The Magickal Pen

I will begin by saying up front that this and next week’s posts are going to be filled with contradiction.  The rebellious and inquisitive nature in me often likes to pull apart what is the accepted belief, test it and then decide what my own opinion will be.  The issue of quality vs. quantity has always been one in which I easily see both the pitfalls and the benefits.  I attribute some of this to my years of classical training as a dancer and the need for both quality ( beauty and grace of movement)  and quantity (practice, practice, practice) to maintain my level of expertise.  I often flipped the energy to quantity vs. quality simply because I needed to push the physical boundaries and limitations to build a certain level of endurance and then draw it finely back into quality of the movement I was making.  This approach has never left my sphere of use and its application has proved beneficial in mundane and spiritual matters.

We are continually reminded that selection of quality is the preferred method of progress rather than the quantity of whatever tools of use that endeavor may include. When it is applied to our magickal and spiritual pursuits this philosophy can serve to make us more discriminating or render us more dogmatic and exclusive in what our beliefs are and how they are expressed.  I would like to think that I am choosing quality over quantity in the selection of my books, teachers and overall community and that preference has served to better inform and move me along at a quicker pace of self growth, but the reality is that I have often overlooked things that may have served me better. Take a look at the definition of the word “quality ” below:

Quality- Def. of:
a : degree of excellence : grade
b : superiority in kind

Who is to be the determiner of what is quality? And, how do we measure the quality of their declaration? Is it not a purely subjective matter? Even, if we have a consensus of opinion could it be that everyone just happens to be resonating in the same way? Or is something more going on?

When we make a judgement call of what is excellence, we have to have something to measure it against.  Here we have polarity at its finest. Quite frankly, if we haven’t experienced a fair share of crap, how do we know what excellence is? That takes me back to the point made a few paragraphs above about overlooking things that would have served me better.  Sometimes wading through the muck is the only ay to get to the pastures of fertile green life.  Holding out for the perfect route could become an exercise in waiting eternally for what is an unrealistic expectation at the time.  Now this is not to say that I am suggesting you allow yourself to get stuck in mediocrity; the key here being that you continue to forge ahead until you hit ground that feels and resonates productively with your expectations.

Since a spiritual practice is highly personal, what moves me to a state of excellence and what moves another could be and often are very distant in their similarities. We are after all talking about teachings that are vibrational in nature, accessing teachers who have presumably done the work to refine their own energies and are able to impart the subtleties of practice in a subtle and profound manner and exercises of practice that have been proven to be effective.  And, given the over abundance of information, resources, teachings and more weeding through and finding the space of quality can seem like the proverbial needle in the haystack.

One of the ways in which I try to sort it out is to strive for the goal of achieving a point of balance.  This requires bringing the lessons of what was less than quality in experience and the pure energy of that perceived place of excellence to a mid point.  It requires looking at all aspects of each tool I add to my magickal and spiritual practice.  It requires weighing the measure of what I feel I can extract from the experience with what I intuit the productive outcome to be.  And, then combining the best aspects of each, neither in over abundance or lack and each re-informing and engaging the other.  The result is often something that is the best of both and the opportunity to foster a new generation of excellence for others to act upon.

Next week’s post will focus on Quantity and the interaction of the two together.