The Law of Joy

And the capacity for wonder

[note to readers: I have pushed you hard the last two posts. I need a break from that too. This is the sixth installment of a twelve part series on the training of the Octagon Society, Order of Spiritual Alchemy. Previously we have discussed the three preliminary laws, to get at and excise the detritus of trauma etc in preparation for the preliminary laws, and the first and second of the eight primary laws, the Law of Acceptance and the Law of Happiness, to get about the work of intentionally building the life you want, of strengthening the self and opening up and expanding consciousness. Links to the previous installments can be found at the end.]

I spent quite a bit of time sitting in the woods this late fall and early winter, over the past five weeks, deer hunting, first with a rifle, then with a revolutionary-era replica muzzleloader with a .50cal ball. One evening recently I walked to the neighbors in the evening after the hunt (there aren’t many neighbors around here, maybe 10people per sq mile five miles in any direction) and sat around the table with them drinking Bud Light in cans dressed up like camouflage. They are younger, unvaxxed, MAGA but not particularly political and also frugal (as Bud Light is selling cheap.) We talked deer, bear, elk, turkey, coyote, cougar and fruit trees. The woman of the house recently shot a 10-point buck, her first.

Probably less accurate at a distance of 40yards than a modern compound bow.

Walking back to the trailer after, in the woods with no moon and a headlamp I actually managed to walk in a circle. Took me a little longer than expected. It was a beautiful night. I made it back safe and had a bottle of homebrew as I played guitar well into the night.

The sheer joy of being alive. It is easy to forget in this modern age awash in media, the constant distraction, so much bad news seemingly every where one looks. So much of media is a fear generating machine; a people in a constant state of anxiety are easily manipulated, there is a deliberate centralized will to keep us in fear – you rarely ever hear people in media talk about joy unless they are selling you something, like the product is going to give it to you. It is probable no politician has been heard to utter the word at any time in living memory, if ever. The collapse of family and community in this hyper-capitalist society leaves a lot of us fearful for economic reasons, just getting by seemingly harder every day for a lot of people, ever the fear of what happens if for whatever reason the money runs out. Our elite in DC and Wall Street are decidedly not about maximizing joy in the common good, obviously. Never mind our betters, what about your every day life? Are the people in your life more fearful or more joyful? Most adults in America and probably the world generally are more fearful than joyful.

There is surely no shortage of things not to be joyful about.

But if you have been following along with these essays and have done the work (I have no expectation that anyone has done any work past reading what I have written in this substack), you have alchemically transformed a lot of the proverbial lead of past traumas and mental and spiritual damage into mental and spiritual gold, you have accepted yourself as you are, you have accepted other people as they are, you’ve taken a hard look at sadness in your life and have taken steps to maximize happiness, and now, the here and now, is a great time to talk about fear and joy.

The Law of Joy states that despite all the bad, negative things that happen to you, you can live a joyful life. The corollary of that is, your capacity for joy is measured by your ability to face your fear and let it go. You can’t do very much about bad, negative things happening to you other than to structure your life to minimize that; even so, no one can totally avoid pain and difficulty. Fear is not something to avoid or to get rid of, fear is a natural and important thing to feel at times, as in the presence of danger. But fear can build, compound, metastasize and become cancerous. Fear is something to feel, be conscious of, heighten your awareness and then let it go. Joy then is a thing that can be cultivated, like a tree with ripe fruit in any season. Unconscious fear is then like the poison you are told will keep the pests away, you are so focused on getting rid of pests you kill all the trees in the orchard.

Ultimately, to be hobbled by fear or to feel the sheer joy of being alive is a choice. No one makes you hold on to fear, no one makes you joyful.

As with the other Laws, the work is about looking at all the things that contribute to your fear, the things that have trained you to be fearful, starting as always with Dad. What are all the things your father did to make you fearful or anxious? This is the first task, be thorough. The second task is to consciously decide how you will handle such situations with your father, or in any other similar context, to become joyful and maintain joyfulness despite the situation. As with the other laws, when you are satisfied with the work you have done concerning Dad:

• List the things your mother did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

• List the things your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and cousins did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

• List the things your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your ancestors did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

• List the things your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

• List the things your enemies and antagonists did to you to make you feel fearful or anxious

• List the things all other persons whatsoever did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

• List all the other things in your life that make you feel fearful or anxious

Go through each list and think about how to transform each example of fear into joy. How will you consciously remember you have a choice?

As we learned with the Law of Happiness, we maximize happiness doing things that make us happy, whatever it is you truly love. The Law of Acceptance was about giving it up to the divine, the creator, accepting yourself as you are and everybody and everything else too. The Law of Joy is maximized in direct proportion to the degree you are willing to face your fears.

That doesn’t mean you need to confront everyone, or even anyone on your list. One of the core principles of magic is the power of the imagination. If it is a fear of fire, say, you don’t have to burn yourself, but you can imagine yourself walking into a bonfire and not burning. If dad or mom or a boss or whatever are a source of fear and anxiety, confronting them directly might exacerbate that fear and anxiety, but you can surely imagine confronting them, and then maybe someday you will be able to, if you need to. But a lot of spiritual alchemy, transforming “lead” into “gold”, can be facilitated and achieved merely by imagining it. That is maybe easier than it sounds; confronting fear in the imagination is not easy, a lot of fear people feel is just them continually imagining some dread thing, remembering in the minds eye. The dragon to be slayed (or turned into an ally) is not found IRL, but surely you can imagine riding one like Danearys. If it is water you are afraid of, you don’t need to find a lake to jump in, you can probably imagine swimming, until you are ready to take lessons, if that is what you want. If it is joy you want, imagine being joyful.

I mentioned too at some point, maybe adding a Law of Wonder. But there are eight laws, this is the Octagon Society, so it will have to suffice to talk briefly about wonder. Often, when adults think about joy they think about children. Children are (sometimes) like little joy balls, bouncing around silly and goofy off the floor and walls. Adult joy I think is less silly, goofy or bouncy, more similar to wonder, the capacity to look at this world, this earth, the myriad forms of life, the breathtaking beauty of the stars, the awe inspiring power of the sun, the heliosphere circumnavigating the milky way in 230million years, the 100 billion suns in the galaxy, the 100 billion galaxies (nobody really knows how many) – and simply wonder at it, that I can be here in the midst of all of this! So much of life as we know it is a mystery, and that is ok, it is ok to merely wonder at it and be in awe. Surely if you are capable of that you are capable of joy, of embracing this life and being joyful about it.

There is a great deal to be fearful about - but there is a great deal to be joyful about. Choose well. Your circumstances will come to reflect those choices.

Some will object, there are times when there is no joy to be had. Surely, there are times when we lose some one, a relationship is falling apart, in times of war, joy can seem far away. But even in the darkest time, there is joy to be found. In fact, in that darkest hour, the capacity for wonder and the sheer joy of being alive might be the thing that keeps you going, keeps you fighting, staying awake and alive.

Besides, it seems to me, if America needs anything right now it is less fear and more joy.

Introduction

Preliminary Lessons:

The Law of Blame

The Law of Shame

The Law of Guilt

Primary Laws:

0/8 The Law of Acceptance

1/8 The Law of Happiness

2/8 The Law of Joy