In the past, my spiritual beliefs helped to introduce me to myself at a time in my life when I felt I had no identity. I wasn't sure who I really was, but as I explored my spiritual thoughts and feelings, I became acquainted with the divine feminine and began to appreciate myself.
This new awareness of feminine theology introduced me to the connection between the agricultural Wheel of the Year and stories of Gods and Goddesses. It was through these stories and through the cylical nature of Life that I began to form a conceptual perception of what might be Holy. Although I always knew that while mythological stories can be inspiring, they are just stories and not histories. So my concept of the Divine presented itself in female form because I could more easily identify with another woman as Divine Maiden/Mother/Crone than I could relate to a Father-God. The agricultural cycle seemed parallel to the cycle of a lifetime and provided many relevant analogies, especially regarding birth-life-death-rebirth. In the Spring, new life is born. In the Summer, the new life matures. In the Fall, life begins to die. Then, in mid-winter, we celebrate the promise of new life and the return of the Sun on the Solstice (or Christmas).
Then, as time went by, I found that the older I became, the more like myself I became. I no longer depended so greatly on religious and spiritual mythologies and analogies to support me. But now, with the recent suicide of my youngest daughter, I am once again retreating to the stories of old to help me come to terms with my loss. I have been plunged into the Underworld, void of light and life. My grief must be experienced, just as Life becomes dormant during the Dark Half of the year. While it may be the height of the Light Half of the Year, for me, I am in a state of suspended animation...hibernating, nursing my wounds, experiencing the Darkness from which eventual new life will emerge.
There is a season for all things; this is my season to mourn, to cry, to withdraw and seek seclusion. I feel compelled to retreat into the caverns of the earth as if to somehow approach the Other Side, inviting communication and signs from those who have gone before me...from my daughter. I want to reach my hand into the depths of the Spirit world to touch her and to come to terms with her departure. The only way for me to do this is to escape into solitude where there are no demands or distractions. I must be left alone to nurse my wounds - and in doing so, I shall eventually recover and emerge back into the light of Life itself.
In essence, I feel the need for sabbatical retreat. Solitude. Silence. Pseudo-Death. I must symbolically die from the pain of my grief, with the promise of being born again brand new, full of life, light, and the magic that I once possessed. I must surrender to the pain allowing it to fully break me before I can hope to find renewal.
But no one seems to understand this need. It is nature's way, to die; but the promise of rebirth is always there, on the horizon. It is what I must do. I must endure this plunge into my own mental underworld of grief, pain, and death if I am to ever recover and rise with a renewed sense of life. And so, I embrace the Darkness of symbolic death and allow the pain to wash over me and to consume me...for now...for as long as it takes. And, once consumed and wiped clean of this agony, only then will I be able to bring forth new life from within. Only then will the sun shine down upon me and from within me. Only then...
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