Things are shifting, falling into place, strengthening. And I want to jump back into work – pick up all the things I let sit while I was resting.  But a quiet voice from deep within says “Wait. Not yet. Do not push. Nurture the strength that is growing within you. Wait.”

And so I wait. I meditate, and rest, and exercise, and eat well, and read a book that requires nothing of me but brings me great pleasure. I attend to my kids, getting them settled in school. And I wait. The work will be here soon enough. I must be strong and well rested to meet it.

Because our work is integrative, processing is part of the work.

Lately, when I’m not careful, I find myself applying a false and unhelpful standard to my spiritual work. The standard is that if receptive work is at the forefront bringing clarity and new insight, then I’m doing my work well. If instead, my work is in processing and integrating that which I received, then things just “aren’t working”.  Written down like that, or said aloud, it’s obvious. What good is new information, new insight, if we can’t integrate it into ourselves and our lives? Very little.

But the truth is, processing, integrating, moving the new understanding, the new way of working, the deeper insight into all the parts of ourselves, and into our practice, our daily lives, our choices… this is the hardest and most important work of all.

In my work, this is a very cyclical process: Receive, understand, process, understand more deeply, integrate. And then it starts back at the beginning. If I go back through my journals I can see it play over and over. It’s a strong, healthy process. That is, except in the place where I devalue the work of processing.

Is there a part of your work that you unconsciously devalue? Take a look at it. Is it truly not a valuable part of things? Does your practice need a tune up? Or does your perspective on your practice need the tune up?

More and more the message coming from my gods and guides is this: As long as most humans hate themselves they will not stop hurting and killing – each other, the earth, themselves one way or another. Salvation comes only from love and that must include love for self and love for humanity. The culture in which we live tells us to mute this cry with anything that offers to dull our senses. And by and large, we humans do. But things are reaching a critical mass and it is time to wake up. We must find a way to love ourselves, each other, and our species not through avoidance but through connection. Wake up. Do this work. Save the world.

I read today about a campaign and documentary called Every Mother Matters. I want to live in a world where this is so ingrained in us, where we hold in our bodies that every mother matters, that we would never think to create a slogan. For if every mother matters, so does every child and every father.  If we that’s where we are – that we need to be reminded mothers and healthy mothering matter – then let’s start there.

But the truth and the beauty is this. For every problem we have created in our pain and our ignorance, someone holds the love in their heart and the fire in their belly and the ingenuity in their brain to plant the seeds of solution. We do not have to each reach out to solve everything. We must instead start with love, love for ourselves, for the planet that sustains us, for the people in our lives, for the person or need that can receive what we have to offer and show us a way back to loving ourselves. Start where you are. Save the world.

In response to my last post Elysia commented:

Wonderful news! Many blessings on your journey. Trodding the same path of seeking career transformation, I would LOVE to read about HOW you made the decision - pragmatically as well as spiritually.

Thanks for the well wishes and for the question!

For me, career transformation has been somewhat sudden and also long in coming.  It has been the result of deep integrative work. I, like most of us, learned to fragment my life – work life, home life, spiritual life. I learned to think of myself as the set of roles I played – priestess, mother, boss, employee, wife, sister, daughter, friend. Because it made people comfortable I learned to really keep those roles separate.

A lot of the work the SBT has done over the last several years has been work of integrating our parts. We came to that work accidentally. As a priesthood, we are charged with specific work. Our gods and guides knew we could not do that work successfully while trying to live as fragmented people. So, the work we started with was deep work around integrating those fragmented lives we’ve built. This is hard work. And it results in a lot of life changes. Things that we’d learned to manage as long as we lived in a dis-integrated way were not tolerable anymore.

For me, everything from my daily practice to my food and level/regularity/type of exercise changed. It wasn’t convenient at first, but it was healthy. The last holdout was work. Why? Because I was hopeful that I could be myself fully integrated in the job that I had. That wasn’t even close to accurate. Instead, I found that I had bent and stepped back, and compromised so much at work that the person I had to be while there was someone I could no longer tolerate being.

