FK Journal: Letting Go

This week’s FK article can be read here.

I needed this entry. I really did. I could go so far to say that I need to reread this entry every day for many many years so that it sinks into my thick skull. This article really could permeate all aspects of my life. I really need to let go. To quit looking at what everyone else is doing and to quit comparing notes. You can’t save everyone. You can’t be everything to everyone. I don’t have enough spoons for all of that. This article nicely sums all of that up.

It’s very easy to get caught up into a comparison game. Who is more spiritual? Who’s getting the most out of this? Am I getting what I “should be” out of this? The truth, though, is that all of that is completely irrelevant. You get what you give out of your spiritual life. It’s personal, and it’s your own work that matters. You can’t do another person’s work, and they can’t do yours.

Wait, what kind of bone does he have?

How many times in the Kemetic forums have many of us told each other that we are ‘doing it wrong’? I know I’m guilty of it. Even now, despite my best efforts to ‘let go’, I look at what others are doing and seriously question what they are thinking. This has to stop. What they are doing is irrelevant to me. Their practice doesn’t affect mine. And just because I think what  they are doing is stupid, dumb, or whatever other judgmental crap I can come up with doesn’t mean that I need to step in. I can suggest other ideas, but as Helms tells me, after two responses, if things aren’t clearing up or progressing, I need to stop.

Stop it, Devo. Stop it. Drop it. Put it down.Walk away.

My therapist tells me that in order to help with letting go, I should take a deep breath, and visualize the bad stuff leaving my body. That I can tap or massage my muscles to force myself to physically let things go. That as I do this more, I will get better at it. God knows I need to get better at it. Many times in my life I am too busy comparing my bone to someone else’s bone (which is always larger and better, or completely malformed and I wonder what they are thinking wanting that bone). In the end this behavior is destructive and counter productive. It often makes me angry and frustrated and ends up bogging my brain down with negative thoughts. This in turn worms it’s way into my working and personal relationships and makes people irritated with me (I will be proactive in finding solutions to things that irritate me…). If anything, this is one of the biggest things I’d like to work on this year. Letting go.

Questions:

What do you put into your spirituality? What do you get out of it?

I put quite a bit into my spirituality (I think). I feel like it permeates all that I do. Even when I’m not actively practicing ritual every day, I feel like it seeps into everything. I try to always keep the Kemetic, Shinto and FK mindset in mind as I go about the day. I try to always stay grateful, respectful and compassionate (despite the fact that I often fail at it). Even my therapy serves a purpose in my spiritual life.

I think that I become a better person for my spiritual life. I feel like everything I put into it comes back to me as the ability to better manage my moods, my mind, my life. It makes me calmer. It makes me happier.

What do you think of people that treat spirituality as one more weekly meeting? Do you do that? Do people you care for?

It bugs me. I really get irritated by people who sign onto a religion, and then only treat it as a social gathering or something they ‘have’ to do. And then you have the groups of people who don’t know anything about the supposed religion they are following. That bothers me, too. You’d think that people would really want to do more with their religion. It’s their religion after all. You’d think they’d take it more seriously. But I know that not all of us do. Not all of us have The Itch. I need to learn to ignore this stuff, to let it go.

Why are you a FlameKeeper? What do you bring to it? What does it bring to you?

I am a FlameKeeper because it calls to me. It lines up with my mindset and worldview and gives me a more active and applicable structure to work off of. FK lines up with my therapy. It lines up with my Shinto practice. It lines up with my Kemetic practice. And at my core (When I’m not bogged down with this extra, stupid mental crap) it lines up with me. I’m hoping that by following this path, it will help me be more true to my core. To myself. And to help me better myself. To make my halves whole. I have no clue what I bring to FK. I have offered to do art, but I’d like to do more than that. I think in time I will figure out what I can bring to the table that might be of value. Currently, I’m considering writing a post on UCL and FK. Because the two are similar.

So what about you guys? Do you get caught up in looking at what others are doing? Do you have issues letting go?

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FK Journal: Words meets Darkness

I’m a little behind on my FK journal entries (so.much. going. on.) so this week I’m going to combine both entries into one- as I figure most of you don’t want more clutter on your feeds. The first entry relates to speech and FK and the original article can be found here. The second entry relates to (my favorite) the Dark Flame and can be found here.

