Category Archives: Spirituality

The Little Things Count

So I spent yesterday with Ceri, and all day something was lurking in the back of my mind, and it had something to do with Ceri herself (indirectly), and Saturday night when I went to a ritual.

It nibbled, and nibbled, and every time I tried to look at it it would vanish into the shadowy depths of my subconscious again. All Sunday it lurked and gnawed. Something like this is like having a mosquito in the room with you: you can hear it, and you know it’s there, but you’ll never see it, and it just gets more and more irritating.

When I go to ritual I usually wear a hand-made anklet of amber and onyx. I rarely wear it for any other reason, and if I do, I have to be feeling really special. As I did up the clasp on Saturday night I thought about wearing it more often, but I’m always afraid it will break. This casual observation must have been what started that lurky thought that hung around for a day or so. Ceri and I looked at a lot of fabric and trims yesterday, and Ceri mentioned making her wedding dress. The niggling feeling that I was forgetting something floated closer to the surface, but still didn’t make it all the way to conscious thought. It wasn’t until I was in a bath last night that I finally, triumphantly, dragged that thought out into the light, kicking and screaming.

I bought another anklet in Halifax last September the day of Ceri’s wedding, so I could wear an anklet all the time.

There.

When I emerged from the bath I hunted through my jewelry box until I found it, underneath some stone necklaces. Out of sight, out of mind. Figures.

I shouldn’t feel this smug and content about remembering a delicate silver anklet. Really.

On Diets, Both Physical And Spiritual

Anyone else ever forget to eat? Or sleep? Sometimes I think so much I forget that I need to fuel the body. I know that thinking uses calories, of course, but not as many as, say, raking lawns or prepping beds for planting.

I just wondered, because yesterday was The Christening of The Elspeth Morrigan (yeah, yeah, tell me about it) and I forgot to eat (a) before we went, and (b) after we got home. I had little nibblies at the reception afterwards, but nothing approaching a meal.

I do this all the time. People make nasty little remarks like, “Oh, so that’s why you’re as tiny as you are.” Well, no, because that has everything to do with my metabolism, not my diet. My diet ranges from prim and proper to grossly indecent: for a week I will crave salads and sandwiches, then the next week I’ll snack on nothing but mini chocolate bars (and that’s all my boss’ fault, for bringing in a five-pound bag of snack-size Oh Henry bars and Caramilk squares and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups) with the occasional lasagna. This has nothing to do with bingeing; I don’t pay enough attention to what I eat to binge. Working without a set lunch hour makes eating normally difficult as well. I refuse to eat if I’m not hungry, so when I have the opportunity to eat (i.e., it’s quiet on the floor) I don’t, preferring to get as much work done as possible before the hordes descend, which is usually when my stomach starts growling. By the time things quiet down, I’m not hungry any more. (Lose weight – work retail!)

So I don’t eat regularly, and I don’t eat a lot, and what I do eat is on average something that resembles balanced, I suppose, taken over the week.

The Christening: in a beautiful Catholic church (I was last there singing The Messiah with CAMMAC several years ago), with a wacky priest (who was fine for one afternoon but who would drive me nuts if I had to listen to him weekly), and holy water that didn’t melt or burn any of the Pagan contingent who were there to witness the daughter of an occult store owner be baptized. We giggled a lot, particularly when The Morrigan yowled as the priest exorcised her with chrism on her chest. His comment? “Well, she’s got the makings of a fine preacher!” We enthusiastically replied that we would support her in her growing faith thorough all her trials when we were asked in the ceremony, and rolled our eyes at the tacky little sorority t-shirt all the babies got that said “I’m a Christian!” on them (I kid thee not). I always enjoy looking through prayer books to see how a particular sect worships, so I made sure I took a look at the books ranged in the pews. Know what? The first service in it was Christian Initiation. I wonder how many people actually realise that much of the Christian faith is based on universal rituals found cross-culturally in many religions both living and dead. It just got better P.R. along the way. There is such universality to the concepts expressed in various religions that I truly cannot understand why people try to insist that theirs is the Right Way. Religion is about how you view your relationship to the Divine. What gives anyone the right to impose their Way on someone else?

Anyway, it was a wonderful afternoon, and a terrific experience of one of the Catholic Sacraments. I’ve grown so used to universal, non-denominational services that this was a pleasant change.

