Of Green and Glass: Dealing with Loss

Of Green and Glass:

Where Down to Earth Solutions and a Glass Edge Meet

By Goewin GreenWitch

Dear Goewin,

            It’s Samhain, and I’m conflicted.  I have always adored this holiday, and have since I was a child.  It was always more than the candy, and the chance to be someone else for the night.  I truly believed, even as a child that the Spirits I saw during my daily life were more easily understood at “Hallowe’en”. 

            My conflict comes from the series of events from the last year.  You see, my brother died this past spring, and it’s not clear as to whether his death was accidental or a suicide.  The police say there were drugs in his system and he stumbled onto the train tracks in his back yard.  Since no one knows for sure if it was an accident or not, it’s causing a lot of problems in our family. 

            My other brother makes things worse, by announcing that because he is recently “saved” he believes that our brother is burning in hell for having committed suicide.  Apparently he found Jesus last month in jail and that makes him an expert. 

            I’d love to celebrate Samhain and Honor him as I would any of my beloved dead, but I don’t feel his is “really” dead.  I’ve seen him, his spirit, a few months after his death, not in passing but for extended periods.  He asked me to tell our father that he was okay.  My dad has just now started to seem like his old self and I don’t want to hurt him further by mentioning it.

Do I know if he committed suicide?  No. I was too mad at my brother for dying to speak to him when he appeared to me. So all I know is that he says he’s okay.  Obviously (to me) if he can pop in to say he’s okay, then he’s not burning in hell.  Some might say that this was just my imagination brought on by grief, but I really believe it was him. 

            I feel bad that I wouldn’t talk to him when he showed up so unexpectedly, and he hasn’t come back.  How do I go about my Samhain plans feeling like I’ve abandoned my brother when he needed me?  I can’t tell my father he’s okay.  My mother and other family members have seen ghosts and communicated with them, so I know he would believe me, but I don’t want to remind him of his pain, either.  Do I mourn a suicide victim, or just the victim of an accident?

-Sad at Samhain

           

Dear Sad,

            That’s an awful lot to process for one person.  Any one part of that is enough to upset someone, and for you to be dealing with it at once can be hard.  I know you got dealt a crap hand in all of this, but you’re going to have to figure out a way to deal.  Life isn’t always fair, but I can tell you are a tough cookie, and you’ll do fine.  Let’s take this piece by piece. 

            Your brother’s death is a hard enough problem to deal with by itself.  It’s hard to have closure when you know the how of his death, but not the why.  I know it’s hard to talk about; suicide is almost as much a taboo in the Pagan community as it is in the mundane. 

Not many people know that there is a Goddess just for suicide victims.  Ixtab is a Mayan Goddess, who is believed to carry the souls of suicide victims in her heart to Paradise.  I’m sure if suicide were involved, she carried your brother in her heart to a place where he could rest and deal with what happened before moving on. 

I know you want to honor your brother’s memory by letting your father know he is okay, but I think the time for this is down the way, after he has had time to overcome his grief at his loss.  

With the common belief in reincarnation and the Summerland as a part of Wiccan and some Pagan beliefs it’s common to hear that victims of suicide weren’t capable of dealing with the lessons they chose for this lifetime and that they’ll need to repeat them in the next.  Whether or not he was an accident victim or not, I firmly believe that his coming to you to let you know he was okay was the important part. 

            Your brother’s assertions about heaven and hell come from his desire to exert some control over his loss and his own feelings.  Even though it is hurtful to you to hear him say these things, it’s merely his way of dealing.  It doesn’t make it right, but I hope that helps you understand where he’s coming from. 

            Samhain is the perfect time to let him know that you love him and miss him.  You can set up a special ancestral altar, and give photos of him prominence. Talk to him as if he were standing in front of you.  I’m sure wherever he is, he will hear you.  Don’t muddy your celebration with feelings of guilt.  You responded as many people would.  Samhain is the time to celebrate the times you enjoyed with your loved ones, not to concentrate on their death.  On this day he is not an accident victim, or a suicide victim, he’s your brother.

‘Juju’, Creepy Crawlies and Bad Omens

‘Juju’, Creepy Crawlies and Bad Omens:

 the Realities of Feelings

Black Salt, Good for Banishing Spirits & Protecting a Home

 
     A friend and former coworker tagged me in a comment on Facebook sometime during the night. I rolled over and checked my email as I wake up, the way I do every morning. (Hey, some people drink coffee, I read my email to get my brain in gear.) He had encountered an animal on his way home from work late and it left him with a feeling of foreboding. The discussion progressed to supernatural reasons for seeing such a thing. Without something to add, I moved about my morning.

