#uranian rambles

[uranian-activities]

something that popped in my mind is that we all receive a very athenian perspective of greek mythology (by athenian I mean Athens-centric). Look at the depiction and popular image of Sparta: bunch of barbarians who yeeted babies out of a cliff if they weren't deemed strong. This vision is wrong only in the "barbarian" part. Sparta, unlike Athens, wasn't a city-state or poli, but rather a monarchic state. It's often forgotten that Sparta impulsed the 2nd confederation of states in HISTORY (league of Peloponesus), the 1st one being the league of Delos. This setup happened for the Punic wars, and even though there was no clear winner, it seems that the Athenian perspective prevailed, thus impulsing the modern and biased view of Sparta. Also because Athens was devoted to Athena (long story), which involved a detriment of the image of Ares, making him into a barbaric, brutish, stupid god of violence instead of the god of violent war, martial discipline, virility and a protector of women. There is a reason why he's called Ares Gynaikothoinas ffs.

Now, being the god of violent war doesn't mean this dude picks a fight with everyone just for the fun of it, he IS smart and thinks of strategy, but the style of fighting is violent and explosive. However, Athena would be the "stylized" fighting type, which made Athenians have this perspective on Sparta, devout to Ares. HOWEVER the main deity of Sparta was Apollo, known as the peak male performance, they only turned to Ares upon being in war and during training.

It is believed that during this war, the Spartans chained a statue of Ares and prayed that "the warrior spirit of Ares to never leave/be chained to Sparta". If that isn't metal I don't know what is.

[just-somehuman]

Shizuki's always saying that freezing-cold temperatures are "ideal". I'm 1000% convinced that he's a Uranian. There is no other explanation.

[motleystitches]

Louis' choice of reading material

I think it's hilarious that Louis reading "on marriage" written by a gay man who thought homosexual love would bring some sort of comradely democracy to mankind and that men of good breeding are drawn to..less well-educated types.

Also, the fact that Louis identifies as homosexual/Uranian (according to poetic types) probably has something to do with his further isolation from Lestat.

[the-moon-devi]

MESSAGES FROM THE LUMINARIES & PLUTO

Look at the pictures, Close your eyes & take a couple deep breaths. Open your eyes and choose. If you can't choose a pile this may not be the reading for you!

Attention ��� ( this reading will not be for everybody!)

Hey ya'll! I wanted to make a Tarot reading channeling the planets. Originally This was supposed to be just Neptune.... but spirit said not right now. So instead they told me to do the luminaries & pluto. Idk why these specifically. Pluto did just move into aqaurius so i understand pluto but the sun & the moon are probably the divine feminine & masculines. Depending on which pile you pick will tell a lot about the energy you are. But it's alot with karmic issues & divine unions. I'm also picking up on venus energy as well. Ik venus is finishing up her flower. So maybe I'll just do a channeling venus next for the Twins/ soulmates out there. It won't be a pac just a collective read. I want those of you who are in these type of dynamics to understand your purpose & what it means when you come across certain omens etc. I'm sure your spirit team as well will help you to understand. I just feel called to speak on it. Alright enough of my rambling! As always enjoy! (444 as I was typing this)

• ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊° .☆ . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊° .☆. • ☆ . ° • ☆ . ° .•°*₊° .☆ .

Pile 1:

Tarot: 3 of swords, 7 of cups, 2 of wands, 6 of pentacles, The Empress & The Emperor

Runes: Ehwaz- horse, transportation, partnership; Nauthiz- Need, necessity, hardship; Tiwaz-honor, justice, leadership, authority

Extra Messages: virgin,fated,water,dancing/music

Oracle: jump in, karmic relationships, surrender to the sweetness

Moonology- full moon in cancer, New moon in aqaurius, full moon in aqaurius

Messages from the moon:

