New Year New You 2016: Week 2 – Goals

I’m doing Miss Sugar’s New Year New You Experiment in Radical Magical Transformation (again) because I find it’s a really good way to kick my own ass into getting things done. You should try it!
 
Instructions: Determine what you want to accomplish in 2012 2016 using both magical and mundane means, then break it down into magical and mundane steps that you can take.
 
Tarot Card: Queen of Cups for some fairly obvious reasons (see below).
 
Thoughts:
So, yeah. My Goal is to wake up my Queen of Cups energy and to become More Receptive on all fronts.
This feels a bit scary (but it probably should), and also a bit… foolish? Like I’m doomed to fall down the rabbit hole of Second Chakra Energy money-and-sex stuff (because Receiving Makes You Vulnerable and/or Wanting Is Shallow, or whatever other internalized crap I’ve got to deal with… is still up against money and sex being strongly conflaited in my culture, even as we deamonize sexworkers… yada yada yada, I’m already getting Meta in an effort to avoid looking at my own Issues, look at that) rather than focusing on some sort of heart-opening/ocean-soul thing that would be just so much more valid and less greedy and just… eugh. Internalized issues? You bet your ass!
 
Questions (and similar):
1. How are you going to accomplish these large goals in your daily life?
I… have no idea.
Which doesn’t work as an answer, I know.
It’s hard to think of “receiving” as something I can initiate.
None the less, I can pay attention. Like it says in this post, I can actively notice when someone does something nice for me in order to circumvent That Thing where it only takes one “no” to cancel out a dozen “yes” responses and maybe help me stop thinking that nobody wants to give me things (even when “things” are non-physical stuff like “kind words” or whatever).
 
I can do some of the exercises in Ecstasy is Necessary (because, yeah, some of this – lots of this, even – is totally to do with sex)
 
I can Try New Things. Stick with me here. Being receptive means being open. It means less holing up in my living room (oh hai, Winter… look who just arrived) and more (a) eating Korean BBQ, (b) reading at open mics (again), (c) volunteering, (d) taking classes, (e) going to Free Cool Events in my neighbourhood, (f) going to Free Cool Events in different cities[1]!, and other stuff like that there.
 
I can Ask. I can Use My Words and see what comes my way. (This is terrifying, but there you go).
 
2. What magical acts (rituals, spellwork, whatever it is you do) can you do to help you accomplish this goal?
This is almost easier. I’ve been taking Glamour Baths for ages, now, and word has it that my High Femme Smoulder is basically unstoppable. This is good to hear (for many reasons), and means that this particular form of magic is actually working for me.
I’m good at Honey Pots – calling things to me.
What I need to sort out now is how to see, and take, the opportunities/gifts/wooing/kindness/etc that come my way. I can:
 
Re-enchant my (new) mascara to help me see and recognize those things as they come.
 
Keep up with my ritual baths and honey-pot feedings, since those seem to be working well.
 
Re-charge my favourite lipstick(s) for added glamourous vavavoom.
 
Do some of the exercises in Urban Tantra with specific regards to opening up my energy flows.
 
Do Kundalini yoga (using an online free video, provided I can get it to stream properly) because… it helps. Though I’m not sure how/why. But go with what works.
 
Do “water meditation”. Yeah. You know that thing that everyone learns when they read Starhawk (or Silver Raven Wolf, or whatever you read as a baby Pagan learning the 101 stuff), where you send your roots into the earth and draw energy up from the earth’s core? I could never get the hang of that. But I tried looking for the water table and BAM! Now that’s energy I can access and draw upon! So I figure, what better way to access my Queen Of Cups mojo than to practice opening up to, and drawing in, specifically water-based energy? Gotta be worth a shot, right? Right.
 
3 and 4. What does [your preferred method of divination] and/or [patron deities/spirits] have to say regarding how to make sure you put these plans into action AND what kind of road blocks may keep you from doing so?
Yeah, I totally conflated #3 and #4 here. I get a lot of radio silence (or possibly I’m just failing to pick up the signal – Also likely. “Receptive” has a lot of meanings and I need help with all of them) when I ask questions without some sort of translation service (such as tarot cards) in play.
 
