Patreon Topic 18: Reflecting on The Culture of Intensity and Spiritwork

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From Fen’harel comes this question:

“I was listening to the AGF podcast episode with Chiron Armand and the topic of “the culture of intensity” came up. What does that culture, in your opinion, look like for spirit workers? Is it something like not feeling one is doing enough work? I hope that makes sense.”

When I first got this question the most recent TikTok stupidity had not yet come to my attention, but now that it has? It is a great, almost perfect example of the culture of intensity. Now, it looks like a bunch of folks are trolling other TikTok folks saying they’re going to ‘hex the Fae’ or ‘hex the Moon’ and similar stupidity. Then there are others how are rising to the trolling/baiting and saying they will counteract this. Keep in mind we are in the middle of a damn pandemic, we are supposed to be socially isolating, and this is probably as close to interacting with peers as some folks are going to get until this COVID-19 crap is done with.

For some, this is what the culture of intensity looks like. You get someone or you yourself get riled up and in arms about stupid shit someone else is engaged in that is not actually hurting you and cannot hurt the Gods, Ancestors, and/or spirits in question, just to have something to do. Now, don’t get me wrong. I find the notion that folks would even entertain the notion of hexing the Fae, Moon, or Sun incredibly dumb, funny, and requires more than a bit of hubris. That said? I have no reason to jump out in front of these folks. Go ahead, sew the wind and reap the whirlwind you dipshits.

For a lot of spiritworkers, myself included, the culture of intensity looks like “I need to be doing something important/powerful/challenging right now!” Sometimes it comes from a feeling of not being/doing enough. Other times we are in a transition period. Those are uncomfortable, and patience is not a virtue easily cultivated in a culture where instant gratification is so prevalent I can order a book, sink, or something else and have it arrive 1-2 days later due to just-in-time delivery options.

The culture of intensity can manifest as feeling like “I am not doing enough!” or “Shouldn’t I be doing more?” When your value as a person in the overculture is determined by what you do, eg the job you hold, and how ‘productive’ your hobbies are, eg “Can I turn this into a side-hustle?” then the overculture teaches things that are “not productive”, aka making you money or stepping stones on the way to that, are wastes of time.

Part of the reason so many have a hard time meditating, taking time out to do self-care, or just taking a walk, is that it feels like you are wasting time as it is not producing a product or making you money. It is a vile trap. It devalues peace of mind, reflecting on things, self-care, and a host of other needed things that actually require our input of time, energy, care, experience, and expertise to do well. It also devalues the time we spend with our Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, our communities, and by ourselves taking care of our needs and wants. The culture of intensity pushes us to keep seeking the highs while devaluing the lows that make getting there reliably and safely possible in the first place.

The culture of intensity is also quite ravenous, asking for our time, attention, and continuously feeding a variety of time-wasting beasts. For a spiritworker, just as much as your average Pagan, polytheist, and/or animist, spending time praying, communing, and worshiping the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir, and doing good self-care work is hardly a waste of time. Because these things are not valued in the overculture and so many of us are hungry for human interaction, it can be so easy to get sucked into go-nowhere conversations whether it be over Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, or other places that increasingly serve as distractions rather than points of connection. This is not to knock the very real use that Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, etc can serve, but that, as platforms, their primary purpose is to serve as data collection/networking/disbursement rather than connectivity. I find better and more consistently fulfilling connection over personal email, personal chat/text, and programs like Discord and Zoom where the people I am interacting with are not communicating with me through a reference medium (see this retweet, that like, that share, the For You page, etc), but about as close to face-to-face as I can get without being right there with them.

So how do we work to address this? We need to take time out each day so we have that self-care. That self-care does not need to take a long time, be particularly productive in and of itself, nor does it need to tie into anything any more than peace of mind, connection with the Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, our communities, and/or ourselves. I take about 10-30 minutes each day. I spend that time doing cleansing, grounding, centering, shielding, checking on any wards I have needing maintenance. I also spend that time making prayers to my Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir, and then making offerings. I recommend anyone, spiritworker or not, put that time in each day.

If I have a hard time engaging in self-care, I refocus on doing the preparation work (cleansing, etc) so I can do the prayers and offerings cleanly. It is easier at times for me to think of others over myself, and is a way I engage in self-care so I can do the connective work. Taking my needs out of the equation and engaging with the obligations I have helps my frame of mind at times, because it is no longer my emotions that are center stage, but the obligations I hold. If sitting and meditating is not working for me I may switch it up to walking around the garden and talk with the plants and trees. If my usual methods of cleansing, grounding, centering, and shielding are not working for me, I switch it up. There is nothing wrong with fighting boredom or making adjustments so that whatever you need to do has you more involved in it. This is also why rote prayers and spiritual prep work are useful. Sometimes I do not have the brainspace to effectively make more involved processes and I need to do the motions that are most near and dear to me so I can do my work. Whether you need to switch things up or keep to how you have always done them, what matters is the efficacy of the spiritwork you engage in.

The ‘culture of intensity’ has a lot of ins to influence our lives. Excising those can be pretty tough, especially if you have grown up with a lot of the ‘culture of intensity’ as part of your own value system. So, instead of fully shifting or damming the river, working with its flow may be the more effective option. One of the keys for me is reminding myself that I need to do the ground work so the rest of the work is possible. That the small moments lead to the ability to do the big moments, and that whatever I experience, the moment is not the goal.

