Just rolled out a new theme I spent the last 2 days developing. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Moon in Virgo. I’ve been exceptionally productive. There’s still lots to get done, but the new year is starting out on a fair positive note. I’m not feeling stressed about money a whole lot, and none of my responsibilities are feeling very overwhelming at the moment.

I’ve been in the mood to write, but haven’t had a lot of things to say the last couple of weeks. A lot of that is simply that I feel kind of out of touch with the world at large. I’m not sure why that is, but I don’t feel as though I’m really connected the last few weeks to a month. I think this is a larger feeling connected with some of what the Brotherhood is going through at the moment. I feel as though I’ve been insular, and lost contact with the world around me.

That isn’t really true, but that’s how I feel. I think I need to spend more time with other people and be more social. Not in the demanding way, that would be a disaster, but just doing more out of the house. That’s a goal for the year, but I’m not going to get very far while the weather is this cold. The cold doesn’t generally bother me too much, but I don’t like getting to and fro in it.

I’m also thinking a lot about my talents and the things that are important to me. I have been really feeling drawn to working with kids the last month or so, and I’m trying to understand how that fits into it all. I don’t have any desire to be a therapist or teacher of children, but their rights are really important to me. There is a part of me that is constantly aware of how unjustly we treat our youth. Perhaps it has ever been this way, but I think we do them and the world a great disservice by treating them as lesser adults. I’ve never been comfortable with our, to my mind, arbitrary division of life stages and the expectations we place upon people in different phases of their lives. There is such panic consistently in our cultural consciousness about protecting our children, about taking care of them properly, about so many things. I can’t help but feel that this level of cultural obsession is not only overkill, but ultimately poisonous to our children and our civilization.

For instance, the obsession with letting kids be kids and not burdening them with the weighty thoughts of adulthood. I am not so old that I don’t remember being a kid. From a very early age I was aware that my family often had trouble with money. So much so that with a few exceptions I always tried not to nag my parents for expensive things. I suspect you have your own memories of things you were aware of and that affected your decision making and behavior. This does not mean our parents didn’t properly sheild us from these things. The idyllic childhood where we are carefree beings doesn’t exist. I don’t think it ever did. It’s a myth we continue to perpetuate, and it places unrealistic expectations upon parents and children.

A lot of the things that bother me come down to something that bothers me in the grand scheme of things. We, as a race, seem to be unwilling to think about the principal meanings behind our behaviors. We seem to avoid even thinking about why we do things, and what those things mean about our ideals. The second part is perhaps worse than the first. It’s bad that we don’t think about things. But that we don’t extrapolate meaning from our actions is terrible in my mind.

Take a common circumstance. The germaphobe who won’t shake hands. I’m not picking on a person who has this practice, but it’s generally understood that if you refuse to shake someones hands because of germs you’re pretty much saying they have dirty germ-ridden hands. This isn’t a hard concept to grasp. We see it in social situations all the time, and the same thought process extends to all sorts of backhanded compliments and quirks of behavior. Most of these things we write off. We know the germaphobe is not trying to insult us by refusing to shake hands, so we let it go. But the truth is, the behavior speaks clearly to a belief the germaphobe has: “All people are dirty and will make me sick.” This may or may not be true. There are plenty of people with weak immune systems who may very well pick up illnesses left and right from such casual contact. The truth of the belief isn’t important. The belief is.

I carry a messenger-bag style laptop case most days. The flap of this case has a zipper compartment on the outside. I tend to throw items like books in there where I can get at them easily. I typically don’t zip it up unless it’s raining. Often I clip my blackberry to the inside of it so I can get to it without much work. It loads from the top so I’m not worried about things falling out of it.

Often, the bag rides in my lower back, so it’s behind me, out of sight. Still, I’ve yet to have something fall out of it, or someone steal my random book or my blackberry. Two years, no attempted robberies or accidental losses. In that time however, I’ve had at least a dozen people pull my book out and give it back to me to demonstrate that leaving it open is dangerous. An equal number have come up and zipped it closed for me while telling me “Your bags open,” operating on the assumption that I must have just forgotten to close it. I couldn’t possibly want my stuff so accessible.

This says a great deal about the mindset of our culture. Whether we express it or not, we live our lives in an almost perpetual state of fear. Fear that we’re going to be robbed, or that we’re going to suffer loss. The fear is bad, but just as bad is the fact that we never challenge that fear or stop to think about it rationally. Is someone really going to steal a paperback novel out of my bag? Or an ancient blackberry worth maybe $5? Or a hairbrush?

This “close your bag” behavior is rampant. It’s interesting because of what it says about people. One one hand it indicates the obsessive and constant fear they experience, not just on their own behalf but nobly, on behalf of others. But it also says something about what they think of me. The “I could have stolen your book.” approach tells me that they think I’m being careless with my property, that I’m not obeying the fear-compulsion properly.

It indicates to them naivete on my part, or disregard. That’s not entirely inaccurate. I am not terribly worried about someone stealing my book. If someone feels compelled to steal a badly written novel they must have more need of it than I do. I am certainly naive about this in some lights, or perhaps I just have a strong conviction that is counter to their own. I certainly avoid obeying the fear-compulsion. (When I had a car, I did lock the doors, however I don’t lock the door of my apartment.)

