Today’s post is for everyone with a backlog of creative projects a solar system wide and a galaxy deep.
Ideas exist in the way ghosts exist; they can’t take corporeal form without possessing people. Fortunately for ideas, many of us are willing, if not eager, to be possessed by an idea. Ideas also resemble ghosts in that they have a long lifespan- often longer than the person they first possess. Like ghosts, ideas can pass through walls, travel by whisper, make the hairs on the backs of our necks stand up, and reach beyond the time and space they were born into. They also share the characteristic of being transparent af. An idea is, by its very nature, thought made clear. Just like ghosts, ideas can haunt the hell out of us. Who among us doesn’t have ideas that wake us up in the middle of the night by rattling around loudly in our dark and quiet minds? If our minds are, indeed, haunted, we must face the fact it is our own actions that have relegated these moaning and groaning ideas to a small, dark corner of our minds where they have nothing to do but make bids for our attention from their non-corporeal state and beg to be set free. We are not innocent in our hauntings.
We often attempt to keep ourselves safe from uncertainty by leaving our ideas in the shadows. If our ideas see the light of day they start to become powerful, and then we will have to contend with them as they get stronger, evolving from idea to action. We risk failure if we can’t live up to the ideal of the idea and we risk losing our identity as someone with good ideas if we turn out to be wrong about some aspect of it. And yet, in this cycle, we fear the thing that doesn’t exist- the thing that would come from an idea if we let it possess us fully. The thing that does currently exist- the idea- is already real. What I’m suggesting is that we have ghosts backward. We are haunted by possible future realities, by what we are capable of, rather than past events or thoughts. So what do we do about a future reality haunting?
Fortunately, it is possible to exercise ideas from our minds, just as one might exorcise ghosts from a house. All you have to do is talk to them. See if they’re ready to move on or if they want to stay and walk this world with you a bit longer. If you let them go, they can find a new home, maybe even someone to possess willingly, someone who won’t shove them into the back of their mind or think on them only with guilt, which is a painful way to be thought of. If you find that you want to walk this world with a ghostly idea, take it by hand and go for a stroll. Talk to it about what you’re afraid of it growing into. This process may take a while- some of us have a great many ghosts in our minds. I suggest you befriend one or two, choose to walk and talk and evolve together, and let the rest go. Let them find peace in another mind- it will set you both free.
I say this as someone who has a hard time letting go of, well, everything; people, ideas, grudges, love, you name it, I hold onto residual spiritual energy like a haunted inn built on the Hellmouth on All Hallow’s Eve under a full moon. I have more un-begun or unfinished artistic projects than I do inhales in a day. I know a lot of us do. And I refuse to let these ideas go because I might someday do something with them. I mean.. selfish much? At a certain point, I have to recognize that I am basically haunting myself, and that is *not* the kind of ghost-idea-innkeeper I want to be. I’d rather be a benevolent-witchy-innkeeper- someone who provides a nice place for ideas to rest on their travels throughout the multiverse, maybe setting some tea out in the lobby to encourage ideas to come hang out with each other, maybe even heading out into the world together when they’ve filled their spirit wells, and just maybe, if they really want to stay awhile, a nice home with no dark, shadowy corners. I want to trust that my mind is welcoming to new ideas, not full up on old, sad, trapped ones. Some ideas just aren’t mine, even if they’re in my mind. They belong to others, sometime in the future, and my job is to make sure they get their safety, not to hoard them in my mind dungeon.
So here’s what I’m doing this month- I’m letting something big go. It’s going to hurt like hell but I’m committed to being a better witch/innkeeper in the long run so wish me luck, or better yet, talk to an idea you’re haunted by, too, and see if you can bring that idea peace and freedom and a life beyond your mind. Let me know how it goes!
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