When I hit that point, the universe bent to help me. My choice was not only an obvious one for me (though far removed from the career I’ve practiced for 20 yrs), I had people saying to me “you should do that!” All the things needed fell into place very quickly. The entire situation was made available to me and required me only to be willing to do the scary thing of leaving a job with which I was familiar and being willing to work out not earning the kind of living I earn now while in school. All that is scary, but not a reason for not doing it.

Does it always work so smoothly? I don’t know. But I do know this. The career for which I will start training in September relies on me using the senses that are integral to the work I do as a priestess and seer. It’s different work, but it focuses on using many of the same senses and being open with the people with whom I will work. It requires me to be all that I have come to be and not to twist myself into unrecognizable shapes. It offers me the opportunity to live as a whole and integrated person doing work I can be proud of.

This doesn’t sound like practical advice, but look closely, I think in many ways it is. Step by step is easy to get, the spirit of change is what can be hard to approach. The older I get the more I rely on a single piece of advice for most things – relationships, jobs, living situations, etc.  Does it make you a better, more whole, stronger version of you? My job was taking me in a direction that made me lesser, smaller, and in many ways even meaner. My new career already makes me feel more open. Stronger. Better. More whole. When I interviewed at the school with the president of the program I was able to reference my spiritual work without it being a negative thing. I was applauded for walking a path that is mine. I was told that this school would give me the tools to create a practice that allows me to serve in a way that is my way. I have the opportunity to live in a more integrated manner.

One of my guides told me this recently, and I think it applies: All things must return to their essential nature. An oak tree cannot succeed by trying to be a rose bush.

In terms of career, we are often forced down a road of trying to fit into a shape that is contrary to what we are at our core. While we may be good at it, we can be incredible at something that doesn’t require that sort of compromise.

If you read this blog on any kind of semi-regular basis, you will have noticed that posts have been less frequent. This year has been one of amazing and often difficult transformation. I’ve made decisions time and again to not force myself to post when other things – things that are critical to the tradition, my family and my wellbeing – were more important. I’ve made the hard decision not to post when I’m in a place where I can’t formulate authentic communication. When my resources have been spent on integrating the transformation and I haven’t had the wherewithal to write anything of value, I have chosen not to waste your time writing and posting only to meet an internal obligation. That was harder than it sounds.

But through it all, this blog – this small gesture of outreach – has remained important to me and feels important to the priesthood of the Silver Branch Tradition. And so it continues, sometimes less regularly than others.  The good news is that much of this particular transformation is complete. In response, the structure of my daily life itself will be changing over the next several months and will allow me to spend a bit more time writing, teaching, and building the tradition.

I’m leaving the job I no longer fit into and taking a wild ride to a new career complete with another advanced degree. From software cubicle worker to acupuncturist – I will be taking on a profession that is more in line with my calling as a priestess… after the 3 years of training of course. It’s a little scary leaping into the unknown, but it’s the right kind of scary. I’m looking forward to having more time and focus and to posting more often this fall. It feels right.

I have a friend who is involved with a group that is well known in Pagan circles. One thing that has come through loud and clear in our conversations is that along the way, many of their 3^rd degree recipients seem to fall apart – somewhat permanently. Now for the most part, this has nothing to do with me, except that everything I see is an object lesson. As I build both the priesthood of the Silver Branch tradition and the training that will support it, I view every group, method of training, tradition, and organization as an example – an opportunity to see, at least from the outside, what works and what doesn’t.

The Silver Branch tradition is not a tradition for the masses. It is a priesthood with a specific job. That job cannot be fulfilled if those working from the greatest depth and highest level of experience aren’t standing on a foundation of sound training and sound character.

One thing that stands out to me, not only among the group my friend is involved with, is that in the Pagan community, we often mistake chaos for power. It’s a commonly heard statement that “oh, I had my xx initiation and then everything went to hell.” This perception is held with pride. It is also viewed from a place of judgment, “just wait until he has his initiation, then he’ll get his.” I think in the wider community we’ve lost our way with this. True Initiation is powerful. Some initiations are meant to jar us into a place of re-evaluating and restructuring our lives. But, the training we’ve had and our commitment (Will) are also meant to be strong enough to allow us to use that experience and flourish rather than fall apart. Don’t get me wrong, big change usually comes with some level of feeling like we’re falling apart. But in a good initiation, its transitory, having to do with getting our bearings, becoming this new thing, and putting our lives into a state that serves us rather than wrecking our lives, jobs, relationships and leaving us permanently unstable or dysfunctional.

