After a post like the last one, I find that I have a hard time wanting to move on and post something new. But with another funeral in the works, I find myself pondering a lot of things that I might as well get out of myself and into writing.
Recently I was updating a few of the tradition's websites, and in doing so I did some searches on google that lead me to a very old post on another website's forum. In the thread, one of my coven mates was discussing the tradition with some other individuals with similar interests, and when a couple of those individuals asked where they could learn more, she directed them to our tradition's informational website. Then I came up. I suppose that somehow through the website, one of the people she was chatting with found a link to some personal page of mine. I don't know what...a myspace page, perhaps? At any rate, she told my coven mate that her High Priestess (me) didn't seem to actually live the balance of light and dark that our tradition teaches, and that I present myself as someone with darker leanings.
I remembered reading this post at the time the discussion was actually happening, and coming across the archive reminded me of how I felt about it at the time. My initial reaction was defensive. I can still say that I don't know how anyone could come across anything about me online that would actually give them enough information about me to make such an assessment. I usually don't put that much in-depth information about myself online. So this really would have been based on "appearances." Yes, it's true that I have always been a person who has gravitated toward a sort of gothic aesthetic, and not even necessarily always in my physical appearance, but in things like decor, art, etc. So chances are that this person probably saw some personsal site of mine with such an aesthetic. But I personally know about myself that I probably actually live a balance of light and dark more than most people. I can be completely comfortable in the land of darkness, and in some ways these things are fully ingrained in my being. But in other ways, I am more old-fashioned than most people might think, and many of my hobbies are far more wholesome than most would guess. I collect cook books, love to bake things from scratch, garden, knit, quilt, cross stitch, etc. I love spending good old-fashioned quality time with what family I have left, and hope to the Gods that one day I get to be a grandmother just like the one I had. At my core, I truly am part goth rock vampiress, and part Betty Crocker. That's balance!
My secondary reaction, though, was "so what?" Yes, on the surface, I may be someone who seems to lean to the darker side, but what does it matter? In a tradition that teaches the value of a balance of light and dark, does that necessarily mean that every single member has to be perfectly balanced between both ends of the spectrum at all times? Because they aren't, and in most cases it's because people struggle more with embracing the darkness within themselves. So could it not be considered an asset in such a tradition that there are a couple of people who may be more at peace with those parts of themselves than others, and therefore capable of helping to teach the value of the dark side to other members? In all honesty, it's a part of myself that I feel I should embrace more, rather than push away shamefully. Why? Because I'm truly beginning to believe that it is supposed to be part of my function in life to be a walker between this world and the darker realms, and to help teach the lessons of those worlds to others. And it's not for nothing that I think this.
The past ten years has been a chunk of time that I have come to refer to as the "Decade of Death." But I believe the stage was set for this farther back than ten years ago. When I was 15, before I had even embarked upon my path in the Craft, I was visited by the Grim Reaper. Yes, I know how weird that sounds. I will readily admit that if I had not had this experience, I don't think that such a being would be a part of my theology. But while I know how absurd it sounds, I had the experience nonetheless, and all of the terror that came along with it. I was young, inexperienced in dealing with such energies/beings, and didn't understand how you could interact the Grim Reaper (or at least whatever energy it was that presented itself to me in that guise) without dying yourself. Since I did live, I spent the next few years considering myself lucky, and doing my best to distance myself from the experience. Now, I look back at this moment as a time when I was sort of marked by death. If I had been able to open myself up to it at the time and accept it as a calling of sorts, it might have made the years that would follow a little easier on me. But I am just now coming around to that idea, which means that I have had to learn to deal with death in a "trial by fire" sort of way during the Decade of Death, which has included the following passings...
September 2001-Jedediah James Joseph Ormsbee: I was 21 when Jed died, and he was even younger. He had been one of my best friends for years. He was killed in a car accident, and was the first person I had ever lost that I was close to.
May 2003-Billy Joe (Jody) Goforth: This was my daddy. I was crazy about him, and still am very much like him. He killed himself with a shotgun wound through the mouth.
August 2003-Lucy Mae Goforth: This was my Grandma (my dad's mom), who was basically the most responsible for raising me, and the most responsible for teaching me what unconditional love is. She is the person I most aspire to be like. She died of lung cancer.
