wicca201

Well, let's just call this the sad wiccan journal.  Here goes another depressing entry, but I'm beginning to think that I need to face the winter darkness and dwell here a little longer.  

As my mother-in-law said, (and not in these exact words) the point of religion is not so much to tell you what to do, but to have language with which to argue.  (Some people would say that religion should dictate your actions, and my mother-in-law's statement is very much a unitarian perspective, but objectively, nearly everyone can agree that the spiritual language used in their formal religion, or lack thereof, informs a person's operation in the world) All people face common struggles in daily living and providing the stories and a framework of a religion simply gives us a way to talk about things that are sometimes indescribable.  It would seem to me that a crisis of faith across all religions would come at the moment this language can no longer suffice to explain something.

In Wicca, we talk about cycles of life.  Birth, youth, adulthood, wisdom, dying, death, rebirth.  Maiden, mother, crone. Young lord, sage king.  These stories make me feel a part of something bigger than myself.  I can almost let go of the comforting stories of my youth in which we would float about in white robes and golden wings after death, playing harps all day in heaven, flying from cloud to fluffy white cloud (I was going to be a saint, of course, because the alternative terrified me silly).  

In the Wiccan story, we are part of a cycle that is continuous and somewhat orderly, even amidst the chaos.  I don't really like the idea of reincarnation (a holdover from my Catholic days, I'm sure), but I can appreciate the sentiment of the cycles of rebirth being present in every living thing.  A seed must die to be reborn, to grow, to produce more seed, etc.  My decaying body will return to the earth one day to hopefully nurture some tree or new life somewhere.  In the book, In the Service of Life: A Wiccan Perspective on Death, Ashleen O'Gaea describes the polar desires of a person to be an Individual in life, and to return to the Whole in death.  The desire to be Individual is what keeps us alive, and the desire to return to the Whole is what allows death to be ok and life-giving again.   The polar desire is another part of the Wiccan story. 

But what happens when we interrupt that cycle?  As much as it hurt my young girl's heart to lose my grandparents as a young teen, I could accept that they had lived wonderful lives, and I could see pictures of them as young kids, newlyweds, parents, and wise old grandparents who loved spoiling their grandkids.   They lived lives that contributed to society through their work and their genuine kindness.  The cycle ended and they are reborn in so many new ways through the stories they left to us.  When I lost my cousin and uncle this summer, that cycle seemed to be abruptly cut short. 

This weekend, I sat in the kitchen with my aunt, reminiscing about my cousin over a glass of much needed wine (we'll refer to her as Cici).  She was truly a bright girl who had an aptitude for language, math, science.  She was an amazing dancer, and a patient, sweet soul.  Cici had overcome great odds with health issues, and was all the bolder for it.  My aunt and I laughed about last summer and how CiCi taught this "old lady" how to do some high Irish step kicks, and how patient she was in teaching this "old dancer" "new tricks".   My aunt told me how she was having so much fun watching Cici discern what she wanted to do with her life.  She had so much potential, so much ahead of her.  Now, she and her gifts are gone. 

In her book, O'Gaea cautions against thinking that a young child who dies has not lived a complete life.   I'm sure it is not helpful to determine the value of a human life based on it's length, or even to spend the time judging other's lives, but I can't help but feel like something went terribly wrong when we lost Cici and my uncle.  And sure, the myths are full of death and tragedy, but perhaps the cyclic language of Wicca escapes us now because there is no language for something so painful.   If the tragedy could be explained away, the words would save us from the feelings that must overtake us at this moment. 

The same could be said of the mini-deaths we experience each day.  The end of a relationship, failure in attainment of a goal, discovery of a lie, disappointment, depression, despair.  Something out of the ordinary story challenges what we have told ourselves and forces us to stop and pay attention when the unexpected emotion overtakes us, to pick up with a new story, and to learn, learn, always learn. 

I think I'll stop before I get even more sappy and negate anything of value I might have already said.  It looks like Hecate and I will be holding this conference for a long time, especially since winter may have only just begun.