The thing that bugs me the most here, is what that fear-compulsion says about us. It says that we should mistrust each other, that we should fear each other, and that most people are not just not looking out for us, but are actively out to destroy us. I don’t believe that. I think a lot of people don’t believe that. If they don’t much of their behavior makes no sense and they should change it. But the connection from principle to practice is too weak to convince most people to change their behavior.

Sad truth is, most people don’t believe that their day to day behaviors, the standard ones like zipping up their bag and crossing the street to avoid the four teenagers on the corner, have an impact in a larger sense. I believe, deeply, that it is those smallest behaviors that define our lives. They govern the largest part of our experience, and are in some ways more defining because of it. Someone who abuses their child verbally on a daily basis is not absolved because he donates a large sum to a childrens advocacy group. It’s the things we do every day that determine who we are, and so those little things deserve as much attention as the big ones. Perhaps more.

The practice of the Art is different for every person. As a result, it falls upon every student to explore and assert his understanding. It is your own experience that defines your relationship with Power, and that relationship will change over time. It is upon the teacher to understand and nourish the development of that relationship, and to allow the student proper license to become.

It is perhaps the greatest and most common of sins a teacher can commit, to inhibit the students growth by assembling around him a system of reinforcement that restricts growth to the manner the teacher desires. Not just in the Art is this true, but in all things. An environment of learning must be a sandbox where the rules of nature and life may be tested and explored. Too much structure and the student does not learn to perceive the natural laws on his own. Too little structure and the student does not learn to communicate those laws.

Nature gives us the opportunity for this learning if we will allow it. Students are generally inferior to their teachers in many ways. A child is less strong, less fast, but more difficult to damage. This has not only an evolutionary benefit, but allows children the lattitude to explore their world with less risk of harm to themselves or those around them. So it is with the student of the Art. A new practitioner is less able to harness powers that will do upset to his life or the lives of others. He is protected by his inexperience and is less easily damaged because he is less easily influenced by the forces he seeks to control. (This is in some circumstances not the case.)

Knowing that our children, our students, are less likely than our teachers to do damage to themselves or others, and less likely to be damaged in general, it is absurd to impose a set of rules upon them that is structured to our own discipline. Better for them to play in the sandbox, to discern the natural shapes their hands make of the world, to understand the way the sand behaves when wet and dry, to make simple mounds and towering spires.

And from this play one can determine the character of the student, and evaluate his nature and suitability. Does the student discern those natural laws? Does he experiment with different consistencies of sand? Does he recognize results and is he able to replicate them? Does he, instead of learning, simply reuse the same buckets and molds to make the same tired sandcastle day after day? How does he behave in a sandbox with other students. Does he lift them up or tear them down? Does he sabotage their efforts? Does he keep what he has learned to himself or share it?

As teachers, it is only by observing this behavior in an unrestricted environment that we can determine the character of our students and whether or not they are suitable for deeper teaching. I do not say now that students should be accepted and then abandoned after some flaw is found. Our duty as teachers is not to find the best and improve them, but to aid in the growth of all who come to us. Unless there is strong cause a student should never be dismissed. He should be nurtured and helped along his path with care and attention. If his character makes him unsuitable for what he wishes to learn, you must offer him the opportunity to alter himself, to grow into the person he wishes to be.

If a student wishes to be a teacher, but guards his own discoveries jealously, assign him to teach the fundamentals he was taught. Show him how to release the posessiveness he has for his knowledge. Encourage him to write about his understandings and knowledge, and share those words with others. If a student wishes to be a priest, but lacks compassion, assign him a course of denial in some way, make of him an ascetic first, and then a healer. Let him minister to the dying, to the hungry, to the cold.

There is no time frame upon these studies. The student will learn the lesson and his character will be what is required for his desire, or his desire will change. In this, you too must be changeable. Your perceptions are your own, and you must determine their vailidity constantly. Too, a teacher must not let the past cloud the present. The goal of the Art is always change. Holding on to the past too firmly, refusing to forgive or release, does not serve this goal. Nor does it serve the student, or the teacher. We know that we are not the same as we once were. Allow the student that same change. Remember who he once was, but see also who he now is.

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The necessity of motion:

Our Art is one of change. To change, one must be in motion. Power forced to stillness corrodes the vessel that carries it. In our spirit we must be calm and still, but in our power we must always be in motion. Our Power must always move, even when we are waiting for fullness. Stopping that flow impedes us and the nature of our Art.

We must be motion, as fluid and graceful as the mighty benu bird, settling upon a golden capstone. We must be motion, as fierce and undeniable as a tidal wave. We must be motion, vital and alive. absorbing and expelling the light at all times.

When one is in motion without stillness of spirit, he acts recklessly and without foresight. His plans come to ruin for their repurcussions.

When one is in motion with stillness of spirit, he acts with knowledge and awareness. His Art is given grace.

When one is still and is without stillness of spirit, he does not act but slowly dies. His Art will turn upon him and and chase the soul away if it can.

When one is still and has stillness of spirit, he is consumed by fear and doubt. His Art will die in his hands, and his heart will wither. He is as a mundane, but will always long for his Art.

In the stillness of spirit we understand. We know. In the motion of power there is change and light. By letting the power free of its shackles and maintaining stillness of spirit, the Power simply moves, it gives us the balance to Will, to Create, and to Change. Trust the Power. Trust that it will be there, that it will flow through you and mate with the nature of what is. Power is not a quantity that can be captured and reserved. It is not a commodity or a resource, but a fact of being. And we must be with it.