If you chose this pile you are heavily connected to Lunar & water life energy. The moon is saying something about relationships. You have went through a break up that left you feeling confused. You may have had bad luck in love & receiving dreams about this. With the 2 of wands & 6 of pentacles I'm really getting that you're going to come together with a person. You guys may explore the world together and give charity or just really help people. So I pull my cards/runes as I'm writing. If you look above you'll see the runes you got and they match up perfectly with what I just said. You & this person may travel. You both may be very powerful & earlier I wanted to say you gave me power couple vibes. But there may be some type of misunderstanding that's going on here and the moon may be sending you dreams to understand this. But there's like a need for your two to be together. This is karmic and Fated. You may be new to relationships and things like that. Moon wants you to open up. You may be a dancer as well ik that's random but your energy kept pulling song cards. You and this person may have not had s*x yet and your scared of that but again moon is helping you to open up. You may have really gotten hurt before or your scared of this person hurting you again. You should connect with water as well. You may have moon-venus,moon-Uranus, or moon in aquarius, cancer, taurus/libra. Yall may be traveling out the country soon as well because I just heard, "visa". I can't get over this 3 of swords & 7 of cups energy so I'm gonna pull some more...... ok so I pulled the world card & the 3 of wands wanted to come out. I getting maybe your scared/paranoid to travel. Maybe it's with the person. I think you might have social anxiety and the moon wants you to show the real you. Whatever issues you have will come to a close. The moon wants you to bring love onto your situation & freely show yourself. Be vulnerable. You could also be afraid of large bodies of water. I'm also getting that your beautiful. (I mean you did pull the empress so ofc) your uniqueness is pulled to the front. I feel like yall have like Lunar and Uranian energy heavily in your chart maybe even venusian. It's kinda crazy because Im not getting much on your person they may be moving really slow towards you. They could even be long distance or live overseas and your scared to take a leap of faith to go see them. I'm really getting your protected tho. Yeah there's definitely some type of wedge that's driving yall apart but your going to come together. It's really something with travel but this issue will be fixed. There may even be a certain lesson you have to learn about letting go & be OK with change. Don't stay stuck in one spot because your scared. Alright bye pile 1!

Pile 2:

Runes: Mannaz- Mankind,Divine structures, mind, learning,memory; Peorth- unknowable, luck, chance, fate, divine intervention, ancestry memories, feminine, destiny; Ansuz- ancestors, ancestral knowledge, God/gods, communication, omens; Thurisaz- regeneration, chaos & power, protection, violence

Tarot: Knight of Wands, 8 of wands, 2 of cups, Queen of Pentacles, The lovers, The judgement card

Oracle: Star Family- you're apart of a team of souls call in support; Portal- doors are opening. you decide. Rewards. Wild card; The Great Severing- mars energy, anger, conflict, softening to love

Moonology- full moon in libra New moon in aqaurius

Extra messages: Past Lives, My Soul Evolves, Countertop,Yin-yang

Hey to my plutonian pile!!

If you chose this pile 222 & 88 could be important numbers to you. So before I even pulled anything I started singing London Bridge by Twenty88. Maybe if you fell off it would be really bad for someone/ something. Maybe pluto is really taking you through a destruction moment. Perhaps something is coming to an end? Let's pull to see!

Ok so basically from these cards I'm getting that your ancestors could have built some type of mystery school. There are definitely assisting you in your path. It's funny we are talking about past life's because plutonian energy does rule over death. And old memories. So maybe you remember your past life. Your waking up to what you used to be to help you in the present. They always say "know where you come from so you can know where you are going". There is definitely love invovled. You and your person text or talk alot. Definitely a divine union because we have two of cups, the lovers and the judgement card. The judgement card to me in this scenario is saying that you both are waking up to remember something. You could be getting alot of messages from source. A lot of the runes are saying the same thing. This is something that is Fated and has to happen. You are protected by pluto and if anybody messes with you they gone kick they a$$. I really just heard that. You may teach mankind some type of ancient knowledge. Maybe you were a queen in your past life as well. So yeah I just pulled two extras and we have the empress and death. And with that London Bridge song the catch phrase,' the London Bridge is fallen" means the queen has fallen. So maybe you were killed in a past life by someone. You were definitely a queen and I feel like you feel this energy in the present. You have very strong energy. Maybe someone was jealous of you and your partner.