Yesterday – and I realize this isn’t the most Intentional way of doing this (call it Radiomancy with divination cards) – I was shuffling my Daughters of the Moon tarot deck[2] and, possibly because the cards are big and round and hard to handle, half a dozen cards toppled out of the deck, first two, then four, right after each other. I decided to go with it:
 
Road Blocks:
Reversal (the Hanged One)
Conflict (4 of Flames)
 
Actions to Take:
Cerridwen (Crone – King? – of Flames)
The Moon
Hokhma – Decisions (8 of Blades)
Mami Watu the Mermaid / Pisces (Maiden – Page-Knight – of cups)
 
With regards to road blocks I might have to deal with, the “reversal” card sometimes just means “hanging around and waiting” AKA: Inaction. That one’s easy enough to understand, although not strictly super helpful in terms of specifics. The “conflict” card is… one of the ones that doesn’t match up, to my knowledge, with anything like a traditional tarot card. The closest I can guess is the possibility of there being “too many cooks” involved in my personal receptivity-building project (I understand the 4 of Fire as participation/get-involved/everyone-onto-the-dance-floor/collaboration kind of thing) or maaaaaaaybe that I might “plateau” at the first sign of leveling up or start balking (inner conflict??) when it comes to trying to open up with/to someone(s) else.
 
As far as steps to take (or allies, or helpful hints, or however you want to read this bunch) go, I’m inclined to take the Moon card pretty literally, given that my own Moon Goddess handles trust and emotional stuff (and the ocean) as part of Her pervue.
As for the rest… Cerridwen’s cauldron of creation and transformation. Recognition of harms done in past relatioinships and needing to (actively) choose, moment to moment, whether those ripples are going to be the boss of me right now. That mermaid, again, calling me to dive deep, seek self-understanding/compassion, but also to trust and take risks. Which, okay, that last one is pretty clear. 😉
 
I don’t know if my Ladies were talking through those cards, but I’m willing to keep them in mind going forward, since they (mostly) seem to make sense.
 
Anyway. Week Three awaits, but it’s probably going to Await a little longer (which is hilarious, given that the topic is “something you’ve been putting off), since Week Four is pretty date-specific (New Year’s and all it’s accompanying guilt-ridden self-sabotage) and Miss Sugar commands that we all do that one right on time.
 
I’m off!
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] Yeah, I’m looking at taking “working vacations” to nearby cities where I have Crash Space in town, and booking 3-5 modeling jobs in as many days… if I can manage that. But: Receptive. (Gahds, so much of this is “power of positive thinking” crap. I feel like I’m subscribing to The Secret or something… Eugh…)
 
[2] Which, in my opinion are really not a tarot deck at all. They’re something new built from the bones of the tarot, but… while most re-interpretations / new-interpretations of the tarot stick to the 78 cards and their original meanings – so while some decks might put the emphasis of the 3 of Cups on “relationships between women”, others might put it on “your cup runeth over”, and still others might focus on “community building”, “partying to excess”, or “so many (too many?) options”, these different emphases are still all aspects of the actual card – the DotM deck amalgamtes a number of major arcana cards, conflates the pages and knights together, and redistributes the “troubling cards” of the suit of air across the entire minor arcana so that, basically, the elemental suits look a little bit less like the houses in Harry Potter.

Bite Sized Goals (New Year, New You)

So, as you know bob, I’ve signed up for Miss Sugar’s radical-magical-transformation project. Not long ago, I stated my Big, Over-Arching Goal for the year (and the foreseeable future) as being:

I want my LIFE to be this glorious mash-up of art and sex and joy and beauty, I want my LIFE to be built on and fueled by, and in a symbiotic relationship with, pleasure in all its many forms.

