Garrett recently pointed me towards the acronym DIT (”do it together”) which is intended as a sort of update/replacement to the more classic DIY (”do it yourself”) acronym. The point of the update, as I understand it is to highlight the interactive community-based nature of most activities.
For example, if you wanted to learn to play guitar, you would probably go out and buy a guitar. This already includes at least one other person, but probably several people who made and shipped the guitar. Then you have the people who harvested the raw materials to make the guitar, and you have the materials themselves which came together to form those ingredients. On top of that, you have the human history of music, of which the guitar is a facet. More than likely, you’ll have heard other people play guitar and will learn to modulate your sounds according to what you have heard. Nevermind of course if you end up getting a guitar teacher, going to classes, jamming with friends or starting a band and performing in front of audiences.
Really, you should be able to apply this web of social and cultural connections for any activity you might like to learn, try out or get good at. Most activities, on some level, are social activities. And if they are not, maybe they sould be. That seems to be the point of the DIT “movement,” if you could call it that. And it is also the driving force behind the idea of “open-source” teaching clubs that we’re also currently exploring.
In any event, hearing about this DIT philosophy came at a great time for me. Though I have yet to write a full-length article about my experiences with a Santeria divinatory reading which I had done, I wanted to share one of the elements of the tradition that really appeals to me. Basically, the spiritual tradition seems very heavily slanted towards the community, both in this world and beyond. At the opening of the reading, my santero did a lengthy prayer to and salutation of the greater spiritual community. He acknowledged the gods and goddesses (orishas) of his tradition, and of some outside his tradition. He called on the spirits of his and our ancestors. He asked for blessings and help from those who had died at sea, those who had died on land, those who had died in unmarked graves. He saluted spirit guides and priests both living and dead…
It was kind of awesome because it made me realize that nothing that I really do needs to be done alone. I’m not one man struggling through a solitary existence. I’m a member of a community which continues through all time of people and beings who have and had similar experiences and who can assist one another when need be.
On the opposite end of the ritual, the santero prescribed for me some sort of home remedies to alleviate some of the difficulties I have been facing. I will get into the specifics of those at a later date, but it basically consisted of collecting together a variety of natural ingredients and some cloth and using them ritualistically combined with a simple prayer. Besides the whole thing being very concrete, it’s cool because you have to go out and assemble the ingredients. Some of them you might already have on hand. Some a friend might have. Some you can buy, and some you might be lucky enough to find somewhere and press into service. Part of the point of it, again, seems to be that you interact with the larger world around you. You begin to deal with your problems not by turning inward, but by turning outward. You spend money, spreading your energy and intention around in the community. You interact with other people. You ask for help from natural objects, from plants and animals and the spirits of nature and those who have passed on before you. You do it together. You don’t do it yourself.
And it’s great because, like I said, it makes you realize that you’re not alone in anything you do. Others have been where you are. Others will be. You can and should share your experiences and expertise to enrich everyone else’s time here. It seems like such a healthy way of approaching things that I really appreciate.
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12 Comments
the re-integration of the urban individual into the tribal community. marshall mcluhan talks about the re-tribalisation of culture via media and specifically the computer because of how it allows us to do things together. just imagine trying to share letters mailed via regular mail with people from around the world. i have a world map on my blog that has dots on it from all over the globe indicating page views. the map is provided by shinystat and is a great resource.
tim, you offer your scolarship and computer skills as a barter into the community at large, as i wish i could, because we want to be connected to the others in our community. technological society has done a good job of fragmenting us all and we go into our own cubicles each night like puppies into our boxes………yet our natural urge is to run and climb and play together.
the shaman`s role in the community is a guide back to that state.
Check out some Australian-school future studies lit sometime, particularly Ramos’s stuff. He makes the exact point, that it’s necessary for individuals to begin to consider their “inputs” and “outputs” as self in order to realize they belong, and by extension are, greater than just some meat vehicle that sometimes eats stuff.
I’m reposting something Rev Max wrote over at Zac’s site re: your mojo perscription bag:
In general, I tend to try to solve most problems on my own. However, even ‘on my own’ would include knowledge and experiences that were gained through interactions with others. Esoterically speaking though, you do part of the work as ‘The Hermit’ and part in combination with others, like the lesson in the ‘The Lovers’. Hell, it takes two human beings to make another being - there’s a maxim example of ‘doing it together’ - literally!
