I cannot believe I have gone half a year without a single journal entry. In all fairness, I have been extremely busy in the MyTV Project on Solstice, so I can understand why I have neglected this practice. But, I am now back into a steady period of more relaxed work, so I am going to refocus my efforts on the time spent in reflection.
I do feel like I have set some favorite hobbies on a shelf to gather dust, and I am embarrassed to have lost the more wonderous and inspiring things that gave me so much joy. On the other hand, I do want to start preparing a more personal retreat space where reflection, work, and personal productivity can co-exist seamlessly. The specification of those requirements are an ongoing exercise in design, of course.
My sister just turned 50, and it hit me a little harder with the recognition of the amount of time that has passed. It is not lost on me that I am getting on up there too, but the day will come when significant losses will start unfolding among my friends, relatives, and loved ones. I may stand amazed that my brother is even still alive, given his habits. I have yet to realize the truth of our connection and what it will feel like when it comes to a sudden end.
I think I need a better personal calendar or rota that will keep me in tune with the passage of time and the relevant correspondences of each season. I feel like I live in one particular mode all the time, or shift haphazardly between these modes throughout the year. While some of it is healthy adaptation, I don't really see the lessons and knowledge accumulating in the appropriate concept bins. It is time to change that.
I have tried Buddhist, Alchemical, Christian, and Tarot Breviaries. No single one is doing it for me. But I keep coming back to attempts at it, so it seems I am drawn to a rota of some sort as a fundamental framework for my practice. While I don't want a cut and paste approach, I do feel like a more loose and collectivist approach would do me some good. A Book of Shadows and Light, but more open and full of references with less blank diary kind of pages. It needs to have more specific and evocative writing inspirations, and a wider embrace of general magical principles and operations. Maybe I need to spend some time defining how this will work, as I have about a dozen projects I feel are some kind of variation on this theme. It is obviously a major focal objective in my life if I keep trying and coming back to it when it doesn't inspire the proper response. Something is there, I just have to keep working on it.