So. Miss Sugar’s latest prompt pertains to taking that Big, Over-Arching Goal and breaking it down into bite-sized micro-goals that actually move you towards your Big Goal in manageable steps.

Good idea.

So. She asks what I can reasonably expect to accomplish by Valentines’ Day.
Fair enough.
Now, I look at that date and basically quail in despair. Because I’m temping until the end of January and, even at half-days, it eats a lot of my time.
I know that, right now, I’m just trying to get through the next week (or so) and, after that I can worry about this Radical Transformation stuff.

Which, of course, is garbage. I mean, (a) Why wait? and (b) I’m not actually waiting. Not really. I’m poking at fears, I have a date with my honey-pots booked (the questions is: Will I successfully keep it[1], cocnsidering it’s tomorrow and I’ve got a dinner to make…), and I’m doing More Reading (in the blogosphere, so far, with a book-list starting to grow) about hedge witchery – a subsection of (frequently?) solitary pagan practice that simultaneously fits beautifully with how I understand the world AND scares the ever-loving fuck out of me because, as much as I don’t want to get hit with Radio Silence, I think I’m actually more scared of getting an answer[2]. Particularly if it’s from someone I’m not expecting. :-\

But, anyway. Tangent.

Things I can do before Valentines’ Day that will – physically or magically – help to push me towards my Big Goal:

I can do my two honey-pot spells – one for career/jobs/money (that is specifically to do with the kind of jobs I want and enjoy and could thrive in) and one for drawing creative inspiration & activity (writing-wise and crafting-wise, but particularly wrt poetry and erotic fiction).

I can send out an email on, say, the 28th of December, reminding my various figure-modeling contacts that they should hire me for their January-April/June sessions.

I can make a point of actually using my scheduled afternoon non-blog-based writing time – rather than letting it slip away answering emails or running errands – to write fiction and/or poetry.

I can learn how to make soy-wax candles that don’t crack all over the place, and experiment with the essential oils I ordered to find useful combinations – with the idea being that I can (a) use my experiments to further my own goals, but also (b) when I get the hang of it, I can start adding drawing-in candles to my list of Crafty crafts that I can, potentially, sell online (or at, say, the annual Yule Craft Fair, or where-ever).

I can order up to two new books on Craftiness of one sort or another, and actually read them in a timely manner.

I can practice reading my tarot cards. (Maybe I can write poetry about each one of them, or something, I don’t know, to get to know them better).

I can routinely check out Kijiji, Craigslist, Charity Village, and the MM Casting Calls page for jobs/gigs that actually fit with my Big Goal, and apply for them.

I can wear perfume (or use other forms of glamour) to put myself in the right headspace and pull (good/useful, one hopes) attention towards me. I can write/think/read more about Femme (which is up to its elbows – at least for me – in sensual hedonism, feminine sexuality, AND feminine power). I can take baths full of epsom salts and essential oils (myrrh, sweet orange, and cinnamon?) and use the time to (a) de-stress and (b) shave my legs and do other routine maintenance that leaves me feeling more powerful and on top of things and more myself.

I can take to doing tarot readings in local cafes just to see if I catch the interest of anyone who wants to pay me to do one for them. (This has happened before. It could happen again).

Speaking of which: I did a tarot reading for myself today, with a fairly wide-open “what’s coming up, can I do this for a career” kind of question. The answer I got was, basically:

You learn by doing. It’ll be hard to break through the barriers you’ve put up to your own knowledge/understanding/sight but if you keep working at it, you’ll get there.