Wow yall I didn't even need to pull oracle because it's just confirmation. You have support when it comes to your spirit team and ancestors. They are opening doors for you on the other side. All you have to do is tell them and they're willing to ride and do it. The last Oracle card you pulled was mars energy and that's funny because scorpio is originally ruled by mars. But again with this jealousy and violent energy. Someone definitely was jealous of you in your past life. As for your person they may have been a little bit of a hot head. You were the queen of pentacles & the empress so you were very powerful . You had a lot of earth energy & connected to Gaia.

Something in summer could happen for you. This summer you may go through a transformation. But pluto is evolving you into a even stronger energy. If you don't remember certain past life memories you will start to get them back. You & this person are divine counterparts. I really feel like you & this person have already met in this lifetime so this is confirmation if you feel like you know them. They were like the other half to you literally. Yall may be building a house or something like that as well. Or your going back to a house from your ancestral lineage and seeing the countertop and you like it. Ik thats specific but thats only for a few of you! Also your ancestors or your family now may have a stone/rock business maybe they were into architecture. You guys may be being spied on as well. Thank you for reading pile 2! I hope this resonated for you!

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Pile 3:

Tarot: The Emperor, ace of swords, the empress,9 of cups, knight of cups,3 of swords, knight of wands, the tower

Oracle: Double mission- lightworker & starseex ; Deep cellular healing, The seas of mintaka- seeing potential bringing unconsciousness to light.

Moonology- full moon in cancer, full moon in saggitarius, New moon in cancer

Extra messages: sweet, hit different, angel for them but for me you a hoe

Runes: Berkana- mother earth, birth, fertility, growth; Fehu- wealth, property, new begginnings, luck; Jera- harvest, year, patience, harmony, abundant

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Heyyy pile 3! Ya'll are my solar pile! So before I pulled your cards I was hearing at your best you are love by Aaliyah. You are like sunlight for somebody. I just heard, "thank you" so maybe you really help people out. You really are the sun. The sun is giving you the light to light the world & spread love. Let's pull some cards now....

Now I'm hearing Ja Ara É by Burna Boy. This song really just sounds happy to me. But go give that a listen.

Ok so yall literally got almost the same cards as pile. I shuffled these card atleast twice before I even getting to this pile. So ik it's not me. Even the same Oracle wanted to come out and for the moon cards there was one card that is the same as pile 1. So yall are traveling somewhere. I'm getting like maybe moving somewhere far away. With the emperor I'm getting maybe this is a masculine energy watching this pile. Idk but if your a masculine and you have a DF her energy was in pile 1 and for some reason I really couldn't get much on you the masculine energy. So maybe this is the other half of pile 1! You may be wanting to talk to a feminine enrgy. Maybe you said some hurtful things and you want to make her feel better. Or maybe there is this mental understanding between the two of you to try something new and heal together. I'm seeing that this will be beneficial and make the both of you happy. You could be sending the feminine energy words of love & healing. Yall literally may be traveling to see one another. I'm getting one of yall are fast and the other one is slow. The 3 of swords and the tower tells me that there was some type of break up that happened abruptly. I think you are now coming back together and building. There's a new begginning between the two of you and there's a lot of abundance surrounding this connection. I get the feeling that the emperor is the empress sun like the emperor lights up her being but when the emperor is mean the empress isn't happy. You may have broken up to find yourself and not be so attached. I keep getting water energy so maybe yall are very connected to water. The empress is very sweet. The empress may actually be pregnant the more I look at these cards. Alrighty pile 3! I really didn't get much but I think this was just a wrap up of pile 1 from a different perspective. I hope this resonated!

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Catch ya later lovelies! Til' next time!

~𝓒𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓶𝓮𝓵 𝓴𝓲𝓼𝓼𝓮𝓼 xx🤎💋

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𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒖𝒕!