The measure of how much someone’s life falls apart is not the measure of the power of an initiation. If it were, then what’s the point? Why initiate? Why progress in your work? I would say instead that the growth that is a result of the initiation (and any temporary upheaval) is the measure of the power of the initiation, the strength of the training, the support of the community of initiates, and the commitment and Will of the initiate. That’s right. It comes back to us. Are we strong in our teaching? Are we strong in our practice? Can an upending of how we thought things worked teach us another level of truth about the Universe, ourselves, Will, and Magic?  Can it teach us about service in a way that has nothing to do with “should”? Can it, by our choice, change what we are in a positive way? Does it make the false “truths” we tell ourselves and the structures that no longer serve us unbearable while giving us the wherewithal to believe we can change them and to follow through? Does it root us in both our own power and the power of the work we do within the tradition? That is the measure of power in an initiation.

Last night when I sat down to write a blog post I had a few false starts. They all came too much from the head and withered before they could really become much. When my time for writing was nearly up, I opened a blank document and wrote the words you see below. Today I was tempted to edit it, craft it, shape it into something more palatable. I will resist that temptation and instead share it as it came to me.

We are adrift when we divorce ourselves, even emotionally, from the land. We are a house of cards when we view ourselves as separate from our bodies. As long as we hate our bodies we will destroy the land and ultimately ourselves. It is time to let go of self loathing. It is not useful. We are incarnate beings, blessed with bodies that are amazing systems of energy, life, form and spirit. This life is about understanding what it means to live bound up in this system. Our bodies, much though we strive to deny it, are linked deeply to the land. If it fails, if we destroy it, we also destroy ourselves, and not only on an individual level, but as a species. Can we truly value ourselves so little? Can we really fail to value the living, breathing, growing land on which we live?

It is time to stop lashing out as broken, frightened creatures, intent on inflicting pain in order to stop our own. It is time to stop dulling our senses and to wake up and see what we are killing. It may not be what you think. Killing does not make living hurt less. It only dulls the joy that is available.

Instead, sit still and breathe. Listen. Can you hear a bird sing? Can you see a tree? Do you feel the life coming into abundance around you?  I know it’s scary. I know we have been taught to believe that anything that cycles is not true. If it were it would not leave us. This lie will cripple you if you let it. The setting of the sun does not negate the bright light of day. It moves in a natural rhythm that you know deep in your bones and your DNA. The sun sets. The moon rises. The moon sets. The sun rises. No one has abandoned you nor left you alone to die. Reject that lie.

Lately, when teaching, I have found myself saying more and more often, “Now I’m going to say something heretical” or “Now I’m going to go against the grain” or “Now I’m going to say something controversial.” And I started to wonder, when did Paganism and magical practices become dogmatic? And when did I become a heretic?! Dogma is an interesting thing to struggle with. When we’re teaching, when we’re learning, we need some level of fixedness to work with or we feel like we are running amok. We also need something against which to judge our own thoughts, revelations and personal gnosis. Without that, we suddenly think that every thought that wanders through our heads is divinely inspired… or that none of them are.

On the other hand, Ivo Dominguez always says “Be careful of the traditions and practices you accidentally set”. He tells a story of several generations of a family cutting off the end of a ham until it becomes almost sacred “Grandma always did this, its important”. Eventually someone asks Grandma why she did it only to learn that the pan she had to cook it in was too short to accommodate the ham.

We need to find our way between rigid dogma and a completely freeform approach. For much of my early life I was trained as a ballerina. While it taught me many things that I later worked for years to unlearn, it also taught me lessons that are still valuable. One of those is that the rules and structures exist for a reason. The reason is not to bind us, but to give us structure in which to learn. Only when we know the rules and are competent within the structures can we also be competent to know when they are no longer needed and when, in fact, they should be broken. The structures also teach us nuance – how do we work within them to do or learn something new or view it in a new way? And just as the structures are important, there are prodigies who come along whose bodies simply know how to dance and how to move both within and beyond the structure without the years of rigorous training. I have come to see these two truths as universal.

