memory. All perception is valid, even the perceptions of others. But what about perceptions that don’t reconcile, or don’t appear to reconcile in magnitude?

There’s no easy fix. I have to take what I’m given at face value and evaluate it’s place in my self-perception. How to change those perceptions that are inaccurate though? If someone brings something to my attention that is accurate it’s important to learn to observe it. That’s tricky but it is a matter of self-awareness.

But how do you change the perceptions of others that are inaccurate, and stem from their conceptual model of the person you are? I suppose people have been struggling with this since before the dawn of time. It’s hard to get a sexist to see an actual person behind the gender-identity they’ve assigned them. It’s equally hard to get a racist to see through the race-identity they expect.

Is it more difficult on a personal level? People create behavioral and identity models in their heads of all the people they meet. They use those models to interpret how you will react and how they should treat you. The accuracy of those models depends on the persons skill at creating them, the prejudices or blind spots that are in effect, and the rate at which the person they are modeling changes hir behavior. How can you break out of the models that people are placing on you gently? How can you be respectful and sincere, yet still let people know that they have some flaws in their model, or at least some dated components?

Like now, I was horny. I ordered the curry, not knowing that there were different types. I was remembering a curry that I had tasted at a Project Mercury movie night some months before. I know now that it was a panang curry. It’s still my favorite type.

Today I’ve ordered a panang noodle dish. It was quite tasty. I wandered around the city for a bit, looking for someplace to eat. I wanted to sit outside, but nothing with outdoor seating was readily available. I tried Bennigans, but the wait was long so I wound up here.

Food is a very important part of my life. Not just because I’m fat. I almost never feel guilty about eating, or even overeating. I enjoy food. It’s an experience for me. Not just eating, it, but the whole process. Growing up my family ate meals together. Dinner was the time of day where we all saw each other, no matter what else was going on. For most of my childhood eating dinner was one of those safe times.

Today food is still a refuge to me. I eat because it makes me feel good, safe, comforted. I go out to lunch or dinner with my friends and family because it’s a way of connecting. Of spending time together where we are each others focus and there is nothing to distract us. Out at a restaurant it’s especially nice, because there isn’t television or email to disturb us. We sit together at the table and enjoy company and food.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I like to eat as much as I do, sometimes to an unhealthy extent. Consciously, I know that I’m overeating, but it’s very hard for me to notice that I’m doing it until it’s too late. I don’t pay enough attention to it. When I start to eat I get wrapped up in the process, in the experience. I don’t stop to think about what I’m eating until after the meal is done.

I’m getting better at realizing before I’m overfull, but it’s not easy at all. It’s a constant challenge. I realized today that one of the reasons I make a point of leaving the office to go out to eat every day is that I need the break. I need that time away from my desk, away from my office and my coworkers just to recoup. I’m naturally an introvert. Spending the entire day surrounded by people isn’t easy for me. The discomfort of ordinary office environments and horrid flourescent lighting doesn’t make it any easier. Lunchtime is my time to go inside and ignore the world for a little while, and I value it.

I noticed today, that often when I go out to lunch, I’m not even really very hungry. I’m going out to eat just to get out, not really because I’m hungry or want anything to eat. Now that the weather is nicer I’m going to try just getting out and not going for food. I’m close to several parks, and a few museums. Maybe I’ll take my lunch break and hit up the museum of modern photography.

It doesn’t help that I’ve been rather absurdly horny for the last couple of days. Yesterday all I could think about was sex. Sex and violence. I wanted all day to grab some cute guy by his hair and bite down on his neck or shoulder, and scratch his back or chest. There is that smell of sweat that men have and women don’t. Women smell of the deep forest when they get heated. They smell of nature, of the earth. Men smell of heat. They taste like pain and a violent thunderstorm. The heat of a man is like nothing else in this world.

The pain is part of it. When a man is hurting he radiates heat and energy and scent. His skin starts to glow and sweat seeps from every pore. His eyes get glassy. If you hurt him enough he begins to make noises that people don’t normally make. Enough that his body shudders and squirms with energy that needs to be released. You can feel it boiling off his skin, puddling like sex on the floor at your feet. The smell of it can blind you to anything else, and there is nothing in your world but that heat.

