Say hello to our baby cockatiel. We got him today. He’s 5 months old (doesn’t even have his tail feathers yet). He’s still a little shaken from the journey and from being dropped into the hands of two strangers, but he’s quickly acclimating to the situation. Today or tomorrow I’ll take him out of the cage. Speaking of cage, I realized today that this one is definitely too small. We’ll need to get him a bigger one tomorrow.
I have an interesting card spread connected to this situation that I’ll share in the next few days.
It’s been an odd year. On one hand I have managed to talk about a lot of things I wanted to discuss on this blog. On the other hand I still feel like someone whose house is far from complete and therefore easily misses the overall design.
The reality is that I’ve come to care a lot for this little project, and as usual when one starts caring, it becomes harder to see the reality of the situation. Perhaps I should just look back at where I was one year ago and be happy with where I am now, even though the blog feels like a permanent construction site (isn’t life like that?) with new parts sprouting up before others are completed.
Unfortunately I feel the strong need to be as thorough as possible while covering as much ground as needed to give a sense of the magnificent totality of the esoteric arts.
So here’s my plans going forward (and, since no good plan ever survives impact with reality, expect changes):
Needless to say, I’ll keep posting about the Sibilla and playing cards. I’ve received some questions about learning to link the cards together, so I’ll have to address that.
My Geomancy section has exploded, not just in terms of content but in terms of views. I have tons of fun translating old texts and making them available for other students. Plus, it allows me to revise my understanding of the art
I want to complete my tarot encyclopedia and move on to more challenging discussions with respect to tarot
Someone is probably going to curse me for this, but since I’ve been studying I Ching divination (not the commentaries, but other forms of I Ching) I want to discuss that too. It doesn’t have high priority, but it is on the to-do list
I keep getting questions and interesting inputs about magic, mysticism and devotion, so I’ll have to devise something
As I’ve mentioned before, I feel the urgent need to talk about philosophy, because occultism without a philosophical framework is just your eccentric aunt who lights incense, drinks tea and pulls an angel card between a rebirthing session and a manifestation retreat
My Youtube channel. I keep announcing it and then life keeps getting in the way (as well as my fat ass not wanting to get up and move). I’m taking a small online course on how to record audio and video, and I’ll probably start doing a couple of easy videos in the near future
Well, I’d say I have my hands full for a couple of years
Enneagram Type Eight and Enneagram Type Nine are extremely different and almost never confused, despite the fact that they form each other’s wing. Both are Body types concerned with their own independence. Eights preserve their independence by asserting themselves on others and challenging them. Nines preserve their independence by being compliant, accomodating and friendly so as to avoid causing issues that might result in uncomfortable strife.
Both Eights and Nines can be extremely dynamic people, but Nines prefer routines that comfort them and fill them with a general sense of wellbeing, balance and calm. Ultimately, Nines want to avoid unpleasant sensations of sadness, isolation and conflict, whether outer or inner. Eights, on the other hand, generally go down the path of greatest reasistance and seek to overcome it, finding pleasure in difficulty and in the challenges the world around them and other people offer them.
opposites
Socially, the two types behave in radically different ways. Average Eights immediately sense the power relations among people and disrupt them to impose themselves as the reference point, so that they may have better control over others and therefore over themselves (more healthy Eights often use this vantage position to help others, but they still often want to be the ones initiating the action).
Average Nines, by contrast, take a step back by allowing others to express themselves, often finding it hard to get their own point-of-view or agenda across, and their personal energy tends to disappear, assimilated by that of others (whereas more healthy Nines learn to cooperate with others while still mantaining a separate sense of self and of their own preferences).
Every year I look for something new to learn. This year I had in mind to start learning Chinese, but my time was absorbed by the Bolognese Tarot (I am in contact with a traditional practitioner of this deck who is teaching me) as well as by the move. Finally, this August I decided to put my nose to the grindstone
Enneagram Type Five and Enneagram Type Eight are apparently very different, so much so that they are each other’s arrow on the Enneagram symbol: Five is Eight’s stress point, Eight is Five’s growth point. Fives are a Head type, concerned with security, and tend to find it by removing themselves from the world and observing it from a distance. Eights are a Body type, whose drive for independence leads them to asserting themselves in most situations, even and especially when there is resistance against them.
Interestingly, both Fives and Eights assert the energy of their center: Fives assert the intellectual urge of the Head center, Eights the instinctual urge of the Body center. In this, they both tend to break down opposition on the plane on which they operate: Eights break down physical opposition, often by asserting themselves on others more or less fiercely; Fives assert their mind’s right to be the judge of the truth of this or that idea by breaking it down, rarely accepting it as a given. Both Eights and Fives can be confrontational when unhealthy: Eights physically, Fives intellectually.
