Forest Wizard

Tag: community

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  • Why I abruptly dismantled the EAR / Recipe Dump #1

    Why I abruptly dismantled the EAR / Recipe Dump #1

    For the last several years, the Esoteric Archive of Rochester (EAR) was my main “project.” I am passionate about very specific bits of local history, esotericism, and magic, and I’d been sorely unable to find the community I wanted to explore those topics alongside. So, I set out to start my own. However, in the way I had built it, the project was already a failure, if my goal was to actually build community.

    I was, in fact, building a space (physically and metaphysically) specifically for me. However, I had done so under the guise of “community building” (which I wasn’t doing), so there was also this weird belief that all of the work I was doing wasn’t for me, actually, but for a future visitor or customer. I found myself trying to make deadlines for that customer, stressing myself out attempting to do anything to draw the people to me I wanted to talk to.

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  • The (In)Stability of our Realities, and the Importance of Silence

    The (In)Stability of our Realities, and the Importance of Silence

    Pretext: Reality, Magic, and the MAGA Mindset

    Reality

    As mentioned in the above linked blog post, reality is how an individual realizes the actuality. What we individually understand to be the real world is, in fact, our own reality, which is itself only our physical body’s interpretation of the stimuli around it.

    Think about that for a minute. We have spent our lives believing that what we see through our eyes is exactly the same as what every other set of eyes see. We believe we live in a physical, objective world based on facts and laws and math.

    The truth, though, is more complicated. We, instead, have created a world built on the assumption that we are all having the same experience, and we have created language in an attempt to share said experience. To make sense of the experience, we have created systems and structures (like math) to act as scaffolds, allowing us to climb closer to understanding.

    Our brains interpret stimuli that is collected by our sense organs (ears, eyes, skin, nose, tongue) and, together with the knowledge stored within it, our brains then turn all of that information into something we can make sense of: Reality.

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  • a new understanding of Temperance

    a new understanding of Temperance

    Temperance is a card that has followed me around my whole life. It’s the card that has come up for me in personal card pulls more than any other, by far. It feels like it’s connected to something very deep inside me.

    So, imagine my frustration when I am unable to figure out the message of the card, again and again. The meaning alluded me completely.

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  • Silence

    Silence

    Last week I was depressed. Not the usual all-the-time low-grade depression that’s been normal for me since childhood, but instead something hard and intense and ruthless.

    It came out of nowhere and instantly took me down into the depths of sadness and despair. I had entered a new, unfamiliar reality where every person despised me and I was a horrible burden to anyone I locked eyes with.

    I’ve been there before, but I hate it. When I’m in it, it feels so real. Much more real than even this moment now. Like a veil has been lifted and I can now see actuality.

    I can’t, of course, but that’s what it feels like.

    (more…)
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