Tag Archives: relax

October 2020 Hiatus

September 30, 2020 By in hermetica, link, news Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

I guess that if I need a break, then I need one, and boy howdy do I need one, and a more dedicated break than what I gave myself last time.

It’s been a crazy time, as y’all know, for one reason or another, and I need a bit of a break.  I already pulled a bit of a break earlier this year to focus on my Salem presentation, which went great, but this time, I need some time to just do nothing at all except relax and enjoy myself.  Between a busy year of writing, translating, teaching, the Reign of the Lady of Crowns, taking an online Sahidic Coptic course (and several other courses, including Jack Grayle’s excellent PGM Praxis course to buff out my own stuff), and just the usual day-to-day stuff of full-time software engineering to pay the bills and household management to make the most out of it all, I’m gonna be taking a bit of a vacation for the month of October for my birthday.  I won’t be taking on any client work or consultations during this time, and though I’ll still be replying to emails for access to the Red Work Course and Geomancy in the Reign of the Lady of Crowns courses I administer as well as PayPal purchases directly through my website for my ebooks, but any requests for readings, consultations, geomancy chart reviews, coaching sessions, or the like will be on hold until after November gets here, at which point I’ll pick up on those emails and requests again.  My Etsy page also has an announcement to the same effect; although all ebooks and divination tickets through Etsy will be sent automatically to your account/email as normal, I won’t get back to requests until after my vacation.  So, if you request a reading or another service between now and then, then I humbly ask for and will sincerely appreciate your patience until I get back to such work.  Although I’ll still be semi-available by email, those who are a member of my Red Work Course or Geomancy in the Lady of Crowns class mailing lists are encouraged, when and as possible, to ask questions and discussion topics to those forums rather than to me directly in case a more urgent answer is desired from your colleagues.  If there are any big updates or newsworthy things that come up for this blog between now and then, you can be sure I’ll post them, but otherwise, I plan on giving my (excellent) keyboard a bit of a break from writing, editing, teaching, and consulting, and instead will just relax for a well-deserved staycation of my own.

We’ll pick up again soon after I’ve caught up on naps and enjoying myself.  Taking time to rest and recuperate, after all, is as much a sacrament as anything else, and even Hermēs Trismegistos in SH V.4—7 notes that sleep is a blessed thing that keeps us fair, fit, and fine (Litwa’s translation):

Since our bodies are weak, they are in need of much assistance. To be sure, how would the connecting link of our bodies resist even occasional harm if it did not maintain the ingestion of foodstuffs made from the same elements which daily reinforce our bodies? Indeed, an influx of earth, water, fire, and air flows into us which renews our bodies and holds together this tent. Consequently, in the face of commotions, we are incredibly frail and cannot bear them for a single day.

You well know, my child, that if we did not rest our bodies at night, we could not withstand a single day. For this reason, the good Craftsman who foreknows all things, created sleep for the continuance of living creatures, which is the greatest cessation from the fatigue of motion. Moreover, he ordered an equal measure of time for each state—or rather, he allotted more time to repose.

Understand, my child, the magnificent activity of sleep; it is opposed to the activity of the soul, but not inferior to it. Just as the soul is an activity of motion, in the same way, too, bodies cannot live without sleep; for there is a relaxing and loosening of the connected limbs. Sleep operates within, making ingested matter into bodies, distributing the proper elements to each bodily part: water to blood, earth to bones and marrow, air to nerves and veins, and fire to vision. Accordingly, the body intensely enjoys sleep since it activates this pleasure of the body’s reconstitution.

With that, I hope you all have a blessed October in every which way, whether you have a birthday this month or not (but especially if you do, too)!

New Year, New You: Prompt 4, “Relax”

January 3, 2012 By in news, whining Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

So, now that I’m finally getting back into the routine again (including meditation, which I’m re-discovering how to do yet again, that fickle fucker of an art), things feel absolutely spectacular.  After ritually cleansing the house on New Year’s Eve and doing a banishing of myself after traveling and drinking for the past few weeks, I ended up just sitting in my chair on Monday in absolute joy.  Not doing anything special, just sitting there wrapped in my fleece blanket being utterly happy and content.  I was the happiest dingo*.  Then I had to go to work, but even then, life still didn’t suck.  It’s like this magical stuff makes things awesome by virtue of doing it!  Whodathunkit.

Even then, though, I’m still taking it easy; my life is mostly spent in front of computers and not crystals, after all, and I consider my Work to be my actual work, fun and enlightening as it is.  And, as much as I’ve been talking, these goals I’ve set out for myself are long-term goals or simply gradual things without immediately measurable progress.  This makes Deb’s most recent prompt for the New Year, New You project kind of awkward, if not flat-out tough for me.  Basically, the prompt this week is to treat yourself to something nice, as a reward for doing what’s already been done for the NYNY project and as an incentive for doing more.  “It doesn’t have to be anything really expensive or even super time consuming,” quoth Deb.

The thing is, I don’t particularly feel like I’ve done much to begin with, beyond get back into my routine.  I feel like the work, little enough as it’s been, is only just beginning.  Still, I suppose the little victories count just as much, and I’m known for looking back on huge projects and thinking that they were nothing or barely a trifle anyway.  At this point, geeky or obsessed though it may make me sound, I think the best way for me to relax during this is to simply keep reading.  I mean, it’s not exactly active work, it’s relaxing, and it’s still helping me get my Work done in the long run.  It might be cheating, but whatever (FORGIVE ME DEB).  If I absolutely have to indulge in something (tsk, I mean, gosh, if I have to), then it’s going to be that extra bottle of sangria I have in my fridge while I work from home tomorrow.

Aaanyway…in other news, I added a new section to the site on prayers (you can see it in the navbar above).  I separated out the current prayer articles from the Rituals section and made it its own, since, with the addition of the newly-added Prayer of Thanksgiving, I didn’t want to overwhelm the pages actually focused on rituals.  Also, I’m churning out articles on geomancy oh-so-slowly under the Skills page, so check back periodically and see what’s new there.

* I hang out with furries a lot, and my fursona is a dingo.  I and others occasionally refer to myself as such.  With enough gin, I bite (hard).  And yes, I eat babies.

UPDATE (1/4/2012): Okay, I also found a cheap jewelry sale online and got myself a stainless steel ring for cheap.  You have NO IDEA how difficult it is to find subtle black men’s rings.