Keeping Moving, Secrecy, Cookies

Ave,

So, I'm in a strange position as far as my development in the Alpha et Omega go. I've completed the Outer Order work, having balanced and brought into awareness the forces of the Four Elements, the 12 Signs, and the Planets Saturn, Luna, Mercury, and Venus within my life and personality. It has been brutal and beautiful. There is of course regular maintenance necessary...don't think for a minute you can balance a force within your self once, and then forget it. Regular maintenance is required, but the nudges are gentle and light in comparison to the first time.

There was a point when I would dread moving forward into the next Grade, knowing all the upheaval in my life that would come with it. As I've progressed, the changes have been more gentle; turns out that when you're paying attention, you notice that there are  many opportunities to learn the primary lesson an element/force may teach you. The longer it takes for you to figure it out, the grosser and more dense and intense the teaching comes. Perhaps that is just how my own tutelary force works, but I suspect it's the same for many Magicians. We invoke a force and ask for wisdom and understanding about it's nature, and it tells us first in whispers and then in shouts. If we are wise and attentive, we learn from the whispers. The sensitivity to subtle currents within the self mark a major difference between the Neophyte and the Philosophus; as a Neophyte (even one who'd been a practitioner for years at that point) my awareness was more gross. I perceived things in their thickest forms, and missed many of the subtle vapors and emanations that moved about them. Awareness of the subtle emanations make for effective divination, and powerful Magic--and the awareness of these emanations isn't taught with words and paper, but with work, study, and silent contemplation. You can't teach someone into raised states of consciousness, only show them how it's done. They have to make the leap. I think this is why two individuals, with the same curriculum, can vary so much in the results of their work. Magic is like reading the Bible; if you stick to the dead letter, that's exactly what you get. The important lessons each give are written on your soul as you work them, in Gnosis. The dead letter and ritual practice are there to inspire that state of understanding, so that the true lessons can be communicated in the Silence within.

 My understanding of time and consciousness were less; I believed that there was such a thing as a Past and a Future. I acted accordingly. Now, I do the things of great import to me in the eternal moment, and find myself without regret. We have to Be what we will to be; placing accomplishment or understanding in the nebulous "Future" puts them always out of reach.


 Standing about 4 years in, and looking back toward who I was when I began with the Golden Dawn, I find that I'm profoundly changed. Not in that I'm a different person, but that I am more myself...if that makes sense. I've had experiences and understandings that have changed my understanding of reality, and altered my static point of view. I'm both more present and active in my life--I'm Awake, more often than not--and also a half-step detached. Not in a negative, self-delusional or not-dealing fashion, but in the awareness of who I am at core, of what I am. My personality is not who I Am, nor is my body, nor is my job....the mutable parts of my self don't hold as much sway. They run shit, make no mistake, but awareness of and contact with that part that is Not mutable is enough to change Everything. Instead of reacting to Things that Occur, I watch myself reacting, from that Holy half-step above, and choose. I'm not explicitly bound by my "personality", by my likes and dislikes. I can choose other things. I often don't, mind you--oftentimes I react to things and find myself amused at myself, in bizarre fashion, despite also experiencing the emotion connected with the action. I'm not bound by my emotions and prejudices as explicitly as I was when I began. Where my emotional reactions may have been  a prison before, now they're a well-trodden rode; certainly easier to take because of their familiarity, but not my only option. I can take other roads at will. That's a good thing. I still find myself moved by the same things, but now there is that half-step.....and there has got to be a better way to put that, but I can't seem to pull the words out.

I'm at a point where I have to wait, and hope, for the invitation to the Inner, to the Portal and beyond. This is a tricky place to find myself; I am certainly loyal to my Order, and hope that I have shown so. No one, however, is given absolute assurance of an invitation to the Inner. There is no guarantee. I may have shown myself worthy of that sort of inclusion, or may need to accomplish more. There may be administrative hurdles, there may be new disciplines I need to master. I may not be able to say that I've received such an invitation if it arrives, depending upon our Inner Order's culture and vows.  There are even political concerns, especially in this age of constant profanation. My Order has done a lot of work, and been blessed with guarded transmissions, in order to form a Second and Third Order that aren't profaned, with a carefully nurtured egregore. How much more careful must they be with an individual with a decent-sized presence in the on-line and magical community? I imagine they must be extremely careful, and I don't fault them one bit. I'm in no rush; I would rather I not receive the transmissions personally at all than see the Tradition itself fatally compromised. There's enough already out there to occupy a lifetime; there is enough in Agrippa alone to take one to the heights. Everything you need to know is already published--the private Inner Orders have every right to keep their material private. No one is being left out of spiritual evolution itself because of the secrecy involved with Inner Orders, and it's a selfish thing to splay the living secrets of others about.

****See GH Fra LES's post here on secrecy. I think some very important points are made; if you are an organisation that feels deeply that secrecy is paramount, would you feel confident in giving current Golden Dawn Orders material you want to remain secret? To be frank, I would not.***

Whether I receive this invitation or not, I have to say....I've made out pretty good. I've learned things that folk a few generations ago would have risked their lives to learn, and I've gotten Far more from the Golden Dawn than it has gotten from me. I've got a pretty clear path as far as my continued spiritual evolution goes, and have already taken an active role in deciding the direction of my training as a Magician. So, there won't be any bitterness for me, whether I get that invitation or not. I'm just going to keep working.....that being, said, If I Do get the invitation, everyone in our Inner Order is getting home-baked cookies. Just throwing that out there.

In LVX,

AIT