Happy Saturnalia

Another week went missing from my postings, so I'll do my best to make do this week. Though technically I did write because I wrote a contribution to the blog of a friend of mine. In Spanish though.

Source: Net of Light via Google

Just to update you on the matters of my life, my broken heart has been pretty much mended. He and I got together again and things changed the tone. I'm not sure where this thing will go, or if it will all go up in smoke again, never to meet again. I am at peace, though. Oddly, calmly at peace. Perhaps I have cried my heart out already and there is nothing more to cry. We talked and he did tell me that we shouldn't meet ever again, but then his signs were mixed. I did tell him in all honesty, that I will wait for him. I feel this sort of... red thread... bonding us. I still feel that we are the storm and the beacon. I also told him I could feel how I was descending to my coffin, the lid was closing on me as I closed my eyes, crossed my hands over my chest and set to peacefully wait.

I imagine that the particular image I conjured was disturbing because he rebelled against it, but I found that feeling, of closing myself in the peaceful solitude of a coffin rather comforting.

The sea is storming, flapping and retrieving further and further into the center of open waters. The beacon tands tall, wet and cold, waiting impassively, as it is called to do.

These days also mark the begining of the Feasts of Saturnalia, and from them I want to highlight this year the Reversal of Rules. Admitedly, I am not very versed in the Cultus Deorum, nor the Roman Traditions - I am an eclectic witch after all, and I follow my own heart.

According to what little I have read, this was a time of liberation, of shaking off the strict rules of society and chase happiness often also with silly jokes and indulging into role reversals. Masters serving slaves, women and men dressing in each others' raiment and so on.

For my own practice, I have lifted up the sense of liberation, of safely testing the crossing of boundaries and being a bit daring, something I find hard to do given my natural propensity to avoid risk. Within the light of Saturnalia, I can find a space to meditate on many things about my life and whether they could have been different, and what could they have been like. Yes, he also comes into play in my thoughts, as the counter part of my One, the other side of the coin that is my heart. In this freedom and reversal of the rules that guide my inner life, I review different paths and dare to think of the what-abouts that I consciously know will not work and are headed to nowhere. I give myself the space to mentally follow a path that might have a different outcome, one were friendship can survive, even if I know that the chance of that greatly diminishes if we keep seeing each other.

The times are mixed now, the god that has succumbed and gone under during Samhain is rising to life again, from Saturnalia to Yule, parting the womb of the Mother to step forward and claim the wilderness. And as the earthy womb is revolved, broken and softened for new life to come forward, so we step forward into the new year, the new decade and walk the path. Back we leave the warm, nurturing womb, the safe and cozy tomb, some of us naked, vulnerable and cold, others springing forward like Athena, in full armor, but all of us scared of what lies ahead.

But Saturnalia is for cheer, to make light of our worries and seek merriment. So enjoy, dance, drink and celebrate. Gather cheer and strenght for what is to come.