New Year New You 2019: Week Fifteen – In Which We Are Grinding Along

I’m (once again) doing Miss Sugar’s New Year New You Experiment in Radical Magical Transformation because I find it’s a really good way to kick my own ass into getting things done. It’s a good mix of practical, magical, and thought-based exercises to help accomplish specific and significant change in your own life. If it’s relevant to your interests, give it a try!
 
Instructions: We’ve spent a few more weeks thinking, planning, and doing magic. Now it’s time to return to the task at hand: doing the work necessary to accomplish our goals.
 

Next World Tarot – 7 of Pentacles – Abuelita’s Labour of Love Pays Off – An old lady sits surrounded by the art she’s been making for years which, it turns out, people want to pay for.

 

Osho Zen Tarot – 7 of Rainbows – “Patience” – A heavily pregnant person with long hair sits serenely under the phases of the moon.

 
Tarot Card: Seven of Earth. I chose the Seven of Pentacles, and I’m not a hundred percent sure it’s the right card. I’ve often gone with the Eight of the same suit for prompts about gettin’ ‘er done and keeping at it. But I wanted a card that allowed for a little bit of stock-taking as well as action, for a little bit of thoughtfulness alongside the grinding, a little reminder that “this is a marathon, not a sprint” even if the point of doing this as a project with prompts and activities is to get that long process going a little harder and build up some solid momentum.
Cristy C Road says, in her write-up for her Next World rendering of the Seven of Pentacles, “Our bodies execute magic daily, and your destination will blur if you forget the journey”.
 
And this project continues to be a journey. I wrote my initial goals post almost a year-and-a-half ago. I can recognize that I’m making progress, even if it feels super slow.
My glamour magic is at least somewhat effective.
I’ve had eight poems published since I started this project, with another five accepted for publication before the end of 2019 (so far – part of today is dedicated to working on another submission that will, hopefully, up that number again).
I’ve started dating a pretty amazing out-of-town lady and have also been going on more dates with my wife.
I have a whole other project on the go that specifically pertains to sex and sexuality (partnered and otherwise).
While the “know in my bones” part of a lot of those goals is still very (very) much a work in progress, I’ve started telling myself that I have permission to ask for the experiences, care, and pleasure that I want and will really enjoy, that all of me is worthy of love and belonging, and that my “scary” side isn’t actually scary to people who are good for me.
So, like… I’m doing the fucking work, and I’m getting results.
 

Things I’m doing this week to further my goals:
 
Going to a poetry launch at VE, yesterday (helping to refill my creative well while surrounding myself with poetry folks)
 
Going to the Bi/Pan public get-together on my way home from work – also yesterday (thus potentially finding new people who are a great social fit for me, while also getting to say Hi to one or two people I already know are a great social fit for me)
 
Moon Salutations (which open up my hips and unlock my lower back, and which also give me 10 minutes to reach out to one of my Goddesses who I feel like I’ve been neglecting)
 
Reading Burnout, by the Nagoski sisters (and trying to remember to Practice Self-Kindness instead of spectatoring and catastrophizing in Very Specific Situations)
 
Taking care of my garden (because cultivating food is one way I also cultivate abundance and sensuality, particularly while feeling the FINALLY warm sun on my FINALLY bare skin)
 
Asking at the local coffee shop about how to get my self-published chapbooks onto their ‘zine wall, and then – earlier today – following up on that information
 
Going to the park a doing something akin to “assisted” or “suspended” pull-ups (in the interests of eventually being able to take an aerials class and actually get my body into the hoop to do all those cool, graceful, balance-based Beginner Tricks that I think I might be able to pull off… once I’m up there)
 
Working on new poems and finishing my latest poetry submission (to further show off my writing chops and move a little closer to the point where I can start shopping the chapbook around)

 
Concrete things to keep myself moving along, one foot in front of the other.
It’s funny. Or not funny, I’m not sure. I’m thinking about ritual. About Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha defining “prayer” as repetition, intention, change.
So often my repetitions feel like a rut. The rhythm of my days feels very small, less like the foundation of an ostinato and more just the trudge-trudge-trudge of someone who never does anything new. Returning to this post again and again. Some days I feel like nothing gets accomplished, in the grand scheme of things. Other days – like today – I write three new, good poems (based on a three-card draw of a deck I haven’t used in a while, no less) and a draft of a fourth; get extra cream in my coffee from a friendly, queer waitress; get to impress a 2-year-old with my not-so-amazing, but aiming-for-amazing, balancing tricks. Some days the rhythm of yoga and garden and kitchen and writing and making my living by the strength and stamina of my body, some days it feels magical. Some days I can see where this journey is meant to be taking me.