Meeting Persephone

Solitary in nearly every area of my life despite being a married mom leads me to create my own traditions followed only by myself and are thus subject to change depending on which way the wind blows. I consider it one of the benefits as well as one of the deficits of being solitary though I'd not be comfortable any other way. On the plus side, I'm bound by nobody and nothing in regard to my beliefs. On the negative side, I'm bound to nobody and nothing in regard to my beliefs.

This time of year becomes very cerebral for me. I internalize completely - even moreso than throughout the rest of the year. My thoughts are deeper as well as usually darker. I have to remind myself not to delve too deeply into the abyss because, despite this being the dark time of year, it's the time of reviving. Everything around me is going into rest during the cold dark months not to disappear forever but to regenerate and grow inwardly rather than outwardly. Come spring we are able to witness this long incubation through outward display, but until then we can only trust that it's going to be once again as it's been for millions of years.

I watch the leaves falling off of the trees into a smattering of groundcover of gold, brown, and red and I'm saddened despite the lovely new carpeting. I watch the neighbors raking up and bagging up the leaves only to wait for spring to come and then go about replacing those leaves with store bought fertilizers and mulches on their lawns and gardens - wasting what was there to begin with. Every other lawn in town just a week ago was covered in leaves and now they are all back to some false pristine state just waiting to be snowed upon. Mine is still leaf covered and will stay that way. The leaves will offer to the ground the minerals and nutrition as well as warmth through the winter as part of the cycle that always was before commercial products.

Most of the time I don't know what I'm doing. I try to do what feels right though I'm certain that I typically fall very short. Samhain will be a reflection of a difficult year. I'll make an offering and observe in a couple of other small private ways. I'll mourn the loss of the leafy trees and try to remember to be grateful for the carpeting of the autumnal colors at my feet and remember the important task they perform. And I'm sure I'll think of Thanksgiving. It was the one holiday that my grandfather and I held in common though he didn't know it. Every year I'd call him and make sure his turkey was in the oven, which it always was. Then we'd compare the sizes of the birds we had for the holiday - mine was always twice the size of the one he'd gotten and he'd roar with laughter. I'll miss that laughter this year. It's was a roar - the type of laughter that made babies cry for it's startling volume and bass but that in my later years made me feel as though I'd achieved something when I'd coaxed it out of him through our shared humor.

This time of year for me is about loss. I'm trying to put it in a different frame, but today it is too difficult. The loss is still too fresh for me to get past it this time around. I can't say that this a Samhain episode but a long mourning for the person who, besides my husband and daughter, was the most important person in my life. But this time of year does come cloaked in an especially appropriate ambiance conducive to that mourning. And so I'll mourn without regret because he is worth it.