My signifier was the King of Swords (which, in my deck, is “Control”, and which I tend to think of as the Lord Domly-Dom card), and I’m not totally sure what that’s about, unless it’s something about me holding myself in a rigid position because I’m afraid of losing control by trying something outside of what’s familiar to me[3].
‘Cause, boy-howdy, is that ever the case! O.O

Miss Sugar’s fourth point in her post, the one about consulting with whichever spirits/deities you work with regarding the Stuff that’s preventing you from achieving your goals? That’s the one that scares me. I’ve talked elsewhere about being (slightly) more afraid of getting an answer than I am of getting radio silence if I hard-core reached out and went “Mamas, I have got to talk to you about something”.
Whenever I do this, I basically talk (half in my head, half outloud) to “the air” and remind them all that, basically, I’m really obtuse and if they want to point me in the right direction, they’re going to need the biggest neon finger in the world to get it through to me.
This works surprisingly well, actually.
Who knew?
(Granted, in this case, I think I know what’s stopping me: Fear. Because it’s pretty much always “fear” with me. Fear of failure. Fear of success leading to my getting in over my head. Fear of getting noticed in a way that leads to my being some kind of a target. Fear fear fear fear fear. I know that one).

Anyway.

That’s it for me this evening. Tomorrow, I’ll probably be on here flailing about getting the root veggie roast done on time, but for now I’m going to bed.

TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

[1] How horrible is that? Canceling a date with your deities? WTF…

[2] This happened once, when I was very new to Paganism, and was wanting to do a blessing ritual and was working out the ritual poetry in class and… she showed up. Maia, I mean. She’s an alto, as it happens. She sounded both amused – possibly because it was obvious how surprised I was – and… and “Okay, kiddo. Now that I’m here, you’d better not be wasting my time…” Y’know?

[3] Which is, perhaps, reading things into a card that, really, I could have told you without the visual aid. 😉

New Year, New You – Goals

Okay.

So I’ve signed up to be part of Miss Sugar’s New Year, New You project.

I feel rather like she does, in her post. Like this is jumping the gun and starting things too early.

Lately (and that really is only the last two years, although the last two years have been pretty monumental in terms of relationships, career-building, and general self-actualization, so…) lately, February has been the Time of Big Changes Getting Started for me. It’s when things started Getting Serious between me and Ghost (my life partner).

February is turning into a Big Changes time for me. It was February 2010 when things started Getting Serious with the woman who is now my life-partner (and my property) and, additionally, when I made my first big go at getting self-employed. February 2011 was when Ghost and I started talking collars, and when I actively went from “self-employed while looking desperately for another temp job” to “self-employed, dammit!” As it stands, while I’m still working a temp-job part-time, I’ve also spent most of 2011 self-employed, making my living (my living) by writing, modeling, crafting, running a poetry show, and – as of September – doing health outreach for the local Rainbow Community.
This is a HUGE deal for me.
For the longest time, my worldview basically went “there is no security unless you have a Government Job”. Which, of course, is garbage (although they do have a very nice pension plan, I can acknowledge that one). So the fact that I can, and do, keep myself alive[1] by being a creative queer chick is… pretty magical in and of itself.

So my goal, my goal for this New Year New You project, is actually to affect more of the same. To pull together more (successful/viable) income streams that actually reflect who I am and enrich me in some way, and to build on the ones I already have. Part of me is getting all “Money? Is that really what this is going to be about?” but… Okay, I can say “It’s about money,” sure. But what is money? It’s a means to many ends. Ends like a little bit of stability and security for me and my girl. Ends like the tiny house with the yard full of fruit trees and the really, really, really local eating. But it’s also about all that “follow your bliss” stuff.

There’s this guy you might know, who talks about life down the rabbit hole and how he’s now a fully-immigrated citizen of Palimpsest (no really, you should totally read that book, it’s got myth utterly riddled all through it). And that’s what I want.
And that’s what I want.

I want my LIFE to be this glorious mash-up of art and sex and joy and beauty, I want my LIFE to be built on and fueled by, and in a symbiotic relationship with, pleasure in all its many forms.

And that’s what I want my year of radical, magical transformation to get me to.

So there you go. My goal for the year (and beyond).

Wish me luck! 😀

TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

[1] Not much more than that – and gods know, if I didn’t have my Ghost, I’d be in a LOT of trouble if I was still trying to live like this. Having a supportive partner makes a HUGE difference!