Drop the Bag of Rocks

We are all carrying around something. Throughout our lives we gather hurts, guilt, ideas, and other bits and pieces that stick with us throughout. Many of these things are detrimental to our physical, and even mental, health. I call these negative things the Bag of Rocks. We drag them around often without knowing that we have them and they can and do affect our lives, often in negative ways. It's a difficult thing to do but my theory is that you have to find a way to put these things down so that you can be a more complete and free person.

Put it Down Bro

This life is like a road. You start in one place. That place is where you get to begin making many of your own decisions. Let's say around 5 years old. You begin to create friendships and you begin to decide how you feel about certain people and things in your life. You have set yourself on a path with a thousand branches and what happens on each leg will stick with you. The big ones, both good and bad, are your rocks and if you mean to or not you will stick them in your bag and carry them off onto the next branch in the road.

Fast forward 20 years and this bag of rocks may be a heavy one already. Your failures, your relationships, the pain others have caused you, loss of loved ones, bullying. All of these things can be and probably are stuffed in your bag of rocks. Some of those rocks are heavier than others. One rock that I carried around for way too long was the one where I was always told I was an ugly person. It was one hell of a heavy rock, so big that I saw the same thing in the mirror that others had said they saw. The thought affected my actions, so I worked out ans stood in a very aggressive stance against any slight perceived or otherwise. The thing about that rock was that it wasn't at all true. I am not nor had I ever been an unattractive person. That was a heavy rock to carry and it being able to finally put it down changed my life and lifted a great weight off of my shoulders.

That was one rock out of many. Though the weight lessened the other rocks affected my relationships, job performances and general attitude towards everything. Once I realized that I got to decide who and what I am it became easier and easier to drop more and more rocks. My journey became simpler, and choosing the most advantageous branch on my path became easier. In some way or another we will always carry some rocks. The beauty is you get to look at and leave behind any of the rocks you choose. You don't have to carry all, or any, of the rocks in your bag. You can even choose to put the whole damned bag down and never carry another unwanted rock.

Examine your personal Bag of Rocks. Look closely at what you think abd believe. Look at what you think and believe about what you think and believe. If this thing does not suit you or does not make you feel good or does not make you a better person, put it down and leave it there on the side of the path. Carry on without the extra weight. Yes, you can do it. It is possible. Go ahead and see. Drop that bag of rocks and move on down the road.

Love and Let Go

The idea for this blog came to me in one of my moments of perfect clarity and understanding. Some would call this an epiphany or a eureka moment. But I can't claim either of those true because this blog includes questions I have been pondering for a very long time. I think I finally just asked myself the right questions. This wasn't a confluence of ideal circumstances combining to create a perfect storm of perfect thought. It was more like, "duh".

People need two things. One is to be able to love and be loved; the other is to be capable of loving and letting go at the same time. These two understandings will free people from all of their fears and doubts when it comes to other human beings. We are all built of the same basic physical needs. Beyond those are the basic physical, emotional and psychic needs all of which don't change, border to border. At the core of humanity is a capacity largely ignored in the tribal drive to survive.

Loving and Letting go.

Interactions with other humans are investments.

Emotional Investment - Having an emotional investment in someone is like investing in a "sure thing". To me if you make the decision to love someone or hate someone all of the pressure is off. No matter what they do all you have to do is what you do towards them anyway, love or hate. It is the biggest and best complete cop-out in human relationships. That's why the ancients ascribed these extremes to the gods. Whether or not they knew it simply saying, "it's a love, hate thing" took all of the pressure off.

I can be in love. I like love. Love is easy, people give you reasons to love them when they are not giving you reasons to hate them. Humans are silly, quirky, funny little creatures with many things worth loving. Only the absolutely least likeable of them are well worth losing. Investing in them emotionally is immensely satisfying.

Personal Investment - Having a personal investment in someone is like attempting to graft an extra arm onto your body and then training it to wield a weapon of war. Making a personal investment is a much more difficult thing to do and it is capable of sneaking up on you. A personal investment is two fold:

• Your personal investment in the person and their personal shit.
• Your self investment and how their shit affects you personally, (what I call the 'blowback effect')

I can invest in a person, any person, personally. There are times though when one person's personal shit is just way beyond my skill set. I am not possessed of the monumental hubris required to believe that I could even begin to deal with other peoples personal shit. My personal shit is so backed up it would take more than a few happy endings to work them out. So, out of a necessity we simply do not overly invest in other peoples personal shit too deeply. Most of this is because we are too often deeply involved in our own personal shit and we can't help but spread it on those around us.

