There comes a time that you make a choice that changes the entire course of your life and that choice isn’t all white picket fence and fairy tales of rose petals and candle lit paths to the altar of bliss.
That choice is, do I want to be the hero in my story, or the victim?
That choice is, do I come clean with myself and be honest with my dealings, or continue to delude myself and dissuade others from looking too closely?
That choice is, your truth against the world that leads to self-respect and growth, or acquiescence to the crowd to be the next ‘pick me’ they choose?
Some of us choose the path of least resistance, is that the path that will fulfil you, never making waves or a difference?
Some of us choose to fight the natural order uphill our entire lives, to our own detriment and then burn with bitterness at the end of our lives, is that your chosen destiny?
Some of us will choose to lose ourselves in conspiracy theory and flights of fancy, never looking deep enough to see beneath the plot because that destroys the mystery and takes away the thrill of the unseen. Will you wear the tin foil hat?
Some of us will bury ourselves in work and self-soothe with illicit behaviors until we are simply a former vestige of what could have been.
The rare few seek “true freedom” and enlightenment, so many of us follow this or that ideology, the guru or master, the shepherd or the wolf. The reason that this path is rare, is because it requires you to be brutally honest with yourself and others, and unfortunately that honesty will garner you hatred and mountains of ill will, because rarely do people want you to be their mirror. They do not want to see themselves as they truly are, they resent being reminded of their weaknesses and frail humanity, when in truth we all fall prey to those instances. They will work through micro aggressions to even a score against you that only exists in their minds. They will call you dark, they will demand you fit in, that you join, that you need discipline and structure and they will deride you to anyone who will listen. Let them.
Most of us who walk the Adversary’s path are working to rout out our own weaknesses, to shore up our human shortcomings and evolve toward enlightenment, it is the shadow we throw that drives others to attack us, rather than any perceived shade. We are not here to judge, we are a mirror. We are not the go-along-to-get-along folks, even though our outward countenance is approachable and warm, some call it the public face, but that countenance stems from a deeply held belief that we don’t commit injury first, we only defend what is intrinsically ours, our person, our fire. We are uncompromising not to be difficult, but because the inner flame is our top priority, we nurture it and honor it in ways that are difficult to express to those who are fed by social norms and constructs, as we are quite happy left to our own devices in solitude. It has been my experience that most people find that type of person threatening. Many times my kindness toward others has lulled some into believing that it belied my weakness or gullibility, I’ve witnessed their shock when I set a hard boundary, full stop, very suddenly to their minds, they never account for the transgressions that led us here. Kindness is the progression from pain and deep hurt to understanding and compassion, some never make that connection. They’ll assault everything about you, your character, your upbringing, your choices, even your person… Keep going, it’s their insecurity with themselves that causes them to fear.
This path is about finding actual truth, finding the center and moving seamlessly through the chaos not attracted, or repulsed by it, recognizing the patterns to foresee outcomes and avoid, or face head-on, situations that might damage our frail, human psyche. We hone our will into a tool that benefits the ecosystem we have created around ourselves and when we find an imbalance therein, we either work to heal it, or remove it so that it doesn’t poison the entire biome.
This approach applies to people and toxins alike, for instance I have cut out all drug use, sacred and otherwise, knowing there’s a time and place for those particular plant ceremonies and they are not meant to be a crutch but rather a tool, along with realizing over time, that I have a all too human frailty, an addictive personality. One of my tools is recognizing my own patterns, if I notice I am becoming too embedded in whatever has my attention at the moment and I am forsaking the things that life requires of me such as caretaking of the home and self-care, I put those things away, out of sight and reset by finding something productive to do. I plug my rabbit holes when I keep tripping on them, I will return to that work later when my mind is more quiet.
It’s the same with people, if I find I keep having to tread the same issue with them over and over, I realize that my attentiveness to them has become their pacifier, as well as their impediment to progress and I move on. When they regale you over and over with the same woes, the same complaints and have taken no steps toward resolution, you are not supporting, you are enabling, thus creating a toxic environment within your sphere of influence which not only leads to no resolution for them, but weakens your influence upon your own workings, it becomes a vampiric drain on your energy and time. Again they will demonize you, cry that you did some injury to them by cutting them off, let them wave the finger and rail at the light, leave open the possibility for growth and reconnection but don’t engage in deluding yourself because they preyed upon your empathy, lock that down and let them demonstrate growth before you unlock the door.
I hear a lot of lip service given to working with shadow, but very little evidence that the many are working with their own shadow, facing their self-imposed or culturally imprinted impediments which are compromising their growth. Working with or talking to the dark divine is not shadow work, shadow work is routing out the fractured patterns of the past buried in your psyche, learning what part those fragments played in your becoming and deciding if they’re protective structure or crumbling architecture that you keep tripping over in the dark. Work that angle first and then create your relationship with the dark divine, anything else is just you asking for more damage, more psychological fracturing that takes flights of madness in your physical life.
There is nothing that irritates me more than the abuse of the dark divine, and just for the record, I see nothing as dark or light, black or white, good or evil, energy is energy period, full stop. Deluding yourself that you must be all love and light, or spooky dark and lovely is just that, deluding yourself and quite frankly cheating yourself out of any actual chance of communing with the sacred. I’m quite comfortable in the sacred night, after all, from darkness is where the seed grows. There has been such a disservice done to practice from both ends of the spectrum all in the name of control (gatekeeping), fear and fantasy. Try cultivating relationships, start with your ancestors and then work with the divine who fascinate you. Don't be the impediment to your own progress by approaching relationships with the divine while carrying a set of rules that don’t apply. The rules you’re following were inserted by humans seeking to control the conversation and ultimately conceal the path from all but the few, they place ‘grades’ or ‘steps’ as an impediment in the structure of your learning and call it discipline. The laws of nature will remind you when you’ve overstepped, so forge your own path, live to learn and live to ascend, no masters needed, because truth be known, there are no experts of the divine walking among us because just like relationships with humans, relationships with the divine vary widely from experience to experience among practitioners. The fearless few who approach the divine without the fear and the idea that they can control that which is eternal, are those who will develop life long relationships that carry over beyond the here and now.
Em Hotep,
Tay