Diary - Depression

I am, as they say, in a bad way. I am not happy.

Which is not to say that I don't have moments of happiness - I do. There is still plenty of laughter and enjoyment in my life. There's an Ani DiFranco song (to quote from my personal canon) that goes:

i think i could accept all these dark colors
as just part of some bigger color scheme
if it wasn't for that drippy string quartet of sadness
underscoring each smiling scene

And that's pretty much it. Not a drippy string quartet of sadness, exactly, but the creeping tense eerie straining hum that transforms a normal shot of life as you'd expect into the quiet-before-the-storm in a horror movie. There is a constant stress underlying every moment, and I am sick to death of all of it.

~~~

Part of it is Emily. She is hellish. I am continually astounded by how awful she is, how heartless and cruel and manipulative, how intent she is on punishing Jeff for moving away. It would be enough if she would just content herself with legal machinations to keep him from seeing the kids, or even from being able to Skype them regularly (both of which she's doing to the best of her ability). But on top of that, she sends emails that are obviously and explicitly meant to suggest that somehow it is Jeff's fault, that he should feel guilty because she is incapable of organizing her life or controlling her schedule, that someone his refusal to capitulate to her every whim is a failure on his part. She says she's "very surprised" that he hasn't called the kids in the past week, but then when he tries to arrange for time to talk to them she says their schedules are just too busy and the most she can do is a regimented hour-long conversation during which she sets a timer to allow each of them only fifteen minutes. That she doesn't even have the competency or control to actually enforce these idiotic plans just makes it worse! We have to deal with her constant self-justifications and cruelty towards Jeff while all along knowing that she has very little control over her own life. She is utterly unreliable even when it comes to her own stupid demands. I almost wish she would enforce such a regiment - since it's much more likely that she will instead fall into a habit of signing onto Skype later and later, finding excuses why she can't stick to the pre-arranged schedule, until we'll end up with a situation like when she first agreed to bring the kids over on Saturday mornings, and soon began to sleep in and not get them to us until lunch time. At that point, Jeff just had to start driving out to pick them up himself. With a Skype call, that's just not an option, there is no way he can compensate for her failure. Her weakness and learned helplessness just makes the times when she lashes out all the more frustrating, because you know that it is from her own weakness and incompetency that she draws on that secret fear that she projects towards everyone else. She does not know how to be a functional human being. The only way she knows how to get her way is to become a dead weight that everyone else must carry, a dead weight spewing insane accusations and guilt like a vile phlegm that covers everything.

I am so tired of carrying that dead weight around. Jeff and I want the best for the kids, but we also want the best for us. I want him to be the good, loving, involved father that he so wants to be and that he always has been - but I can't see any way of staying involved with the kids lives without also being forced to have dealings with their parasitic, selfish, manipulative mother. There is no reason why being a father should be a miserable duty that precludes personal happiness. There is no reason why being a stepmother has to be that way, either. I am not upset that it is hard - I knew it would be difficult, as learning how to adapt to and handle complex family relationships always are. But I'm angry and frustrated that there seems to be absolutely nothing we can do to stay in touch with the kids that Emily won't use as a means to abuse and punish Jeff. She is, in the most literal sense of the metaphor, like a fucking antiChrist. Instead of a loving, merciful bridge to the divine Father, she is the vindictive, hateful gulf that we have to cross as our only way of connecting with the kids. Having to go through her is almost worse than not being able to see the kids at all. The whole relationship gets twisted and warped, bent to her selfishness, dragged down by the gravity of her dead weight.

And I'm angry - at myself, and at Jeff and me together - for not being strong enough to do something about it. I'm angry that we even have to deal with this at all, that we don't have the financial resources to fight it, that the lawyers we hired to be on our side just drained us of all our money but accomplished exactly nothing for us except wasting our time. I'm angry that there seems to be no good solution, that a single dead-weight woman could so effectively ruin Jeff's relationship with his kids, that we can't just scream her into submission and make her see just how terrible a person she is. But she probably knows, in any case. I can't imagine all this guilt-tripping and manipulation is because she actually likes herself.

I don't want to indulge in the part of me that is angry and wants nothing more to be violent towards her, to reduce her to dust and sniveling worms. I'm not going to deny that part of me, but I know that it won't do any good. I suppose part of me wants the power to do such a thing simply because it would give me the opportunity to be merciful. I want so much for us to be the better people - but what is that, what would that mean in this case? I can't see how it's right for us to accept all of her conditions and demands and then allow her incompetence to slowly erode away our time with the kids and our relationship with them. How will that help anyone? But then, fighting the good fight, leaving us miserable, frustrated, exhausted in every sense of the word, staining our relationship with the kids with the constant strain and stress of it all? How is that any good? What is the good thing to do here, the merciful thing? How can you be merciful and kind to a parasite, someone who has made herself a parasite by her own choice because she is too afraid and weak to be anything else? And how do you protect the kids and their dream of family? How do you salvage that ideal and preserve the heart of it, to sustain their hope and optimism in a scenario like this? How can you come out and tell them everything their mother is doing out of her own selfishness and smallness, without destroying the mother archetype for them, or the father archetype for that matter? (On the other hand, how could it be any worse than the way Emily is warping and twisting that archetype into one of supremely powerful helplessness, the manipulative passivity that she models for them on a daily basis?)