     Once I’m at my office and settled in, I pulled up Facebook. Right now, my job involves a lot of hurry up and wait. So they allow me to occupy my brain, as long as I make sure the customers are taken care of. So, back to Facebook, I’m looking through my feed when I see an update from the same friend.

     “So update to last night's story- I had a flat tire this morning and I'm just waiting for something bad to happen. Creepy, eh?”

     I told this friend I’d be writing a blog post about our interaction because this is something I’ve seen more than once and it’s something I wanted to discuss.

     Amy Blackthorn: Fuck that waiting around shit. Don't allow it into your space. Do something. Dump a McDonald’s packet of salt into a cup of water and anoint yourself. Say a prayer. Say, "Fuck off!" Light a birthday candle. Cast a circle. Cast a Square. Don't just sit and wait for bad shit to happen. Well protected is good. Just remember what they say in martial arts, "No matter how good you are, somewhere there's someone better." We have those senses for a reason. Any time I've had that sense and didn't do something about it,

BAD SHIT happened.

(Hello Tractor trailer, 27 broken bones, 72 pins and years in a wheelchair).

     I’m trying to figure out where we are in our personal evolutions. Go to a gathering of Pagans or Witchy folk and you’ll likely hear a mention at some point about feelings, ‘juju’, or the like. Most people are quick to jump in with their experience, but that’s usually where it ends. People want to talk and share their experiences and occasionally they’ll ask for opinions, personal revelations or simply validation of their feelings on the subject.

     I’ve noticed this outside of our little world in one place in particular, “Reality” ghost hunting television shows. People hear something go bump in the night, and the next thing you know, you’ve got a bunch of yahoos in fatigues running around your house with night vision cameras strapped to their heads. Viewers see people attempting to antagonize the dead, using dramatic pauses and fervent “Did you hear that?” questioning. One of the issues I have with shows of this ilk is If they find something they feel is compelling evidence, they show the owner of the property, and then pack up and go home. “Yup, it’s haunted. Bye!” Wait. What just happened?

     Why do we stop there? Why acknowledge the fact that you feel something bad is going to happen, only to sit around and wait for the other shoe to drop? Magic is supposed to be a last resort, after all of the ‘real world’ things have been ruled out. That doesn’t mean we have to sit idly by and wonder at our fate. If it really is fate, that the other shoe drops, it will. However, if taking a step out of the way saves your bacon, I’d take that step. Wouldn’t you?

     If we accept that we have developed these feelings for a purpose, then it stands to reason that we were meant to DO something with them. So do it. Rearrange the furniture so that energy doesn’t have a place to lie. Smudge the house. Open the windows and let the fresh air in. Get rid of your clutter. Just do Something.

Gardening Ideas Hecate

While scrolling through my Facebook on Wednesday, I got an idea. I'm creating a new garden this year. A "Hecate" garden. She's most popularly known as the Cthonic Goddess of Crossroads, Sorcery and Ghosts, but she's also associated with medicine. She's been known to rule over the "brewing of concoctions, medicines and poisons".

She was said to favor offerings of Garlic. Since I grew up in an Italian culture, garlic is already sacrosanct.

A number of other plants (often poisonous, medicinal and/or psychoactive) are associated with Hecate. These include aconite (also called hecateis), belladonna, dittany, and mandrake.

The use of dogs for digging up mandrake is further corroboration of the association of this plant with Hecate; indeed, since at least as early as the first century CE, there are a number of attestations to the apparently widespread practice of using dogs to dig up plants associated with magic.*

In "dog digging" the soil would be loosened around the base of a plant associated with magic, then a string would be tied around the plant, and then to the dog. The dog would be called away and thus, would tear up the plant, roots and all.

In the case of mandrake (named of the person like appearance of the roots) it was thought that the "man" who lived in the roots would scream and deafen you if you dug it up. It was believed that if the spirit of the plant wanted to exact revenge for the digging of the plant, the harm would fall on the dog, and leave the person, intact. There are even legends that say it has to be a black dog that does the digging, since black dogs are heavily associated with Hecate.

Many other herbs and plants are associated with Hecate, including almonds, lavender, myrrh, mugwort, cardamon, Henbane, mint, dandelion, hellebore, and lesser celandine. Several poisons and hallucinogens are linked to Hecate, including hemlock, mandrake, and opium poppy. Many of Hecate's plants were those that can be used shamanistically to achieve varying states of consciousness. (This is not an endorsement or recommendation.)

I don't know what is on my list to grow yet, but I'm really excited about this!



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*Frederick J. Simoons, Plants of Life, Plants of Death, University of Wisconsin Press, 1998, pp. 121-124.