Assertion
Both types are strongly concerned with truth. Fives seek to develop a true appraisal of reality beyond social or even academic conventions. Eights usually have a very instinctual conception of the truth (their famous bullshittometer). Fives’ danger is of getting lost in the hair-splitting byzantinisms of their mental process; Eights’ danger is of failing to realize that sometimes their instincts do fail them and not everything is as simple and black-and-white as their guts tell them. Eights usually tend to simplify, Fives to complexify. Both excesses are best curbed.
Socially, both Eights and Fives have an individualistic, maverick-like streak, and both can be socially awkward and be somewhat timid. Yes, this also applies to Eights: as soon as they feel they are out of their depth Eights tend to become withdrawn and insecure, like regular Fives, often out of fear of being called out for being stupid or incompetent (this is Five’s fear, which is Eight’s stress point). Usually, though, Eights, while not necessarily social, tend to be imposing and even demanding. Fives, on the other hand, are almost always distant and even remove themselves physically from contact with others. Fives who have consciously worked on their social skills may, however, develop some of Eight’s bodily confidence.
Enneagram Type Four and Enneagram Type Six share some similarities in spite of focusing on entirely different things. Fours are a Heart type, whose deep desire for authentic connection is only equaled by their feeling unable to find someone who will truly see them in their uniquely flawed nature. Sixes are a Head type, and their need to be reassured is equaled only by their inability to trust anything they or anyone else say.
Both types can have a generally negative view of the world. Fours believe themselves to be flawed and disadvantaged and feel that they don’t belong because they lack something other people have. Sixes are negative because they are used to questioning everything that is apparently good until they have managed to squeeze something that can be considered iffy or untrustworthy out of it, and see the world as a dangerous, or at least precarious place.
However, Fours are unapologetic in their pessimism, whereas Sixes may often try to tone it down or even suppress it in order to ingratiate themselves to others (they can even come off as upbeat) to build up friendships and alliances. In general, Sixes don’t like putting others off because they subconsciously don’t want to make enemies, whereas Fours generally don’t like behaving in a way that is not authentic to how they truly feel.
Indeed, the theme of authenticity is a leitmotif for both Fours and Sixes. Sixes want someone or something to explain reality to them in a way that leaves no place for doubt and fear, even if that means identifying threats or enemies (in fact, average Sixes love to be told who or what their enemy or threat is). One of their great fears is of being lied to, or of coming into contact with people who keep their real agenda secret to them. They also fear that people won’t tell them the truth to avoid hurting them, but because they have a very good nose, Sixes often can smell something is off.
Uncertainty
Average Fours do not so much fear lack of authenticity as they feel disdain for it, and are often unable to bring themselves to play socially accetaple roles if that means not being true to themselves.
Another similarity lies in the fact that both Fours and Sixes often feel a great deal of confusion within themselves. In spite of being a Head type, Sixes often come off as emotional and stormy. This is due to their lack of trust in their own judging ability, which sometimes leads them to drowning in a glass of water. Sixes would love to be told the clearcut truth, but as soon as they are presented with (one version of) it, they begin picking the black and white apart until a chaotic mess of shades of gray is left.
Fours also feel a great deal of confusion, but this is due more to their inability to pin their own personal identity down to a specific set of characteristics, because they always end up discovering a part of themselves that doesn’t fit any definition.
An important difference between the two types comes from the fact that Sixes tend to be sturdy, gregarious and friendly, whereas Fours are generally individualistic and delicate and experience great difficulties fitting in. Secretly, Fours may envy people who do fit in, but outwardly they often show contempt. On the other hand, Sixes may admire people who manage to stand out, but they generally deem it safer to fall back in line.
Mother-son relationships must really have been invented by some lower demon of hell. A mother has her own expectations of what it means for the son to feel happy and realized in life, then she calls him hoping that he gives her good news on his personal realization, and the son not only feels bad because he doesn’t feel happy or realized, but also guilty because he can’t fulfill those expectations. Ask me how I know.
Nostalgia hurts because through it we feel weaker for having lost something, rather than stronger for having outlasted it. It is a curious case of optical illusion, a trap that I keep falling back into. I’m not one to suppress my feelings. In fact, I tend to bathe in them, or wear them like fragrances especially the negative ones. But as time goes on I slowly gain some perspective on them, as though an inner observer studied them through my experience of them. Well, clearly the inner observer is very keen on understanding nostalgia, because it’s one of my go-to emotional fragrances. What I find interesting is how much more space there is for me here in the present, rather than in an idealized past. But the confines of the present are blurry, and the my self prefers the fog-shrouded dells of the past, perfect and complete in themselves.
I used to think that once I got out of my comfort zone, life would reward me. I’m realizing right now that as soon as one steps out of his comfort zone, life tries its best to punch him back into it. The moment you start asking for what you want is the moment you start hearing the word “no”. That’s the moment when getting back to your comfort zones is going to feel more attractive. But in your comfort zone there is no life. There is only existence. Is existing enough for you?
