Narrowed Attention
The power of a tight focus
I spent the weekend at Spirit Northwest. It was a lovely time and I met great people and learned new things and participated in some awesome magic. I consider it a huge success!
But I noticed something... Despite being in a lovely, magical, friendly, witchy bubble (honest, such great people!), there was an undercurrent of fear and stress and anger. It came up in several different talks and sessions, sometimes obliquely and sometimes more directly. In one session, a speaker asked something in passing like “who is feeling angry and upset and worried about everything right now?” and hands went up all over the room.
That… surprised me a bit. Not because the world isn’t crazy and terrifying and enraging, but because I don’t, on balance, feel crazed or frightened or angry. Mostly I feel grateful and enchanted and coherent, happy to be alive, happy to be with my family and friends, enjoying all the things there are to enjoy while they’re here to enjoy them. Even when I do get anxious about the future, I still simultaneously feel massively nurtured by the present.
I actually touched on this in my Cancer Grimoire (which is an absolutely free, creative commons licensed, book on the magic I did during treatment for cancer). There’s a story in there about standing in the store feeling afraid to touch the vegetables (it was during the first crazy months of covid lockdown) and just deciding to NOT be afraid. And then… I wasn’t afraid anymore. Sure, I was occasionally afraid of dying of Cancer (mostly during the dark nights when I couldn’t sleep) but I wasn’t at all afraid of covid. And for someone going through chemo, that’s pretty awesome.
But I didn’t just decide that - like snapping my fingers - and my fear went away. My decision was based on several years of deliberate mental reframing, ongoing risk / resiliency work, and a tight focus on my local environment and community. Covid and my diagnosis just brought it all to a head.
In fact, I found an old post on my blog from September of 2020 that really sums it up neatly:
The Narrowing Gyre - September 2020
Considering our ongoing slow-motion apocalypse, a Yeats themed post was inevitable, don’t you think?
Over the past few months, I’ve found my focused attention narrowing down to a very short list of critical things:
The Peaceable Kingdom — our household, including all its members
Dear friends — near and far who I connect with
The day job — which I continue to really love and appreciate
Circle Thrice — because I love you all, that’s why
And above all: myself (treatment, healing, self care)
This is natural when faced with a situation or trial that requires a lot of energy. You have to focus in order to just get through things, let alone get through them in a positive way. It’s not even necessarily a negative situation. For example, before I had a baby, I was incapable of letting the phone ring. I always had to jump and get it (and this was before we had cell phones). Once I had a baby though, I suddenly discovered that I was thrilled to let calls go to voice mail. I really didn’t care anymore because I had plenty other immediate things to focus on.
So my attention is focused more and more to self and home and close community… the result of which is that the falcon CAN hear the falconer (that is, I can hear my inner self more clearly) and the center is actually holding better and better. For those of you who’ve gone through what I like to call Gordon’s Coherence training, it’s been great for that. I mean, I can go out back right now and watch our visitor bees and feel like everything is still fine and cycling along just as it needs to, and no mere anarchy can change that. I can do magic for myself (my own magic has gotten wildly experimental lately) and my family and not feel stressed or frantic. I can make decisions in a more clear-eyed way.
And it’s not like I don’t know what’s going on. The calls are still coming in, voicemails still getting left, I’m just focusing less on it and feeling calmer about it. The calls aren’t coming from inside the house.
You don’t have to wait for some big event or experience or diagnosis to come along to narrow your own gyre. You can do it right now. You’ll feel better and you’ll have more energy to make change where it matters. The world will continue to fall apart, but it would have anyway. Certainly our innocence has been stripped from us but we don’t have to drown. We can surf the tide and keep our heads above the bloody water. We can avoid livestreaming Bethlehem. We can, we should, we must. Because maybe a lack of conviction (that we’re right, that we’re in control, that we really know what’s going on) is exactly what we need.
Revelation gonna’ keep revealing regardless. No need to stare into the sun while it happens, it only blinds us.
Hang in there. Stay healthy (and I don’t just mean physically) and take care of yourself and those you love.
A few notes:
“Gordon’s Coherence training” refers to Gordon White’s Rune Soup Premium Membership, which I am an OG member of and which I highly recommend.
The vising bees was a weird synchronicity because we just (like the week before last) installed some resident bees here at the Peaceable Kingdom.
Yes, the apocalypse has sped up some since 2020, but the advice remains the same: Narrow down your focus. Hold your center.