𝓓𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓓𝓮'𝓛𝓾𝔁𝔁𝓮 (masterlist)

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©𝓟𝓻𝓮𝓽𝓽𝔂 𝓒𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓶𝓮𝓵

[isobug]

I've talked about it at length in this post before, but I do want to bring up two specific instances of this new policy being actively harmful to trans and mspec people re: warnings which makes me view it more harshly

( EDIT ) Also regarding the "slippery slope" of adding in things like "voting history", that shouldn't be an issue as long as there's a simple guideline about keeping things relevant. You could even use those exact examples as guidelines for what isn't acceptable or needed in a warning.

Putting it under the cut but tw for transmisogyny/transphobia/queerphobia/exclusionism and examples/discussion of these things

I was trying to make an edit to the pages featuring a certain Gay Man's flag (specifically the Uranian page first), made by one Val/entin Bely/aev, to potentially warn others (but especially other transfems) that Valentin is Transmisogynistic/Transphobic and his accounts are not safe for Transfems/Trans gays. This edit was rejected under this new policy.

I specifically cited his twitter accounts and certain tweets. He has other accounts and has made similar statements on those. It's not very hard to find

(the last one is a little less clear out of the context of his whole account but he genuinely seems to insist that all of the the trans-inclusive gay men flags are "trans-exclusive/exclude cis gays" and frequently bashes on them.)

I hope I don't have to explain why his narrative of "GNC men are wrongfully transitioning/becoming transfem because people hate men" is Transmisogynistic and why "there's no point in being proud of being queer" is Queerphobia.

(Plus, having a flag exclusively for "homosexual men" as The Uranian Flag on the wiki is misrepresentative of the history and scope of Uranians/Urnings. Despite how Valentin uses it, it does describe a a varying set of gender and sexual identities. I'd really think the LGBTA page needs to be closer to the Nonbinary Wiki's Uranian page in scope. Not to mention that there's no page or even mention of Urningin/Urninde which is a shame.)

The second example is a rejected edit to the Junian (Exclusive) page. Junian is a sibling term to Oshian and Erosian, both of which were coined by exclusionists to be exclusionary terms (this is cited on both pages with sources) and are explicitly anti-mspec Lesbians/Gays. These accounts are also not safe to browse for those trying to avoid exclusionist/queerphobic content.

Junian was coined by the same person who made Erosian and is equally exclusionary, yet my edit to the Junian page that simply added the same information that was present on the Erosian page was rejected under this new policy.

Erosian info and it's cited resource

Junian info (there are no cited resources on the page + even less context about why the term was made)

Citeable exclusionism being ignored aside, this also just makes the Junian page terrible in contrast with the Erosian and Oshian pages. I should not have to go to a different, older page for it's sibling term made by the same person to get the actual background for why they were made (and if those reasons were even correct).

Sorry for rambling. I'm not sure how to wrap up my thoughts on this other than repeating the tags on my original post about it

"I cannot tell you how much LESS USEFUL this makes the wiki... and actually if someone is citing a person saying openly 'i hate this marginalized group' it's not 'personal interpretation'. it's just exclusionism and bigotry'"

Let's talk about term sourcing.

So a few months ago, the LGBTA wiki announced a revision of its policy on declaring an author's personal biases in its references. This..... didn't go down well, and I went ahead and brought it up with Jeb the same day to figure out exactly what xe was thinking and why this policy was announced. The conversation summarises to something like this:

We don't want to call people exclusionist on the wiki because it means we're making the wiki biased

Exclusionist could be used to mean lots of different things so we don't want to use it at all

Slippery slope: If we say a creator didn't like trans people, we could end up adding warnings about a creator's political alignment, voting history and favourite colour of underwear.

At that point it was gone midnight with a pretty stressful day lined up for me the next day, so I decided to leave it there and get back to it later. In very typical fashion I then forgot to get back to it later, until now, when I can actually talk to the users of tumblr about this.