I did mention that I’m horny right?

Going to dinner with John tonight, gonna meet all his on-campus friends. The ones that think Ceann Uide and his North-Side friends are some mysterious illusion, possibly dangerous. I don’t know that I’ll break them of their thoughts of danger, but they’ll figure out that I’m not illusion that’s for sure. I’m about ready for a nap already. I haven’t even gotten to work yet, and I’m ready to sleep. I am considering breakfast.

I also respect the will of a body of people, deeply and profoundly. That respect is not always made vocal, because too often I find that masses of people are stupid. But they have a right to their stupidity, as much as I might like to take it away from them, and they do not deserve to have their stupidity over-ruled by a well meaning overlord. It is an offense against their chosen path and the nature of their right to choose.

I’ve been thinking the last several days, about democracy and tyranny. What makes either of them functional? I’ve been thinking about how that applies to smaller units, like families and groups of friends. Take Ceann Uide. We practice a form of consensus in our household meetings, and in general development of our family. We use consensus to invite new housemates to live with us, and consensus to determine when a housemate or guest needs to leave.

There are times when I feel that’s a terrible idea. Usually when the consensus takes a turn that I’m not entirely comfortable with. This puts me in a very tough position. I’m sort of the unofficial patriarch of our family. My words carry a lot of weight, and I can be extremely persuasive if I put a little effort into it. When our discussion goes towards a river that is not to my preference I have to make a careful judgment. How forcefully do I speak out against this? Do I force a halt to consensus by refusing to explore the territory at all? Do I share my opinions strongly, or more fairly, as one member of our community.

I don’t believe I’ve ever chosen to halt consensus, but I know I’ve made forceful pushes in one direction or another. Normally though, I choose to allow consensus to do it’s work. I accept that though I have the power and influence to push our thoughts in a single direction, it is not my right to do that. It would be a breach of trust for me to override the consensual will of the group. And I have too much respect for the members of my family to do that. There comes a time when you have to cut the apron strings.

I began building this family on accident. And then with intent, strong and clear. And it has taken on a life of its own. As a result, I need to let that life take its own course. As with any parent, I will worry about the courses it takes from time to time. I will even be tempted to put my foot down and demand that something occur, or not occur. I hope that I can restrain myself though, because the family we’ve created deserves the chance to live it’s own life and make its own mistakes.I would like it to survive on its own, without me or George or Lizzie.

I would like it to be strong, having learned lessons from its mistakes, and it will not do that if It does not stand upon its own now, while it has a strong foundation and the ability to recover from injuries with a child’s speed of healing.

I can’t speak to the experiences of my family while I wasn’t around, but I can speak to my experience. Saturday the 2nd was technically Imbolg. But I had Mystery School, and everyone else had things to do. John and Elizabeth went to a ritual sponsored by Earth Spirituality Chicago held at the Occult bookstore. They said the guided meditation portion of it was amazing.

I had Mystery School all day. Eleven and a Half hours of Mystery School. Granted there was a communal dinner break in there, but that’s a lot of Mystery School. Have I mentioned that I’m a masochist? I love my mentors and fellow students, and I love experiencing and exploring the mysteries of our vocations together. There is little on this plane (perhaps kink) that I enjoy more. Then again, we have oft discussed the mysteries of our vocations in relation to, and inside the world of, kink. So maybe there isn’t anything I enjoy more.

I got home just before midnight on Saturday. The apartment was lit with candles that made the walls and floor glow. The hearth altar had new candles, beautiful pillars almost three feet high. Mark, in his generosity, bought them at Ikea earlier in the day, along with who knows how many other candles.

Mark, George, John, Shivian, and Elizabeth were all piled into pillows on the floor, waiting for their food to arrive and chatting. I was exhausted but felt renewed by the love that filled our home at that late hour. I, admittedly feeling a bit detached and unfocused, joined them and we communed for an unknown period of time. Then there was food, and I stole a piece of pizza, which was yummy.

John and I stayed up together in the living room talking philosophy as Lizzie slumbered and the rest of the boys watched “Into the Woods.” When we finally fell into bed around 4:30 I was pleasantly warmed and looking forward to the day ahead.