The question remains, How much do you invest in your self while also investing in another person? To some degree in every personal investment in a person you are going to neglect some of the time it takes to invest in yourself, personally. Often, the person you are investing in carries such a heavy load we feel compelled to help them carry it especially if we love then but not less often even if we hate them. This also clouds and affects our own time and capacity to properly invest in ourselves.

This brings us to learning how to let go. Letting go is a necessity in life. Learning how to do so is very difficult. Our society does not prepare us for the inevitability that one day you are going to have to let go of something you have an attachment to. Once a thing is gone and you know you cannot get it back you might still harbor a deep emotional connection to this object. This connection alters how you view the world and how you behave within it whether you realize it or not. It is a burden you are choosing to carry. You can let it go.

This logic also pertains to people. There are healthy attachments to people that you've had to let go. The death of a beloved family member or friend who is beyond your reach can be great for bolstering who you are as a person. But knowing that you will never see them again is a true sign that you should let them go. An inability to grieve and let go can be detrimental to your over all well being. The same stands true for a lost love or a grudge held against an enemy. You must grieve, process and then let go. Holding on to these problems only makes you walk the world in a fog wearing a veil unable to truly see what's right in front of you and truly unable to enjoy the moments that make up your life.

Learn to let go of even the most difficult things and at the most difficult times and then you can walk the world, in the moment, with clarity and an increased capacity for love.

Love and Chaos

I am a lover.I have learned the beauty of love and I thrive in it. I live on it and I would not have it another way. Over the course of my life I have lain with many women and I have wooed a many more into my life. But, in my time so far I have only truly loved a few.

I loved a Demon once. We were both demons and we thrived on the power that came from fear an misunderstanding by the public at large. We studied and scrutinized humans and their self deceitful practices and beliefs. We soared together through dismal skies raining down hell and fire on the masses. We roamed their hideaway's and their holes and we rooted out the sheep and devoured them. We seduced the weak and showed them the depths of their depravity. We destroyed cults and brought low empires. And, we fought. We had earth shaking battles that could go on for months. Villages and friendships burned in our wake. We created a residual psychic wave that still echoes today.

Years later I stumbled upon and Nature Spirit. She was fascinating on first glance and so much more so once I got to know her. She was smart and she had passion to spare. She saw the world not as a thing to be conquered, nor a thing to embrace. She saw the world as a thing to use towards ones greater understanding of all things. She knew that beauty had a place and that the ignorant didn't need to be punished for their weakness but instead guided subtlety towards a better end. It was like she sprouted from the earth and walked among us as a beacon for a happier life. We brought Life and Love into this world. And we fought. We had cosmos rending battles that could last for years. We altered whole segments of peoples lives when they chose sides. We clashed so that the smallest phrase could cause hurricane force destruction on the other end. Athena, Aphrodite and Dionysus love us still.

Years later I met a Sorceress. I was at a gathering thrown by a ... strange sort of human. When she walked into the room I knew something was different about her but it wasn't until later that I found out what it is. She had an innate ability to make something out of nothing. Her passion knew no bottom in it's depths and she had no limitations on what was possible. She snagged me and pulled me from the mouth of lions. Together we walked the earth proving that anything is possible. We survived together, my magic bolstering hers and her magic strengthening mine. We became friends and lovers and we generally avoided destroying anything if we could help it; all while dreaming of destroying it  all one day. And we fought, but only at the end. When she realized that I could not be harnessed or tamed she grew quite irate and a battle ensued, a small one that has since caused no further harm. Our friendship carries on to this day.

Years later I met a genuine goddess. I had no idea at the time what she was. But I soon learned well the ways of the gods. She is different. There is a sense of traveling almost without effort through the world and life, but also there is a profound depths to the hows and whys and a keen sense of direction. This is not about a path set on showing the world a better way, instead it's a path of being true to the way you walk and letting others walk the hell on around if they don't like it. It's not a path of leading others to a more natural look at those things around us, it's a path of experiencing the beauty of it all and just letting it be as it is. And it's not just a path of survival and indifference, it's a path of embracing the whole and absorbing the truth no matter how bad it might hurt. I am going to Marry her.

I cannot love any one of these women any less than I did on the day I fell for them. They are all still amazing and beautiful people. I am blessed to have lived my best loves in the midst of Chaos. There are others that hold special places in my heart. There's a Fairy, she broke my heart so bad once I thought I'd never recover. There's a Witch who married another man but who I have a soul bond with that is so deep she is like a guiding angel. And I have an succubus. She is in trouble at the moment for her impulse control issues but we are working on that.

Love is chaos. Love is passion and heartache. Love is desire and fear. Love is dominance and submission played out on an ever shifting stage with ever shifting players. Love is hard and it's also so very easy. Love is Chaos.

