Oaths are funny things

So as I posted previously I made an oath to Odin to create in 2013. Whether new life or creations from my own hands.

I spoke of my sadness in choosing responsibility and not having another child.

I spoke of 2014 being about balance.

Then last Friday (1/13/14) my world turned upside down.

I found out we were pregnant. Conceived on the Winter Solstice. I completely kept my oath.

Then three days in a state of constant emotional rollercoaster.

Then on the end of the afternoon on Monday, today,bleeding.

All the heartache and soul searching, panic driven search for healthcare and matrimonial bonding/comforting of the last few days to end most probably in miscarriage.

It has only been an hour since I noticed the bleeding. The cramping I have, more of an all over abdominal squeezing, could simply be my distress.

If I had not tested I'd not have known as I am still within my estimated menstration cycle.

I spoke only to a few people about this pregnancy. Mostly in connection to obligations previously accepted in which a pregnancy might be a an issue. And a few to help me hold it together on Friday until I could tell my husband.

It wasn't a mystery when we conceived. But it should have been impossible. Factoring being 40, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and my mense cycle I had less than a 5% chance of being fertile at all.

Do what is the lesson in this experience? For now a state if shock and preparation for the loss.

Hey there might still be a chance this pregnancy is still viable about the same percentage as its conception.

How do I balance all the emotion? How do I process this event? This will be my 6th miscarriage. Four losses in my twenties (I never got confirmed of pregnancy but my experience with my birthing and the first loss after having our child make me 100% sure of them.) and a fifth week miscarriage when my kidlet was 14 months old.

The strangest part was how desperately I wanted to be excited about the pregnancy. Unlike with our kidlet, in which we planned and spent four months attempting to create the life, I was more upset and frightened over the last few days.

I tried looking up names and clothes and car seats. I inventoried our hold out paraphernalia from the kidlet's earlier days. I tried to find anyway to feel the giddy joy I had expected.

Now as I linger between pregnancy and natural abortion I feel numb and sad and nauseous.

My husband too is unsure how to feel. We spoke a lot since Friday afternoon about all aspects of our feelings. We very, very rarely do that.

So for now. I will let this post sit as nature takes it course and all family members are told. No one needs to find out about such things this way.

And IF I remain pregnant this post will be posted after everyone knows.

I just needed to write or scream. And I appreciate your indulgence in allowing me to process here.

*POSTSCRIPT:

 This pregnancy was definitely not like the others. A six week nightmare of two strips forward five steps back. 

The end results after multiple blood work ups and ultrasounds was a diagnosis of blighted ovum and missed miscarriage.

 Surgical removal of the gestational sac on one of the worst days of my life, see my post on Fat Tuesday from last year, followed the next day by a car crash which totalled our vehicle but left my husband and my self shaken not stirred.

I've pondered and questioned the why's and what for's and though I found some answers I am not yet ready to share them. 

I shared the load though by being open via Facebook about my condition. What I experienced was mostly support and love and I am eternally grateful. I was called out for being selfish and forcing my 'drama' on others via social media. I was told that none of my heartache would've happened if Jesus was my personal savior. Those morons are no longer part of my life.

And strangely I found myself seeing a need for a safe place to talk about loss. Losses of pregnancy, losses of faith, and so many other kinds of loss left unmourned.

Am I less right now than I was prior to December 21st 2013? In ways very much so but I have also gained during this period of life! I've gained a deeper understanding of the love my husband and I share, a gentler way of dealing with myself, a more grateful outlook on my life and all the family I am blessed with, and a stronger acceptance of who and where I am at this time in my life.

So I thank you all for your love, support, patience and understanding as this final oath was played out.

May the balance gained be well worth the hardships and loss.

A New Beginning

It's been a year since I forced myself to summon all my courage and create this blog.

2013 by way of my own oath before Kindreds and Grove was a year of my own creation.

It was apparent early on that though both my husband and I wanted another child it was unattainable in a responsible manner.  The loss of this potential baby was one of the most painful choices I have made in a long time. But our family stability, newly found, would be in supportable with increasing our family from three to four. I would be lying if I didn't say how devastating it was making that decision on both of us.

But my oath had to be kept. And 2013 was indeed a fevered time of my own creation. Photography, blogging, puppetry, props, poetry, essays, art, fiber crafts, jewelry, costuming all flowed from mind to my hands and out into the world.

