Mabon Meditation

Instead of being a periodic interruption to life, right now death seems to be the bed in which we are all planted. In the spring and summer we raise our heads up to the sun and rejoice in the sight of one another's blooms and fruit. Now as some of us dip our heads and lose our colors, the rich earth seems much closer, and all around.

My husband Nimbus finally got sent into New Orleans yesterday. He is checked into "Hotel Katrina," the Best Western in Jefferson Parish just across the river from the Superdome and downtown, where every room is rented out to the American Red Cross, volunteers all sharing rooms.

Nimbus says he passed by the bridges - overpasses, I suppose - where the helicopters brought people when first plucked off of roofs in the early days. He says the embankments are littered with belongings that people seem to have simply left behind as they either got a ride out or began walking elsewhere.

The entire highway in was backed up with people trying to go into the city, even as Mayor Nagin has called for an evacuation. Nimbus called from the highway, describing blue lights, red lights, yellow lights, alarms, emergency vehicles, everywhere as far as the eye could see.

Today he called me from the Hyatt in New Orleans – yes, that Hyatt. No one is sleeping there, but it is the Red Cross Emergency Operations Center for the city, running off of generators. Nimbus says the smell in that district is not as bad as he expected, but that bottles of hand sanitizer are ubiquitous, as are strict instructions absolutely not to wash hands after visiting the lavatory, or turn on the water for any reason. As real as his next bathroom break is the danger from chthonic forces.

While the Gulf has been drowning, the land around our home here in South Carolina is parched. Today I ran a sprinkler for four hours in one spot, only to find that the ground was barely damp when I moved the water. The roots of weeds yielded easily as I pulled them. Oh, but they have done their work long ago, having spent their last summer strength producing seeds now blown across our hilltop and beyond.

The woods behind my house are beginning to yellow at the edges. The temperatures are still in the 90s, but in a few weeks they will unpredictably dip and bob, finally finding the first frost of the year. Meanwhile, dead leaves are accumulating around the door and walkway, the compost is nearly ready to mulch, the nasturtiums are spent. A part of me feels like Persephone going within.

At Cherry Hill Seminary a group of us are working our way through Macha Nightmare’s course on death and dying, Call of the Dark Mother. Who could have known, during summer registration, that so many would indeed soon receive that call, and so many others follow as far as we might, lifting others who could no longer walk alone, easing some of them over.

They say that birth and death are spiritually the same sometimes violent gateways to this life. Those of us who call ourselves pagan feel that death is no less a part of life than birth. Our ministry to the dying is to dispel the quite natural fear of the unknown. Whether by subsequent human reincarnation, or as sustenance to next year’s plantings, we know we will return. We look to the natural world around us as it gracefully removes its summer garb and lies down in the earth for winter’s sleep.

In the Gulf, a sad peace attends the work of recovery. The Dark Mother has not only upended and carried away precious lives. Her stormy waters have exposed the stench of corruption, lies, anger and violence, at every level of our government and society. Her gifts are terrible, but they make it possible for new ways to take root, if we will accept our husbandry responsibilities.

Meanwhile, here at the Autumn Equinox, or Mabon, as it is called in the Celtic agricultural calendar, the rest of us tidy our lives, save up our food and firewood and stories for long nights inside, prepare for the sleep of death that rebirths us in time.

During this season, we can trust spirit to guide us through our dreams. Going within, going deeper, going further into the earth, the mother, we discover ourselves. In the dreaming time, the indigenous Australians say worlds were created. Let us receive the brown and gold blanket of sleep this fall and see what new worlds we can dream into life with next spring’s warmth.