Last night I read some cards. I alternate between tarot and oracle cards, depending on my mood. I might read the oracle cards when I begin to feel a little lost. How can I feel lost at all when things are going so well. Well, as with the only consistent in this world being change, things going so well isn’t somewhere where we can all stay. Things going so well all the time leads to complacency, or it at least gets that way without exercising gratitude. We have things to be grateful for, but sometimes we forget to be grateful for things that haven’t happened, or to be grateful for the journey that invokes the concession to one’s innermost self the understanding of why we have gratitude. I get wrapped up sometimes in ideas of myself and the world around me, and in those moments, I feel great. But how quickly things change when I keep my focus there. My perception of the world is fixed from experiences and developed intellect over the past 39 years of my life. But as I focus on the product of those 39 years, the world continues to turn and evolve and if I don’t turn with it, I can quickly get caught up in resentment of how things aren’t working out. The past week built up a lot of angst. Nothing was at all bad, I had a great week, but I also went all out, exhausted myself and it feels like you run out of air almost. Focus on what matters and continue with faith. During the past week, I had a couple of really hard days at work. I made it through and went home satisfied. Then over the weekend, I reconnected with family-like friends and had a great time! Granted I didn’t sleep much and thus I wore myself out, and I had commitments today to tend to. Afterwards I took a long ass nap. And woke up, knowing I had a meeting to go to that I didn’t want to go to. I was too tired. Focus on what matters and continue with faith. I’m a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, and I’ll always be one. Allergy of the body to mind-altering substances and obsession of the mind. What that adds up to is a delusion that something is wrong with me and/or the world. I didn’t like the way the world looked, so I would change how I saw it through substances. Figuratively speaking, I was saying the world is wrong. And also, I didn’t like the way I felt, so I changed it through substances. Figuratively speaking, I was saying there was something wrong with me. Truth is there is nothing wrong with me or the world. Just the way I see myself and the world, which is way more than enough of a problem. I was powerless. And I was without knowledge. Knowledge is power, but it isn’t ALL the power. I knew I needed to rest tonight, but I also know that I am still an alcoholic and that I haven’t been to a meeting since at least last Wednesday. Today is Monday. Tonight before the meeting it was like I knew I needed the rest for tomorrow. But I didn’t know where that rest was actually needed. I needed to give myself a rest. Let go of control, focus on what matters and continue with faith. With everything being God, sort of speak, and the one thing that is consistent in my life is that I’m an alcoholic and that will never change, the exhaustion I might have felt is spiritual. When I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted, which can occur even after a great week…….I get pulled from my center. Yes, my job is important, my friends are important, and I can give my all to them in those moments granted to me, but I can’t give my all to that or this or them continuously. I become disproportioned in my life, not right-sized or balanced, and I then I get burned out. Again, as I started this blog, last night I read my cards, this time from an oracle deck. And I pulled the gratitude card. And I’m like, what? What do I need this card for, I’m filled with gratitude! I pulled more cards and they were complicated beyond comprehension, so I reshuffled and settled on just drawing one card. Keep it simple. Behold, I pull the gratitude card again. It doesn’t matter so much as what the book of the deck meant in this moment tonight, even though the reading inspired me. As I got ready tonight at the last minute to go to my meeting, I saw the card on my table. Bingo, attitude of gratitude. If I am going to experience the joys, grace, and gratitude of my sobriety, I am to treat it with respect. I am not showing gratitude for the program if I’m not participating in it. So I head out with confidence that I am doing the right thing. I still didn’t want to go at the same time, for I was tired. But tonight at the meeting, I was inspired to kind of journal and take notes in my phone, to an extent that I haven’t done in about a month. I also connected with a couple of really cool, solution-oriented, spiritual people, and that also put in perspective of what matters, who I allow in my court, and who or what I’m chasing or should be going after. The Big Book of AA states that this spiritual program of action will solve all our problems. Not some of them, but all of them. This book isn’t something that was just written off the top of someone’s head, but a collective understanding of treating and recovering from a spiritual malady through the author’s experience, strength, and hope; not opinions. In pursuit of solving my problems and creating my change, I cannot help but turn to God/dess. I pray, meditate, and practice magick. But in all of that, I’m living and practicing on the wisdom collected from birth up to the moment that has just past. In my prayer, meditation and practicing my Craft, I’m still acting on self to control everything. Praying for change and even sometimes praying for willingness is a testimony, that even though there is great power within me, but the act alone is still testimony of how powerless I really am. It puts in perspective on how powerless I am without God. I have a solid idea of who and what I am and how the world is, but I truly don’t know any of that. It’s all based on the last 39 years, and from my perspective alone, tomorrow is new life I haven’t lived yet and the world continues to do the same on Its own as well. Step 2 – come to believe, and step 3 – turn it all over to God. I have working hands, legs, and a brain to use so I have to walk and work the path set before me, but many times do we come to the reminder that walking into a world new day and world tomorrow that I cannot move forward without operating on faith instead of what I know, for theoretically I will perish. Operating and moving forward on solely what I know keeps my stuck in the past carried over to day after next and I slowly fade away or go insane. I hear God say, surrender your power to me and I will show you how to guide it. We change the land, but the land we are forever dependent on. We cannot push back the waves or something or someone will suffer from it, but we can ride the waves. Air must move or we will die. And fire doesn’t magickally appear but though force we can create it. No matter where I am, I cannot stay there, figuratively speaking. I cannot do everything at once, although I sure as hell try to. But I can do things one at a time. And when I give my all to that one thing or all my focus to that one thing, wholeheartedly, even for an hour, I give full appreciation to it, and for that it or the universe feels grateful. And for that I feel grateful. How? Why? Because I am in a relationship with the Creator and Its Creation. When two people who love each other dance, are they not having a good time? And are they not more enthralled by the excitement and energy of the dance and spinning each other around and around, over and over again? To be grateful for these moments, I have to be present for them. Present with my entire being. So I go to the meeting and I went from tired to spiritually charged and writing this blog. The Craft is still here, the lesson I have with tarot, meditation, energy work is all still there and not going away. But even as I try to will it all together in the single box of a day, I am thus saying that there aren’t enough hours in the day, thus God is wrong in His creation of the 24 hour day, wrong in His creation of time, and that I’m wrong for not being at the destination I think I should be at. I’m trying to be true to a future that hasn’t even lived yet, and that doesn’t even make sense. And thus, I’m saying something is wrong with me and that I’m wrong. If I’m so focused on the future self and not me in the now in these moments, I’m not showing myself in the now in these moments appreciation, and thus I lose gratitude. It’s not that I have to quit doing everything or put so many things off for a few months. It’s about being mindful with my time and showing appreciation for the things there, for each aspect of self will have its time. And I can give wholeheartedly to each aspect, spend more quality time in each and with each aspect of self, and they will all feel appreciated, and I will feel whole and grateful. Now enough. Blessed be.