Seeds sprouted in February were harvested all the way until Halloween.

Mother and child collaborated to bring childhood dreaming to reality.

Yarn and thread sung through my hooks blessing those I love with warmth and care.

Gemstones and glass twisted and knotted to become offerings of friendship and fellowship.

My cameras captured each moment that light and fancy and family dictated I must not lose.

But of all this wonderment in artistic abundance I created something very unexpected. A network of community for myself. Social media connections became as dear as those whose hands I've held. Friends were met and family was added.

Religious peers and mentors became  unexpectedly bountiful and of which I am stunned and  eternally grateful.

And though I suffered greatly this year I created another unintentionally wonderful cycle within myself; one of deepest and profound gratitude for all I experienced in 2013.

I declared 2012 the year of Sorrows. 2013 was the year of Creations. And it is my gentle petition to the universe that 2014  be the year of Balance.

It's my deepest prayer that mental, emotional, financial, spiritual, communal, familial, creative, and relationship balance can be found and maintained.

So thank you all. You journeyed with me from a year so full of heartbreak and loss that I am still not fully recovered to travel with me here through a year of growth, abundance and discovery.  I am so beyond grateful.

My new year is of Balance. 
What do you see as 2014's goal for yourselves?

Kindest regards,
Arden

To Whom Does The Torch Pass?

This is a discussion I've had about a kagillion times with my agnostic husband in the last ten years: who will be the next wave of elders/leaders in the pagan world?

Let's face it the Neopagan world (in the United States) was carved out by the generation who came into their own during the nineteen sixties and seventies. The experience of civil rights, free love, gender and sexual equity battles deeply influenced the leaders of paganism today.

Can you imagine Selena Fox and The Lady Liberty League without the formation crucible of the fight for civil rights?

How about Issac Bonewits' degree in Magic could that happen now or even twenty years ago?

What would police action or anti-defamation be  like without Kerr Cuhulain?

Our leaders are aging and in some cases gone. Who shall step into the void?

Where in the generations since the baby boom: the Me generation: "Greed is good" or the alphabet soup of X Y and Z, and let's not forget the Millenials will our: Selena Foxes, Starhawks, Ian Corrigans, Scott Cunninghams, Issac Bonewits', Kerr Cuhulains, Z Budapests, Raymond Bucklands, Laurie Cabots (and the list can go on) come from?

Who from my generation on will stand for our freedoms and will solidify our traditions and protect and nurture our futures?

Who will be the hand to reaches out in interfaith trust? Not only with other world religions and to those of no faith but who will create trust and dialog and unity within our own multitude of Pagan ways to live?

I am not talking of lock stepping all Neopaganism into one modality but simply who will be there to provide a bridge for Heathen and Witches and Wiccans and Druids and Family trads and Initiate trads and Solitaries to speak in common?

Who will train those called to service? Who will be our priests/priestesses and our brothers and monks and nuns?

Who shall step up and brave being a public face of an infinite varietal religious belief system? Who is ready?

I see a great swelling lately. I can think of ten such folk being the pillars and the gateways thanks to blog portals and access to electronic media. But can't we be more in number? Can't we be together in purpose?

So think on your community. Who are your leaders? What programs and services do you have in place? Which needs can you identity? Who and how will these services be provided by and for?

What can you do? How do you serve? How can you support the efforts of those who provide for the pagans in your community?

How do we handle: substance abuse, bereavement, birth, death, hospice, incarceration, environmental issues, poverty, educational, milestone, ecumenical, elderly and childhood issues within the context of our belief systems and traditions?

Lets work together now. RIGHT NOW let's talk about this issues and tackle them.

Please let's work now while we still have the resource of the First Wave Elders wisdom to draw upon. Let's stop reinventing the wheel when we can create the automobile. Let's redefine the car so that we can fly!

Let's jump head first in so there's no voids to fill just a continuum to grow and mold and foster for ourselves and the next  seven generations.

We the first born of the pagan boomers need this, our traditions need this and our children need this.

Now whose with me?

Ruminations on Leaving the Fourth

Today is the last day of my fourth decade. Tomorrow I embrace a new set of ten. But before the clock turns and the ball drops here on the eve of my 40th anniversary of birth I want to take stock.

I'd ask your forgiveness for such a self centered rumination but this is my blog. And after all you my dear friends come here to glimpse pieces of me through the lenses I manufacture. So onward I must go!

