The Searcher Journal

In life, it is always good to regularly take a long, hard, look at where you are, where you’ve been, and where you’re going. Regular re-evaluation of oneself is one of the common-sense keys to positive growth and self-knowledge.

Often, that leads to the realization of a bit of change. Other times it makes clear how much you’ve stagnated and really do need to push forward.

When you need to push forward, you need to re-connect with your foundation.

Since I’m embarking on a bit of a push forward, let’s look at some of my foundation.

I try to keep the basics true to their classification. There’s no mythology here, just what I know deep down to be the way things work. This knowledge has been gained through feeling out my place in the world and through personal experience. I never expect others to buy in to these beliefs, but the form the core for everything that comes after. A handful listed here, in no particular order:

• We are part of a greater whole, all interconnected in ways we can, at best, barely discern.
• We are beings of duality and dichotomy: matter and energy, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.
• We have been here before and will be here again. Reincarnation, the Universe recycles.
• Religion begins where Science ends, the two are not mutually exclusive and can fuel one another.
• Blind faith is a dangerous thing. Belief (subjective) and Knowledge (objective) are both important components to a healthy whole.
• Free will exists, but so does Fate. Both are optional. Opting out of one is easy, the other is not.

Through a number of methods, I have explored my own past lives. Through a bit of reading and research, I’ve explored a lot of classic stories. I’ve been living this life for a number of decades now. These things intersect in patterns that I choose to recognize as important. All of my personal mythology is based on the basic principles applied to a greater story that seeks to encompass more than just my own experience.

For me, the core of that mythology lies in the story of a group tentatively called The Crossers (would very much like a better sounding name, but that’s what I’ve got). The ideas are part gnosis and part synthesis.

I firmly believe that looking at our lives as a narrative can help us keep things in perspective and better appreciate both the highs and the lows.

Unlike many, I am not really dedicated to one particular path. My practices run the gamut from shamanic to Hermetic. I am dedicated to no master short of the Universe itself and myself. I am willing to take knowledge and wisdom where I can get it.

Basically, I poke badgers with sticks.

The closest I have seen described by others is The Way of the Fool. That’s from the wonderful book The Zelator by Mark Hedsel.

Now that I’ll be back to writing regularly here, I’m sure these will be expanded upon… or changed completely as I discover new things about myself and the world around me.

New monthly bit here. Just a quick note catching up and looking ahead. A kind of regular check and balance to make sure things are moving in some direction that vaguely resembles “forward.”

OK, it’s been very quiet here. Mostly because the mundane world has kept me more than a little busy. There have been bursts of spiritual and “strange” activity, but they took place amidst a ton of other, more immediately pressing, concerns and never quite got written down. That’s going to change a little.

I’m going to try to get things back to at least once a week posting here. There are a lot of old open tabs that need to be followed up on (like a plethora of started but never finished series of discussions on everything from the path I follow to the end of the world) and a whole bunch of odd news bits that keep cropping up.

Starting next week, expect a return of “Metaphysical Mondays” here at The Searcher Journal.

But this isn’t all about me. If you’ve got questions you want answered or experiences to share, send them my way.

Thanks for walking this path with me, no matter how sporadically it’s been updated.

The Winter Solstice once again finds me looking back on the past months during the wee hours of the night.

It just so happens that this late December, the world around me has been encased in a certain amount of snow and ice. Enough to disrupt pretty much everything in the region. I’ve actually never seen it quite this bad down here.

And I’ve never had it quite so accurately reflect my own past year.

The snow makes things in the urban arena bright. Sources of light are plentiful, but the darkness often swallows them up. The snow catches and reflects the bulk of that once lost light, illuminating even the darkest night with a somewhat eerie glow.

It makes everything seem navigable.

But it’s not.

That same snow that reflects so much light and lets you see where you’re going also works against you. It pulls your legs out from under you as you step on a spot of ice. It slows you down and chills your bones as you trudge through it.

Give it half a chance and it will kill you.

Over this past year, I’ve had a few things I’ve relied on–systems that have worked quite well–turn on me and work against me. But as a side effect, they’ve also provided quite a bit of illumination, cutting through some blind spots and making seen some long hidden dark corners.

This past year, and the one before it, have been a time of complacency and stagnation for me. I’ve been frozen in place, able to see clearly, but unable to move in any given direction without losing my footing.

Now, as I pass through the darkest part of the Solstice–awake and aware of where I have been–I know full well that the coming sun will bring with it a true light and useful warmth. That light and warmth will eventually grow and, in time, will thaw the entrapping ice and snow.

Over the next handful of months, there will be many changes. Plans that have been simmering in an igloo-like incubator (safe from the frostbite, but still held in reserve) will spring forth and make their own way in the world. New ideas will push their way out of the tundra and take root with the strength to serve as handholds, steadying all who pass by on the treacherous ice.

Most importantly, though, I choose to do this. Even before the thaw, I’ll be picking my way along a path I’ve looked at for a long time.

The going will be slow at first, but there will be movement.

The sun will rise. The ice will glitter, then melt. And the path will once again be clear.

When Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas hit the screens, it very quickly became one of my all-time favorite holiday films.

Mostly because it had my favorite holiday (Halloween, in case you can’t tell) blended in with the much more popular one.

Mostly, but not entirely. The movie (if you haven’t seen it) deals with Jack Skellington, the king of Halloween Town (where it’s always Halloween, of course), discovering Christmas. Misunderstandings and some poor decisions happen, and, ultimately, things work out pretty well for all involved.

The main thrust of the story, like so many other Christmas-themed films, is the discovery of what “Christmas” really means.

The main thrust of the story is one of self-discovery, like so many other Christmas-themed films. The secondary theme is the discovery of what “Christmas” really means.*

For those who are some flavor of Christian, the easy answer is obvious: It celebrates the birth of Christ the Savior. For those who are devout in their Christian faith, there probably isn’t any other answer needed outside of that one.

Thing is, Christmas has become much more than that.

We probably have Macy’s and Coca Cola to blame.

See, commercial interests have done more to advance the idea of Christmas more than any official church body ever has. By pumping advertising dollars into images of Santa Clause, snowmen, and polar bears, they’ve spread the secular mythology of the holiday around the world many times over.

I was raised Catholic, so early on I was very familiar with the religious angle of things. Starting from that point, it’s kind of difficult to reconcile all the rest of the holiday hoopla. In many ways, the sacred and secular versions of Christmas are at odds with one another. That dissonance, while not spoken about much growing up, still irks me a little.

But what I’ve discovered (or decided, which may be more accurate), is that at the core of both versions of the holiday is the spirit of love, giving, and hope.

At it’s core, Christmas is about how we can all be better than we normally are–and how we should strive to be better all year long, not just on that one day.

That answer comes to us from any number of places, perhaps the most famous being the Yes, Virgina, There is a Santa Clause editorial. Propagated more by (another one of my all time favorites) Miracle on 34th Street.

These days, I tend to focus more on the deeper secular meaning of the holiday. It’s more palatable in many ways in the multi-cultural world we live in.

I can see why many on both sides of the sacred/secular divide still find it offensive that Christmas is pushed so much, but I hope that, someday, we can all be a little more accepting of the secular bits of it.

With things being as nasty as they are out there in the world, I think we can all use a little of Rudolph’s inner strength and Santa’s jolliness and Frosty’s good cheer to make things a little better for everyone.

[* Edited to clear up the film themes. Further proof I shouldn't write when I should be sleeping.]