Wee Smas

So I’m here at 4:45 AM, tuning up my blog. Can’t sleep. Probably has something to do with having a glass of red wine, watching an hour of TV, and going to bed at 9 PM last night. When I woke up at 3:30 AM I knew it was game over, but I tried to lie in bed for a little while anyway, in case sleep decided to mosey on back. No such luck. So here I am, with a cat on my lap (if you knew I was using my ergonomic kneeling chair you’d understand how creative this positioning of cat can be), listening to the very first Mediaeval Baebes album, Salva Nos, which I picked up yesterday to complete my set. It has the stunning, show-stopping Gaudete on it, which is one of the pieces of music which can seize me no matter what I’m doing, get my blood flowing and lift me spiritually out of whatever mood I’ve been in. A great track to raise energy, if you put it on repeat and sing along. Assuming you can sing Latin and understand what you’re singing. Which I can, in Gaudete. (Insert smirk here.) It also has the phenomenal title track, Salva Nos, which is, like Gaudete, another chant to Mary, whom we all know is the Goddess anyway, right? (Yes, I’m getting the Latin down for that one too, rather rapidly.)

Salva nos, Stella Maris
Et regina celorum
Que pura Deum paris […]
Salva nos, Stella Maris
Et regina celorum
O virgo specialis
Sis nobis salutaris
Imperatrix celorum […]
Lux cecis, dux ignaris
Solamen angelorum!

Oooh… I just get shivers. Which have nothing to do with being barefoot in the middle of the night when the temperature has dropped twenty degrees (honestly, does anyone remember something called a seasonal temperature?).

I know what this means. It means I’ll have to take a nap this afternoon, or risk falling asleep in the middle of the student round-table discussion I’m co-moderating tonight.

Speaking of students, I pulled off another spectacular workshop Tuesday night. I’m beginning to think that I really am good at this, and people aren’t just saying it to be nice.

CURRENTLY READING:

Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Age by Vivianne Crowley. There exists an interesting phenomenon in the Wicca division of occult publishing. There are hundreds of 101 texts, and very few advanced texts. Why? Because it’s an experiential religion, meaning once the basics are communicated you have to build on them yourself, creating your own relationship with the Divine. No one, published author or otherwise, can tell you how that’s done. They can give you suggestions, but in essence, you become your own 201 text. Which is very cool, but a bit frustrating as well. Anyway, the upshot of all this is I read a lot of 101 texts, partially to become familar with the variety of crap and fluff that’s being published, but also to zero in on the good stuff, the wheat amongst the chaff that I can recommend to seekers when they interrupt – er, ask my help at work. I enjoy it a lot more than people might think. Sure, the basics are repetative, but the interesting thing is how the authors express those basics, what angle they approach them from. You can learn a lot about the complexities of spiritual and religious philosophy from how the same thing is said a dozen different ways. Vivianne Crowley is a nice, solid, British antidote to a lot of the fluff that’s being sold these days. It’s not new; it was originally published in 1996. This is a revised edition; hence the subtitle.

Meeting of the Waters by Caiseal M�r. It says it’s book one of The Watchers. We’ll see if it makes the trilogy potential or not. Alternate Celtic fantasy, set around the Fir Bolg/Danaan clash. It’s got ravens, standing stones, harps, druids, cover art by Yvonne Gilbert that I fall for every time, damn it. Eh. It’s bus-reading material, which in my world means a book that fits in my bag (Trollope has been relegated to at-home reading), a story that isn’t too complex (a book that gets picked up and put down frequently can’t be too deep or intricate otherwise you spend too much time trying to remember what happened), a story that isn’t so meaningful that I’ll become too involved and miss my stop.

On Funerals

I have not felt this drained in a long time. I’ve given up trying to work; I’m pretty useless tonight.

Eric’s memorial service was funny, touching, and in general a celebration of a happy man who lived life to its utmost. By far the most enjoyable funeral-type service I’ve ever experienced, it was a chance to share with others how much one individual can have touched your life, while mourning the fact that you’ll not have the opportunity to share time with him again. My husband said that he wants his service to be much the same – but with much alcohol, and dancing too. I’ve never been a fan of the weepy, heart-wringing kind of funeral – what good does that do? – nor of the startling “repent ye sinners and turn to GOD!” genre, so I must say that I’m right with him on this one. Celebration of life is the key, even while we recognise that our lives will never be the same.

All through the afternoon, I looked at each of my friends, and saw individuals with whom I enjoy spending time, with whom I share interests, in-jokes, hobbies. When I said hello or good-bye, I held them all a little tighter, a little longer. Life’s precious, damn it. Why don’t we see that more often?

