So this post is going to be a bit of a mixed bag on too many things. It may not even feel connected to itself. It has been an exceedingly rough week, and I am quite done with it. I had a different post planned, one that was going to be thoughtful and maybe even stoic, good and properly Pagan in all of the right places, but today and this week just aren’t the times for them. It has been bad enough that I am having some trouble putting thoughts together, but I know I need to, for my own piece of mind.
I won’t get into the specifics of what happened this week, well not all of them, but I will say what I said on FB, (I don’t always like admitting that I use it.) If this week had been food, I would return it, without wanting a replacement or my money back, I just want it gone. Over. Done. There were a series of really quite unfortunate events, which, while completely unrelated to one another, ultimately culminated in the death of my paternal grandmother on Thursday. She had not even been very sick for long, she was only really ill the last few weeks, she was in and out of the hospital, and then all at once, she passed. Her husband passed on good Friday of the previous year, so I suppose that it makes sense that she would pass so very close to her beloved husband of 60 years in a similar fashion, on a similarly holy day of their faith. It is hard to see my father, a generally somewhat closed emotionally man, break down and cry so often. Losing your mother has got to be hard.
Being who I am though, and what I am, I know that dying is a part of being alive, and it is such a necessary part of being alive too. Because what is life, if we did not die? What would it mean? What COULD it mean? Being philosophical, or understanding about it, doesn’t make it happier, nicer, or frankly, easier to deal with. But it does give me a different way to deal with it. The thing I am keenest on doing right now is taking a bit of soil from both gravesites, (I first need to check on the legality, or local rules of such a thing, can’t be caught doing something can get me arrested…) and putting it into a pot and starting a small tree. The only current problem with this is the lack of a place to put the poor little tree once I have started it. Unless I plan on keeping it as a bonsai, which I have had less than poor luck with in the past.
This is not meant to be the entirety of my post. I have no intention of lingering on the past, or on the negative, every life should be a celebration, (again, death being a part of said life.) and I mean to have a few drinks in the honor of my ancestors, especially the newest within the ranks of ancestors in spirit. Another thing I have been meaning to do is find a proper spiritual community in the area I am currently living. I have had an affinity for the Unitarian Universalist church recently and have been meaning to attend a service or two and see what it is all about. The doctrines sit well with me, and the specific mission statement of the local congregation (dunno if I am using the correct word,) are of particular interest to me.
As members of a welcoming, religiously liberal community, we care deeply about each other, our children, our neighbors and our Earth.
Together, we provide a haven for nourishing the spirit and mind, while we strive to build a just and sustainable world.
We covenant to respect our differences, and to commit our time, our treasures and ourselves to this mission.
I just cannot argue with a belief system like this. Any organization that is built upon these beliefs seems well suited to me and what I do. I suppose my biggest hurdle is that I have not been “church going” in a number of years. I seem to not want to break out of the “spend the day in pajamas” cycle. I basically need to get my butt out of my lovely-loungy bed, and get to this lovely place and be a part of a community in a more personal sense, and in a larger sense. It is time to care for the world around me in a way that makes a visible difference. Not for myself, as I don’t much care what the world at large thinks of me, but I do care about what the world at large thinks of pagans, and I really do want to make a positive impact in that way.
So here is to taking what the powers that be throws at you and growing from it. Here’s also to getting the heck up and just doing it!
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