Death and Rebirth

My new tarot deck makes mention of how uncomfortable with are with death, how we just don't like to know about what happens to things after they die -- and speaks of Death as "the energy of endings", but always then the cycle of renewal that follows.

I took the Death card from all three of my tarot decks tonight and was amused to discover that all three are birds - a condor, a skeletal bird, and a phoenix.

From left to right - Animal Totem Tarot, Wild Unknown Tarot, and Shadowscapes Tarot

I've been thinking of death in the literal, physical sense a fair bit lately. My grandmother's illness has brought me to the stark realization that her passing quietly and unexpectedly in her sleep would be an incredible kindness versus the possible drawn-out spiral of losing herself to Alzheimer's disease. A coworker's mother also has terminal cancer, and was recently given 24 to 48 hours left, so we were comforting her as best we could while she was at work.

In the metaphorical sense, I'm learning that the death-renewal cycle need not always be painful. We come to expect that when there is an ending, there will be a rebirth, but it will be a bloody, painful, messy process, one that needs to be followed with gentle healing, picking up the pieces.

But what if Death is the healing? What if the tearing down, the cutting apart, the burning and walking away, is the recovery?

I spoke before of severing some facets of my life that were making me unhealthy, that were sickly and stagnant. So much anxiety, so much tension and stress and malaise bound up in so much, so many hours of my life spent on these things. Death brought me relief. The mighty end, that freed me of so much weight. We so often fear death, fear endings, and I think I was clinging, too, to things that no longer served - and that is what we say, isn't it? Those of us who perhaps got a Wiccan-ish flavour to our practice early on? "I release all that does not serve." We cling to our own ball and chain, afraid to drift away if we shed that weight.

I've been mentally healthier, calmer and happier, than I've been in years. My rebirth came as glorious renewal, cleared vision, new purpose and drive. Perhaps it was the timing, the needfulness of this cycle in my life, or perhaps it is all in how I chose to look at it?

Are there any facets of your life where Death and Renewal may restore your vigor and soul?

Stuck sideways between the metaphysical and the physical is our back yard. We saw it as full of potential when we bought this place. Why, put up a privacy fence, plant some flowers, and tada! Our own little paradise. The other thing Death is good at, is stripping us of our delusions.

Our back garden wall is home to a massive rat nest - so there went money, and effort, and no doubt more still - we will never likely be 100% free of them (we live next to a grocery store), but we're hoping to reduce their numbers to a point where the health risks of having so many so near are mitigated. And our beautiful gardens we had romantically planned to fill with flowers, are so soil-barren that I managed to put my foot through one to the near top of a rubber boot. I was afraid at first that I'd fallen into a rat warren, but after a lot of digging, shifting rock and stomping, we realized that the previous owner had tried to compensate for too little soil by piling up rocks in shoddy walls, and the soil has sunk and settled and eroded around these until chunks of the yard are actually hollow. He also left years worth of leaves to rot, so huge patches of the yard are so overgrown with dead grass and rotting leaves that the grass beneath choked and died. But several evenings of hard work, and we've bagged up piles of leaves and dead grass, dismantled shoddy rock walls and rebuilt some, and once the weather is consistent enough to set concrete, we'll be out with mortar taking all those stones (my gods this yard has so many damn rocks) and building proper walls and a fire pit, filling beds with top soil and bark mulch.

We've found an endless number of salamanders under all those leaves. We've been careful to relocate them to dark damp corners near the rocks we're not going to be disturbing. I adore them. (they are eastern red backs, if anyone wants to google)

Even after the work we've done, we have so much ahead of us - but each time we finish, the yard looks a little cleaner, a little greener, and it's a wonderful feeling.

Death in the end, is change. We can be subject to it, but we can create it, too. Choices I have made, with circumstances brought to me, have brought a great cycle around in my life. And now we are agents of renewal in our space, our bit of land, that we are working with love and commitment - like the condor in my tarot deck, we are clearing up the dead so the land can breathe.

It's a wonderful feeling.

(I'll be posting a video tomorrow night, of a tour of our yard Amy did a week ago - and me tracing her steps tonight to show how much we've accomplished.)

Thought and Memory

A lot has happened.

I suspect 99% of the folks reading this will know a bit about why I've been gone so long. Long story short, we are now happy homeowners in a house that is finally feeling like home. I had a rough mental health spell - one of my worst ever - but I got the help I needed, and though it was a very hard time, I managed to keep going, get up every morning and go to work, eat, drink, sleep, so that is something.

And now I'm doing very well!

Our new home has a small third bedroom that has become our sacred/altar room - that is its only function, and it is so incredible to have such a space. No more altar crammed into a corner of the bedroom - I've allowed my altar to stretch out, giving me a good chunk of space to have my "seasonal" setup, and also a mostly clear space where I can "work" - and numerous shelves and nooks to give me gods and spirits space. Some things are still empty-ish, but it's always a work in progress, but it's been a lot of fun getting it set up the way I wanted it.

Our yard is incredible - again once we get it cleaned up, and get a privacy fence put in, it's going to be an amazing space for fires, drinks, parties, barbecues - and rituals.

I've gone through some pretty crazy spiritual changes and transformations - I'm working with a specific animal right now as a sort of "totem" and am feeling very strongly drawn to start looking into more shamanic practices. (I guess not a huge shock given my relationship with Odin.) More on that later!

My spiritual path and my personal life recently got shaken up a bit. Revelation comes sometimes for me in bursts - I realized a situation was no longer even remotely healthy for me, and in one of those deepthought flashes, I realized it had not, in fact, been healthy for a very long time-years in fact. It takes a lot for me to throw up my hands and walk away. But I will not be mistreated, held to unreasonable expectations, and taken for granted, either. The severing was not gentle or without blood, but it was necessary and beautiful in its finality.

I've felt better, been happier, less stressed, more social, more me ever since.

Our Ostara ritual was beautiful. There were four of us - myself and my wife, our friend the Wolf, and a fourth friend whom we haven't been able to practice with in awhile. She brought her dog, who found our ritual spot for us, then lay quietly within the circle and was on her absolute best behavior until we were done.

In case anyone was wondering, natural dyes do work *fantastically* on eggs. These are yellow onion skins (The dark red-orange) red cabbage (the blue) and beets (the soft brown).

My wife got me an amazing set of tarot cards for my birthday - The Animal Totem Tarot by Leeza Robertson. It's a new deck, just released in late March - unlike most of the animal themed decks I've seen, this one tries to still incorporate a good chunk of symbolism from more "traditional" decks. And the artwork is simply gorgeous, to boot.

The only downside to my days are that my grandmother is increasingly unwell. She's fallen prey to the only illness my family has a strong genetic predisposition to - Alzheimer's. Every week now she gets worse - she no longer knows my aunt, who's lived with her for more than 40 years. They are trying, finally, to get her into a care facility, but it could take years for approval and a bed to come up. It makes me heartbroken to know how much she's lost - this is a woman who was adamant she never wanted to be a burden to anyone,  and kept a journal every single day of her life so she'd never forget a thing. She'd write about my visits, what we did - did I help in the garden, did we play in the yard? She kept a separate logbook for her garden - what was planted, what worked, what didn't - what colour of this or that flower, what type of peas and beans and beet seeds she used. How many pints of raspberries she picked. To see her so far gone that she wouldn't even recognize those journals, now, as hers...it does hurt. But only time will tell now - in some ways I hope that she passes quickly from her illness, rather than linger for another countless number of years not remembering who she is.

I'll have more specific things to talk about soon - some of my spiritual growth, my changes, what I've learned. I just wanted to give everyone a big catch-up on where the hell I've been.