I got out of bed around 11 the next morning, feeling refreshed and aware. There was frost on the windows, and cool winter-light coming through the windows. We puttered around for a little. I cleaned and swept, and George made scones for breakfast.

This all seems rather dull, but if you’ve ever had the experience of sitting on the counter of the kitchen, laughing and and smiling, you understand why I mention it. Around two in the afternoon the cooking began. George wanted a feast. To the sound of Josh Groban, S.J. Tucker, Wicked, and Mika we danced and sang. John and I began to cut the beards of wheat off the stalks so we could make Brig’s crosses later that night. Lizzie had some adventures zesting fresh oranges with a cheese grater. George laughed maniacally as he poured half a bottle of cabernet sauvignon over the Seitan. We were awed when the corn/wheat/white-bread braided loaf came out of the oven, smelling rich and hearty.

We have a huge kitchen. It’s a dream. George complained that there wasn’t enough room. Again. We did a lot dishes throughout the day. All in all we managed to keep the kitchen relatively clean, even by the end of the night.

Josiah came home from Kelly’s, where he hadn’t slept well and napped for a couple hours. I was *this* close to waking him up with a snowball, but I didn’t want to get hexed. Mark and Shivian arrived around 6:00, and we began to prepare everything for the evening. We lit the living room/ritual room with candles, the Hearth altar glowed with a fire all its own.

We feasted, serving each other, pouring water for each other. We laughed and smiled more. Then we cleaned, moving seamlessly, and we sat and conversed until Frank arrived. Fresh from work, excited to be with us, to celebrate. We were eight now, and we cleared the room, moving into a circle as is habit.

We laughed at each other as we made our crosses of wheat, the moist stalks trying not to fold properly. We made offerings to the flames, and ground herbs together, sharing our intent for joy and happiness in the coming seasons. We made up chants, writing melodies and harmonies under the sounds of each others voices. The room grew warm, and the Goddess walked among us.

Brig came up through George, her words warm and sharp, like the fires of the spring and summer. But they wrapped around us, sharing her warmth and love, her blessings. She touched us with humor, with anticipation for the future, with the strength of our love and our community. When she left there was a moment of genuine sorrow that came through all of us. Then we let our love move around the room again.

We kissed and hugged. We shared our love and placed our gifts in their places. We separated and let ourselves move to our beds, sleeping. The sun was returning, and we slept in peace.

“I did try, but that’s not how I live. I don’t care anymore if you think that I was in the wrong. Sometimes things don’t work you and you know that it’s time to move on.”

Oh, I’m not feeling like it’s time to move on from any of my relationships right now. Now, but it is time to move on. It feels like it’s time to stop trying to live according to some of the rules that I’ve lived by for my whole life. I don’t even know where it came from, but there is this one rule that haunts me. It says that I have to try and make all the people around me happy. It makes my happiness partly dependent upon theirs. It makes it nearly impossible for me to claim my own right to act and choose independently of the people around me.

I think this was one of the big reasons I needed to move out of my parents house a little over two years ago. It wasn’t that I was unhappy there. I love my family. But I needed to try living on my own, where I wouldn’t be beholden to anyone else. That didn’t work very well. I have this nasty habit of taking in strays. No sooner was I living by myself than one of my brothers from the Brotherhood moved to Chicago and needed a place to stay. A few months later, he left, and I regret that I think I made him feel bad about my need to reclaim my private space.

George moved in with me about 7 months after that, and I haven’t lived alone since. Strangely I don’t miss it. I don’t think living alone is the goal anymore, although there are some moments when I wish I had more time to myself. Mostly I am glad for the company, glad for the new family that I’m building here. Tonight I am glad that Josiah is mostly leaving me alone with my thoughts. I need this space right now, and even though he’s right there, it is as though I am a million miles away, residing in my own bubble around my nice clean desk.

