What I crave of divine connection is not actually to know a god or gods, but to relieve the weight of a world to which I am an unwilling entrant.

Wanting the surety of a sacred connection would be for selfish reasons. I only want to feel there is a plan in which I fit and that I don't need to struggle so much swimming upstream. I don't want to worship and flatter. I want to believe only because it would imply a world in which my birth had a meaning.

(My parents tell a story that, when my mother went to one of her obstetrics appointments with me, the doctor hesitated in saying I was still alive. I did not seem to have a heartbeat and would not move. In lieu of doing anything terminal yet, the doctor decided to let this play out and maybe I would spontaneously revive by the next appointment. I like to believe I understood the threat in this and returned to the world of the living before I could even properly said to be alive, but the truth is that there was no miracle in it, only faulty equipment coupled with an apparently sleepy day.)

By biomass, most of the world is not plagued by anxiety and depression, at least not that ants and earthworms have cared to mention. Yet I sometimes am, even as I can tell myself that the issues on which my mind perseverates are insubstantial. What would be the holy function of making me this way?

Maybe this is all an idea of reference, when one believes God talks to them personally. It likely happened more before we had a closer sense for the thoughts of people outside out direct experience, or it was at least written about enough to inspire religions and philosophies.

When I get desperate, I see omens. I assume the things I see and hear are meant for me and become angry at unrelated stimuli. I know they are not actually meant for me, that they are just things that are happening to which a part of me is ascribing meaning, things triggering me, but the feeling is there, the sickness that some external force is being a jerk to me.

This is distorted thinking, not a delusion. I know that, realistically, none of this is happening and I can blank my mind away from it, but things seem to be coming at me in a way that transcends the coincidental to my pattern-seeking monkey brain.

I've drifted further from theism, if I ever entertained it as much more than a literary convention, so it especially makes no sense to ascribe to the clouds and radio what can be explained by chemicals and the wrong thought pinioning around.

I am far too small and unimportant in the grand scheme of things for the world to conspire to annoy me. The other side of this coin are so-called targeted individuals who feel that someone-the alphabet agencies, aliens, Reptilians, the Illuminati-is not only constantly surveilling them, but sending veiled threats through car colors and fast food advertisements. It sounds like paranoid schizophrenic to me, a man who has taken several psychology classes and has no business diagnosing strangers. It makes them feel special that an organization is stalking them in what is certain to be the stupidest way possible, like having strangers sometimes whisper their names under their breath. I can't say, outside the pathological obsession, that I don't understand the charm of writing yourself a starring role in an imagined narrative. At least you don't have to acknowledge that you will almost certainly end up forgotten. Right now, you can be someone worthy of notice, cast as the subject of a conspiracy theory that would put pulp novelists to shame. At least you can convince yourself that someone above you cares.

I carry a leather book in my right front pocket. It is only a mini marble notebook with a leather over that cost far more than it was worth, but I needed it for my sense of aesthetics. The book alone would lack specialness, which would impede the purpose of writing.

With no ritual or fanfare, I exchange out the notebook about every two weeks depending on how slow work has been. (I don't know what to do with these notebooks when they are filled and transcribed, so they go in a hollow ottoman next to my Writing Corner with my inks and equipment I am not actively using).

A week ago, the blankness of the cover struck me as a waste - also, there was no outward sign of the front of the book, leading me to fumble with it before I could begin my notes. I carefully drew three interlocking triangles, the Muse's Star. Having done this, I drew the enneagram of the Muse's on the back cover. It is not strictly magickal, but it looks that way. Aesthetics.

Thereby, my notebook becomes a little more magickal, even if it is only a psychological effect of seeing the symbols and not growing lax in my chosen purpose. Do Greek Muses influence the whorls of my pen? The logical web of my mind scoffs at the unlikeliness, but I've experienced stranger. If it works, what is the last harm? In antiquity, talent was described not at something one natively had but as a force possessing the artist. Granted, one through practice can make it easier for the cunning daemons to find one among the hoi polloi, but one never owned fully one's product; it was god-given. Not respecting it could as easily make it god-taken-away.

My writing often comes from a place that surprises me. I recognize my handwriting, but the content, the ideas can appear as if devised by someone else. When an idea comes to me, I need to flesh out as much as possible in my small book because I know from experience it will retreat too soon and I will be left with another clever story whose ending I will struggle to find.

Amber, my witchy darling who partially credits my introduction in the life to a fortune teller and a spell, looked confused when she witnessed my Sharpie geometry (the internet suggested permanent marker as the best bet short of burning; that is a lie, but I decided retracing sigils with a pen recharges them). Magick has become a smaller and smaller part of our lives. I have an altar, but it accumulates dust.

My writing corner has a few pictures and trinkets directed to my work - a phantasmagorical print from a man to whom my mother gave a copy of Flies to Wanton Boys, a spooky one from Danielle Draik, a hanging of Lord Ganesh to remove obstacles, a nazar key chain to ward off any evil eyes and writer's block, a turquoise bear fetish that makes me irrationally happy. This is the closest I come to regular worship.

When things are good, we often forget the gods. When the sun hits me just right or I see the rising moon, I may whisper "blessed be," but it goes little further. When the world is dark, I do not root for divine assurance. I have not been to a ritual for years, in part because Amber's group became women-only so she stopped going. What is the point of worship that didn't include her love? On her own, it did not feel as sacred or welcoming.

When Melanie left, I found a local circle and practiced with them until my facility hired me and it was too long a drive to continue. Then, I wanted to connect more than I wanted to worship. I wanted to believe I was a part of something even if it was a dozen women in the back of a spirituality and biker shop.

If the world were infused with spirit and not merely carbon, there could be a purpose to my existence. I would not need only to seek infinity though my books - but that likely explains why my desk is my true altar.

I have a deep, scholastic familiarity of the world beyond this one, its denizens, should it or they turn out to exist. I launder those in my writing because they may have no other anchor into this plane, my life. In return, I like to believe they reward me for promulgating their energy.

Soon in Xenology: Probably more aimless fretting, knowing me.

last watched: Arrested Development
reading: The Maxx, Volume 3
listening: Bjork