Monday, May 23, 2022

Pandemic Isolation and Gifts of Writing


Over the course of three years I have not posted very many articles to my blog, and this was due to a couple things that happened to me. The first is that I came off a work-related dismal project that destroyed my profession self-esteem and then by being demoted to my old job, trying to rebuild my reputation and bolster my confidence. It was a difficult time, starting in the last quarter of 2017 and finally ending in the end of 2019. I had paid for work-related relocation from Minnesota to Richmond, Virginia and was stiffed by my company, who broke their promise to compensate me for that move. I proved to myself once again why corporate cultures and the managers that preach it are not to be trusted. As far as work is concerned, “To thine own self be true.”

There were amazing coincidences and magical happenings during that time, all without me working any magical rituals at all. What I had set in motion in June 2017 had helped me to overcome a career disaster and turn it into a providential gain. During that time I was working sometimes every day beyond eight hours without much of break, and I was getting to the final stages of burnout, which has a lower threshold for someone my age. What happened to me was a kind of intervention that saved me and my career. The irony was that getting demoted set me up for a future promotion that helped me to completely reinvent myself professionally.

I believe that this kismet occurred because of the time and effort that I had invested in creating a talismanic magical machine. It helped me sell an oversized house, move across the country and establish myself in a new environment. What catastrophes I endured ended up benefiting me greatly, and I believe that the magic I had set in motion on the Summer Solstice night of 2017 made it all possible. Granted, there were mundane actions that I took to mitigate the disaster that I endured, but overall, I was very fortunate not to lose my job and reputation while having relocated to a town where the job market was unknown to me. All of that action in my life took me away from writing articles, books or working ritual magic. What little time I had was spent either reading, studying or meditating. I had to travel a lot for my job, and the novelty of that feature in my life soon wore off.

The next thing that happened in my life was the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. I was already relocated, no longer traveling, telecommuting and resigned to my demotion when this terrible calamity struck the whole world. What it did to me, a man in his late sixties with allergies, was to shut me up in my house. I then traveled only when necessary and then, locally, shied away from appearing in public and infrequently saw the few friends that I had made. There wasn’t a lot to do and I don’t like being idle, so I wrote two books from the period of early 2020 through early 2022.

I have crafted a book titled “Elemental Powers for Witches” (already out in December 2021) and another one titled “Talismanic Magic for Witches” (out in February 2023). Both books required quite a bit of research and writing, and between that, my job and my relationship, there was little time for anything else. I will do a write up on these two books, but I wanted to let you know what I was busily doing during this period of the Great Pandemic.

You can see that I was not idle as far as writing is concerned, but from a magical perspective, outside of continuing effects of the talismanic machine that I previously built, not much else has happened. I would like to get back into a magical ritual practice and a regular practice of meditation. I would like to attend a Zen Buddhist retreat somewhere, and I would like the pandemic to transition to an endemic occurrence of coronavirus strains no more risky than the flu. I get a flu shot every autumn, and I could see getting a  coronavirus shot every autumn as well.

Another thing that I need to do is to get to know my local Witchcraft and Pagan community. I am unknown to that community, and there is much I would like to share, teach and collaborate with others of like mind. I greatly miss having the social dimension in my life, but the pandemic cut off my exploration of the community, and I am hoping to renew that exploration sometime later this year.

Anyway, I have also taken up writing blog articles, so you will start seeing some on a regular basis. I will try to post some interesting ideas and things that I discovered in my extensive period of study and research. I am also going to write yet a fourth book in the “For Witches” series, and this one will be about Witchcraft based theurgy, or what I call advanced liturgical magical practices. I will want to bounce some ideas off of my reading public before I commit them to my writings and judgment of my acquisitions editor.


Bright Blessings -

Frater Barrabbas  

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