Magical Exercise: Surviving Life Transitions By Illustrating the Future You
At the end of July, I had my most recent solar return and then a couple of weeks later moved to a new—and hopefully much more appropriate—home. As one of my new neighbors keeps reminding me, moving is as stressful to most people as divorce and death. It does provide an overall difference in life foundation and resulting change in routine so, you know, makes sense. I imagine that we also undergo some kind of ethereal shift as part of all that.
As I was arranging the last bits and bobs in my room, I came across this future self-portrait I drew less than a year ago. I occasionally draw these as the urge calls, intending them to depict myself in the near future. I suppose it's something like a method of art witchcraft mixed with Grant Morrison's hypersigil concept on a smallish scale. The self-portrait made before to this one didn't quite come through physically because I drew myself as a woman and, well, gender transition.
But this one! Pretty accurate. I drew it in the beginning of my gender transition before I understood myself more fully because I needed to see the type of man I was aiming to become. More recently, when I picked it up off the floor I at first thought it was one of my several pieces of art I have made of Apollo. This momentary confusion satisfies me because it proves I am fulfilling one of my deepest spiritual wishes, which is to live out as an avatar of him. In addition, I do have two eyebrow piercings now and opted for a Monroe piercing instead of a lower lip piercing! The facial hair is still a work in progress, but the overall goal feels achieved.
If you are early in some kind of transition—gender, significant move, divorce, otherwise—I encourage you to try this exercise out in order to give you an image of selfhood to strive for. I don't think I necessarily need to give instructions, but here are some tips:
- Take some paper and any drawing instrument that feels right to you, or really any you happen to have on hand
- Sit for a moment and let yourself feel that you want to draw. This is supposed to be fun and just for you, don't worry about the final product being "good"
- Begin and let the drawing naturally flow out of you
- Include any symbols that are meaningful to you (you'll notice I drew a necklace of the Star of David because my Judaism is important to me and an amethyst necklace I actually don't own, possibly because the amethyst represented connection to my intuitive abilities) and anything you have admired in other people such as long hair, tattoos, fashion sense, a warm smile, etc. Don't let differences between you and others like gender or race prevent inclusion
- Place it somewhere in your bedroom or in your favorite private space nearby you. I tend to keep my portraits on altars, my night-table, or on my vanity
- Again, IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE GOOD, calm down!!!
If you are trans, especially if you are early in your gender journey, this may cause dysphoria. This is okay! This type of self-triggered dysphoria shows us where there is still work to be done, and by feeling the dysphoria at all you know you are on the right path. You can put the drawing aside if you want to and decide later if you wish to pick it back up again.
If you do this exercise, feel free to share with me your spiritual self-portrait. I would love to see it!