New Year Resolution

http://www.churchofsatan.com/five-point-plan-revisited.php

Evil’ is still ‘Live’ spelled backwards, and if evil we be live we will. Living well is still the best revenge against all adversity. Love, laugh, fancy, create, innovate, reap and revel—as Satanists—in this best of all worlds, World without end. Remember, the first 99 years are always the toughest. Rege Satanas!”
-Anton Lavey

Harness the Thoom

Your voice is a Hell of a thing. It's a perspective people have of you. When you speak people judge. Your voice is a marked and inescapable thing. All is not lost. You can learn how to use your voice to change the world around you.

Embrace the Thoom

It's your voice. You are stuck with it. Embrace the love/hate relationshipthat you are going to havve with it. When you speak, speak from your soul. Speak with conviction and confidence. Thoom!

How and Why?

Practice. Like everything in Chaos Magic this takes practice. Learn about inflection and projection. Learn how to write and deliver speeches. Learn about pacing and when to deliver jokes. Learn how to read your audience.

We do this so that we are comfortable using our voices in everyday life. We are confident in our convictions and we have no need for bluster, folly or cruelty. We speak so that we are heard and understood. More so, we do this so that when we do call out to the universe and the gods we do not do so as mice but we do so as Dragons. We speak as Devils. We speak as Holy men. We speak as gods. We Thoom!

Embrace your voice. It is a tool you can learn to use. It is a weapon you can hone to a fine edge. It is seducer that you and win hearts and steal souls with.

Embrace your Thoom!

Channel Your Inner X

@dkchaosmagician

Magic is all about channeling the energy inherent in the world around us and focusing it towards a purpose. Most magical practitioners will adopt an ancient pantheon of deities and call upon them during ritual. The idea is that the gods personify aspects of human nature. Dionysus is the god of weed, wine and women. Mars is the god of war. If one needs to have a great party they would look to Dionysus, If one needs success in battle, call upon Mars.

In Chaos Magic we realize the inherent power in belief and do not choose just one group of gods to settle in with. Instead we use whatever powers will best suit our current magical needs. These days we have much more power to choose from than just the shriveled up gods of old. Over the hundreds of years since the beginning of America we have created new legends, new gods and new heroes. These days you can choose to embody any one of these or many at a time if you wish.

Do you need to make someone understand that they wronged you and they need to be destroyed? Channel your inner Punisher. Dress the part. Make the scowl. Allow yourself to be angry to the point of revenge. Then, instead of picking up actual guns and grenades channel that emotion into magical guns and grenades and crush those who've wronged you under your ethereal combat boot heel.

The energy of belief is yours to use. Once you understand this you can do anything and it will have equal, if not stronger, power to the ancient ways of calling down spirit. The point is in focus and intent. The gods, wands, circles and stars all point you towards a purpose. That works with  any imagery you want to use to get to where you want to go. Fake it until you make it, just be careful what you choose to do. Once that energy is released it cannot be taken back.

Fake it Till You Make it: A Chaotic Approach to Success

@dkchaosmagician

I'm pretty sure that when you wake up and get ready for work you have a ritual that gets you in the mindset to go in. By the time you've had your breakfast, coffee and shower you are almost there. Then you struggle into your uniform and look at yourself in the mirror. By the time you hit  the clock-in you are focused and ready to go. But what if you want to get into something you don't truly know much about? Or what if you simply want to feel comfortable or fit in at a party? I say, fake it until you make it.

Stick with me here. Say you look across the room at the party and there is this person that is surrounded by party goers who hang on his every word and gesture. You think to yourself, "I want to command a crowd like that". How do you do it though? Like anything else charm takes practice. No one was ever good at it right from the start and no one gets charm by standing in the corner wondering about it. You have to put yourself in the position to be charming and the only way to do that is to study social interaction and fake it and learn from your mistakes.

I worked for a call center many years ago. When I went through training the instructor taught us everything we needed to know. She went over the scripts. We did role playing. We sat in on calls with senior associates. After weeks of this before we were to start our first solo shifts she said to us:

Even with everything you've learned here you won't get everything right. Keep going. Fake it until you make it.

I understood that what she was telling us was that we have to walk out into the fire. We are as prepared as we can be but the real world has come knocking and you are going to have to deal with the chaos that brings. And here we are all about chaos kiddo's so I am telling you the only way to deal with it is to face it and harness it. All of the cues and clues are there for us to use we just have to recognize them and use them towards our goals with fresh intent.

It seems crazy to walk into a party and just start chatting people up. But that's how you learn charm. Put on your best sorcerers garb (look good in your own style) and wade out int the waters of social interaction. Take with you the mantle of chaos you and know that you can succeed. when you fail, and you will, cry about it for a day or two. Consider and try again. Don't give up and one day you might just be as charming of a pig as I am.