A Long Term Plan (Week 3/40)

Review Of The Previous Week:
During the Criticism of Others exercise, I feel that I did fairly well. I have been rather practiced at biting my tongue for quite some time. My low point is 4 days where I had zero marks, and my high was a single day where I made fifteen marks. I'm not about to try and make excuses for that day, I feel I was fully justified in all that I said and can easily live with myself for it. I must admit though that if I were doing the second iteration of this exercise and writing also my thoughts that verge on crticism of others, I would more than likely have had quite a few marks each day simply from dealing the aforementioned Lieutenant.

The Stepped Relaxation and Color Breathing exercises went as the previous week. I still haven't gotten much out of the stepped relaxation, so at this point I am going to continue to rely on the methods I have used before and which I know to work for me.

The Candle Burning exercise ended up not happening. My interpreter did what he could but couldn't get the candles to me until the day that this week ended. I had substituted the Time Watching exercise of the week prior to this one. That one went better, it seems that a second week of "Doc staring at his watch again" was less odd than the first week. Either that or they decided it was worthless to keep asking questions.

Schedule of exercises for Week 3:
-Exercise 3: Self-Awareness III: Criticism of Self (pg 8)
-Exercise 5: Inward Perception II: Elemental Orientation (pg 17)
-Exercise 11: Breathing I: Color Breathing (pg 39)
-Exercise 16: Outward Concentration III: Water Boiling (pg 55)
All of these are done each day, with no variations.

Thoughts and expectations for the week:
Criticism of Self shouldn't be too bad, I am usually rather defensive of my actions and not too apologetic so long as I feel that whatever I did or said was justified before it became word. The flip side of this is that I tend to think a while before saying much of anything anyway. It's rare for me to be completely open and there are only a very small handful of people who get to see me unfiltered.

The Elemental Orientation exercise should go fairly smoothly, as it is not unfamiliar to me. I can't say I have ever done this particular exercise, but I've done plenty of similar ones. I can imagine I may get some funny looks if I am unable to find appropriate privacy, but after the Time Watching bit I doubt anyone will really mess with me. This exercise will probably help me to feel a bit more balanced in my daily life as well, which is definitely something I could use about now.

I expect Color Breathing to be the same as the previous weeks.

As an extension of the other Outward Concentration exercises, Water Boiling should prove simple enough. I don't exactly have a stove top with a whistling kettle, but I do have an electric kettle with multiple heat settings. I am eager to try this exercise, since I don't think I have ever done one like that focuses on the sense of hearing the way this one does.

Misc:
My plan for the Tree of Life Rosary is coming along smoothly. I am having a little trouble deciding what I will use as the beads that seperate the decades, as I am having them representative of the veils. Also, I have finished my initial run through of The Power Of The Word by Tyson (see previous post for ISBN) and my usual note taking process. I've been experimenting with a few of the exercises and rituals he has in there. I can not say I agree with everything he has written there, but it does provide some great food for thought. I did read over all of his Enochian references within the aforementioned work, and again he has some good food for thought though I would prefer to vet his source materials myself before agreeing or disagreeing with any of his assertions. For all he claims about the inherent apocalyptic nature of Enochian Magick, he seems quite obsessed with it.