Ravynmoon: Purveyor of the Arcane, Occult & Bizarre

.:Deliciously Motivated: The Diary of Arijah Ankh Khalid-Zyn:.

February 2nd, 2022
"Failure" as a key of opportunity

On January 26th, I posted a majikal work to my blog entitled "The Heart of the Lion: Tools of Talismanic Correspondence",
for the Full Snow Moon on February 16th, 2022.

The idea was to create a talisman of success, by employing the ancient practice contained within the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, or the Picatrix
and "Aim of the Wise", and Cornelius Agrippa's perspective of astrological magic, in his 3 books of Occult philosophy
with something of my own perspective. What I wanted to do was change it, albeit, slightly...to reflect a more modern and practical approach,
and something a little less....toxic. I've always been a little skeptical when it comes to making astrological talismans. Not because I'm skeptical
of their ability, but of my own...and that has been a great source of the problem. "That", being my own self-doubt.

But where did this self-doubt come from? The same places it always does, for each and every one of us.

It starts with a point; usually, someone says to us in our youth that we "can't" do a thing. We become disappointed, especially if that
someone was somebody we trusted. What we felt strongly about, becomes distorted at that point. Questions generate doubt, which compounds
upon itself, creating more and more complexity in our minds.
Without alternative viewpoints or support from others "in the know", we sometimes fall back into what is accepted by others and unfortunately
forego what we find powerful and interesting for ourselves. All from the point of childhood, the most impressionable stage of our life.

It's within childhood that we begin to develop a sense of self. In school, we are taught to compare traits, such as in the difference between
colors, or say, dog and cat. We take this analysis into other areas of our experience, and through that, begin to develop senses of difference,
individuality, and self-worth.
We learn what we see throughout our elementary years, and then it takes years to unlearn the hypocrisy and indoctrination. Sometimes, decades
- to undo the fear, resentment, and indignation that then gets compounded upon by adult life, more hypocrisy, and more indoctrination.
Before we know it, we're 50, with hypertension, and mild existential crisis, a therapist, a yoga routine, and perhaps a few prescriptions to help us "sort it all out."

What we wanted to do as a child, is what are our innocent heart interests. These are the things we are drawn to, feel strongly about...love.
They are the growing factors in an already very chemical, genetic, and mindful symposium of thoughts and emotions: a spiritual dialogue between
our pure connection to our environment and ourselves.
This interruption creates a "system error", as we oft ourselves into a life of doing what we are told we should do, instead of living the life we want.
That "error" is the heart words screaming that it's wrong. We start to doubt, become fearful, and angry, and a domino cause and effect take place, causing
us to make mistakes, take up bad habits and self-medicate. It brings that sense of failure.

But what of our success? Where did it go? Why can some people have it, but others cannot seem to achieve it?
And...what exactly is success? What does it mean?
Well, sometimes, it takes those entire several decades of knowing what you don't want, to fully appreciate and understand what you do.
The longer you go without a support system, the longer it takes. Nowadays, finding information and comparing what is and isn't is a lot easier than it was for us back in the 70s. On one hand, that drive to
know and understand...to learn, forged in us something formidable. It generated courage and instilled in us a sense of adventure.
On the other hand, it took a lot longer to learn and find out the information we needed because it required sourcing people, places,
and things that may not have been in or around our immediate environment. In the meantime, senses of self-doubt may have continued,
promulgating failure and disappointment because it was taking too damn long. So, a failsafe alternative to travel, watch and wait? Majik.

Enter, astrological magic via spells, charms, totems, and talismans.

Without having come to a place of understanding -what we didn't want- versus -what we do-, we may have never developed the sense of what we
consider to be "failure". Once we understand what we perceive as failure, we can understand why we have come to understand it as such.
When we see the perceived failure, we see the perceived lack of success.
The desire to do or to be better, along with the expectations we have placed upon ourselves creates the drive. The undoing of old habits upon
realization and remembrance of our innermost desires drives us and commits us to change. Desire is our heart, our innermost chemistry, bridging the gap between what we really want for ourselves and what we don't already have.
Within the gap are the expectations, duty, response-ability, investments, potentials, confusions, perceptions, and of course, guilt.
It's the expectation that creates the guilt that creates the entrapment which creates the self-doubt, which creates...the failure; BUT, it's the failure that creates the opportunity. Our perceived sense of failure: the what did and didn't work, tells us exactly what we haven't tried,
or allowed ourselves to explore. That "failure" expresses the truth, by reminding us of what we really do enjoy, love, and are good at.

It allows us the crystal ball in which we see our own fairytale...that which is truly us.

Once we have redefined in ourselves what we really want out of life, we see it as something naturally obtainable, and we reconnect to
the things that give us joy, and a world of adventure opens up once again -as it once did when we were children- before society, our peers,
media and other anti-supportive mechanics began to take root in our minds and emotions....offering us the poison apple...so that we would just ...sleep.

We can then begin to assess what the word "success" really means to us and see that we've collected some pretty useful things along the way.
We may not be in the life situations we want, but we can clearly see where we shifted direction. Once we see why we shifted direction, many
of the circumstances that contributed to the self-doubt reveal themselves.
Opportunity out of failure happens because now we can define what success really means for us personally.
Many opportunities may have been overlooked because we only saw ourselves from an old point of view, and when we change our point of view -we become aware of opportunities. So what of the talismans? Stay tuned and I'll be back to discuss how these "openers of the way", contribute during "crossroad times"; those times of self-doubt,
self-initiation, and great change.

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