My life seems to decade centric. My first mental breakdown was age ten. It was not unlike a midlife crisis. A time fraught with "is this all life can be?" If that seems silly and indulgent in a child allow me to assure you it was not the fancy of an overly sensitive.

My life has been classified by decade thusly:

1st decade: focus on survival
2nd decade: focuses on denial and disguise
3rd decade: focuses of illusions of normality and coping
4th decade: reclamation

My early years were about daily survival in duly an emotional land mine and in a real world of poverty and abuse where neither condition ever was allowed to show.

My second decade was another war zone. One where familial ties frayed and though the battle for freedom was won and living conditions were 100% improved the lies got bigger and the secrets were kept AT ALL COSTS. I learned to blend and shift and be whomever was required of me.

My third decade was at first about maintain and creating illusions. But the double toll of holding up my mirror while being trained to be an actor, a professional masque, broke my looking glass and I tumbled down a rabbit hole miles and miles deep.

My fourth decade brought completeness to my soul by breaking the boxes all my childhood traumas were locked in. That happened not as a gentle pass wall of knowledge but as a torrent that carried me into madness and horror to the event horizon of death itself. My mind and body were scoured clean to the bones and only after all the marrow was licked clean was I dumped into the cauldron and reformed.

But this new creature I became took a few years to gather her legs under herself.
I finally entered full adulthood. For the previous two decades though body and mind aged and ripened my emotions stayed frozen as those of a frightened and abused child. All interactions, friendships, partnerships, actions during those years were powered by the love and fears of a very, very small child.

But in this last ten I have gained all that was missing. I am wholly myself. Driven not by kid fears or childhood daydream any longer I have bloomed into full adulthood; swelled into motherhood and found my self through small acts of creation.

No longer trapped girl-child in grown body, but fully rounded in late adulthood plus motherhood I step into a near future of bodily croning.

Three of my closest kin all died in their early forties. Cancer took all three. And though it's a thought to ponder it doesn't loom or cause me fear.

My fifth decade which begins in the early morrow hours as I shuffle of 39 and dress in 40 I am choosing to be about balance and joy.

The balance of past lessons informing but not dictating the present. The living of the present being more important than the possible worries in the future. Balancing of motherhood, wifedom, daughterhood, friendship, piety and service are my goals.

That equilibrium makes room for emotions here to now I have stiffled for fear of exposure to harm: joy, expressive love, happiness, inquisitiveness, giddiness, passion, gratitude.

So Bon Anniversary to me! And raise a glass to another year of creation and change and love and service to man and Kindreds.

I shall raise a cup to all of you tomorrow so that you too shall share in this wonderful bounty.

Hallowe'en Dreams

Sitting in the now dark. As the rain fails dismally downward.

The squeals of delighted and mischievous children are gone.

I sit still in vigil on the porch for the last straggler who braves the elements to claim chocolate boon.

The wind is tossing the treetops. Terrier like lashing back and forth denuding the crowns of their gold and crimson glories.

Heavy hearted I wait. Holding tight the losses of loves and life of family and friends who are family.

It is fitting this dampness and dreary dark. The moaning of branches that are bending but haven't broken.

The sad cauldron of goodies for small ghouls is still mostly full. Our revelers numbered more than last year yet only totaled eleven souls.

What to do with the riches? A full pot of spiced cider, heated and blessed to warm the numb fingers of the adults who braved our mountain.

They come each year for their treat as much for the spectacle that our home is every year.

I love this night.

As children we had to go far from home to haunt the suburbs. The farms on our road were too far apart to walk.

So through hostile and unknown plans we trudged pillow cases in hand. Hoping for treats and clever tricks.

Daring each other when we got home to scale the pastures in the dark to play blind man's bluff.

But always the wind played a melancholy air.

So trudge on and gather treats. Brave young lads & lasses Souling in the darkness.

Stop on over. I sit like a crone, rocking on the porch. A cauldron of full sized chocolates. A vat of spiced brew awaits.

We can sit and enjoy the symphony of death. The chorus of the wind and rain to soothe and numb any loss and heartache.

Dance with me this Hallows Eve.

