For our final epiphany from Iron Pentacle class, we’re posting about a freakish hybrid of Iron Pentacle and Getting Things Done.

Class, please get out your day planners and your athames. (:

Getting Things Done

In David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, (which we’ve talked about before) he talks about the concept of open loops.

Open loops are things that keep popping up at inconvenient times and reminding you of their existence. “Remember the milk”, “Oh, I forgot to reply to that email”, or “I just had a brilliant idea, I’d better not forget it!”

They’re useful but distracting, and you can only hold so many of them in your head at one time. David Allen tells you to get them out of your head and into some trusted system. But that’s not what we’re talking about today. We’ll come back to open loops, but first, let’s take a little detour…

Witchcraft

The Feri tradition of neopaganism has a useful model of self called the Triple Soul.

The Primal Self, or Fetch, or Animal Self, consists of all our basic instincts, desires, and raw emotions. It’s like our inner child, but is also sexual. It’s kind of like the id in Freudian psychology.

The Talking Self, or Rational Self, or Human Self, is the part of us that thinks and reasons. It’s the part of ourselves that we’re conscious of being.

The Higher Self, or Divine Self, or Shining Dove, or Godself, is the part of us that’s larger than us. It’s our inspiration, our intuition, our spiritual connection to the universe and to others. In other words, our soul.

Now for the punchline.

Open loops happen at all levels.

Primal Self open loops are things like “I’m hungry”, “I’m lonely all the time”, or “I’m not getting enough physical touch”. They’re distracting to-do items that are physical, instinctual, emotional, or animal in nature.

Talking Self open loops are the kind that David Allen talks about, and we talked about earlier. “Remember the milk”, “Oh, I forgot to reply to that email”, or “I just had a brilliant idea, I’d better not forget it!”

Higher Self open loops are when you feel a vague unease in your soul. You can’t put your finger on it, but something is just wrong. Something is missing in your life, but you don’t know what. You blink, and when you open your eyes, just for an instant, you get the feeling that everything around you is wrong. Like you were dropped into the wrong movie, the wrong life.

Usually you just shrug it off as a passing fantasy or a random paranoia. But that’s not what it really is. It’s your soul’s way of telling you that you have something to do and you are not doing it.

You’re on the wrong path.

Something is not right.

Something is missing.

If you ignore that quiet voice in the stillness, you are ignoring your soul.

What would happen if — just once — you listened to it?