~~~

When you are out of options about how to move forward on the mundane plane, that's when you turn to magic. Rereading Dion Fortune's novel Moon Magic recently, that's what I was reminded of. Work things out on what she calls the "Inner Plane" - work things out on the level of imagination, thought, intention, will, inspiration, the place where we connect most directly and most deeply with the gods and with Spirit and with the Song of the World - and they will work themselves out on the physical level. I always believed that love will work its own way out. I want to believe that. But I am at a loss as to what to do magically to help this situation. I'm not sure what kind of work can be done. Calling on Emily's higher self or whathaveyou.... Doing some kind of banishing or binding..... I don't know what work needs to be done. I'm unclear about where the problem lies, and unclear about our intentions and how we can or should shape them.

I don't know what work needs to be done on myself, either, for that matter. To make me stronger, calmer, better able to handle the strain of this work. I want to believe this is like the crucible where I am being melted down to be refined, shaped into a sharper instrument, a better vessel for Spirit. But instead, it just feels like a coffin, a tomb, with the pressure of earth - all the material weight of the world and its fucked up practicality - bearing down on me so that I can hardly breathe. I need to find a creative way to overcome this, to push through this. Or maybe not push, even, but simply to get through it somehow.

I've been doing a lot of crying recently. Weirdly, that seems to help. Just allowing myself to grieve over this situation - the whole situation - and its injustice and cruelty and frustration. I feel blocked creatively, it's been so long since I had that Fire in the Head, that spark of inspiration. I sit down to write, and nothing comes but the same dull old rote, the same superficial rot that everyone writes. I have nothing to say. I am in no position to say anything at all. I'm broken down into silence and sorrow.

Anne Lamott says there are only two prayers really that we say in our heart of hearts: Help me! Help me! Help me! and Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

It feels like so long since I was able to pray with gratitude - all my prayers are just the grunts and groans of the beast of burden trudging along beneath the yoke, asking for some leniency, for a rest, for a burst of energy to get me through, for a better way. I am not happy, I am just surviving, getting by. I worry about myself - that I might be in the midst of a depression. I know I've been here before, when I just can't see the end to the work and the work itself seems pointless and not any good or help to anyone, and all I want is to die. Not literally, but to die to this old, feeble self that isn't any good for the task at hand. To find some release from the blockage, to become some slip of a thing, a ghost that can pass through to a new place.