Fearing the Reaping

Like a ghoul I sit
Perched upon a pile of other's pain
Picking at bits of grief
Attempting to swallow
Small chunks of their loss
Trying to help them heal

All the while I stare blinded
At my own all too soon reaping
Yet I push my losses away
Unfit refuse to forage

Like a ghoul I sit
Bent necked trailing my own sorrow
Like sputum behind me
A slime trail to lead me back to my own Rotting heart
Lost in the woods
Buried in a box
Tied with yew and rue and tears

How like a monster
Does it seem
That I care a thousand times
More about a stranger and his son
My friend
As they dance goodbye in solitudes
Or to grieve more deeply
Over an unknown to me life cast off
And those left behind
Reeling in aftershock

Than the I care
About the impending death of
My own mother

How can I remain calm
Why cannot I summon
Any more than basest
Pity

To be fair she's been
Dying in slow motion
My whole life
Soul and heart
Then mind and body
Long terrible fate

How will I face the guilt
My relief will cause
When her journey ends
I see it more as a passing
No tossing off chains of
Her suffering
And freedom for her 

At last to heal

Finally whole but incorporeal

But none for me
Not reconciliation
No soft words
No room for missteps

Because you see

My archenemy
A fat evil slug is
Waiting for the moment
We face each other

My monster under the bed
My soul breaker
My reason to know the
Bitter taste of hate
And fear
And loathing so deep
Death was a kinder
Family
Than he

That is what I fear and
I am ashamed
Not the reaping of
The womb that spat me out
But the moment I must face her
First born spawn

Like a ghoul I sit
Crouched low
Not sure if I should spring
Or flee

I hold so much rage
I feel so much blood lust
I am numb with the
Anticipation of my
Actions in that moment
When my monster and
I meet again

I don't fear the reaping
I fear that the monster inside
Will want revenge
So I lock it up too
In the box In the woods
Tied with yew and rue and tears

And try to ignore the breadcrumbs

Instead like a ghoul I sit

The Cool Down

I have had an extraordinary summer. It's been filled with art, creation, National Parks, day trips, family & joy.

This summer has also been filled with anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, emotional ping-ponging & guilt. Bucket loads of guilt.

So I find myself reflecting on all the abundance of goodness and how along with the enriching experiences the shadows of doubt and guilt clung to my happiness like Wendy had sewn them together.

The Fall has always been my favorite time of the year. The cooler days are balm to my soul. The horrendous heat plus humidity that is late July through August depletes my energy. I hate being hot. Hate it like wasp stings and eating avocado ( two things that can kill me.) And pumpkin soup can drag me back from the event horizon like nothing else.

I have spent a ton of energy this year encouraging life. Creating art and nurturing plants filled endless hours.
Tending to my family's needs while trying to work through my exhaustion and depression has left me depleted.

So how do we march refreshed into the darker parts of the year when everything around us is curling up to die or going into stasis?

I have always attended a conference in October. This two day event filled with lectures and guest speakers used to fill my needs. But as it has grown more about vendors and less about reason I find I go more to mock and buy rocks than to top off my tank. And though I will go again this year I anticipate that it will become less fulfilling as the years pass.

My Grove work has me thinking towards the darkness. How will the liturgical structure sustain me in the short days ahead when my internal shadows become manifest? I don't have answers. Though the solitary nature of the program leaves me flat.

This is my last full year of intense motherhood and I find it bittersweet. As this time next year the kidlet will begin formal education. In what form that education takes my husband and I still are not certain. But my baby isn't a baby anymore. And each step forward towards independence for the kidlet comes with new struggle and surprise.

So as I try to dump the guilt and wrestle my shadow into submission I am looking forward to the creative boost the fall usually brings. Crafting for the holidays, costumes and tricks for Halloween, new foods for the miriad of feast days and the shutting down of the garden will fill me with joy and equal parts stress.

So this autumn I am going to try turning under my fear and pain. I am going to weed through my beds of guilt and anxiety and prune those noxious growths back with a vengeance. Will it be enough to heal my emptiness?

I am oath taking and experimenting with relationship. I am saying yes where before in the harvests of the past seasons I had always, unthinkingly, said no. This is the lesson my summer bounty has taught me.

I asked earlier this year "How does your garden grow?" But now I ask: "Have you any wool?"

What harvests will nurture your dark days ahead?

How will you preserve your abundance so that you do not face starvation in the coming frigid days?

Will my preparations be enough to hold back the seasonal and situational depressions? I sincerely hope so. And I have more than three bags full.