Shortly after I wrote that post, I went upstairs to lay on my bed and to think.
Well, to space-out really. To.. feel the core of who I am and let whatever comes up, come up.
I remembered thinking that I was feeling so empty. That there was no purpose for me to achieve. I thought about cleaning my house a bit, but.. just didn't think it was important enough to bother with. I wanted a new sense of direction. I wanted to know the next place I had to be at, or the next thing I needed to do.
I wanted inspiration. And because of the day before when I seemed to have manifested that "angel" I laid in bed asking for help.
Over and over.
It sounds pathetic, because it pretty much is. To anyone who might have been watching.
"Help me..."
Nothing was coming. No signs. No ideas.
I don't know what it was, but I got up out from bed and went downstairs for a cigarette. Sitting outside, I had this thought.
Since I have had some success in manifestation, why don't I really try at it again?
I went over the instances where I succeeded and failed, and.. something hit me.
I will do a ritual.
I got my first girlfriend by doing a ritual, if it can be believed. It took about a week, before Michelle began coming up to me and our relationship started to develop. No effort on my part. She was suddenly attracted to me, and I was even trying to avoid her in the hallways/eye contact/etc.
But, that ritual I performed back then was a desperate one. It involved cutting myself. There were tears. Strong emotions. I haven't done anything like that since.
As I thought about why or what I would be performing a ritual for, possibilities began entering my mind.
I thought about love, money, career, direction, purpose, happiness.
And... I came across the strangest idea.
Fola, when I first met her, used to tell me about how she wanted to give and receive "unconditional" love. And towards the end of our relationship, she mentioned this again, "I think I am supposed to learn about unconditional love this season."
This bothered me to think about. Because for one, I was giving her that unconditional love when we first met. I knew she was married. I knew she was involved with other people. I didn't have any expectations of her. I accepted her for who she was.
Until I didn't. But that is a long story.
As I thought about the hypocritical nature of her value system; I had the light-bulb moment that maybe my ritual should be about making that happen for her.
Fola wants to give and receive unconditional love? Okay, I will make that my intention.
But it will have to be with me.
In a way, this was going to be her "punishment" for not actively trying to live up to the words that she speaks. The false promises of loving me more, or loving unconditionally; when I see the way she treats her family, her child and myself; well, that doesn't look like someone who is trying to love unconditionally. Telling me that whenever I feel "triggered" by something she does, to stand back and take a moment to think about it before reacting; BUT, hypocritically, does not apply this same advice to herself because I didn't watch a YouTube video.
Okay Fola, you want to love and be loved unconditionally? I will make that happen for you.
On one level, I still didn't think she was worth the effort. She seemed hopeless. In all of our time together, I didn't see how she planned on realizing this ambition of hers to love more. There were no real attempts at it that I could see.
But, on another level, on a soul level... I realize that despite all thats happened between us, I still do love her. Just like I told her I did.
Perhaps she is willing to be a hypocrite, but I was not going to accept that about her. Hypocrisy is the slayer of love, as George King once said.
And she slayed our love.
So my ritual was going to be about hypocritically having Fola love me. I was well-aware that doing "magic" and "spells" for the purpose of causing someone to fall in love with you, is black magic. It is against free will. But, as I thought about this further; she wanted to experience "unconditional" love, and she promised me more "love" each time we would get back together after a breakup.
Okay, so it is no longer "black" magic. I am doing her a favor. I am going to help her follow through on her promises. From afar, with a ritual.
With whatever "power" I can muster, I will give her what she claims to want.
It is likely not a coincidence that I drew the Magician card a short while ago, and Fola reported drawing the same one for me as well.
I felt like a magician. I was successful with certain manifestations. I would be willing to try and do my first ritual in twenty years.
So, I sat around and wrote all the ideas that came to my head. I had to design this thing. What objects will I be using? What will the process be? Where would I do this?
And that ennui I had been feeling earlier, that listlessness, was gone in the course of all this.
If angels weren't going to be helping me right now, then I will take matters into my own hands.
Or perhaps they did, by putting this idea of a ritual into my head.
I spent a good hour writing down random ideas before organizing them into a step-by-step checklist. I had candles. Incense. Sage. A certain type of necklace. A certain type of shirt and pants to wear before I would later get naked. It'll be at around midnight. It'll start with a prayer, meditation, etc.
Once I had a handle on how it was all going to happen, I knew this was to take place on my uncle's two-acre lot outside the city. I wanted to be outside in the dark woods. In silence and undisturbed.
As I began packing up stuff for the trip, another thought came in.
I would be passing by Fola's old house.
And.. Strangely, I felt the urge to go upstairs into my office and retrieve a Dungeons & Dragon gameplaying book. I don't play D&D; but Fola's husband Larry, does.
I bought him that book shortly after I met Fola, with the intent of giving it to him but the right opportunity hadn't presented itself. Especially once she moved out.
Leaving him this book wasn't going to be good enough, I figured, so I decided to write him a note.
(sighs) ... it said this: "Be strong, Larry. You deserve someone much better than her."
On one side of the paper. The other side then said: "and you are a terrific father."
I wasn't sure why I did that. Felt bad for him I suppose. I can't imagine being married to a woman like Fola, who would be willing to see her child "every other weekend", has taken her pet cat to the SPCA because "he doesn't get along with Sade's cat" and her having STARTED this whole polyamory thing with Larry, even though he was more "monogamous" than she was, according to these old messages I've read of us on OkCupid when we first met. She took a monogamous guy, and turned marriage against him. No more monogamy. Started with "swinging" and then the poly stuff.
