Ever Onward

With the year almost over, it's the perfect time to do some soul-searching and reflection, just in time for New Years Resolutions!

So after a year that has seen a dramatic spike and freefall of my own magical awakening, the long-standing stress of being in a Long Distance Marriage, a successful move back to Canada and quite literally the most important decisions in my adult life creeping their way towards me... what awaits above for me in 2017, I wonder?

Obviously I have no idea- I'm no psychic.  But this is what I'm doing to prepare for whatever comes:

1- Strike A Balance

I have a bad habit of allowing myself to languish after periods of stress.  Most of that is definite self-care, to be sure, and I have to remember as time goes on that I can't allow myself to be overworked like I was in the past.  My last job was fun, but I barely got chances to eat.  The job before that was borderline abusie and it cost me WAY more than just a lunch break!  So when I get the chance to do absolutely fuck-all, I take it.

But there is a fine line between allowing myself that extra hour of sleep and spending the whole day watching nothing but Youtube because I can't be bothered to do something more proactive, for instance.  Even something simple like researching and note-taking for myself is still an accomplishment.  I don't have to do a grandiose gesture to feel productive, and I shouldn't beat myself up on days where I feel less than stellar.  A little bit goes a long way, I just have to remember to log a little bit away, each day.

2- Start Over

Honestly, I bit off more than I could chew last year.  I signed up for class after class on building on my magical power and for the most part I saw tangible signs and synchronicities.  But most of those classes were also got into full-gear around the September-October mark, which meant my attentions were very much divided between world events progressively getting more stresfull and my life's incoming state of flux- which while it resulted in great news, it was still stressful!

When I tend to get stresssed, I get tunnel-vision: only concentrate and work on what needs to be done immediately.  That usually means things like self-care and self-development are the first to go flying out the window.  So, yes- my blog writing screeched to a halt, my practice of singing to acknowledge the Taino spirits of my home, my offerings and meditations- all stopped.  And it's not something I'm particularly proud of, but on the other hand I hand a trans-continental move to now coordinate.  In hindsight I wouldn't have done anything differently.

But now I've been back in Canada for just under a month, and while I haven't really landed on my feet with respects to jobs or anything like that, I can however take the lessons from those classes and transpose them onto this new environment, this new living situation.  And this time, I can work through them at my own pace.

3- Become Octarine

Octarine is a familiar term for anyone who's read Terry Pratchett's Discworld series- it's the 'color of magic' [or a greenish-purple, depending on how you see it *wink*].  It was a term brought up again by Carolyn Elliot in another class I'm taking under her tutelage, but due to the recent life uphevals I wasn't really able to process what that would mean to me on a personal level.

I want to take that time now, in the space between now and the last New Moon of the year, to figure out what Being Octarine means to me- and not just the actual hue.  I have ideas now, of course- be more honest about my witchiness, seek out and learn from other like-minded souls here in my part of Canada, tap more into my abilities wth tarot, etc.  That stuff seems easy, expected, and it's certainly tying more into revisiting the online courses I enrolled in and really diving into the material.  But that also requires a more inward transformation that it's going to be grasped in a night's worth of ritual.  It's probably going to take the rest of my life to hammer that one down- and honestly, that's not a bad 'life goal' to have.

4- Know What's Coming!

I had long decided to myself- before any weird life-stuff was gonna come up- that 2017 was the year that I would start offering tarot readings on this site.  It was something I had found to be more than a little *good* at, and it was a business model  that I could control for myself.  I have been actively hating the concept of working for others as opposed to myself, especially after my last job in Canada proved to be such a terrible experience.  But deciding to start one's business and ACTUALLY starting one's business is kinda scary!  Especially when the business you want to start is moving into the esoteric [lucky me, right?].

So I thought that for this to work, I needed to consult with some professionals.

For my own personal working, I bought Biddy Tarot's 2017 Tarot Planner [I bought the digital PDF and had it printed at my local Fedex Office!] to not only get my own ass in gear for logging my manifestations, but to also encourage me to take my tarot reading to the next level and really be able to offer the most to my future clients.

​l also booked a Natal Chart reading from Aeolian Heart- specifically one tailered to seeing what 2017 will bring on an astrological level.  I have never had someone else really look at my chart before, and I have long since been in love with Rachel's way of poetically discussing the movement of the stars, so I figured this would be the best way to really get a look at the year ahead.  Also- I booked my reading on the day of the New Moon- how fitting is that?

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So those are my plans for grabbing 2017 by the horns- it'll be both terrifying and wonderous, which ultimately means it'll all be worth it... I mean let's be real, most of us would probably like to pretend that 2016 was our 'gas-leak year' a la TV show Community.  Either way, this will probably be my last post for the year, as I'd like to take the time between now and the 29th to do some serious meditation, planning, and simple enjoyment of the upcoming holidays with my beloved.  But in the meantime, be sure to join me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, @DarkLake Tarot, natch.

​See you in the New Year!~