Struggling to Embrace the Living World
[x-posted]
My post about death led to a long and tough conversation with my teacher about my need to embrace the upper world as well as the underworld. (Tough for me because all my grief came up, not because she was in any way harsh with me.)
I've never been a goth, never someone who romanticized death, never someone who was morbid. But it's been more than a year now since Lohain's death, more than a year since I started working the Underworld path as a priestess -- and that time has not been balanced by very much joy or satisfaction in my daily life.
My teacher warned me almost from the beginning that an underworld priestess needs to not spend all her time there. We are still living human beings and we need to live in this world. I haven't done such a good job of that. Losing both my lovers and having a frustrating day job (although I'm now in a somewhat better position) has made that even more challenging. Most of my satisfaction and pleasure has come from within.
I've always been that way, of course: frequently finding more pleasure within than without. But now that "within" is usually connected to the underworld rather than other things, it hasn't provided the same kind of nurturing.
I've been advised to get outside more, get out into nature, but that's a major effort for me -- but "major effort" shouldn't be an excuse, just a challenge.
I need more Dionysus, more Freyja, in my life. I need more contact with the gods who are intimates with death and yet who still are passionately connected to life. I've spent years of my life being passionate, being creative, being joyous, being "juicy" without a partner. I don't need a partner to love my life. But it is harder now that I've known my soulmate and been separated from him by death. The fact that we're not utterly separated, that I can still interact with him by visiting the underworld, is a comfort in one way, but also makes it even harder to fully embrace my mortal life.
I need more contact with humanity, with friends, with the business of this life.
I've written a story about Persephone's resentment about being required to leave her husband and spend time with her mother and act out the role of the nymph despite now being a wife and queen in her own right. Perhaps I need to write a story about a Persephone who misses her husband but who also glories in the beauties and joys of the upperworld. (And yes, who sneaks off to make love with her husband every so often when Demeter is otherwise engaged.)
There is a part of me that does wish I was in the otherworld with Lohain. That's the bald truth of it. But that's not an option, and I need to be at peace with that, not simply resigned. There is much Work for me yet to do, much richness to still enjoy in this world. I need to embrace that, embrace the duality, not pine for what I can not have here and now.
I can not be a "dead woman walking".
I am a priestess, not a zombie.
My post about death led to a long and tough conversation with my teacher about my need to embrace the upper world as well as the underworld. (Tough for me because all my grief came up, not because she was in any way harsh with me.)
I've never been a goth, never someone who romanticized death, never someone who was morbid. But it's been more than a year now since Lohain's death, more than a year since I started working the Underworld path as a priestess -- and that time has not been balanced by very much joy or satisfaction in my daily life.
My teacher warned me almost from the beginning that an underworld priestess needs to not spend all her time there. We are still living human beings and we need to live in this world. I haven't done such a good job of that. Losing both my lovers and having a frustrating day job (although I'm now in a somewhat better position) has made that even more challenging. Most of my satisfaction and pleasure has come from within.
I've always been that way, of course: frequently finding more pleasure within than without. But now that "within" is usually connected to the underworld rather than other things, it hasn't provided the same kind of nurturing.
I've been advised to get outside more, get out into nature, but that's a major effort for me -- but "major effort" shouldn't be an excuse, just a challenge.
I need more Dionysus, more Freyja, in my life. I need more contact with the gods who are intimates with death and yet who still are passionately connected to life. I've spent years of my life being passionate, being creative, being joyous, being "juicy" without a partner. I don't need a partner to love my life. But it is harder now that I've known my soulmate and been separated from him by death. The fact that we're not utterly separated, that I can still interact with him by visiting the underworld, is a comfort in one way, but also makes it even harder to fully embrace my mortal life.
I need more contact with humanity, with friends, with the business of this life.
I've written a story about Persephone's resentment about being required to leave her husband and spend time with her mother and act out the role of the nymph despite now being a wife and queen in her own right. Perhaps I need to write a story about a Persephone who misses her husband but who also glories in the beauties and joys of the upperworld. (And yes, who sneaks off to make love with her husband every so often when Demeter is otherwise engaged.)
There is a part of me that does wish I was in the otherworld with Lohain. That's the bald truth of it. But that's not an option, and I need to be at peace with that, not simply resigned. There is much Work for me yet to do, much richness to still enjoy in this world. I need to embrace that, embrace the duality, not pine for what I can not have here and now.
I can not be a "dead woman walking".
I am a priestess, not a zombie.