Recapitulation

My current work has not been directly magickal. However, magickal and alchemical lessons abound. This is the lazy man's way to learn!

I have been recapitulating many of my elemental lessons. The odd part is that the lessons can come with me on either side of a given issue. Usually I have found the shoe to be on the other foot. For instance, way back when I was hot on the topic of antinomianism*. This is defined as being opposed to or denying the fixed meaning or universal application of moral law and was made famous by Martin Luther. In magickal work, it involves doing something against what you have programmed yourself, or been programmed, to do or believe. This can be a man having sex with an ugly woman because he's been told that ugly woman are unacceptable, a woman being aggressive because she had been taught to demur or in my case, getting a tattoo. For some reason, I thought only wild people or criminals had them.

My act of antinomianism did double duty. I also wanted to demonstrate my discipline by not telling anyone of my new tattoo. It turned out that circumstances compelled me to take one person into confidence just after the outline had been done. However, I kept it secret from everyone else for a couple of months after all the colorful ink had been applied. Once people found out, a good friend was hurt by my secret keeping. I took that to mean that people we are close to really do want to know what is going on in our lives. Sharing such major decisions aids in maintaining the mutual bond of friendship.

This weekend my woman friend (The Gentle Soul), Lon DuQuette and I had a blast at the Huntington and a Dodger game. Upon my return, I found a Facebook post from my mentor. He had gotten married! The news was a shock. He and his partner have been together so long I never thought marriage was being considered. His Facebook post added pictures of a party which it pulled in from his gallery.

My first impression was that he got married, invited people to celebrate, invited friends but never told me. I was a bit hurt and even a little angry. Someone important to me had not informed me of his major life decisions! Sound familiar? I experienced the same thing my friend had gone through.

It turns out he proposed to her on Saturday and they were married six hours later. No one knew in advance. I felt a bit foolish for being hurt.

* If you are interested in exploring antinomianism, I recommend Christopher Hyatt's Undoing Yourself. If you do everything he suggests and find yourself in Fresno, I will buy you lunch. No one does everything. It is HARD. The book, though, is full of great ideas such as face the other way in an elevator and start conversations with the other passengers.  If you're mean, be kind to everyone all day. If you're kind, yell at everyone all day. If you're a wacko magician like myself, wear mismatched socks to work one day.

(The Next Post is will be more personal about my trip with the Gentle Soul and Lon.)