I was asked today “Who is left standing when everyone else
has been taken away?” I have been
sitting with this question, through the snowfall, with my Pwca curled up beside
me. (When considering total isolation it
is good to have your cat by your side.)
Like many human beings, I have some fear of abandonment. I am blessed with the knowledge that some of
my beloveds would stay beside me no matter what. But the terror that children have in the
years after they become aware of mortality, maintains a hold upon many of us
well into adulthood.
The question of abandonment remains in the shadows, an
obstacle to intimacy, and to emotional availability with others and with ourselves. So the question was posed to me, “Who is left
standing when everyone else is taken away?”
The question seems to have three distinct contexts. First, who am I if I am completely
isolated? What happens then? My answer to that question is that I am still
here, invisible or not. But I would lose
my purpose in this life.
My purpose in this lifetime is to leave a mark, to
communicate and engage with others. Without
others, I would lose that purpose and I do not enjoy that idea. That idea would lead me to consider the point
of continuing, and for the record, I not only expect to live well into my 90’s,
I intend to as well.
Another context goes to the question of what happens if I
cease to exist? What happens if I
actually become invisible because I no longer exist with this mind, heart, body
and soul? The only place I can find to
answer this question is in my faith.
I believe that the soul (along with the heart and mind or consciousness
of the person that is me), once the body ends returns to its source in the
underworld (and my Patron) and joins with the ancestors to be recycled within
the bloodline with others in the same soul-group to assist each other in the
process of working out our wyrd.
The Spirit freed of the individual self, goes on to the Summerland
to process the lessons learned in this life and eventually to the Lady of Fate
(my Patroness) to choose its next incarnation.
I do not fear this process, I have been through it before and I will
embrace it, when the time has come to do so again.
The third context concerns the members of the committee and
their purpose. If each of them were to
be taken away, who would be left standing?
Who am I?
I have been journeying a great deal lately and I have discovered
that, at least for the time being, when I arrive on the other side of the threshold,
I am myself but, I am the child that I was with the knowledge that I now possess., and without
the “armor” that I have created over the past 4 decades. And that seems to be the answer. I am the child that I was. She is the woman, witch, mother, priestess, switch,
adventurer, romantic and poet that I have always been.
The child is the one “who is left standing” when
everyone else is taken away. She is
the truth and the best of me.
