Well, here we are again, then.
I don't have any specific message from the spooks to relay at this point, although I soon will.
What's been happening? Well... it's complicated. A couple of days after that last entry, I entered a sort of spiritual crisis. A rough outline is avaliable on my Livejournal,
here.
In essence, I have converted--or rather, I am in the process of converting--from Chaos-magician-with-a-side-of-Reiki'n'spooks to Northern heathenry. My polytheistic outlook has been gradually firming up for years now, and could reasonably be described as "hard."
One thing's for sure: I'm never going to bitch about M-L and R-M-L being pushy again. I hadn't begun to see "pushy" until this thing kicked off... I can't say I've been finding the process easy, kind of the reverse. Actually, I'm finding it totally overwhelming. Things are getting easier, very slowly, but I'm also acutely aware of the fact that I'm entering new and perilous territory here. I'm being pushed along pretty fast.
I hope to have an update from the guides soon, like in couple of weeks or so. I'm still in communication with them (when they can get a word in edgeways).
After wrestling with the idea for a long time, I've made tentative inroads into selling tarot card readings online. It's something I'm actually very good at but I've always had issues with taking money for that kind of work.
Anyways, me and my conscience had been at it hammer and tongs over the matter for a couple of days and I decided to ask the guides what they thought. M-L reminded me of some advice he'd offered previously:
Accept your gifts with grace and use them with wisdom.(Heavy emphasis on "use them!")
Of course, in this instance he was talking about my ability with the cards, which is pretty solid if I do say so myself as shouldn't. However, this could apply to any skill--musical talent, say, or training in a craft. What he indicated to me was that if you're doing something you're good at, if you are offering something to the world
with love, then it's okay to ask for something in return: not just obvious stuff like money or goods but intangibles such as respect and approval.
What are your gifts, friend? How will you use them?
Right then.Yes, well. Umm.
The guides are still here and still talking to me. Everything went a bit fuzzy over Chirstmas/the New Year because, well, drunk. It's always harder to tune in when I've had a few. (I got a very stern warning that if I didn't put a sock in it I might lose contact altogether, indefinately. A sock was duly put.)
Then for the last couple of months I've had a massive upsurge in the perceptual distortions associated with my epilepsy: visual disturbances, really feral synesthesia, sense of scary invisible people hanging around in my flat, ect. Besides that I've had the spirit of the Red Book coming online without being asked, which is an issue--he/she/it is most unpleasant. Then--and this is a bit embarrassing to admit--it rather seems as though someone in my life (no-one who's likely to be reading this, I hasten to add) decided to interfere with my magickal and spiritual work. I was getting all kinds of subtle and not-so-subtle messages about this from various sources, which I studiously ignored because I assumed I was being paranoid and egomaniacal. I'm pretty sure it's all dealt with now, though.
I don't know when I'll have an actual update for you guys. I seem to have lots of different people/things trying to talk to me at once; it might take a while process the new input and set up new filters. It'll come, though.
Laters. The spooks send Love.
Sorry for the lack of updates. There's been a lot of upheaval in my life over the last month or two, and I have been in entirely the wrong mental state to talk to the guides. I've been getting a lot of "interference" when I try to talk to them: stress, anxiety, thought intrusions, ect.
The last communication came through in June, but due to a varitey of screwups I didn't post it. Here it is....
Hokayy... so the day this came through I was remembering some not-so-laudable things I’d done in the past and experiencing guilt and shame regarding these memories. It got to the point where I was being floored by those feelings, overwhelmed, so I asked the guides to help me.
Here’s what they had to say on the subject of guilt. As usual,
bold is them, plain text is me.
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Hullo.
We greet you. We were speaking of guilt. Please write this down, for we would have you share it.
Guilt is in no way an evil thing. It is the response of the heart to to the knowledge that one has, or is doing, wrong.
It is pain, and like other pain it exists to prevent harm, to alert us to damage. As pain makes the hand start back from the flame, so guilt makes us start back from doing harm to another.
However, to suffer guilt in itself is without meaning unless the lessons of pain are learned. One must not give in to idle guilt, unclean guilt; for to flagellate the self is idle. Turn from such action. Let pain guide you away from harm; let guilt guide you into more worthy things: Compassion, generosity, redemption.
Do not give yourself to guilt. Seek repentance, seek to make amends. Where no amends can be made, seek to add more weight to the scales of your life, that the good may balance out the ill.
It is not enough to suffer idly, to berate the self with harsh words or to belabor the self with blows. No good can come from these things.
[This next bit is sort of like blank verse. I suspect it’s being offered for magicak/meditative use, so I’m going to memorise it. It’s all a bit obvious, but I think it’s pretty.]
Learn from your guilt.
When you have been selfish and feel guilt: tomorrow, be generous.
When guilt comes from cruelty: tomorrow, be kind.
When guilt comes from idleness: tomorrow, do good works.
When guilt comes from a cold heart: tomorrow, be be loving.
And in all things, be at peace.