January 2005-Jim "Big Murph" Murphy: This was my great-uncle who was hilarious, a lot of fun, a huge prankster, and a brilliant steel guitar player. He had played with such musicians as Loretta Lynn, Johnny Paycheck, Hank Williams III, and Asleep at the Wheel. While his death didn't hit me as hard as some of the others, because he hadn't been as instrumental in my life as some of the others, he was a horrible person to have to loose, because he was so full of life and so much fun to be around. He died of lymph node cancer.
January 2009-Thomas Edward Morris Jr.: Tommy was my youngest sister's biological dad. When I was in the 3rd grade, he went from being my stepdad to a true second father when he legally adopted me and my other sister. It was bittersweet, because I was so close to my dad and I felt coerced into going along with the adoption by my mother. But Tommy was nothing but a blessing to have in my life, and he was really another dad to me. He was right up there will my dad and my Grandma in showing me unconditional love. He was hit head on my a drunk driver and died on the scene of the car accident.
January 2009-Etta Lucille Whitley: This was my great-grandmother, who we called "Moy." She died on the day of Tommy's funeral, which made her death pretty surreal. Fortunately, she had lived to a ripe old age and died of natural causes. She lived in the country in Arkansas and I loved to visit her house when I was a little girl. I am now starting to realize how many of the things I love to do are so like her...gardening, quilting, sewing, etc. Even just living in the country. I can see how she influenced my life in many ways.
May 2010-Jacklyn Elizabeth Morris: This was my little sister. She was was 27 when she died and would have turned 28 just under a month later. She killed herself with a gunshot wound straight through the heart.
November 2010-Thomas Edward Morris Sr.: Tommy's dad died in his sleep, of what could be called "natural causes" related to his poor health and diabetes complications. His is the funeral my youngest sister and I are currently planning, because as this point we are his only living family. He died at the end of November, the the funeral arrangements are turning out to be a drawn out process, so this is the death that is carrying us into the final month of the decade. Let's hope it's the last.
This isn't all of them. There was my husband's grandmother and his aunt somewhere in there. There was also Tommy's grandfather and his aunt. Those included on the list are just the ones that have been the most present in my own life.
In light of all of this, I have really come to feel that perhaps death is meant to be more a part of my life than it is for some others. Maybe all of this would seem normal for someone who was in the later years of their life, but I just turned 31 three days ago. I can't think of anyone else I know, other than my own sister, who has seen this much death at that age. And so, shortly after my sister's death, I began to do some death work, finally accepting this as a part of my reality, and embarking on a mission to find something constructive to do with all of this. I had hoped that by trying to form a relationship with death and better understand it, I could help others better understand it in their times of grieving. I still feel that this is part of my calling in life, but what I did not expect was that I had a few lessons to learn of my own first.
I have come to a point where I am at piece with death. Not so much with loss. I don't think I will ever fail to mourn the loss of someone I hold dear. If I were to lose my husband, my nephew, or my other sister, for instance, no amount of "understanding death" would prevent me from grieving, which I know is not the point. But on a personal level, when my own time comes, I know that I will be ready. I will be at peace with the idea, and prepared to let go.
What I didn't expect was the lessons death has to teach about living life. I have come to realize that dealing with all of this death has changed me at the core. I can look at my own personality and see that I am different. If I look further down the road I am on, I can see myself becoming bitter, jaded, detached, and joyless. This is not the road that I want to go down, and if I want to prevent it, I have to make a conscious effort to focus more on living life, because there is no life in death. Death offers many wonderful things, depending upon what we each believe it holds in store for us...peace, release, rest, freedom, nothingness, rebirth...but most of these things are not meant to fill up life. It may sound cliche, but life is meant to be lived, and I think that the reason we still hear that sentiment espoused is that for some of us to truly understand its depth, we have to come face to face with death and still choose life. I realize about myself that I have come to a point in my own life where this is a difficult choice to make. It's not the same as being suicidal. To me, it means making an effort to focus more on the moments and the joys that make up life than on the longing for the release that death has to offer. It all comes back around to that balance. Maybe I am someone who leans more toward the darkness, and maybe that's because the darkness has been a driving force in my life. That means I'm not perfect...but do I have to be? Do I need to have perfectly achieved that balance in order to see its value and encourage others to pursue it? Spirituality is, at least in part, about making sense of life, and death. It's about growth...constantly moving closer towards the person we hope to be; the person we are meant to be. Once that stops, it's over. Alive or not, we cease to be living. For better or for worse, I am at peace with the fact that even if that balance is never perfectly achieved, constantly working toward it is valid in and of itself. As I say to my students all the time, the Craft is just as much about the journey as the destination.
