Temple of the Twelve: Black Month Check-In

[windinthemaples]

This past weekend was the Full Moon, the half-way point of our Black Month. How has your work with Black been going? Are you unearthing secrets? Dark sides to your personality that you hide from everyone, including yourself? Have you begun honoring your talents by using them in the world?

In the book, Caroline arrives at her Full Moon with a crisis of faith. She hasn't even started her true self-portrait and she is certain it is a task she won't complete in time to move on to the next color. She feels unequal to the challenge she's been presented with. Under the Full Moon, she performs a ritual and is given something she needs--a teacher to help guide her efforts. It is only then, with the reassurance that Lady Black would provide all help necessary, and a newfound determination to do her best, that Caroline's work drawing herself as she truly is can begin.

How did the Full Moon's power change your relationship with Black, with the work, this month?

~~~*~~~

For those of you who signed up for the June/July token exchange, have you both sent and received a token package?

Mine waits for me on my altar and I know I have a lot of work to do to earn it! I hope to devote quite a bit of my free time this long weekend towards my portrait. One of the themes for the month for me has been the consequences of fear, of living with my eyes stubbornly closed so I don't have to risk seeing what's in the dark with me. It has manifested, in one way, as a medical phobia. I avoid the ounce of prevention, like seeing the doctor, because I'd rather not face what scares me (being not in control and some unknown life-changing diagnosis) and then down the road I have to pay for it with the huge, even scarier consequences of neglecting myself. It's like, I can spend $30 on an oil change every 3000 miles or I can wait and then kablow!! spend $2000+ on repairs. I can keep up with the dishes every day or I can wait and then wham!! I've got too much to manage and a sugar ant infestation to boot. What is it within me that invites the worse? Why do I continuously choose to ignore something until it reaches crisis stage? That theme is everywhere I look this month for me. I need to keep my eyes open and honestly look at what's around me, what's within me.

On the other side of the token, my talents, I had a tarot reading that addressed a lot about that. For me, the entire reading was about water and emotion *except* for the work of the month. That, it said, was the Ten of Swords. One of my talents is my logical ability to step back and see, dispassionately, the big picture. In order to use the rest of my talents as part of a meaningful, service-oriented life, I realize I must prune and trim both what I choose to utilize and how I spend my time. That's something that must be done intellectually and deliberately. So I will be doing a lot of thinking and list-writing about where all my time goes now, what my best talents are, and what few interests I should pursue in the future. I can't do it all. By not choosing, I'm just in idle, wasting both the days of my life and my Goddess-given talents, and I recognize that's not acceptable. I have been waiting for a Call, for Someone to make the hard decisions for me and that's being chicken. I must make decisions, narrow my focus deliberately, and get to work on my life's work. I must dictate what that life's work will be. So, yeah, I have a ton of work to do in the next two weeks and I, like Caroline, doubt my ability to honestly complete so much heavy-lifting and hard, scary soul-searching.

Comments

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

I think willfully ignoring one's positive attributes is rooted in the same problem as willfully ignoring one's flaws. Both seem to be the work of Black, making the effort, being brave enough to look in the dark to see what is truly there and not just what you imagine (or fear) might be there.

For me, I have logical *and* emotional thinking. Emotional thinking tells me I'm fat and worthless. I can step away from that and say, "Okay, logically I know I'm not fat and worthless, I'm just in the habit of eating junky foods, not exercising, and as a result I'm carrying more weight than is normal or healthy for me." That doesn't erase the emotional me that hisses in my ear, but at least gives me a calm counterpoint to consider.

It sounds like your emotional mind is saying, "lazy, selfish moocher" among other things about you. If you step back, out of the emotional river, into that detached, logical place of observation--what do you actually see?

Whether you intended to or not, by reading the books and starting to think these Black, searching thoughts, it seems like you've already begun the work! :)

[mermaiden.livejournal.com]

I think willfully ignoring one's positive attributes is rooted in the same problem as willfully ignoring one's flaws.

I really feel this. For me, that's what a lot of this month's work has been about. I have begun to be so much gentler with myself than demanding everything constantly. You know how we talked about the whole "we wouldn't treat our worst enemies" the way we do ourselves? Yeah. That, for me. :)

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

I find this so interesting.

(*waves to Kristina whose thread we are hijacking*)

Your public face is so flawless and light-filled and confidently bold, I would *never* have imagined you had any issues with self-esteem or self-hate or self-criticism.

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

If you see only/mostly negatives but project only positives, what does that mean? How does that work out for you? How do you act so differently from what you feel inside? :)

Tell me more! :)

[mermaiden.livejournal.com]

I don't act differently from how I feel, honestly. I'm an incredibly honest person, and I convey that in how I speak, in how I move in the world. If I'm feeling like shit about my writing, I share that. If I'm feeling I'm not beautiful, I try to dive past that. If I'm feeling that I don't make a difference...well, I try harder. That's where I get to the spots where I'm so completely burned out, because I've pushed myself beyond the bounds that anyone should. It's that honesty and vulnerability that often hurts and sears. But the Goddess has given me the gift of having people in my life who don't tear me down anymore, but build me up. If they love something about me, maybe there's something to love. :)

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

You have an inspiring level of positivity and Goddess-Warrior confidence and joy and sparkles, a contagious level, so I'm just saying, in light of that Light, it is almost shocking to hear that you battle demons of self-doubt or moments of entirely-too-hard-on-yourselfness. I think it is hard enough maintaining one's healthy sense of self in the barrage of arrows, the messages we get from society and advertising and cruel people, let alone when your inner voice sometimes joins in the criticisms.

Would you say, then, that's your 'secret'--the power of loving people around you? Or being selective in who you surround yourself with? Is there more? :)

[mermaiden.livejournal.com]

I see the beautiful in absolutely everyone. I have to be incredibly hard pressed to find anyone's flaws, because my default knowledge is that everyone is part of the divine, and that I love them (I've gotten better about boundaries over the years. In the beginning, I didn't have them and got righteously screwed. A lot.).

I sometimes see that in myself, but rarely. I hold myself to a set of standards in writing, in helping, in x, y or z that absolutely no one could measure up to. I don't do x, y or z good enough. It's always about the "good enough" or the "enough" with me, which is impossible to attain, and these are the things that I've been holding close this month. Being able to be enough. :)

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

I, too, need to learn to be enough and have that be...well...enough.