The goal is to do the work before me so that the work may be effective and see through to its end. It is like throwing a punch. Your aim is not merely the target, it is to blow past the target so the hit connects with the fullness of the energy behind the punch. In a sense, the blow is ‘behind’ the target. You follow through. The goal of planting a garden is not merely to plant, it is to lead to plants to grow, whether flowers, herbs, or food crops. Refocusing the ‘culture of intensity’ to serve our purposes is a needed repurposing. That ‘culture’, such as it is, is unsustainable and liable to destroy us quite quickly. The follow through of long-term planning is desperately needed more so than the short-term highs. We need to shift the culture from one of intense, short experiences, to one where we can build up from foundations into intergenerational communities.

It will take patience, work, and follow through. It will take concerted effort to refocus the ‘high seeking’ behavior of the overculture and to live our lives as valuable things regardless of monetary or social media gain. It will take us being willing and working to refocus our lives with different priorities than many of us were raised with so the ‘culture of intensity’ has less hold on our own. Intensity is a part of life, but the way things are wired right now to produce the maximum reaction on a consistent/constant basis is leading a lot of folks to burnout and quick. So, we need to channel these things and make them more effective over the long run so we have candles to spare when all the other lights go dark.

Patreon Topic 5: Working With Wildly Different Paths

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From my first Ansuz supporter comes this topic:

“So how might you work with a student or a client from a wildly different path? How do you, or do you at all, incorporate your own experience with Celtic deities, with Anubis, and with ceremonial magic into your current work and path? To what degree is that breadth helpful, to what degree is it harmful?”

The problem in speaking in generalities is that there’s likely to be some time down the road where something will come my way to challenge it. That being said, if someone is coming to me with a Heathen or Northern Tradition Pagan specific issue at hand I will generally stick to Heathen and NT specific responses. Likewise, if someone comes to me with Celtic or Kemetic-specific questions I will direct them to resources there. My worship of and experiences with Celtic and Kemetic Gods are part of my everyday life. I have worshiped Gods from these culture groups longer than I have the Heathen and NT Gods. My ceremonial magic background generally shows up in some forms of how I do galdr, and sometimes how I approach things relating to magic.

My experiences with Celtic Gods are primarily devotional, and except for Anubis and a little bit with Bast, so are my experiences with the Kemetic Gods. Most of my work history with Anubis is specific to the work He has given me to do as His priest. Since so much of that is one-on-one with the Dead, usually the general Dead than Ancestors, it does not come up a lot with others. Likewise, my work with ceremonial magic was quite specific to working especially hand-in-hand with Michael at first and then with planetary intelligences for the most part. Most of the things I have learned and experienced from my time before Heathenry are background now, or show up in certain ways, eg a galdr method I work with is similar to how I was taught to intone during LBRP and similar ceremonial magic rites.

The way I might work with a student or client from a wildly different path is:

1. Is the person solidly committed to learning about or committed to this wildly different path? If someone is just trying to find solid ground I could be useful to them. The person may be fully new to a given path and just need a guiding hand, even if it is to someone that isn’t me but is a good person for them within a given religious or magical community.

2. Have they followed up with a spiritual specialist within the tradition or path that they want to study? Are there any people within that tradition or path that could do this job better than me? Some folks are being put on wholly new paths and need direction from a useful source, so as a diviner sometimes I get folks who do not really have a religious, magical, or even spiritual community to interact with because building that is actually their project.

3. Do I have the information, guidance, etc that they need? “Is this actually my stuff to teach, to pass or guide them on?” is a good question to ask. I’m not a Celtic-oriented person, and while I am a priest of Anubis, most of my knowledge in Kemetic religion is oriented around Him and Bast. I have not done ceremonial magic on a regular basis in years. I know enough to know I am not an expert in Celtic reconstructionist/revivalist religions, and that so far as a Kemetic priest is concerned, I have only have expert level experience in very specific areas. My knowledge and experience has limits and I need to respect them for the good of the person and myself.

The breadth of my experience is useful in that I at least have a decent enough grasp of resources within the community to guide folks to solid sources of information. I know what I am and am not qualified to teach or give instruction on. So, in this way it is quite helpful because I know where my boundaries lie.

If a student or client in a wildly different religion or path from mine needed to work with me, specifically me, for whatever reason, it would likely be with me as a kind of helpmeet providing input as requested or needed. As a diviner I have little issue working with folks regardless of their path because the client knows going in that what I am doing is facilitating communication between them, the Runes, and Whoever the client wants information from, for, or about.

I would not really say that this is harmful from my angle, but from a student looking for a teacher to give more broad lessons it might not be as helpful as they would like. Since I generally do not teach about Celtic or Kemetic religion, or Kemetic or ceremonial magic, I do not worry too much about it. Given the divination systems I work with most are the Runes and tarot, along with the occasional other divination method, eg smoke/fire scrying, my methods are usually flexible or useful enough to other Gods that They will work with the system I am most comfortable with and give accurate and useful answers through them. The harm would be is if I misrepresented my knowledge, understanding, sources, and so on. The harm would be if I knew I wasn’t an expert or even well versed in a given subject and tried teaching on it anyhow.