Black Celebration

November in Vancouver is guaranteed to be two things: wet and cold. Not the nostril-hair freezing cold of most of Canada, mind you - ours is a bone-deep dampness. It's a rotting-skeleton-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean cold. The sun sets earlier and earlier, and the city raises more lights in defiance of the primal dark.

Bleak months ahead. I find myself looking forward to it.

Earlier this week, I was on the Coru Cathubodua website. I have been a follower of The Morrigan since I was a teenager - she was my first true experience with the divine. On 'The Morrigan's Call' page, the author(s) discuss what it means to be claimed by this particular goddess, and this in particular struck me:

"It means you yourself will be reshaped, and this can also be quite terrifying. But here is what She offers in return: She makes a weapon of you."

How sharp of a knife she's made me I really can't say - sometimes I feel pretty dull - but I can certainly attest to the fact that she is a force that will not allow you to remain static, even if it hurts. I would go so far as to say that if you cannot learn to breathe through the pain, your relationship with her will probably be short lived.

I figured out that I was going to die when I was ten. For the next three years I wanted nothing more than to become a stage magician.  So I suppose it's really not shocking that I am drawn to gods of death and magic. This also seems to mean that I am prone to attraction to difficult figures.

Last winter I told my sister I had a feeling I was being drawn to another such figure. And then, to be perfectly blunt, I put off doing anything about it because I was chickenshit. I didn't want any upheaval, and I did not feel like being remolded into someone else. After a rough few years, I just wanted to grow comfortable with my life again.

But, you know. Death and magic. I'm not a witch because it's comforting. I want to know things, before it's too late.

The sky is frigid ebony. Inside my beloved apartment it is cozy and safe. The cat is curled up in front of an electric fire, while a black candle warms the air with the smell of eucalyptus and sage. The next year is now set to be stable, financially. Spiritually, I doubt it will be so. Earlier in the week we had windstorms so severe that they contributed to the collapse of part of the seawall in Stanley Park; I had gone out jogging along the seawall like a fucking genius, and although I did not see anything destroyed I did get to witness waves smashing into the rocks and more lightning than I think I've ever seen before above the city. It would have been miserable if it wasn't so exhilarating. That is how I imagine the year might go.