NOTES ON DEVELOPMENT
One of the hardest parts of my spiritual journey, especially since I got involved in folk magic, ATRs and ceremonial magic, has been when I realize a teaching I have followed (usually communicated by an elder) was incorrect. Sometimes the FULL realization of this does not occur until I am many years into my practice. This is one of many reasons I teach in my own capacity for students to be suspicious of someone promulgating too many absolutes. Because the hard fact of the matter is all of us will likely be changing, shifting and correcting parts of our spiritual practice as we go. I don’t want to spend a lot of time belly-aching about it, however. The point of this post is for me to give some point pointers on the two core things I have held onto tightly even as parts of my developmental boat have rocked and reeled.
The first I would suggest to anyone is, whoever your core spirits are, when things go sideways in this sense, lean harder on them. Don’t stress about their altar, offerings, or anything else. Just get a white candle, light it in front of whatever represents them, and meditate. Speak from your heart, even if the spirit has a specific protocol you normally follow. All tutelary spirits like the offerings from our heart, even if we are troubled, because we are speaking to them from the authenticity of who were are at that moment. Ask them to assist you with finding your way. Ask them to bring healthier elders into your life who do not manipulate or abuse.
Now, some of you will rightfully ask, what if I don’t have any sort of spirit I work with? Or what if things with that spirit doesn’t feel right? Then I suggest you go even simpler: get a glass of water and a white candle. Sit at a table in your home in a quiet place with those two things. Light the candle and speak to yourself. Yes, yourself. Why? Because you are a spirit as well. There is an aspect of you that is divine like any god or spirit that can receive the same meditation and prayers and appeals. Ask your own spirit to guide you through this rock time, and it will. But key to this work is you have to believe in yourself enough to know that your own spirit IS capable of guiding you. If you have too many self-confidence issues, then consider therapy or some other form of mental health assistance to help you break the negativity of your own cognitions. I have done this work too.
The second big piece relates to the last thing I just said. One lie I was told was that there is a profound internal imperfection that requires a full-on initiation to fix. I say lie because, as I was speaking above, our spirits are not imperfect or created with a defect at the factory of birth. What is divine is not imperfect in that sense. Saying that to people is yet another way to manipulate them into shelling out precious dollars for costly initiations that create more burdens in their upkeep than they do solutions.
But I am also very practical. I know that when mentoring relationships fail because the mentor is toxic, it deals a huge blow to the mentee’s ability to trust and believe in themselves. I feel like this is the same root problem with the isms of our world. I have experienced racism much the same in my life. It’s most destructive power is how it causes me to doubt myself and my humanity, if I let it. Add to this people’s penchant for defense mechanisms and you can find yourself powerless and voiceless pretty quickly.
I can’t give any profound or pithy method for how to get past or through this one. The only thing I have found to work is letting a lot of time pass and doing the work of taking an honest life review of the course of my relationship with that mentor. Almost always, when I do this, I start to see cracks in the integrity of things way back when. I don’t do this review to beat up on myself. I do it to continue the process of my development. Part of developing as a spiritual person is to make the choice to turn and face what’s hard in ways most other people avoid. And the hard truth with a lot of mentoring relationships, like other relationships in life, is we hold onto the person longer than we should because we become emotionally attached. Many of us also have a deep need for their validation, so that also comes into play.
These are the two things I know that works in spiritual recovery. But this is an open post (like an open letter). What have you found to help you through such difficult transitions?
Inquiring minds want to know!