So, I'd like to discuss a possible different solution for this policy. I understand the community on Tumblr doesn't like it, and quite frankly, I'm not a fan either. There are a lot of pros and cons with this policy, so lemme list them out, starting with the pros:

The wiki is supposed to be a source of information, not a source of personal opinion

Different users have different views and understandings of of phobia

As a wiki, it shouldn't be biased

There's probably a few more, but I can't think of too many currently. On the other hand, the cons:

If a user wants to read more about the term, they don't know if (eg.) the tumblr blog they're about to open is phobic. So any further reading from the wiki is a big leap of faith.

We literally have a list of identities that we recognise as good faith, and so it shouldn't be too hard to warn if a source is against these.

We also have a ban on queerphobia, ableism, racism, exclusionism and abuse on the wiki itself.

And I'll leave that at three as well, just to be fair.

So what do we make of this over here? I'd be curious to hear Tumblr's feedback, and anything that I think is really good (from either side of the debate) I'll probably bring up with Jeb in a couple days.

[thevagueambition]

Hi this might sound super silly, but I never would have heard of the term uranian or thought about gender-sexuality in that way before and it's really helped me? Understand/feel more comfortable about my own gender-sexuality situation!!! Anyways I really admire your blog and I'm so grateful to how you've talked about it!🌻🌻🌻

I’m so glad!! :D Queer history is so important to me for many reasons, but the ways in which it helps us understand that how we defined ourselves (and how the world defines us) is ever-changing, as it follows the rest of culture, but that those underlying feelings are the same, that we have those in common with countless upon countless of spiritual ancestors, is so important to me! 

“Uranian” and Ulrichs’ set of terms in general is something I’m particularly fond of because it’s an early example of someone taking charge of his own identity, of someone rejecting his society’s definitions and setting out to make his own. He made a term for straight, too! Many authors on the subject, even gay ones, just referred to heterosexual cisgender people as typical or normal, but Ulrichs created “Dioning” as a counterpart to “Uranian” and by that simple act made a powerful argument that being straight is just one way of being and not inherently more “normal” than being Uranian.

All of which is to say, people like us have always existed, and like how they have defined themselves a multitude of ways, so can we! I’m really glad my rambling helped you in that regard!! ^^ 

And feel free to ask about anything re this stuff, I love talking about it!

[acaipsychelife]

Hello Acai! I was wondering if you could detail the steps you took to understanding astrology? For example, the order in which you studied all the different aspects of astrology. I'm trying to study it at the moment and I just want to see if there are some important things that I may have overlooked especially seeing as how I've only been studying seriously for just over a year so I'm barely a novice! The world of astrology to me is so beautifully expansive, it's easy to get lost in!

Thank you for asking! If you don’t mind, this will be a long ramble about my experiences, then I’ll get to advice for you...

Honestly, the fact that I got into it at such a young age wasn’t necessarily for the better. My mother is an astrologer but she was just a beginner until the last decade or so, it was like we learned together, sort of... My mom started taking me to the Tucson Astrologers’ Guild when I was ten, at that point, I had a general idea of what each planet means, what each major aspect means, the personality of each sign... But I wasn’t mentally developed enough to understand how all that plays into life... That’s how I got to meet dozens of renowned astrologers. I could name drop but I assume nobody cares... During my pre-teen years I was just attending those TAG classes twice a month, and when I was 12 I was in this once a week group where we practiced reading birth charts... in hindsight, practicing astrology just a couple or a few times a month wasn’t enough to get proficient at it... I didn’t have a thorough understanding of how astrology affects peoples’ lives, I could only give general interpretations.

When I was 13 I was on the local news for being a young astrologer, was a load of fun at the time, but now I realize I wasn’t truly ready to step into my path back then... When I was 16 I took these once a week classes about the archetypes from a Shamanic Astrology perspective, that really gave me a feeling of timelessness, how each character is necessary in the world... Also when I was 16 I went to the BLAST conference in Sedona (in 2008), I loved it! An astrologer I dearly looked up to named Kelly Lee Phipps filmed me and I so wish I had that video... He died of a brain tumor in 2014... tearing up now...

When I was 17 I was going to be on national TV on a series about paranormal topics, but while they were filming, I gave a bunch of dead air time... and that is when I gave up on astrology, it was humiliating. I wasn’t ready for that kind of honor, I regret it, I wasn’t knowledgeable enough, I wasn’t dedicated enough.