But then I get angry that I am always having to die, that this is such a never-ending process of being remade, that I should always have to be facing some new obstacle or problem instead of settling down into a stable, steady life of happy productivity and contentment. I resent that there should always be this pressure on me, that I should always be expected to use all my strength. What if I want to put my strength towards some purpose that I choose, pursue something that I love or want. It feels as though I didn't choose this, though I guess there is the argument that actually I did, at least at some level. That I might be the one putting the pressure on myself, and that it might go away if only I would just stop.... just makes me angrier. I don't know how to simply stop, especially when there seems to be no good solution and passivity just seems likely to make things worse. I feel chained down, and yet there's that part of me that wonders - that worries - that the chains are as thin as a spider's silk that I could break in a heart beat if I wanted to.... so why don't I? I know about freedom - and the very moment when you realize you are free is the same moment you see that you have been free all along - so why don't I feel free? What level of consciousness am I pushing towards, here? And why isn't it enough to just stay where I am? I do not believe in this eternal progression or working towards salvation - so what exactly is the point of all this pointless struggling?

~~~

Last night, I was up until at least midnight. Jeff was snoring, so he slept in the den, and I spent a good deal of time crying and praying and blowing my nose and watching the cat adjust and readjust himself in the next of blankets at my feet. I prayed to Brigid and Manannan, asking for their help and guidance, asking them what I should do.

And the thing is, simply crying, allowing myself to sob, I sank deeper even than the constant strain of stress and frustration that has been weaving through my life these days - and there, underneath, was still that inexplicable and strange pulse of fierce joy. Somehow, even that deep, there was fierce joy. How could there be joy there, and if it is there, why can't I bring it through, bring it up to manifest in my everyday life and the lives of those I love? Why should such a fierce joy wallow like a dark puddle at the very bottom of a dank and collapsing well - why shouldn't it rise with all its power and strength to overwhelm the stupidity and stress of the every day and open the way, like a surging wave or wellspring or an all-consuming fire? Why should I have to sink so low to dip my hands into a small and muddy pool? It is not fair! Why shouldn't love and joy rise up to wash everything clean and clear away the debris? Why shouldn't it break up this heavy fog of confusion and pressure with sunlight burning off the mist of morning? I know it's there! What keeps it from rising up to manifest?

Is it me? Am I keeping it down? How could I be responsible for that, when I feel so helpless and impotent so much of the time? When I've been working so hard to clear the way and nothing seems to help? This fierce joy that lies like a vast ocean beneath and in all things - how could I be enough to block it, and why would I? I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do, or how I'm supposed to do it. I don't know what will help, and what will hinder. I don't know how to stop being a blockage and become a better vessel.

That's what I want to know.

Diary - Dream & Manannan

Sun: taurus (fixed earth), 6:03am - 8:30pm
Moon: *full moon, scorpio (fixed water)
Earth: gray, drizzly, rainy and cool all day

I woke up this morning (around 5 AM) from a very intense dream once again involving a sea god or man deeply connected with the sea, who I'm almost sure is Manannan.

This dream started out as similar to a dream I had a few weeks ago focused on anxiety about the upcoming wedding. In this dream, like the first wedding dream, I was stressed out about the wedding happening "too soon" and thus our wedding guests not taking it seriously — but "too soon" in the dream meant not our set wedding date in September, but right now, this instant. In the dream, I was not engaged to Jeff but to some other man. I don't think I ever saw him in the dream, but I had an impression of him being shorter and stockier than Jeff, darker in hair and complexion and rather rough and harsh. I was set to marry him "in May" (in other words, within the next few weeks), and I was somewhere resembling something like a beach house with my parents and a number of other people, some of whom were my family members and some not.

While there, I met a man and fell passionately in love with him, in the kind of deep-longing-to-be-together-but-never-really-consummating kind of way. The magnetism or connection between us was palpable, as it was in my previous dream about being mistaken for a priestess of the sea god. I felt like my heart was breaking open, but not exactly in sadness. We spent time together on the beach, and during the course of our conversations it became clear that if I tried to enter into some kind of friendship or relationship with him — even if it could not be a romantic one — this would fundamentally change my relationship with my fiancé. I wanted desperately to delay the wedding until the appropriate time (in September) so that I could spend the next months exploring my connection with this man of the sea, and I knew that if I did that, then the man I eventually married would be changed — I would not marry the dark, short, stocky man that I might marry "in May," but would instead end up marrying Jeff as I actually know him — but this was not because the person I was marrying would literally change and I would marry someone else… it was as though the darker man would somehow transform into Jeff through my relationship with the sea god.

This was all very confusing, but I knew that I wanted to explore the relationship with the mysterious man that I felt such a connection to. Still, I couldn't bring myself to let my family know or tell anyone, so I just tried to think of reasons to delay the wedding. I would meet him covertly, among other friends, as though he just happened to be a mutual acquaintance. Once, when out swimming in the ocean, he caught up to me in the deep waters where we could be alone. He said he had a gift for me, then dove down into the depths, not resurfacing for a long time. When he did finally resurface, he was pulling up from beneath the waters a huge ship, its wood creaking and spilling water from it. Friends from shore saw the boat and came out to see, so that soon everyone was clambering on board to explore (while I still stayed treading water next to him in the ocean). On one part of the deck of the ship was a hole in the boards which was covered over and seemed almost to be surrounded by dirt mounded up with bits of grass growing around it. It looked very much like a well of some kind, like you might find on land. Someone asked about it, and the sea-god-man warned them not to open it — they thought it was just a hatch down below deck, but he said (or made me to understand, at least) that it wasn't. Actually, it was a well, a kind of portal that dropped straight down into the depths of the ocean/underworld. He made me to understand that I could stay and live with him on the ship out on the ocean, but even there, I couldn't always be with him. Everyone once in a while, he would have to open the cover of the well and drop down into the very depths, where I could not follow him, and we would be parted. The notion of being parted from him was painful, but in a way that seemed like a noble sacrifice that was well worth it.