But back to the point. I was thinking — earlier today — about how much time I spend making sure that the people around me are happy. I don’t really begrudge these efforts, and the vast majority of the time I don’t even mind that people rarely notice how attentive and careful I am of them. I certainly put up the good front. I’m snarky, and bitchy, and quite a cunt when it pleases me to be so. It’s enjoyable to behave rudely for the common good. And it is for the common good. My bad humor, my off-color jokes, and my razor-sharp barbs are part of my method for keeping my family running smoothly. I make it okay for us to have faults. I make sure it’s okay to fail, to fuck up, and to do stupid things. Alex and I share this philosophy.

If you tell people that you love them, and speak clearly and directly about their faults, and continue telling them that you love them; they will come to accept their faults and accept that they are beautiful for who they are with no need to change or hide themselves from the world.

By teasing my friends and family about their mistakes, and by doing it tenderly, I strive to ensure they are strong. I strive to ensure that they accept every part of themselves, the good and the bad, so that when the bad comes up to challenge them, or when someone attacks them using their negative qualities against them, they will be prepared. They will know and accept their daemons, and they will decimate any who dare to try and use those shadows against them.

There is more too it of course. More than I could hope to share here. Ah, I must change the music now, this angsty rowdiness is not matching well with my current mood. Move to the background music playlist. Ah yes, very peaceful. Serene even. And of course the cat seeks my lap, “scoot” I say, pushing her to the floor.

There is more too it of course. I remember a few months ago. It was the night before some Brotherhood event that had been planned spontaneously, I’ll spare you the details. We were in the kitchen lazing about. Shivian, Lizzie, and I were talking, and Lizzie mentioned something about the next day, about the event. I realized that she hadn’t identified this as a Brothers Only event, and thought she was coming along. I hate being exclusive, and I wanted to make certain her feelings weren’t hurt, but I also needed to make sure she was aware of the miscommunication as soon as I could.

We continued to talk. Several minutes later, I took some conversational element, and stretched it a bit, I don’t recall what, but it was a stretch. I did it with the intent of being able to mention the next days events, and mentioning that they were Brothers only without seeming forceful or rude, without seeming to be targeting the information at Lizzie. It worked like a charm, and Lizzie popped out with the appropriate question, to which I dutifully responded something along the lines of “Oh no dear, I’m sorry, it’s members only tomorrow, we’re going to be doing some official work…”

I thought I had gotten cleanly away with it when Shivian called me on my verbal gymnastics and demanded to know how and why I had made that particular stretch of thought-patterning. Being out of tricks I explained myself concisely. “I realized Lizzie thought tomorrows event was public and I wanted some non-confrontational way of putting the information out there gently and conversationally, so I stretched my logic a little.”

Elizabeth seemed stunned, but recovered quickly. “I wanted to make sure I didn’t hurt your feelings.” I explained.

“I appreciate that, thank you.” She said.

Shivian, in typical fashion just stared at me. Incredulous. “I find it very hard to believe that that was your main motivation for that leap.” He said, or something in that vein.

“It was.” I replied plainly. I was a bit hurt that he would question my motivation. Until Shivian opened my eyes there, I had typically assumed that people around me knew how careful, diplomatic, and cautious I am. I figured people knew that I was always taking stock of their moods and feelings and conversations, and adjusting myself accordingly. I honestly never thought that they might not be aware of that. Shivian, cocoon smasher that he is, woke me up from that thought.

Of course now, I find myself a little bitter that people don’t recognize or appreciate my efforts. Even though some of my friends will probably read this, I wonder if they’ll really understand how often I make their lives easier by going with the flow instead of asserting my own preference? How often I am keeping score in my head and choosing one side over the other to balance things out?

And even as I write this, I’m not trying to get anyone to recognize those things. It would be nice, but if I wanted recognition for my work I’d do it to get paid. But sometimes, like today, I wish that people would be as attentive of me as I am of them. The most I can really ask is that they give me space when I need it.

Shivian said something to me over a year ago. It’s something that’s stuck with me, because it’s one of the first things another person has said to me, that really helps to define who I am. I’m a very lucky boy. I have been granted many gifts to share with my community. The gift of my language, the gift of my heart, the gift of my mind. I hold my gifts in trust for those I love.