When I was 21 I started attending TAG again, but I was such a beginner back then... I couldn’t give readings worth crap, I was preoccupied with college and the weird scenarios I had going on lol. When I was 22 I went to my first NORWAC (2014) and loved it, later that year I went to my first ISAR (where I got to vend Time Passages Software).

During 2015 I was super focused on learning nutrition, politics, and environmentalism, I wasn’t yet super dedicated to astrology... I’d listen to astrology podcasts, attended norwac again, and participated in many discussions of how peoples’ planetary placements affected their life... that’s a great way to learn, see what aspects someone has in their chart, then observe how they play out in that person’s life!

2016 I went to norwac and isar again, and I started this tumblr at the end of august! 2016 and 2017 I have been more dedicated to reading a lot... books and online...

Important things you might have overlooked:

Even though we have birth chart calculators, it’s great to become familiar with an Ephimeris, you can find one at a metaphysical bookstore. Before astrology software existed, astrologers had to draw up charts from scratch using the ephemeris. You would have had to learn the math about how to calculate the rising sign and each house and each degree. I don’t know how to do all that, just know that at sunrise, the rising sign is the same as the sun. Each rising sign lasts about two hours, but Scorpio rising lasts longer (making it the most popular rising sign) and Aquarius rising sign happens for less time (making it the rarest rising sign).

Memorize how each planet moves in its orbit. Why does Pluto spend about 14 years in Capricorn, 12 years in Scorpio, 13 years in Sagittarius, but shorter times in other signs? Because Pluto has an elliptical orbit.

Sometimes Mars appears to be moving faster than Venus, even though Venus obviously has a shorter orbit around the sun, Mars is erratic and bumpy in it’s orbit, so sometimes it goes forward thru degrees faster than Venus. Isn’t that fascinating?! Of course Venus usually moves faster than Mars.

Memorize how long it takes each planet to orbit the sun. Neptune takes 165 years, so when you’re 81-83, you have a Neptune opposition because Neptune has completed 50% of its orbit. At age 40-41, Neptune has completed 25% of its orbit, which means it made a square.

Every three years Jupiter moves 90 degrees in its orbit. Every four years Jupiter moves 120 degrees. By memorizing how planets move, you can quickly guess someone’s Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto signs just by knowing the year they were born, and you can also estimate what transits they’re having now, or a year from now, without being dependent on a computer!

This is a common problem that aspiring astrologers have. Since our generation has it easier; we no longer have to draw up charts from scratch thanks to computers, it has caused people to become lazy in understanding the mechanics behind a chart. If you want to be an astrologer, if you want pro astrologers to take you seriously, you have to be mature about being able to figure out the aspects and aspect patterns for yourself. If you rely on computers to tell you that someone has Jupiter trine Mars or whatever, then you do not have a genuine understanding of astrology.

Memorize the ages that people experience planetary cycles, this way, you can easily start an impressive conversation with somebody by saying, “Oh you’re 42 years old, that means that transiting Uranus is opposite your natal Uranus, which means ___, and you’ve recently gone thru transiting Neptune being square your natal Neptune, which means __”

“Oh you’re 21 years old, that means that transiting Saturn is square your natal Saturn for the second time, and transiting Uranus is square your natal Uranus for the first time, this means __”

The major aspects, the houses, and the planets are just the fundamentals. Once you grasp those, then you can move up to specialty topics. You don’t have to learn the minor aspects if you don’t want to. I know famous pro astrologers who only use the major aspects, including Philip Sedgwick and Steven Forrest.

