While I was meditating the other night, I got a call to come outside. Such calls come to me fairly often, usually when the moon's out, to see cold light bathe the grass and trees illuminating the landscape to the farthest branches. But this night was overcast. Water filled the air so it sparkled, drops touching my face like cold feathers, not quite condensing into rain.
The trees were still. The night hesitated. I looked up, and the clouds' veil thinned to show a few stars. I used the first magick charm I ever learned; I wished on a star.
My wish was to see my desire for motherhood work through my family, coven and friends in the best way possible, whatever that was. I felt a lifting, that my wish was already coming to pass, though I didn't see how.
Above me, as I watched, the clear darkness between clouds shifted to form a goddess with bent elbows and palms raised, like Minoan goddess figurines. In her left palm shone a star.
At the previous new moon, my coven had held a ritual for inspiration. The ritualist had hung red grape-lights around her fireplace, where a fire was lit, and into the flames we threw our desires written on red paper. The room glowed clear red, and with my coven around me I felt the same lifting feeling, of hope.
And I felt as if I were among family.
My partner and I held Thanksgiving alone this year. We walked with the dogs in the woods. The stream had cut a new channel, clearing a bank of sand. We came back and ate, sitting by the fire. It felt good but, toward evening, a bit empty. My stepsons were both away at school. My brothers and I had talked recently, so we didn't call each other for the holiday. A family feeling I'd expected without realizing it was missing.
Family is hard for me. Some pagans are close to their families of birth, and I envy them. But I know many pagans like me who needed to rebel against the religion or lack of religion they grew up with, along with everything else about their families, because their families topped the list of things that made them miserable. Many pagans like me needed magick and every other tool they could lay hands on just to reach adulthood whole. We flew as fast and as far as possible, throwing behind us combs that turned into forests and mirrors that turned into seas.
Now we've succeeded, and we're far away. We turn back and look toward the lights of the houses we left. Humans are social beings, come from clans and tribes; except for a handful of bruised loners, we want some sort of family. If we can, we make peace with our parents and siblings. But we can't remain only children or siblings. We find partners, but we are not only partners.
Whether or not we have children, we desire to pass on our energy and knowledge. We want to be within life and part of life, to feel the flow of a network of connections. We want to be used, not useless. We want to give ourselves. Especially when we can only partly express that desire in our families, it comes out in our covens and magickal groups.
That desire isn't selfless. When we make incense for people, we want to be told how great it smells. When we bake ritual cookies, we want to be told how delicious they taste. When we write rituals, we want to be told how magickal they are. We resent each other, too; we fight like family, we break off relations and swear to never talk again, like family.
But I find that when I don't give, I feel empty. Thanksgiving for two sounded fun, but I missed my stepsons and brothers. I missed my ex-girlfriend. I missed my coven. I missed that interconnection of clan. The next evening, when my partner and I served duck and cranberry sauce to our witch tradition members and friends, that helped complete the circle.
I think of Milan Kundera's phrase "the unbearable lightness of being." I have thought in the past that I wanted free of all the weights on me, but when I let them go, I saw they satisfied a desire in me. Without their pull, I floated useless. I would never disparage the need for pure pleasure with no strings, but also I want to be used. It grounds me. It connects me to the world.
I look forward to Yule, because for me of all pagan holidays it most holds this weight of human connection. I have run far away, I have stretched the cords to their limit, but turning back I find they are important to me. Yule is when I celebrate them.
In that celebration, we often sing, and this Yule issue centers around using music and chant in pagan workings.
Copyright © 2006 by the article's author