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From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan,alt.magick
Subject: Deep Emotions Versus Mental and Emotional Equilibrium
Date: 22 Nov 1995 13:50:55 -0800
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ky951122

| From: My friend Amber
| Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 22:07:08 -0500 (CDT)
 
| I hope things are good for you.  You have not been posting much lately.  
| With any luck you are busy doing the things that make you happy and quiet 
| your spirit.

You are a dear, sweet woman.  I'm doing pretty well.  Turbulence more than
happy quiet dayz, though they are worth it.

 
| In answer to my question about performing ritual everyday, Gratuituos 
| synonym stated the purpose of performing daily ritual is to achieve a 
| level of mental and emotional equilibrium.  

GP (Gratuitous Pseudonym ; get it, a pun?!) has been known to say all kinds
of things. ;>  I don't know that there is one particular purpose for doing
daily ritual (or observing rites which infuence one every day), but I have
found it to be of benefit, especially that done by myself and involving a
creative art (writing, painting, musicmaking, dancing, etc.).


|Do you agree with this statement?  

I think there is a measure of truth in it.  I'm not sure that I could support
the contention as absolutely as GP appears to be making it out (per your
review).


|Do you think/feel that excursions into one's darknesses lead to mental and 
|emotional balance?  

I don't know that they all necessarily lead one way or another.  I've seen
similar states lead to completely different directions, and since there is
truly no 'control', we may be prone to fluctuations as a result.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'one's darknesses' aside from a guess (due to
our previous conversation in email and its context here) that it implies
intense emotional states, especially those involving anger, fear or sorrow.

Excursions into these areas of the psyche are very important to lasting
emotional health, though at rates commensurate with the emotional maturity
of the individual in question.  The ranges of sensitivity and fortitude may
vary immensely from one to another.


|When do these excursions stop being productive and become a crutch, pure 
|emotionalism, or mental masturbation? 

Wow, that is a line which I would not personally draw except with respect
to a particular individual.  I've done that.  I've drawn boundaries with
people before which at times lead to the dissolution of our relationship
in part because of my resistance to continuing to experience their pain.

I've also sat long and patiently with very deep emotions since those times,
and I gather that exposure to one increases my knowledge of the rest.  If
this is true, then there is no such thing as 'mental masturbation' in the
sense that you mean it and everything to do with my own preference (as an
activity from which we derive maximum pleasure).  For to learn of sorrow is
equally to learn of love, of fear, of sorrow and joy.  

I do not always feel this equable attitude toward the various emotions, 
however.  I know I prefer equinamity to abandon, and yet I donot feel that
I would want to attempt to pre-preprogram my emotions in very specific ways.
I was able to do that with some degree of success with music, and yet it was
always a blurred lens, a dual-reverb.  It wasn't like swimming in a cool
river in northern CA during a heat wave, in which all our emotional turmoil
sort of melted away....

I think they start being a crutch when we rely upon them as the Final
Answer to the mysterious and undefined personal question of existence.


| Blessed Be,

And back at ya three times, sister.

Lorax