Posts tagged ‘BAD’

So today was the big ol Turkey Day in the good ol’ US of A. I’ve been pretty anti- “Thanksgiving- THE HOLIDAY” for quite a few years. The whole “Pilgrims’ Pride”, thing- you know-fucking over an indigenous people the way it went down hasn’t really floated my boat since I grew up and learned what they didn’t teach us in school about the rape of this continent’s original folks.

Now here is the “but”.

But being a pagan witch woman, who does move and flow with the wheel of the year, and being a somewhat hidebound gal who adores tradition (as well as creating new family traditions), we have our own version of “Thanksgiving”. It is no accident that we celebrate it in the fall, when the harvest season is upon us. Historically harvest celebrations are a time for gratitude. After all, a good crop meant there would be enough food to carry a family or community through the winter. That’s something to be grateful for, right? The prospect of not starving would have made folks pretty thankful. Making it through a growing season with enough rainfall, (but not too much), no crop scourges like locusts or other pest and diseases, enough strong and willing bodies to get the harvest in before it rotted in the fields…
We don’t always think of this, many of us, when we buy our produce at the supermarket, and can get fruits and vegetables that are out of season as long as we’re willing to pay an arm and a leg for them; after all, with modern transportation and green-houses any time is harvest time. Automatic watering systems, water that has been diverted by dams and carried by aqueducts to places like Southern California that were intended by nature to be scrub deserts, pesticides for bugs, herbicides for “weeds” (weeds, by the way, are really just plants that grow where you don’t want them to), plants that have been genetically altered to grow differently, to not reproduce as nature intended… blah, blah-blah, blah-blah. You get the point.

I don’t even come close to growing the bulk of my family’s food, but I do try to be mindful of what we consume and the price the earth pays, and ultimately we pay, for our consumption. So, to make a long story longer, what I’m trying to say is that we do celebrate the Harvest season as a time to be grateful for the natural bounty of the Mother (earth), and since the rest of the US celebrates Thanksgiving today and this weekend it’s convenient to have our celebration now, too.

Our garden, I’m afraid, hasn’t had the time and attention it deserves since we lost our Lil Pharoah. In times past folks wouldn’t have had the luxury of letting something so important go in the name of grief, but there it is. We had our first freeze last night, so the turnips will be sweet whenever we wish to harvest them (we’ll probably let some of them at least grow to be monstrous!) We have been enjoying our various lettuces and baby greens, and last week harvested the tops of the turnips and cooked up a huge pot of southern style turnip greens cooked with bacon and onions. The snow peas are yummy and the pod peas are getting fat, although I’m afraid we were too late on the broccoli planting; nary a head in sight. We’ll see.

As for our celebration, I suppose we did the best we could. It sounds terrible to say that we all feel like there’s not much to be grateful for, but there it is; that’s how it feels. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it’s not the gratitude that’s not there- we’re all grateful for each other and everything we do have- we’re just so incredibly hyper aware of what we don’t have- our precious Egyptian Prince, that it pretty much casts a pall on any thought of “celebration”. This should have been his first Thanksgiving. It’s THAT, above all, that is the awful truth that lives in us all, I think. I know that Yule/christmas will be the same, as will New Years and Valentine’s Day and Easter…

So perhaps the way to speak of today, and of the coming holidays, these that should have been our Bishop’s “firsts”, is to name them “gatherings” rather than celebrations. That’s what we did today. We gathered together, our little broken family. We shared the day at Fawn and Aaron’s home. They cooked the turkey, made the stuffing and all the fixins (well, a much shaved down list of the usual fixins… I’m afraid we didn’t have the heart for the days of prep we usually put into the Harvest celebration). We cooked and ate and just gathered together. We held. I am grateful for that, today; that we could be together and hold.

Last night began the sacred observance of my New Year. The usual celebration within the solemnity of the occasion was missing, but the altar was laid in love and honor. Bishop’s remembrances are centered on the Samhain altar surrounded by the beauty and warmth of our beloved dead; mementos, photos and the ashes of our family, friends and ancestors gone before us to attend him. The altar is circled still by 13 glass pillar candles in white, green, red and blue, burning brightly. The candles, representing warmth and light, passion and spirit, will burn continuously for 7 days, or until they burn out, whichever is longest. There is salt, representative of nourishment and earth, and clear water for thirsty spirits and representative of our love and deeply flowing emotions that shall be replenished daily while the candles burn. Incense smolders sweetly calling the spirits of air and intellect, thought and action.

