A Glimpse into Ever-Evolving Magic and Spirituality: The Gifts of Ignorance, Question and Questing
A Glimpse into Ever-Evolving Magic and Spirituality
The Gifts of Ignorance, Question and Questing
Recently I had an experience, though not a marked or distinct event, in which I woke up one morning and it gradually dawned on me throughout the day that I had lost understanding of or attachment to personal identity and also the substance of that momentum inside of me. I do not feel divorced from it, I do not feel fragmented, or cut apart – and I have been there, several times – I feel as if I have come up from the Deep Well of my Mystery, and my head has come through the surface of the water, with my eyes blinking in the cool, fresh air. I feel innocent again in a fully-fleshed way – open to wonder, wander.
I strongly experience Life as an Eternal Mystery sewn into the Fabric of Chaos; this is language that I use to poetically evoke expressions and responses, but please know that I do not consider any of these ‘things’ I am mentioning to be mechanisms coming together into a previously-ordained design, but as (un)knowing dynamic process ever unfolding. In the ‘Fabric of Chaos’, all is as it is, ever as it will be, ever as it wells up from the momentum of Mystery and the grace of legacy in infinite relationships. Patterns coalesce and congeal inside Raw Chaos and just as powerfully they dissolve, decay and rot. There is a kind of alchemical fermentation process involved in this which is true of my own ‘part’ and ‘thread’ in Infinite Creativity. Initiation is happening all the time, to everybody, it is natural and intended – my question is: from the Seat of my Sovereignty, which is the Holy Centre in all Places of Mine, do I intend to step over the threshold of these initiations? I can never ‘just be’ an initiate and feel as if this marks me as something apart from or over or higher or deeper than anyone – it means I have made a deep commitment and impassioned vow to always begin, again and again. To well up from my Mystery and to re-discover myself again and again.
This morning I had coffee and breakfast with two friends. We were discussing ‘ignorance’, and how to consciously be aware that something is ignorant (divorced from communion with the underlying Divinity/Radiance/Mystery) and to choose and commit to it in a bid to move far from that communion is a pathway that can lead to drowning in delusion. To use my words, and I am, delusion is different and distinct from illusion, which in some Eastern traditions is called ‘Maya’. Maya is not evil, Maya is not wrong, Maya is not apart from the Mystery, Maya can be a Veil that distorts our experiences of full communion with the Divine if we refuse to dance with Her, and instead detest Her and fight against Her which ultimately has us wrapped up and entangled in a very sticky substance. Illusion can become the pathway to liberation if we practice the igniting of awareness, and become conscious of our consciousness as a choice-working, as a Sovereign declaration of Will to be and do this thing. What of ignorance itself? What does that mean? Aren’t we all ignorant?
Inside, around and under ignorance is Question. If there is ignorance, then there is the possibility for Question. To question is to quest for…the answer? An answer? Several answers? I’m not so sure – the most illuminating and resonantly-striking conversations and experiences I have often leave me with more questions, however I know a ‘trick’ which I am happy to share with you.
When someone seems ignorant to you, for a moment step ‘into’ yourself and study your own ignorance. One glaring ignorance in all cases will be the ignorance of this person’s background, experience, what they know they know, and their ever-evolving (or not so) sense of identity. Sometimes people will admit an ignorance to you in a conversation with something like:
“I know this is a stupid question, but…?”
This is an opportunity for sharing sacred space and time together in communion with each other’s dynamic Mysteries (Question has been Quested) and offering, from the place of experience, perspective and willingness to engage, to be in the Chaos of Ignorance together. There is nothing more ignorant than denying ignorance. Be in the Chaos and the Confession and study at each others’ feet. Sometimes the things we know we know become suddenly engaged in very different ways by the thing others know they know, until we cross over into that uncomfortable territory of the things we know nothing about in any sense at all. In the discomfort we know there is opportunity for growth and transformation. This is an opportunity welling up from the Mystery to learn more of the ever-evolving nature of the Infinite – to choose to stem and stop that is the pathway that leads to the false delusion that we are separate and that there is some design of implicit hierarchy of values, rather than a complex of intricately-interwoven relationships which support, nourish, challenge and initiate each other.
In my practice and process of magic I control nothing, I can only choose to navigate Raw Chaos and flourish as a part of it. The power in this is that I am afforded (it is revealed to me) limitless possibility. There may seem to be immovable obstructions to fulfilling our desires and meeting our needs in life, until we realise that the nature of Desire never stems or stops itself, it may seem to slow and still and then spiral downwards, or flow out into tributaries, but ultimately all Rivers flow from the Well, and all Rivers return to the Well. The Well is not a Place, it is a Mystery, and it is all-pervasive. The River never left you, and it never returns, it is endless, deep, and all the resonances which create the vibrations that cause the wonder-change of a Reality, neither fixed, nor feral, is afforded the name ‘Magic’, which is a process of engaging with the nature of Creative Change in vital and conscious ways*. What creates the resonance for you? How do you engage with ‘the resonating’ to seize the implicit and innate Sovereign power of being an agent of Creative Change.
There is a Question, you are the Quester. Bless your way.
*Among other things.