Okay, this is even more humiliating than usual, and you're all going to think I'm complete git when you're done reading. I really don't want to post this, but I've got to.
Thing is -- and this is the part that soulds really pathetic -- a month or so back I was stood out on the landing, watching the sunset, and I asked the guides for a prophesy. They were well into the idea and started saying stuff about an incident involving a train. I didn't pursue the line of enquiry because I knew I'd never actually report it in case I was wrong, but they reiterated the train incident thing several times, very clearly.
I was on the train yesterday, heading for the anti-terrorist vigil in Barcelona. I was feeling like I needed to make contact with something bigger than me, something more powerful, so I took out my notepad and called up the guides. I asked if they had any advice, if they could tell me what I should be doing.
They immediately brought up the train thing and said that
that is what I'm supposed to be doing in relation to such events: listening to the guides, reporting back to the world. Shaman, messenger, scribe. It's bittier and more fragmented than usual because I was generating a lot of anxiety noise and having a hard time hearing the guides.
Thing is: I don't trust this whole prophesy thing. Not because I don't trust the guides -- the gut feeling I get in relation to them is wholly benign. No, what I mistrust is my ability to retrive and relay information accurately. I also mistrust my ego: say I am right, say I get it right once or twice -- what if I start craving success so badly I make stuff up in my own head?
And this looks... you know, typing it out, it looks really lame. Like I'm using this horrible, horrible thing that's happened to puff myself up into something I'm not.
So anyway, those are my fears, and here's the conversation. Plain = me,
bold = them.
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Help me out here. What should I be doing?
We warned you, did we not?
Yes, you did. But that aside: what should I be doing now?
Report this warning wherever you think appropriate: This is only the first. There will be three such calamities. More are to perish.
This is in Europe?
Yes.
When?
Not more than one year hence. Expect the first in August, the second in winter's darkness.
August, and then sometime in winter?
It is fixed in flame, dear one. 15th of August. Beware.
Where?
The land of the tower of steel. [Sketchy; not hearing them clearly.]
Not helpful. What, is that Paris?
[Even sketchier; the words were coming with an effort.]
The tower of steel: the sun of gold and bronze. A painted sun sinks. More will perish; we mourn them.
Can't I stop this? Can't I do anything?
No*. You can only warn, and love, and grieve.
Why?
Your heart is closed, and falters. It flutters like a bird and then falls back. Your hand falters even now, as it has faltered before.
We are not gods. We are only as strong on earth as a thought is strong. Broken is the bridge that might let us reach.
How do I access the rest of the information?
With time. With practice. With patience. And the surcease of fear. Remember your dreams, scribe. Make this recall your meat and drink. In dreams there is much truth. Look to the cards, also.
Are you sure about the date? August 15th?
Yes. Now make prophesy for us.
What will occur then [on the 15th of August]?
A great place of commerce will suffer a calamity.
What, a mall? A supermarket?
One of the great edifices raised by your people in this time.**
[After that, I was only getting bits. It's too vague to be useful but I'm including it anyway.]
...In a city by a great river...
...Knights of a red cross. Beware. [NB: I got an image there, not like knights in armour, more like riot police]
...A tree in fruit and blossom at once, growing in ice. The Queen of Fire comes, and all tremble. [Image of a ship, an enormous ship like a big cruise ship or something. Then the image changes and I'm watching a plane explode in midair. I'm getting Spring, April/May, 50-60 dead.]
[At this point, Mael speaks.]
Forget not, in your grief, the hiunger of the silent millions; forget not the cries of the children and the lamentation of the bereaved. For their suffering is ever-present, and is not cut by suffering elsewhere.
When I walked the earth, to live was to suffer. Fifty summers was a great and venerable age. Only the most fortunate lived longer.
[Another image: Bodies frozen in ice. I get the impression that a plane has gone down or something in some icy place, because the people are wearing summer clothes, they don't look like hikers. I see a dark-haired man in a jumper, half-in, half out of the ice.]
*They later clarified this, saying "
It is beyond your powers." They seemed to be implying that other people have greater powers, and might help to curtail the damage, if not prevent it altogether.
**They're telling me 150,160 dead in this incident. Maybe 500 hurt?
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So there you go. File under Plot, Loss of, I guess.
They've just gone and interrupted me in the middle of internetting. Just now. Cheeky so-and-sos.
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We would speak with you.
I'm in the internet caff!
Nonetheless, we would speak.
Okay, okay, but this is a bit awkward.
We see that you fret yourself over small things today. You must put this from your mind at once. You are upon a swift and sudden part of your journey, and must not permit such distractions.
If you say so.
We do. Put your mind to other things. Know also that you are almost on the right track, as you say. Read your cards when you go home, and mind well what they say.
Know also that this work to which you put your hand tonight has out blessing and our fullest aid. We shall be with you. Fear not weariness or a late hour. We shall bear you up throughout.
And put all petty anger from your mind as you would put off a shabby cloak of rags in favour of a bright rich rayment. The time approaches when our first promises to you will be fulfilled.
Be at peace.
(Know that the Tarot is the way for you at this time!)
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