Shivian was talking about my ability to be friends with a friend of mine who is chronically late. I responded as always “That’s just who he is. I acknowledge that, accept it, and make certain it doesn’t stand in the way of our friendship.” He said something like “Your ability to put up with peoples shit amazes me.”

I realized then that my greatest gift is not my mysticism; it is not the fire of the gods, nor the poetry of my language. My greatest gift is acceptance. I have an uncanny ability to see people for who they really are and accept them with no questions or need to change them. I will gladly urge my friends and family to better themselves, to transform themselves, to change their lives, and to change their worlds. But that urging never comes unasked. I will not urge a friend to change if he has not indicated he wants change.

As with anyone, I make errors of judgment here. It is hard to tell what is a cry for help and what is just bad behavior. I do the best I can, and I’m proud that people can come to me as themselves, and be accepted as themselves.

I don’t know where my point went, it seemed that I had one when I started typing. Something about needing to move on from the rules that I don’t have to follow. Yes, that was it. I don’t have to follow the ‘make people happy’ rule. I really don’t, but who would I be if I didn’t?

If I wasn’t the person that was constantly aware of the people around himself, who would I be? That’s a question that will only get answered in time, but I recognize that I can only follow that rule so long as it doesn’t hurt me. And when it hurts me I need to be brave and release my cohorts’ expectations of happiness. When it begins to hurt I have to treat myself with the same compassion that I treat those around me, and nurture the part of myself that gives me the strength to make them happy.

I’ll forgo the dull discussion of my 40+ hour work week. I’m in the middle of a career change, and so I spend my days at work filing and processing logistical things to help my successors deal with me when I’m gone. So ignoring my 6:00 to 4:30 job (this includes commuting time), I had a total of one evening free last week. Monday I attended the first of eight sessions of the Brotherhood’s Celebrant Training Program. Tuesday, I cleaned and tried to relax. Wednesday and Thursday I had 2-3 hour practice sessions with my fellow students of the Brotherhood’s Mystery School. Friday was the second session of the Celebrant Training Program. Saturday I had a meeting to begin planning for the Brotherhood’s winter retreat, and that evening was ShadowDance (from 3:30 to 11:00). After ShadowDance seven of us wound up at IHOP until 1:45 am. Yaaay for meeting cute new University of Chicago guys at ritual!

Sunday was my day off. I needed it badly, and though I got lots of relaxation time, I didn’t get as much time to myself as I had planned. I woke up at about 11:30 in the morning, and after staring blankly at the computer for about 45 minutes George, Lizzie, and I left to have Lunch with Shivian, Mark, and our new college friend at Lulu’s. Delicious dim sum. George, Lizzie, Mark, and I, returned with Shivian to his place where we relaxed for a couple hours; digesting as Shivian culled some books and embossed a bunch of others. He likes to emboss.

We met Frank back at Ceann Uide (our apartment), and snuggled up in the living room to watch ShortBus. (If you haven’t seen it, rent it. It’s a must see movie for everyone. John Cameron Mitchell is a genius!) The inevitable biting, licking, wrestling, and clothespins followed. Don’t ask unless you really want to know. Then dinner at Leona’s on Sheridan. Then home, more blank staring at the Computer, then sleep.

If all that wasn’t enough, Shivian and I are also working very hard on a super-secret project, bringing in some of the rest of our family as well.

This week is Thanksgiving. I don’t even want to begin to try and imagine the schedule that is going to rise out of this. Shivian’s Birthday is Tomorrow. Celebrant Training tonight. Thanksgiving Thursday. Celebrant Training on Friday. Brotherhood Party on Saturday.

But I’m sitting here, still awake, still alive. I’m surviving. There are moments when I feel like I’m never going to survive the responsibilities that I’ve taken to myself. But I stop and think about it. I’m already surviving them. I’m already doing the work that I need to do. I’m already living a healthy balanced life.

So I’m going to try to focus on the details. I’m going to focus on my to-do list, and not on the big picture, because focusing on the big-picture right now will make me run for the hills.

Update: I bowed out of dinner tonight and tonights class. I absolutely needed some time for myself. I gave my desk and the study a real good twice-over cleaning, and then took a nice long shower to clean myself up. I feel much better. Not quite up to actually dealing with people, but somewhat human.