That guy must really have loved her to have to put up with that shit. And now look what happened. I come along, and she decided she would rather be with me. Until she didn't.
Until she lost interest, or whatever it was that caused her to take me for granted.
Well, so. I did feel bad for Larry. Put the note in the book, had everything all loaded up, and began the long drive.
Decided to do it in silence, rather than have music going like I normally do. Took the turn onto where Larry lived, and parked a short distance from the house.
One thing I was concerned about, was how to leave the book. His dog Zoey would always bark like mad whenever someone walked by on the street, and I was a bit afraid it would happen. Especially because Ivy was sleeping at this hour, and I didn't want her to wake up.
As I walked over, I could see the lights on. The TV was on, the bedroom light was on and the basement light was on. Zoey was pacing around, and strangely, didn't notice me out front.
I plopped the book on the doormat as quietly as I could, and left.
Driving away, I began to panic a little.
I remembered it was Thursday. That means that Fola was going to be picking up Ivy in the morning. That also means it is likely she, who will be the first to see the book I left with the note sticking out.
So, I went back. Quietly, again, hoping that Zoey wouldn't bark.
Picked up the book and figured I would leave it in the backyard where he was likely to see it.
As I made my way around, motion sensing lights came on and freaked me out. If Larry was watching TV in the living room, there was no way I could just walk into the backyard and leave this book.
So, I tossed it and walked away. Threw it as close as I could to the garage entrance. Not my ideal way of leaving a gift behind, but I didn't have a choice.
What made this worse, though, is that I was agonizing over whether or not I should sign the note so he wouldn't have to wonder who it was from. Part of me thought the message was better to be left anonymous, and the other part didn't want him to be asking around about it.
So I wrote my blog address down on a corner of the note. He would be able to figure it out from there.
Driving outside the city, I could see it was cloudy and there weren't many stars to be seen. Hardly any. Not the picturesque sky I was hoping for.
As I parked and unpacked all the supplies; I saw that the moon was orange. Almost red.
Lit up the candles. It was around 11:10pm, and figured I would get myself into the mood before commencing the ritual at midnight.
I listened to some music, stared at the candles, really felt the wind on me and became more in-tune with my thoughts and sensations.
I began writing down my intentions. One for each piece of paper:
1) I am blessed to have great wealth and prosperity.
2) I am lovingly guided towards a higher and happier purpose in life.
3) Fola loves me unconditionally, and has acknowledged and apologized for the mistakes of the past.
And although midnight had already passed by a few minutes, I waited to make sure I was in the right frame of mind. Once I was, I made a little altar in the middle of a clearing, and began the ritual.
Gave thanks to all the forces of the earth and beyond. Invoked in the names of the deities and guides and angels to assist me with this, and then focused on each intention. Once I was done with a randomly selected intention, I would set it aflame with a candle, and blow it out.
Did that for all three, and began packing up.
There's no point to really explaining the further details of everything, but it was all done in about 30 minutes. I had planned on sleeping in the van nearby, but for some reason, I felt really "clear" and charged up. Wasn't sleepy at all.
I packed everything up and took the three candles I blew out to the lake nearby. The stillness was profound. I sat on this tiny dock and re-lit the candles, placing each of them onto the water for them to float away.
Saw a beaver swam by a few times. At least I think it was a beaver. It was difficult to tell.
After two of the three candles went out, I lost patience with watching the third one float off and decided I devoted enough time to the intentions I've set. Started to go home.
And on the way, I realized that maybe I shouldn't have put my blog address on that note. I would have to go sneak into the backyard again, and tear off the section of the paper that would identify me.
But, it didn't work out that way because the book was gone when I arrived. Looked like Larry found it sooner than I expected him to.
And, thats that. Got home at around 3:30am, said another prayer, and passed out.
In thinking about all this, I realized how much I despise hypocrisy. I can't take it when someone says one thing and does another. Tells me that they love me, but act in ways that doesn't reflect it. Tells me they are non-monogamous, then 99% sure they are monogamous and then back to not being sure again the week after.
I hate it.
I don't know how to handle that kind of person.
So.. That was my main thing behind the ritual. I want Fola to live the truth of what she knows it to be. I wanted her to swallow down the "I love yous" and own up to them and live them out.
Not forget all that she's said to me.
And.. (sighs) I woke up with a big headache this morning. Still have it right now as I'm typing.
I would not be surprised if it is related to Fola and/or Larry. Maybe Larry told her about the note. Maybe its something else.
I do believe we are linked.
And.. I don't know, man.
It seems like my purpose in life so far is to make hypocrites of the women I've dated. Almost all of them have said one thing to me, and done another.
Fola is no different. She is the worst one of them all.
And I cannot idly stand by and make peace with that.
So thus, the ritual.
She liked rituals. Matter of fact, when I had my light bulb moment of performing it; I could feel the left side of my head begin to pulse. I had a sense that Fola knew what I was about to do.
I know how crazy that sounds. But, the world is a crazy place.
I'm just doing my best to live in it.
And to be happy.
(sighs)
It hasn't been easy so far. My faith is tested every day.
As it will be today.
Somehow or another.
But, I will still win.
In life or in death.
I will win.