What is it that prevents us from understanding that at a deeper level? Or, perhaps more importantly, at a superficial, always-on-my-mind level? Why do we let ourselves become burdened, stressed, concerned with what’s wrong in our lives? What does it – any of it – matter in the end? What it all comes down to is you, your friends, your family; your level of peace, the love you feel: what’s right on your life. This afternoon, someone said that one of Eric’s philosophies was, “You can never be too kind”. It’s true. That means reaching out and telling people that you care. It means hugging those close to you. More, it means accepting the hugs from others, their kind words. It means touching others, and making that connection.

After a tough time in my own life, I’d begun looking at my friends and family again and realising how much they mean to me, every one of them. The loss of Eric just highlights that importance. Death points out to us all that we are still living, as difficult as it may be in the wake of such a blow. Not living life to its fullest is turning your back on the simplest, yet most elegantly profound, message the gods have sent to us.

Missing The Point (But They Were Delicious)

So it was Ostara a couple of days ago – Vernal Equinox to most of you. Spring arrived in Montreal and brought another ten to fifteen centimeters of snow with it. This is funny because all winter we had practically no accumulation. In the past week we’ve seen about five to six times more accumulation than we have since winter began. Mother Nature – she’s so wacky.

Anyway, one of the things about the Vernal Equinox is that it’s one of the two times per year that everything about the Earth is so balanced (axis, gravity, blah blah blah), you can stand a raw egg in the shell on its end.

At work, we didn’t have any real eggs, but we still wanted to experiment. So we tried using Easter Creme Eggs. They didn’t work very well.

So we ate them.

There’s always the Autumnal Equinox…

On Sudden Death

What is it about hearing about someone’s death?

I think it’s the finality. It’s done; it’s over.

I’ve lived through two sudden deaths of people I knew – one a very close friend, one a gaming acquaintance – and both times it was the shock of hearing that undid me. It’s the sudden reversal of reality, the unreality of the statement “he is dead” when you saw him just a couple of days ago, that sounds a sour note.

Now there’s another. One of my best (and definitely my oldest) friends — my maid of honour at my wedding — lost her dad to a sudden heart attack last night. Completely out of the blue. I’ve known this man since I was thirteen. He’s jovial, educated, a musician. My parents’ age. Nowhere near the age you start preparing for maybe, just possibly, expecting to lose someone.

Or, he was.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s the is/was problem. It’s all so fresh, so new, that in your mind a person simultaneously exists and does not exist. You crumble little by little as you try to impose the new reality of the death upon the X years of life you’ve experienced with this person. On top of it all, the news about the death throws that person’s reality into sharp relief, making it harder to wrap your mind around the fact that they’ve died.

I heard someone say once that no parent should outlive a child. At the same time, though, I think that the most traumatic thing most children live through is losing their parents. How do you accept the loss of someone who birthed you, guided you, supported you, from day one?

When it’s someone else, you’re all at sea in a different way. Death hits us all pretty hard. Apart from coping yourself, and looking at your own family in a different light, there’s dealing with the bereaved. (Bereaved. What a word. Where does it come from? Riven? Be-riven? Bereft?) You love them desperately, and you want to express your own sorrow, but words just don’t cut it. Especially when someone is torn from you like that. When was the last time they spoke? Was it quick, superficial, both assuming they’d see one another again, that there would be a next time?

Death is part of the whole life experience, not a sudden stop, or an intrusion. It’s an essential part of the cycle. So many people fear it. I don’t think I do; it’s the loss of everyone else that I worry about. The change of pace, as it were. It’s the change that I’m uncertain of. Fear of the unknown, I suppose, which is understandable. We’re creatures of habit. Being Pagan means I accept that cycles continue and that existence transforms into another dimension, maybe this one over again if there’s more to learn, maybe another, maybe back to the beginning to grow young again in the underworld until my essence is prepared for a rebirth to do more good. None of that means I’ll go joyfully to my death – or accept anyone else’s death, family, husband, friends – easily. We all have to deal with loss. We grieve for ourselves, for others. Our freshly riven minds must heal. Our hearts must mend. Our tears must dry. I do still cry for my maternal grandfather each Easter, a gentle man who I knew for all of eleven or twelve years. However, I grieve for not knowing him better. Perhaps we grieve for lost chances, opportunities we’ll never have. So often we don’t rejoice in the good times, laugh at the joy the deceased brought. Death encompasses us all. It brings us freedom. However, at the same time, it cuts us off. Another dichotomy we can’t hold concurrently in our bruised minds.

Death means holding two truth simultaneously: the truth of the shining soul we knew, alive forever, in our hearts and elsewhere; and our crushing loss for which there are no words.

Go gently, Eric.