In the past few weeks, I’ve had several Mercury Retrograde-style minor injuries:
- I banged my shin on our open dishwasher door hard enough to cut it
- I tripped on a log while exploring a graveyard in twilight with my family and have a scratch and several bruises on my leg (plus I tore my pants)
- Our enthusiastic young dog took off while walking with me and I got a nasty cut and leash burn on my hand and I’m sore and achy
- I bruised my hand helping my husband lift our drier back up on top of the washer (it broke and we repaired it ourselves)
Note: I find it interesting how reading those can give you a weird view into my private life.
Since I have a generally safe and boring existence and am not prone to extreme sports, wild animal handling, or acrobatics; this is more cuts and bruises than I’ve had in YEARS. Now, none of them individually are serious at all but combined I’m feeling sore and run down.
Which has got me thinking about how it’s the cumulative impact of many little things that have real power to affect you — for good or ill.
Let say you are doing a good job with the big four:
- Getting enough restful sleep
- Eating food, not too much, mostly plants (~Pollan)
- Enjoying a bit of exercise
- Calming your mind through meditation or similar
All of these are small cumulative things that you do each day — a bunch of individual little choices — and get together they put you in a position to ward off troubled times or difficult challenges (like Mercury retrograde!). Plus you’ll feel and be your best.
On the other hand, the reverse is also true. If you are busy worrying about things you can’t change, getting too much fast food, staying up way too late, and generally feeling like an unmotivated lump — well, that’s going to feel bad and potentially put you in a place where it’s harder to stave off a cold or deal with a letdown.
It’s like a bank account. You make deposits and withdrawals and while some are big, most of them are tiny. They are almost unnoticeable in the scope of your larger budget.
That’s both awesome and terrible if you think about it.
It’s awesome because those little deposits are actually things you can do and achieve and those little withdrawals won’t break the bank. It’s terrible because, well, it’s 1000 tiny steps forward and backward that make up life. Tiny victories, minor defeats.
Occasionally a large good thing will come along and you’ll be set for months. And unfortunately the reverse is true and a big thing can wipe out months of “saving.” But that’s also life.
The goal of course is to save our pennies for that future rainy day. Which means that we can’t wait to do magic or divination or take care of ourselves until things are going wrong.
If things are calm in your life here’s what you want to do:
- Remind yourself that things weren’t always this calm and that they won’t always be — sorry, I know that’s depressing, but it’s also motivational
- Create a short list of little things to add to your account — the operative words here are “short” and “little” — you want a few small things you can actually do and keep doing. Make sure you include mundane things as well as magical ones, for example:
- Start the morning with a healthy smoothie or yogurt
- Greet your ancestors each day
- Go for a short walk outside during your lunch hour
- Swap your afternoon soda for an unsweetened iced tea
- Jot down 3-5 future sigil statements into a sigil backlog
- Brush and floss before bedtime
- Make a simple offering to your posse (water, light, smoke)
- Meditate for 10 minutes before going to sleep
- Concurrently, avoid little things that drain your account for no benefit. If I’m up late celebrating your success, that’s totally worth it. Up late for lolcats and YouTube? Not so much
- Do the things and keep doing them. With luck you will create some strong new habits that you can continue regardless of what happens
On the other hand, if things are already chaotic:
- Triage: focus on one thing that is of concern right now (healing, stress reduction, sleep hygiene — whatever you think will give you the biggest immediate return)
- Pray: call on your posse for help and promise them more attention when things calm down. Now is not the time for elaborate ritual
- Mitigate: do what you can with what you have for where you’re at right now. Stick with what you know from a magical and divinatory perspective
- Conserve: don’t deplete yourself further, instead cut back on draining activities and people until you are in a better place. Put your own mask on first, as they say
- Reach out: ask friends and family for well-wishes, prayer, magic. When things are calm for you, return the favor
- Forgive: Cut yourself some slack now (and then pick up the slack later)
I have to remind myself of this same pattern. When things are calm there’s a tendency to want to relax and enjoy (and that’s not all bad!). But calm times are also when you want to make sure you’re ready for the next time there’s bad news, or a challenge, or an exciting but high pressure opportunity. Fill your account while you can so you can count on it later when you need it.