 

I Speak the Universe:

I like this entry. I like it because I need to be reminded that words are in fact powerful. This should be easy for me, as both Shinto and Kemetic practices teach the importance of the utterance. The words need to be said *just so* and our speech (in both religions) is a gift to us from the gods. In both practices, well done speech in ritual helps to pacify and please the gods. So it would make sense that speech is important to me, right?

Wrong. I have a hard time loving English. It’s an ugly language, in  my opinion. And it doesn’t help that I live in a country where words are slung out without any sort of forethought or tact. Words are a tool for Americans and nothing more. So I tend to forget that there is life in words. There is life in all that I say. And that all that I say can be very creative or very destructive (which I do note the destructive part- a working with Set that taught me that I don’t need to kill everything dead with my speech, even if I am capable of it).

I think my favorite part of this article was this right here:

We need to be aware of how we speak and what we intend when we speak. Because our words recreate the Universe.

And I need to remember that.

Questions:

What does it mean to speak? What does speech mean to you?

I suppose the most literal definition is to make noises come out of your body that helps others to understand what you want/need/etc. However, it’s technically more than that. It’s a means to bridge (or create) gaps. It defines culture, ideas, can bring things together in many ways. But speech is also destructive, hurtful, and can cause rifts that will never be fixed. It is the ultimate tool.

What would it mean to be unable to communicate with language? What does communication mean to you?

I don’t know what I would do. I have had times where I am just too beat to use my words to express what I need to others. There have been times when my voice is gone, and using ASL with people isn’t an option- it’s frustrating and hard to get what you mean across. And it can wear you out. So I imagine it would suck (in short). Communication is key for me. I see misunderstandings that happen all the time because people aren’t communicating well and it frustrates me. I also get upset when people purposely try to obscure what they mean and interrupt communication- it’s totally counterproductive. I am all about communication. We need more of it.

When is speech sacred? What does sacred speech mean compared to regular speech? Is there a difference?

All speech is sacred. Both of my paths have taught me this. While I sometimes forget it, at it’s core, I believe that all speech is sacred (because everything is sacred in FK) and that all words should be treated as such.

 

Perceiving the Dark Flame:

We heard you like flames, so we put flames inside your flames.

The bright flame, the normal flame, is a flame we share with others. It is visible in how we act and what we do, shining into dark corners and creating boundaries, showing who we are and aren’t. It burns from within to without and shows in our lives.

Most people break up their Flame into Bright and Dark. And that’s it. I feel like my 2 Flames also have Bright and Dark parts- there are parts of my Bright Flame that you can see, and then there are parts that you should be able to see, but I keep hidden. And that also goes with my Dark Flame. Perhaps I’m missing the concept, but I feel like I am not completely accepting the whole entirety of my two Flames. And while I’m in the process of working on that, they each have their own Bright and Dark qualities.

The dark flame is different. It is hidden, quiet, cool. It burns for ourselves. It revitalizes and refuels us. In the darkness, we find ourselves again. We connect with our inner Divine spark through quiet as well as action. The dark flame gives us a point to connect that Divinity to.

I love Dark Stuff as it were. I thrive in the dark. I hate the light (comes from living in a desert). And ironically, I have had an easier time working on my Setian issues than I have my Osirian issues. I can accept my negative attributes without a problem. I can look at my dark pit and say “wow, there are a lot of BAD emotions in there. Lot’s of baggage. Lot’s of damage that I need to figure out” and not bat an eyelash. But O comes and tells me “You need to go be sociable. You need to love yourself. You need to show people the whole you, not just the Set version of you” and I flip out. My Bright Flame is my bane. Because I have a hard time keeping the dark half from completely swallowing up the bright half.

But I suppose I am getting off track. The point of all of this is I love the Dark Flame work. Sometimes, I wish it was all about the Dark Flame.

Questions:

Are you in balance? Are you even aware of your inward dark flame?

