“The first step to thinking outside the box is realizing there is no box.”
Sit with that for a moment. Let it settle in your bones.
What if the walls you’ve been pushing against were never there? What if the fight you’ve been waging isn’t against an enemy, but against your own reflection?
We say we are free, yet we keep forging the same chains.
We say we reject dogma, yet we create new rules.
We say we have no Devil, yet we keep inventing new enemies.
If we have truly broken free, why do we keep looking over our shoulder?
And more importantly—who are we when there’s nothing left to fight?
The Devil’s Chains: Loose, Yet We Still Wear Them
The Devil card in the Tarot—ah, there’s a lesson wrapped in a mischievous little picture. Two figures stand, chained at the neck. But look closer. Those chains? Loose. Not locked. Not welded shut. Just… draped there, waiting for someone to realize they could slip them off at any moment.
And yet, they don’t.
Why? Because they believe they are bound.
How many of us do the same?
- We say, “Paganism isn’t devil worship!”—as if that’s the most important thing about our path.
- We rush to explain what we don’t do, what we aren’t, who we aren’t like.
- We spend so much time denying the chains, we forget that we never needed them in the first place.
If our first instinct is to define ourselves by what we are not, then we are still reacting. We are still chained to the very thing we claim to have left behind.
So, what happens if we simply… take them off?
The Pendulum and the Spiral: Are We Swinging, or Moving?
A pendulum swings back and forth—left to right, right to left, never forward, never growing, just trapped in its own momentum.
One day, it’s “We’re not like them!”
The next, it’s “We reject that old way!”
And back it swings again.
But a Spiral—now, that’s different. A Spiral moves forward. It doesn’t just react; it evolves.
If we define our spirituality only by what it opposes, then we are still on the pendulum, just swinging to the other side of the same old fight.
But if we step off? If we stop swinging?
Then we step onto the Spiral—the path of becoming, the path of integration, the path of creation.
The Raft and the Shore: Letting Go of the Fight
“The story is the raft; the truth is the shore. Don’t carry the raft when you’ve reached the shore.”
When you’re crossing a river, the raft is vital. It keeps you afloat. It carries you across. It serves its purpose.
But what kind of fool carries it on their back once they reach dry land?
Yet, how many of us still hold onto old fights long after they have served their purpose?
- The fight against misconceptions that no longer need defending.
- The battle against a religion we left behind decades ago.
- The instinct to define our spirituality by what it isn’t, rather than what it is.
You don’t need to prove your freedom to those still on the other shore.
You don’t need to carry the raft forever.
Put it down. Walk forward.
The Light and the Stained Glass: Seeing Beyond the Contrast
“Metaphors are like sunlight through stained glass—don’t confuse the colors for the light itself.”
The world has told many stories about us. Some are laughably wrong. Some are close but miss the mark. Some are born of ignorance, fear, or just plain misunderstanding.
And so, we push back. We explain. We fight the shadow on the wall instead of stepping fully into our own light.
But here’s the trickster’s riddle—if all we do is push against the shadow, aren’t we still letting it define us?
What if, instead of arguing with the colors cast by an old window, we stepped outside and basked in the sun itself?
The Challenge: Who Are We Without an Enemy?
This is the hard part. It is easy to fight. It is easy to make someone else the villain.
But what is hard—what is truly brave—is to step out of that pattern entirely. To define ourselves not by struggle, but by wisdom, by growth, by the Dance itself.
So, I ask you:
- Who are you when you are not in battle?
- What do you create when you are not tearing something down?
- What do you believe—not in contrast, but in truth?
The chains are loose. The raft is heavy. The pendulum keeps swinging.
But the Spiral moves forward.
Will we?
Closing Notes
This post isn’t just a set of words—it’s an invitation. A challenge. A moment to pause and reflect.
If you feel called, I invite you to sit with these questions. Not just today, but in the moments ahead.
And if this stirred something in you—if it nudged a thought loose—let’s keep the conversation going. Share your thoughts in the comments. Share this message with those who might need it.
Most of all—walk forward. The Spiral does not wait.