Within magical practice, we must learn the structures and “rules” in order to have context with which to judge our own or anyone else’s work. We must gain competence in the forms and practices in which we train in order to venture outside them, or even to see the nuance and complex beauty within them. And sometimes there are people whose talents simply make that unnecessary – though they are rare. And even they benefit from learning the practices.  We also have to keep ourselves from being so rigid that we don’t allow for that natural talent to show up, learn and be trained. And also, maybe more importantly, we need to keep ourselves flexible enough to encourage the questions, curiosity and learning of those students we teach, whether or not they come in order. Likewise, as students, we need to try to see the values in the structures and practices of our teachers so that we can both gain the value of discipline and grow beyond the need for the structures that taught us.

I had an interesting conversation today about learning something with more than your brain and reasoning.  The gentleman I was listening to was talking about learning systems that support the practice of acupuncture. He suggested not trying to correlate one system of understanding with another.  When learning a tradition or system of understanding the world, let it be what it is. Do not try to understand it in the context of what you know.  The reason he gave was that too much is missed when your brain is busy correlating one insight or teaching with something you already know, whether or not, in the end, they lead to the same place. Learning takes place in more than our reasoning, it takes place in our bodies.

This spoke to me because in Paganism, we tend to hear two viewpoints:

• There is only one right way, and it’s ours. Everyone else is either wrong or a fake,
• It all boils down to the same thing, anyway.

 I invite you to consider a third option: all true traditions are expressions of the same thing. This does not make them the same thing – in fact it precludes them from being the same thing. The emphasis will be in different places, the forms will vary, each expression will focus differently and have a different movement to it. And this is as it should be.

This same kind of argument – that there is only one truth - regularly gets applied to social structures. People hotly debate what makes a true family. What is marriage? What is the only true appropriate structure in which to live in love? From the perspective of the Silver Branch tradition, the only true appropriate structure in which to live in love is any structure that is a true expression of love. This doesn’t mean anything goes. It means true love and genuine expression of that has to be at the heart of the structure.  This changes the story. The important thing is no longer the shape of the expression but the impulse behind it and the actions that back it up.

In the Silver Branch tradition, we work with universe in terms of expression all the time. Instead of working with stellar worlds/underworld as a pair in polarity, we work with the Earth as a planetary expression of the universe (i.e. the Stellar world), and humanity as an earthly expression of that same spiritual force.  It moves us out of a place of opposition and into a place of understanding how things fit together in the fabric of all that is. 

Both the root of the expression – the impetus driving it – and the multitude of expressions of it are important.  It is the expression of truth that gives us form and context to begin to approach it. And often, by looking too hard and grasping too tightly we lose the truth because we are unwilling to dwell in the expression.

The job (and career!) that I thought I’d love has become a box I no longer fit into.  For a while I tried to fit. I tried to squash myself up and squeeze in while banging a bit on the box here and there, hoping that we could be made to fit one another. Eventually, it became clear. I don’t fit in this box and the box won’t grow to fit me. And given that, I have no desire to reshape myself into a shape that will fit in that box. I’ve worked too hard to become this new creature.  It doesn’t matter anyway, a butterfly cannot go back to being a caterpillar, no matter how hard she tries.

And so I am letting go of the box; I am letting go of the day-to-day that no longer fits. It’s a scary, perched here outside the box that served me for many years. But it’s right. I know the shape of that box. I know how to navigate it. There is the comfort of familiarity there, sitting alongside of the discomfort of being wedged in where I don’t fit. But, when you don’t fit, you don’t fit. No amount of pretending will make you fit.  Instead, it only does you a disservice. Why on earth should the butterfly try to be a caterpillar? There are more caterpillars there to fill her spot and she has butterfly work to do. The time for looking back is done. I am not a caterpillar anymore.

Are there forms you have outgrown? Are you holding yourself from your work (and from yourself!) by insisting that something you’ve outgrown still fits? By trying to squash yourself to fit it?  Be bold. Step outside that box with me. The air out here is exhilarating.