I believe so. As I said above, I have flames in my flames lol. I think I am more in tune with my dark flame. I often have to retreat into myself to work on how to project myself to the world. I go inwards to work on my Bright Flame- as weird as that may be. However, I don’t think I’m completely balanced. Set wants me to be whole- which means I’m currently not whole. I’m two halves fighting with one another trying to figure out how to keep an equilibrium. So while I understand the halves are there- they aren’t in perfect balance yet.

Is the darkness in you nurtured as well as the light? Why or why not? Does this imagery make you uncomfortable?

I suck at the Light stuff. I would argue that my Dark is more nurtured. I love the coolness that it brings me. The Light work just wears me out. The imagery doesn’t bother me. It’s hard to keep it in line, though. I consider dark to be yin and light to be yang- which is some of the opposite of how other people look at light and dark (good and evil). So I have to be careful with how I do my wording. Otherwise, it doesn’t bother me.

Can you feel the Divine connection to the dark flame? The lit one? both?

Both. The Divine is in everything, and I can feel the divine touch in all aspects of myself.

 

Nurturing Duality

This will be a bit of a crossover post. I’ll be talking about both Kemetic and FK stuff together, as they intertwine in this case.

 

So last week I realized that Asar wanted my attention. And that he really had perhaps been around all these years for *me*. Not for my s.o.- but for me. And suddenly, like a ton of bricks, I wanted to include him in everything. The feeling reminded me of when Set first came around. I found myself contemplating him, what he wanted from me, and seeing his marks throughout my life. I also started saying things like “I don’t know if he’ll be around for a while, or forever” while deep down knowing that I know the answer, and that I’m kidding myself to think otherwise.

Because of his appearance, I’ve been focusing on my other, more ignored half. The yin side. The side that wants to belong, wants to be open, and wants to be who I am without being judged. The side that I really don’t connect with at all. And in many ways, this is a bad time of the year to work on this. This part of the year is always hard on me. Every time this year I am reminded about how I don’t fit in. About how people don’t care as much as they say they do. This time every year, I take a huge blow to my ego and feelings. Compound that with inner workings, and it’s kind of a recipe for disaster. I’m finding that working on Asar’s stuff is a lot harder for me. Set’s stuff was a challenge- but it was easier some how. Easier to say “Yeah, I am a dick some days. Yeah, I have a pitch black hole inside my heart the size of Russia that sometimes consumes me and my thoughts. Yeah, sometimes I let that part of me hurt myself and others.” etc so on and so forth. It was easier for me to look at his rage, his jealousy, and go- yeah, I see that in my too. And to come to terms with it. And while letting go of some of my contempt and anger was more of a challenge, it did happen. And overall, it wasn’t entirely painful.

But this. This takes the cake, and I’m only one week into it. It hurts to do this. And it hurts in so many places- I don’t see how I’m  going to come out of this any better. I have lots of holes, scars, and problems. Lots of things that I hide from others. Things that still bleed and hurt to this day. And I really don’t know how I’m going to overcome them, I really don’t. I assume and trust that He knows what He is doing. But at the same time, I wish it just weren’t so damned painful. A quarter of a century of problems that have built up and built up. And while I’ve managed to deal with some of them over the years- there are problems that I question if they will ever go away.

This ties into FK because it’s making FK a real challenge to work on. You’re supposed to build your flame up, be honest with yourself, and make something better out of it. But I’m having a hard time. Working on these walls just makes my self esteem tank. And then I go to look at my FK stuff.. and it tanks too. Everything wants to sink on some levels. And it’s frustrating I know that sometimes you have to go backwards before you move forwards, but damn. It still sucks. This week we are supposed to be figuring out how to let others nurture our flames, or how we can better nurture the flames of others. My problem is allowing others to nurture my flame. And really, I think the walls are the challenge. I put them up. I block you out. I try to resist help, because modesty tells me to do so. I rely on myself because it hurts to rely upon others. And in some cases, I can consciously see that I’m doing that, but it hurts with the walls up- and I’d hate to see the pain with the walls down.

In the end, I’m just going to trust the process. This has been moving forward like it did with Set. I know it’s going on, but it’s not going on in direct conversation with me and the god/s. Things come up in my life, and I work with them in ways that helps me to balance out my internal issues. And I really won’t be able to see my progress until after it’s done, I’m sure. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with going that direction. I have enough trust for that.

Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt, though.