autumn twilight
… where the water meets the sea, between the worlds, within the void …autumn twilight
… where the water meets the sea, between the worlds, within the void …the discipline of the body
I’ve been a practicing magician for over a decade now. I have a lot of experience, knowledge, and some very serious training under my belt. In that time I’ve learned a great many things. Many of them are things that I don’t know I know. Such is the way of the world.
These things often seem to crop up when you least expect them. Someone says something, or asks a question, and you respond with the perfect answer as though it were on the tip of your tongue. And there is no doubt that you know exactly what you’re talking about. I’ve had these experiences off and on since I was a child. There are a lot of time when I can’t really explain how I know something, or how I learned it. I just do and I just did.
With time we learn to trust ourselves. We recognize the truth in our own understanding, even if we don’t know from whence it comes. I have lots of theories as to why we have access to this knowledge and skill, but that’s a topic for another day.
One thing I’m remembering lately concerns discipline. Discipline is something I’ve always lacked. I’m a procrastinator to say the least. I’m also a computer programmer, which means I’m inherently lazy like you may not believe. George, John, and I often have small shocks when we recognize just how lazy we can be. There is a sense of pride and accomplishment, and definite respect for eachother when one of us does something blindingly lazy.
I’ve struggled for years to fight against my talents for laziness and procrastination. It’s a losing battle. I can do things consistently for a period of time. But eventually the discipline breaks down. The biggest thing at work here is that I know that the discipline isn’t really adding a great benefit to my life. In fact, it usually takes great effort and gives little reward.
I’m realizing though, that discipline is one of those odd things that comes in many packages. Like strength, discipline does not need to be about structure, or organization, or rigidity. The very core of discipline is the practice of a technique that maintains a defined system. This does lend itself to the simple, carefully engineered approach of a semi-rigid design with clearly defined and carefully tooled give at each control. But the obvious approach does not need to be the only correct approach.
The fundamental challenge with traditional discipline is that it breaks down when the environment around it changes. Some people are great at dealing with change and adapt quickly. Lots of others have more trouble. Think for a minute what would happen to one of our automobiles if we tried to run it in an environment with twice the gravity of Earth? Or half? The very carefully structured system would probably degrade and cease to function very quickly, if it worked at all.
What if discipline could be more fluid than we normally understand it to be? I live in a magical world. I believe that everything is possible, and that the rules we obey today may be very different tomorrow. Traditional behavioral discipline can not flourish in a mental model that cherishes fundamental changes as much as mine does. And so I’m questioning the value of traditional discipline.
The discipline of the body is a concept that is floating around in my head. It’s not about behavior, or specific roles or patterns. Trying to make my life too structured always results in depression and feelings of failure. Instead, it’s about creating a physical vessel that can function smoothly no matter what the environment becomes. Towards that I’m trying to become healthier. I’m trying to make better eating choices, and I’m working out 2 – 4 times a week in general. I’m learning about my body and realizing that it has to be a self-sustaining reality obedient to it’s own rules. This is the nature of balance, and the discipline of the body.
red thread
Red thread winding into a ball, gathered up from the thorns and snags of the trail. Her disappearing skirt a fleeting wish upon the horizon as we chase.
My cunning is our only guide. My cunning and this thread, which twists through impossible brambles and spans canyons daunting to even the most aspiring of bridges.
A turning inside the labrinth of life, a wall realized and struck, branching inward from solid external walls. Fire principle in Water principle, the ever-shattering fractal of creation.
Nirvana is to abandon the water principle and find balance in the heart of the fire. Where it only burns, and it’s radiance is even and still.
Samsara, the nimble swimmer who remains in the cool waters of Netzach, untouched by the fire that swells and pushes.
The mage stands upon the border of their battle, harmonizing their music and learning from it, even as he teaches it to dance.
Tears 2008 12 19
Even the Benu
cries
upon immolation.
Winter 2008 12 19
Crunching beneath the snow;
Frozen. Snapping things and
once green leaves now aflame but
Frozen.The season has revolved.
Descended into darkness and arisen.
Turning.
Anger burns in our hearth,
and metaphor becomes clumsy
and sophomoric.
But plain speech does not
convey meaning.
an open letter to the gay community
I’ m more than a little upset right now. Not this moment, at least not uncontrollably in this moment. But overall, I’m very very angry. I’ll tell you why, even though you probably don’t want to hear it. Proposition 8. I’m furious about it, but not for the reason you may think.
Sure I’m distressed that California voters passed a discriminatory bill into their constitution. I’m even a bit angry about it. But what’s really got me steaming mad is the gay communities reaction to it. I expected anger and protests. I expected a legal challenge. I didn’t expect the seemingly endless mind-numbing rage and fountain of virulence that seems to have overtaken the gay population. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear about an attempt to boycott a business whose ceo gave money to prop 8, or angry rants about so-called traitors who aren’t supporting those boycotts, or rescinding performance rights to their music. Next all the gay interior decorators will be expected to go to the homes they’ve decorated and trash them in recompense for the legal injustice done in California.
Today the hot topic is the pastor giving the invocation at the inauguration in January. Apparently he’s against gay marriage, and the gay community feels his selection is a betrayal by president-elect Obama. I’m confused as hell, because I can’t make my brain see it that way. It seems completely unrelated to me.
But all that’s beside the point. The thing that really makes me angry is the shift of our consciousness from trying to protect our rights and achieve legal equality and parity, to trying to punish people who don’t share our goals.
We used to protest in front of City Hall, or the White House, or another government building. We used to march through the streets to make people aware of us and our message. We used to tell people about the injustices and struggles we endure.
Now we’re boycotting a movie theater, rescinding performance rights, attacking religious leaders for their beliefs, and condemning our newly elected president-to-be for level-headed equitable decisions and solutions.
I just don’t understand this need to punish people. I don’t even understand the true anger. I wish the Mormon Church hadn’t worked so hard to take away the right of homosexuals to marry in California. I don’t understand why they did. But I’m not really angry at them. A bit sour perhaps. Truth is, they are doing what they believe to be right, and I can’t fault them for that. As far as I know, they didn’t break the law, and if they did that should be addressed legally. But trying to punish them for their beliefs is just another type of opression, and it’s every bit as virulent and ugly as the struggle that homosexuals have every day of our lives.
It is not my right to mete out punishment for another persons beliefs or actions. I’m not going to boycott Cinemark because their CEO supported prop 8. What he did was legal according to our laws, and I don’t want think it’s right to try and punish the company for that. If they were firing glbt employees in a state with a protection law I’d probably feel much differently. But they aren’t.
This sort of vigilante justice makes us look petty and it takes our focus away from the battles we should be fighting. We will never have equality until everyone really believes that we are deserving of it. The legal system can not grant us equality. If it could we would no longer have such inequality for african americans or women. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to change our legal code to ensure equality for all, but we can’t sacrifice our principles in order to do so. We can’t hunt down the non-believers and burn them at the stake. We can’t attack people for exercising the very rights that we are exercising in our fight for equality.
In love,