A Commiseration for the Magi

I think if I could go back and not do the Work, I would. It changes you, and you know things. Things that are harder to live with, more challenging. It gives you the strength to deal with it, but it also makes you more sensitive to things other people don't have to deal with. There are things I'd rather not know, that I know, and I can't forget. There are things I'd rather not know how to do that I can't stop doing now, because there's no off switch, there's just turn it on and go. It ruins you for a normal life. No one ever mentions it, so a warning for folks called to this path: be prepared to be changed. Be prepared to see people in all their weakness, and to love them anyway. Be prepared to set aside your tenets. They are false in the face of love. Be prepared to be wrong, so wrong, and be prepared to be set right. Be prepared for heartache, like you wouldn't believe, grief that feels like death, and these words will not suffice to warn you about that, it's a killer, but then you don't die. You keep on living, in power. In knowledge. And then you have to will and dare. And keep silent. And the learning who and what you are never stops. And sometimes it's amazing, and other time it's just not pretty. And then when you've done the Work, you're aware of all the things you fuck up, and you have to just deal with it. Fix it with the tools you've got at hand. Hope for the best. The "GREAT" in Great Work doesn't mean super fun and always awesome. It just means big. It makes you big. Consider whether you want to be big before you take on the challenge. A bigger you is a bigger you. All you, all the time, and you know it, but you still have feelings, and they are bigger too. I say that as if we have a choice. But it's not like any of us had a choice. We do the Work when we do it, and we suffer the consequences. Consider this a commiseration for the magi. It looked like fun and wealth and power and freedom, and it turned out to be a love that knows no bounds, that won't stop, it just keeps going. There's no escape to some hidden place where you get away from it, there's just this love that goes on and on, and there's ... no off switch.

And I lied at the top of this post. I'd do it every time.