The Gods intervened in my usual choice of candles. The Virgin of Guadalupe’s blessings were required, as were St. Jude’s. I thought it odd, but have learned through the years that the Gods will have their way with me, whether I resist or acquiesce, so Saint Candles were the order of the evening. Today I took a moment to research the saints who had made their presence manifest and discovered that Guadalupe’s Day is December 12, my daughter’s birthday, and that Jude is the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes, and the special protector of children with catastrophic illness. Those two are welcome on my altar, indeed.

At 12:01, my ritual begun and in place for the night, I sat at my laptop to embark upon my journey of 50,000 words. I began to write and before I’d written a hundred words, at 12:04, the power went out leaving only the bright glow of the altar candles. Among my beloved dead there are at least a few who fashion themselves great jokesters, my late husband among them. I could almost hear Bishop laughing as his Grampa Jerry bounced him whispering, “Look at Grama, scribbling in the dark. Isn’t she funny?” Thank the Gods that their humor was exhausted by 2:30. When the power finally came back on, this ol’ Grama’s eyes were blurry but wide open thanks to the full pot of coffee I’d been slurping all night.

By 7 am I had a mere 1500 words. Finally, at 8, I exceeded my quota of 1667 words for the day and finished up at a whopping 1750. Exhausted beyond belief but as Jittery as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, I decided on a hot bath. Good one, Thornie. I awakened shivering in cold water and completely refreshed after my hour and a half nap.

Woot! Back to work! Muahahahaha. I finished up tonight at 2,733 words, over a thousand above the first day’s necessary average. Some of it is pretty damned dark, which isn’t really surprising considering the place my heart is in and of course, the time of year. I can only hope that this Darkness of and in which I write will indeed be “Pierced by Sudden Shards of Overwhelming Brightness”

A tiny peek for my blog family and faithful readers:

I was born, I lived, I died. That’s the whole story, really. Just like so many others. Just like everyone, anywhere, ever. Quite to the point, don’t you think? I mean, what else is there, really?

What else there is, is everything. Those flashes of light and aeons of darkness that fill the spaces between birth and death, between death and whatever is to be next.

They’re pressing on me now; I can feel their need. The weight of them leaning, pushing. Urging me to tell- to tell their truths, their stories… their lives. To be their rememberer.

I have something to tell, but I think it’s mine.

I’ve been here for awhile., I think. (“I think, therefor I am”? Am I?) This place seems to exist outside of time somehow, so I’m not really sure that “awhile” has any meaning. It makes it difficult. I’m not sure exactly what or where or even when here is.

It’s relatively peaceful, (but relative to what?) although that’s just a sense I have. It might just be me that’s peaceful; my peace, my stillness. It’s not like there’s a lovely view or soothing music playing or anything.

It’s almost a void. No- that’s not right. This place is crowded. It’s like some sort of clearing house for souls/spirits… whatever we are.

A luminous darkness in which I’m only one of many deeper shadows at rest or motion. A space of sorts; a space between.

Is that what I’m doing here? Hiding? Waiting? Will you find me here?

Circles and spirals of thought swirl me through labyrinthine pathways of memory. While I wander there, the energies around me shift and flow. Movement. Coming and going? Some seem to burst into existence and then disappear in the space between thoughts. Where do they go? Are they so sure, these spirits? So knowing? Have they shaped their destinations so thoroughly, so decisively that they move through here to whatever is next for them without pause; without rest?

Am I waiting? Or deciding. There was so much pain and sorrow. Confusion, loss. The brief sparks of joy burned out so quickly. Bright flashes between seemingly endless drudgery and bottomless sorrow.

But oh those moments of light.

… and none perhaps to come for some time. Not that knowing will change anything; I realize this.

After the Coroner’s office told my daughter that our Bishop wouldn’t be released for up to 2 weeks, and we elected to just wait… not to call and be frustrated and angry with the official processes, rather to put our faith and trust in the hope of a system that cares why babies die…

They called my daughter this morning to inquire as to why we hadn’t made arrangements, as he’d been released for some time. Fucking idiots. Today they are saying he was released on the very same day they told us it would be up to 2 weeks. They say we misunderstood, that they meant for results, yet in the same breath we are told that results will take up to two months.

