Life and Death and The Bad Witch: aka Litha is Coming

I have had a lot of fodder rolling around in my Bad Brain this past week – Literature and Lore about Lucifer (perfect for an L post), Psychopomps, Triple Diety, The Reclamation of Seiðr, to name a few – and have wanted to share it with y’all.

But alas, life.

Or should I say, death.

I’m not maudlin or anything. Take all of this as vaguely tongue in cheek. I’m a little worn down by the death that seems to surround me at the moment, but I’m not morose about it.

Crazy how The Mother guards the hen from the dog.

When I wrote my “K” post, I told you that I didn’t have any “K” ideas floating in my brain.

I kinda lied.

I’d been thinking about Mother Keridwen in fits and spurts. One day I’ll learn to listen right away so The Powers That Be don’t have to smack so hard upside the head.

Last Sunday, a very important life-figure passed across suddenly. And I thank you, my readers and cyber-companions, for the sympaties you have already expressed. It means a lot to me that you share not only in my foibles and triumphs, but that you are touched by my pain and my losses as well. In many of our cases, we’ve never met, but we are part of each other’s lives. And I am grateful for you.

The wake was in Chicago on Thursday and the Funeral was yesterday in Birmingham. I’ve had a very strange reaction to this death. I haven’t seen him in twenty years and have only had minimal contact with him in the past two years. But I spent most of my childhood under this man’s watchful eye. It makes sense that I would mourn him, but I was entirely devastated for days.

On Monday, I got some medical news that is giving me a serious case of avoidance. And will, therefore, change the subject.

On Thursday, my Bad Children (well, the two oldest) were invited to watch the filming of one of our favorite TV series and, based on their ectomorphic body type, ended up applying for an extras roll. Who would have guessed that having picky eaters would have an upside? The show revolves around death and even has the word “Dead” in the title.

On Friday, insanely tragic events aligned which allowed my hunting dogs to get into my chicken coop and at six of eleven of my chicks. There were three three-month-olds and three nine-week-olds. I watched the younger ones hatch on Easter Sunday and have held them in my hands everyday since. Fortunately, all of my friends know that furbabies and featherbabies are much more than pets around here. I had to bury them because burning them (in my traumatized brain at the time) would smell too – – um, have I mentioned that my kids are already really skinny and hard to feed?

Then my friend suggested that Keridwen was behind my having five chicks spared from the carnage (and it was carnage).

So, slap a Bad Witch with a stubborn stick.

No really.

Quit killing everything and slap me with a stubborn stick; I honestly got the message before those three young students from my school were murdered this morning.

Death is part of life.

I get it.

Ironically, I have been trying to write a celebration of fertility and life for this weekend’s Litha celebration. But now I must accept that maybe I was being too fluffy about the whole thing? (I know, right? The Bad Witch, fluffy? Ha!) But I think I was concentrating too much on the sun and the light and not enough on why we value the light as we do. Because, in the end – Winter is Coming.

Maybe this will be the darkest Litha celebration ever. And maybe it will mean more as a result. Maybe I figured out why we celebrate it after all.

The thing about the Stark words, “Winter is Coming,” is that, no matter how long winter lasts, spring follows after.

As ever, I’ll let you know.

But for now I’m going to catch up some work so I can watch the undead tonight. (Not that I have hopes of excellence, it’s like a train wreck, I can’t look away.)

Love and both Light and Darkness,

TBW