Recently, this idea that you’ve posed for conversation, DIT, came through as a more valid method for approaching a dream interpretation that was hard for me to ponder ‘on my own’. No book covered it - so the best approach was to appeal to the living knowledge sphere of the Occult community.
There’s some truth to that old adage ‘No man is an island’, and even more so, the theme you see in Gnosticism and other areas that we are cells in one big ole body of God. As above, so below, no doubt.
I still think it’s a balance between the two that we are learning during this age. The middle pillar would be a good analogy of that ‘in-between’ system.
Yeah, let us know more about this Santeria experience soon - that too sounds interesting …
One love!
Will
I am surprised to find such amount of cheesiness in your recent talk… I cannot beleive it is this mere santeria (Lukumi) stuff that is putting you into such a state. Unless you have been through initiation or smth which by the way I absolutely do not wish for your cause it would mean you had been deep screwed by a pro crook…
The only other explaination I see is that you *really* have little concrete experience of anything occult, so the first despojo and limpieza is wowing you away…
Well, it was about time my favourite armchair magician got his butt out of the couch and started practicing for real…
No more boogie-jumping it seems…
F.
define cheeseness please………..
Wow, harsh words for no specific reason that I can really make out. What have I done to violate you besides sharing freely of my experiences day in and day out? It’s always difficult I guess when people don’t live up to the identities we build for one another, huh? Then we need to resort to name-calling and brow-beating in an attempt to mash the other person back into the mold that they are climbing out of in our minds.
I really do wish I understood what was cheesy about the idea that existing within a community is somehow paramount to us as social beings?
some see wanting to be part of a group as weak. the rugged individualist is a product of consumerism. as much as i admire ayn rand for her scope of thought regarding the motivation of the spirit, i think that too much individuality is merely selfishness in disguise.
I’m not sure why people think being part of a group means you sacrifice your individuality. If anything, it’s the opposite, I think. Your uniqueness is celebrated within a group, rather than ostracizing you and removing you from it.
And if that’s what Fatima is reacting to, this idea that being part of a group makes you weak, then guess what we all are on this website? A group! Whoops!
i can`t speak for fatima………it was my view of how some see groups and the dissolution of the vigourous self. just my opinion.
we are no doubt a group which is in it`s self part of another group of likeminded, or should i say similar minded, individuals.
our individuality is never jeopardised in a group unless that group is intent on attackinig individuality. that would be called a cult.
Wow!
That’s not what I meant, my comments were not coming from that angle.
I kind of follwow your blog, and in the past you have been quite harsh and pretty arrogant yourself with quite a few occult groups (the ceremonial magicians, tarot people etc.) to the point that more than once, you got under “attack” for beeing a “wannabe” an armchair occultist. Remember?
You answered back saying that you were the occult boogie jumper.
So far, all is fine with me, to each their own, I respect all perspectives.
But all the sudden, you meet one santero, probably got some headwash, bano, despojo or whatever similarly pedestrian ritual plus a reading that was probably accurate (as they should all be) and an ebo to do, and there you’re all wowed away… Nothing wrong with that either. But from the tone of all your writings, I had the impression that you were beyond that point. A kind of been there, done that type… And I am realising that you are not. That’s all…
And that’s ok too. Like you all say, it’s probably *my* problem more than anything else.
I just have to take your posts with 1000 tons of salt in the future. I really thought for some reason that you had *some* experience, had dabbled here and there and decided to go your own way, your own style, your own practice.
Instead here you are saliving after what was probably basic magic 101!! After all the telling off and criticising you have done in the past, I had imagined that you knew more of what you were talking about.
Anyways, again, nothing wrong with you. I guess I am surprised that’s all.
F.
Well shit… that certainly doesn’t soften the blow. I don’t know what to say to you about all that. All I can really do I guess is be honest about what I am experiencing right at this moment and accept whatever wrong I’ve done in the past as simply a part of what it took to get me here. You’re at all times encouraged to take everything said on this site with 1,000,000 million grains of salt.
Yep. Sorry for the bluntness.
Anyways, now I hope that your introduction intro the practical side of things will give you that added layer of comprehension that only experience can give.
F.