I hope that the bumbling fools on the phones are not representative of the proficiency levels of the investigator- medical examiner-whatever.

We’ll need to go down to Riverside now; to the Neptune Society, who will have the care of his body for cremation.

I went to a meeting last night. An intimate little “Rainbow” (Gay), AA meeting held at a home a few blocks from me. I was asked to lead the meeting, which was difficult under the circumstances. Still, I was raised up in an AA that suggests that one “Never turn down an AA request”, and if I’ve learned anything in 19- almost 20 years of sobriety, it’s that I must give it away to keep it. I acquiesced and did my best to tell “how it was, what happened” but I kinda lost it when I came to the “how it is today” part.

As I shared my story, and heard myself speaking of the Gods, (Higher Power) and reflecting on the blessings that I have had in my life, my willingness to embrace Deity and that there is a greater meaning, I found myself carrying on an inner dialogue; a critique of my thoughts and beliefs that made me realize and better understand why there are so many atheists and existentialists who simply cannot give any credence to the possibility of a Higher Power of any sort.

After all, what is my tiny loss here but a single tear in a flood; no- an ocean of despair?

Countless pointless deaths and myriad sufferings which serve no purpose- which can be assigned no “greater good”. No pious self comforting delusions here of “everything happens for a reason”, or ignorant Christian blatherings of “the lord works in mysterious ways”.

There is no comfort for this- this pointless, random event.

So how do I fit this into my “faith”, my “belief systems”? The same way, I suppose, that I fit all the other random and insane cruelty, and tragedy and horror into it.

The Random. Chaos. Nature. She’s cruel, Nature is (like a cat with a mouse). And random (like the “Big Bang”). And pointless (like rainbows). And there is ebb and flow and change; order and chaos. And somehow it’s magickal and beautiful despite it all.

My AA sponsor says “We’re not humans having a spiritual experience, we’re spirits having a human experience.”

So with that awkward segue I’m back to the AA meeting, and the “how it is now” part.

“How it is now”, I said, “is fucked beyond belief. I thought I learned about powerlessness when I got clean and sober. It was slow going for a control freak like me, but I learned. Or I thought I did. When my daughter was raped; another lesson in powerlessness. When she attempted suicide; yet another. Still; there were things I could do to help her. Counseling, therapy, psych meds. Then at 10 years sober I lost my Jerry. My husband, love, partner, friend- my “soulmale”, and I realized yet again that my previous understanding of “powerlessness” was bullshit. I thought that his death taught me the truth of being powerless…”

*(He was too young- only 45; my sweet man. Still, he’d been sober and we’d been together nearly 10 years, had the opportunity to love and be loved- to be a father to my Fawn- we’d healed each others hearts and I was grateful for the blessings I had. When the Coroner told me that he had a congenital form of arteriosclerotic heart disease and it was nothing short of a miracle that he lived to be 45- that men like my husband die often in their 20′s- I managed to find some solace in the thought that our love and what we were to each other was indeed somehow “meant to be”.)

“… but this; this loss, that precious baby- my daughter’s loss- now this is powerlessness.” I went on, sobbing and blubbering to say that even though I do have room in my philosophy for “the random”, I have no will to turn to any sort of Gods for solace or help right now. I’m not pissed, exactly, more that I don’t want anything to do with anything that would allow this sort of random devastation to touch my family. If there are energies available to those who turn to them, for today I eschew their so-called “help”. I eschew their hollow “comfort”. And today, I am grateful that sobriety, for me, has become a habit. A habit that is so firmly established in my life that not even a passing thought enters of using or drinking anything that might even for a moment soften or even dull this choking, crushing pain.

So I cried there, in my tiny meeting with love and compassion and acceptance and empathy surrounding me, while I shared my heart. And somehow, as we alcoholics are blessed to do in our fellowship, these lovely people heard me when I said,

“I was told in my early recovery that the time would come when there would be nothing standing between me and a drink or drug but my Higher Power. I want to tell you all that that may be true, but if you stay sober long enough there will also come a time when no Higher Power will do it for you, and that’s the time that sobriety better be second nature; a habit, something you do without thinking.”

And that’s where I am today. Lost, angry at this fucked up acceptance that seems to be ingrained in my very soul, grieving and powerless; but sober.

“To be wounded by your own understanding of Love
and to bleed willingly and joyfully”
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet