Now as golden August draws to a close and September peers over the hill, I look back over the last weeks and the griefs large and small which informed those weeks: the sudden deaths of three old friends I loved dearly, the passing of my beautiful beloved Cassie, the slow and winding but inexorable march of the seasons onward. The seasons do not tread their journey in a straight line - they move in a vast revolving circle or spiral which embraces every one of us and every single thing on the earth, sentient and insentient.Grief is a strange beast to be sure, and I have remarked on that before. There's a kind of lassitude which sets in. One wanders about in the usual way, but in ever diminishing circles - she marks changes in the landscape and its residents, watching clouds and twilights and geese flying to and fro between the stubble fields and the river, but she does so quietly, and words evade her.
One is tempted at such times to do something truly radical or make a statement which will change everything: leave hearth and tribe and join a circus or become a wandering mendicant friar, shave her head or tint her tresses magenta, get a huge (and very visible) tattoo or undertake a long westward voyage, traveling alone across vast and unknown oceans toward fiery setting suns, bright horizons and great clouds of singing seabirds. One is aimlessly seeking spontaneous glowing transformation, to be translated into something rich and strange, powerful and renewed and perhaps a bit scary.
I want my old self back - I want that healthy vibrant crone who holds in her cupped hands a profound tenderness for the turning seasons and every living thing, that radiant elder woman with her passionate eyes and her witch's cackle of a laugh, her love of art and grace and music and light.
I embrace stillness and reflection, and I wait, sometimes with patience, sometimes not. Like the Monarch caterpillar in its jeweled cocoon, I await emergence and flight.
Sorry.... it did need an edit.
9 comments:
That is a beautiful piece of writing, it evokes such powerful tenants of emotions, and a deeper longing that I hold in my heart. thank you..for putting cadence and color to those thoughts.
Sitting quietly by your side with a heart filled with love, dear one.
A wonder-filled post, full of tenderness and beauty. It made my heart softer around its own sorrows.
Cate, your old self will return.
But in many ways will be a new self. Blessings and peace being sent to you "this very moment".
I can identify with your beautiful words.
I did feel like life was standing still when Billy, my husband had four stents in his heart one year ago. For the days he was in the hospital, I was walking around in a daze.
that other self, the one you mention wanting back is still there - she is. she has just climbed a little deeper inward, is pensive for the moment, is a little detached from the depth of her feelings right now - perhaps hoping to avoid feeling the absence of those she loves and misses with the intensity once so familiar, perhaps trying to adjust to this huge shift in her very meaningful inner life. try not to hurry her. she will return in time, and she will be filled with joy and awareness and appreciation for all things around her just like she always has been. she is taking a bit of a break; she is healing. we move through transitions at the pace we need.
here is a big hug and so many wishes for the emotional rest you need to heal those very deep wounds.
do you remember when my uncle died and i expressed the need to doing something *almost* reckless to express the chaotic grief i held within...and you understood emphatically...and so i listen to your words with my heart cate, and i understand...
lil xo
This is ancient, this longing you feel, it goes in circles, now in your heart, tomorrow in mine, in between, one unknown weeps...there is no avoiding the deeply felt, be it love, be it loss, and you are wise to try to reside in patient understanding of the way of the heart's healing it's grief... This will grow you stronger still...
xoxo
Cassie is yet with you. She will always be a part of you. She will dance with you through your dreams.
That's what dreams are for.
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