Another piece of advice, if you dabble in a dozen different methods (horary, medical astrology, financial astrology, mundane astrology, midpoints, astro*carto*graphy, electional astrology, symbolic degrees, teleological, cosmobiology, relationships, psychological, declinations, TNO’s, asteroids, harmonics, decans, uranian astrology, hellenistic, evolutionary/karmic, among a bunch of other branches...), you’re only going to be mediocre in all of them. Find your specialty and hone it! I dabble in a few of those, but right now my specialties are progressions, sabian symbols, and general predictions. You definitely don’t need to study all those items in that parenthesis, but at least know what each of those terms means. If you ever attend an astrologers’ conference, people will introduce themselves like, “I’m a Hellenistic astrologer” or “I use declinations to find contra-parallels”, if you don’t know what they’re talking about, you won’t be taken seriously in the community.

Yes I love how you said astrology is so beautifully expansive and easy to get lost in! I will never know everything there is to know! It would take a lifetime to learn all those things I listed.

I totally understand that learning all this stuff feels overwhelming when you’ve only been into astrology for a few years or less. Take your time learning and really absorbing the information before you start giving readings; learn from my mistakes, I had no business giving casual readings to my friends when I was 21-22, I was still a beginner.

[hereticaloracles]

Alice Hart on Shadow Work

 Guest Writer Alice Hart: Straight out of Wonderland, this intense dreamer crawled her way through one mad tea party after another to bring you some keys to your doorways. Versed in chaos magick with an emphasis in alchemical self-transformation through art, she encourages everyone to dream BIG and jump through the rabbit hole. Sometimes head first.

Alice Hart’s Analysis on Shadow Work: “Nothing will ever change here.” He said casually, lighting up his fifth cigarette that afternoon. “Not for this town or me or you.”

My friend peered up into the clear blue sky, squinting his eyes skeptically at it. He inhaled and exhaled a cloud of thick tobacco smoke. Then, glanced over at me.

“The sooner you just accept that, the easier life will be.”

He chuckled.

“Everything is shit and nothing ever changes.”

I looked up at the same blue sky as he. Squinted identically as I mused the weight of his words over and over again inside my mind. There was a point of time where these putrid dogmas would’ve slid easily down like butter or extremely tenderized lamb, but the pain I was in kept me from swallowing them. There had to be a way out of this town, out of this absolute nightmare! My life was a crumbling tower struck by Uranian lightning and heralded by Saturnine thunder that I refused to hear. I was penniless, homeless, pregnant, and continuing a toxic relationship with a devouring sociopath. High school was over and I was a foster kid on the run from myself while the threat of adulthood held a knife to my throat. All my years alive and the misfortunes I burdened under were the fault of some mysterious and seemingly omnipotent “they”. ‘They have done /this/ to me’, ‘they /forced/ me to do this’, ‘they /won’t let me/ leave this town’…’they have /fucked over/ my life’. “They” were suddenly nowhere to be found on this bleak afternoon during this particular conversation in front of our town’s courthouse. There was only myself inside of my life and an outsider to it blabbering crap.

“You know,” I replied, tilting my head curiously to the side. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought…”

My friend took another drag of his cigarette. “Yeah?” He responded with a grin playing on his lips. Maybe he’d said all those things on purpose, strategically edging me into the fire that would mark my end and beginning. “Giving what thought?”

“I think you’re wrong.” I said. “I think you’re full of crap.”

By articulating that magickal incantation of disbelief, by telling the omnipotent “they” to fuck off, I had initiated myself into shadow work unknowingly. Most people trudge the desolate mindscapes of the dark night of the soul and come out of it broken, if they ever come out of it at all. The abyssal plains of a broken heart and the numb doldrums of the weary spirit /can/ and /will/ consume all who traverse it (to varying degrees). Should you ever find yourself eclipsed by indescribable agony where every aspect of your life is dissolving faster than America’s confidence in it’s government, your only key out is stupidly simple: decisive choice. Choose! Until you choose to own every aspect of your experience, the beatings will continue, until your goddamn morale improves! The monsters will gnaw at you. The thieves will invade your safe spaces and rob you of riches. The scythe of death will reap the growth short of every seedling you dare to plant…because until you fertilize the earth of your soul with conscious choice, all spoils to bareness.

