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.

Nursing a Broken Heart

Source: Property of Stormberry

Such a roller coaster of emotions in short two weeks. I feel now like I'll never take off again this bracelet, this one charm that represents him. I've been sad and crying and reliving time and again snipets of our last three meetings, but I'm still not strong enough to write them down in my journal, where the details of it all would be penned in with the blood of my spirit mingled into the ink flowing down the feeder and the nib of my pen.

The whole thing puzzles me greatly for I was already preparing to this. I knew the end was close, this cycle of our on-and-off acquaintance was reaching an end and a new era of long calm and emotional slumber was approaching. We can never stay together for too long, as if our emotions - whatever shape they take - could burn so hard they would easily engulf the world in flames. At least this time, the predominant sentiment was one of love, and not like in the past, where it was the blinding hate in my heart what had thrown the yellowish light upon our road.

We sink into the darkness and coolness of a world without each other. We have both done that in the past, with more or less success. I have a hard time letting go, and I can feel my bony, frozen fingers cracking, opening and trying to clutch into his strong wrist, for one last word. But my cold corpse is sinking deeper and deeper in to the underworld where I belong, where I am ruler,  undefeated and unchallenged. I have to let him go, I can't drag him down here, where I flourish and he withers, as much as I could not survive in his world.

Our last meeting was the longest and the most beautiful of them all. We talked long, shared our hearts, heard each other and held each other. Hugs flew freely each time they were needed, and smiles were free as well, marvelling in the miracle of having found each other. We talked economics and fell asleep like children, one next to the other, on a narrow bed, reading "The Return of Depression Economics" by Paul Krugman.

"Who else can I do this with?", he asked me, mirroring so perfectly what I myself was feeling.

No one else. That was the sad answer, wrapped in each other's arms, my head against his strong shoulder, in the dark, on the very night we knew we had finally ran out of time, and come the day, we will have to say good-bye.

We slept, but we didn't sleep together. Still in the morning we teased each other with that. "Hey, I can finally say we slept together". I laughed. "Watch out about that, child. You've slept with a witch".

Long hours rolled in bed, dreading getting up because they I would have to go home. Yet we've found the way to stretch those hours, steal one more, and one more until it was evident I had to pack up and leave. I had showed him my bow and my arrows, and had stringed it for him to see, to hold, to feel its power as its string is drawn against the nose and under the chin. We picked up dinner in my car, and he loved driving it. I told him their name and he not only accepted it, but gave it a petname of his own: "Nat".

He taught me to drink whiskey that night, and though I was still good enough to drive, he insisted I should stay. I didn't put much resistence either. I did want as many memories of us as I could collect.

We had lunch next day, driving his car, speeding some so that the rumble of the engine would crawl up my legs, and break on the reef of my upper lip. His car is a thing of beauty.

Those 22 hours were an intense experience, and he himself said a lifetime of closeness and friendship were crammed into them. A whole life was lived in them.

With love high in our hearts, we said good-bye, we let go. We walked away. And I've been crying since then.