Getting to that point of decisive choice is no joke. I won’t lie to you, audience, and say that there’s some exact formula for reaching that psychological plateau. There isn’t. Hitting the realization that you are responsible for your own shit is completely individual for the person producing said shit. The tipping scales which send us catapulting forwards into this realization or further into ignorance of it is…unique. There is no general timing. In my personal experience, however, the suck ends when we feel the pain through completely. And in feeling the pain through, we realize the choices we DO have. Inevitably, we end up choosing something, or someone/something else will do it for you.

Our pain transmutes in that singular moment and becomes a great unveiling. That’s right! Your pain is the very key to your freedom.

Like I said though, you have to really FEEL your pain. In this statement I am not encouraging self-harm or bringing about harm for others…but let’s say you have an old laptop or object just sitting around, that isn’t important, and you happen to have a hammer? Assign that laptop a problem or six in your life and destroy it. Realize that you’ve changed it and simultaneously, you can change yourself, if you harness that pain inside of you. That pain is the momentum, the horse, the chariot of your victory over the mess you’re currently in. Yes, you are a powerful manifesting machine capable of creating worlds and ending them!

Either passively or actively, you’ve created this nightmare world. You are the god of this abyssal cemetery and you can hit the ‘end’ button any time! Are you satisfied with the moss, the skeletal willow groves, the upturned tombstones, and bloodied moons of your life? Do you long for the dawn again? How much do you long for it? Grab that pain clawing you apart and direct it. Leash that pain and make it work for you. Use it as motor fuel to change the conditions of your life. You created the grave you’re dying in so build a bridge back to heaven. You can use the materials of your coffin box to do so!

‘Where are the blueprints for this bridge?!’ you might question. Frustrated, at that.

Do anything with passion and if you cannot muster passion for it, do not do it. After wandering miserably in the streets of my hometown, I got fed up writhing in agony, and started putting that pain into art. Art became my decisive choice. Every single convulsion and contortion of emotional turmoil became an action that I put into my life. Instead of letting go of the hurt feelings or applying a moralistic tone to them, ferment them into self-expression, every single day. For as long as you can. If that means keeping a notepad near your bed to write down a poem for five minutes in the morning before work or cutting all your ties and moving into a cabin in the forest or visiting your parents during the holidays to work through your bitterness…do it. You can only escape the land of the dead and dying when you use that decayed material, when you compost it. Turn your crap life into roses by believing in that pain enough to cure yourself through daily acts of passion.

If daily expression of pain into acts of progress (even if that’s just getting out of bed in the morning) is your key, apathy is the douchebag guarding the door. With their buddies depression and fear.

Much like the high school bullies they are, they’ll hunt you down, and challenge you after school. They won’t stop until you’ve looked them straight in the eye and stand up to them in earnest. Every passionate and courageous act you do in ANY context is you facing those threshold guardians down. It can be a matter of one stand-off or a series of many throughout your entire life but each step counts. Each step is an anchor and a block forged from your determination to choose better for yourself. Further into this matter, these guardians of the threshold serve a sacred, and often misunderstood purpose: they reveal who we truly are. That which opposes us to the point of spiritual burning or decay shows us the core of our being and purpose. When you finally look these concepts in the face and understand their articulation within yourself, they stop being obstacles. They start becoming teachers and allies.

And they’ll open the door out of the dark night of your soul into a new day.

The dark night of the soul is bleak and shadowed, perhaps, to make us peer up into that wide sky. To expand our vision to faraway futures, tiny pinpricks of light, just like stars. Leaving this stage in your life starts with choice. Your choice and the limits you allow upon it. And with each evolution you progress through in your spirit, you might return to this place, over and over. Each time gets a little less disconcerting and more informative if you treat the nightmares like boss battles, sages on the mount, jabberwockies, stormtroopers (they can’t actually hit anything if you treat yourself like the main character). To sum it all up, to make sense of my ramble at it’s optimum, the key to any dark night is…

Choosing to act upon your vision daily. No matter how elaborate, simple, or anywhere in-between that it is. And all it takes sometimes is saying “fuck off” and doing you, boo.

Alice Hart on Shadow Work was originally published on Heretical Oracles