Soon after understanding the purpose of the well on the ship, I woke up.

So a great deal to mull over and contemplate in this latest dream (including the question of why I seem to be able to connect with Manannan so much better in dreams than during my ritual times with hi — or, I guess, why he chooses to show up at one time instead of another).

Part of what fed into this dream, I think, was my emotional state last night, spurred on by (yes, I'm a nerd) finally watching the Doctor Who specials from the year between the end of the fourth season and the beginning of the fifth with the 11th Doctor (that obnoxious actor guy who isn't David Tennant). David Tennant as the Doctor saw me through some pretty brutal, lonely times during those years of solitude and poverty — as well as the first few months of my budding romance with Jeff when we finally met in person for the first time (we spent several nights curled up on the futon watching Doctor Who, and then lapsing into make-out sessions while the TARDIS churned on the DVD menu screen ;). For the two or so years since then, I couldn't bring myself to watch the final episodes of Season Four (when the Doctor definitively loses both Rose and Donna, his best friend) for a second time… until just a few weeks ago when Jeff and I decided to go ahead and do it because we were going to start watching them over again with a friend of ours during a weekly "Night of Doctor Who" get together. Just last night, we watched the Special when the 10th Doctor dies. I cried like a baby. Like, we're talking sobs.

Several hours later, when we were settling into bed, I started crying again in a kind of odd mixture of sobs and laughter…. I can't describe exactly why I was crying, but it wasn't just about some silly TV show. I was remembering who I was during those years of deep, wrenching loneliness, and in some ways, I felt like I was mourning that Alison who had to live through those years. I rarely think about that time of my life these days, and my life now seems full of lots of little stresses and anxieties… and yet, now I am so amazingly happy and grateful that it's almost like I can't really allow myself to fully feel that joy, or I'd just be wandering around like a grinning idiot all the time. So there was this weird, sublime tension between my deep grief for that Alison of memory who is, in some ways, always going to be there, in that past, alone and weeping… and at the same time realizing how utterly ridiculous I was for not opening more fully to the joy of my present life. The only way I coped with those years of heartache was to embrace that loneliness and learn to grieve openly and cleanly, so that grieving became a process of healing and an affirmation of life. Now, I have so much to be grateful and joyful about… and yet I'm busy pushing myself, always striving, and beating myself up for not accomplishing more, not moving my career forward as quickly as I want to, not being as good a stepmom as I want to be, etc. All these stresses that, really, aren't that big a deal. Last night, it was as if I was again that sorrowing Alison of memory, only now I was looking forward at my life today… and laughing at how silly I can be, never cutting myself any slack or letting myself enjoy a rest. The whole metaphor of "regeneration" in the Doctor Who series, and this idea that the new Doctor is not really the same even if he has all the same memories… that's kind of what I felt like. Except, I don't want to forget the sadness and grief and loneliness of who I was before. I want to honor the lessons that sorrow and solitude taught me, and be more present to the very real joy in my life right now.

So before going to bed, I had resolved to develop some meditative/ritual practice to help me cultivate my joy and offer it as a gift, as I once did with my loneliness, to my gods and to Spirit and the Song of the World. I didn't know exactly what kind of practice this would be, but I wanted to pursue it. So it's not that much of a surprise to me that this kind of intense emotional turmoil and catharsis last night brought on dreams once again of Manannan. He always seems connected, for me, to that liminal state between sorrow and joy, grief and gratitude. The longing to be with him — and the wrenching awareness that I can't ever be, not really, not permanently — is a theme in so many relationships in my life (and one reason I think I found the Doctor so resonant and moving as a character). That I'm in a good, happy, stable relationship now doesn't really change that. In some ways, Manannan is reminding me, I think, that even with those we love, there are dark places we cannot touch and depths to which we cannot follow, and that as close as I feel to Jeff, I cannot take our relationship for granted. If I do, then the person I am marrying won't really be Jeff, but some shallower version of him more prone to my projections, more of a stranger than the man I love. But if I work to cultivate my joy and my gratitude and my love, especially in the depths where all becomes liminal and the autumn mists rise, then in the coming months my relationship with Jeff will deepen and blossom even more, and our marriage will truly be one of souls in love. I remember in the dream, understanding that it was important to wait until September, and spend time with this Man of the Sea, so that when the time came for me to marry, my marriage would blessed by the cool mists of autumn.

~

Ellen on the LotS SIG asked what I do during a "Seakeeping" shift with Manannan, so I thought I would share my response to her here.

Honestly, at this point, my practice with Manannan is still in its infancy, taking many stumbling baby-steps. My basic pattern for ritual work is the same I use for Brigid during my Cauldron Cill Flamekeeping shift. I begin my shift at sundown of the appropriate day, opening with a small, simple ritual of welcome.

For Brigid, I have prayers that I use to more fully invite her presence into my life and to charge/consecrate anew the flame pendant that I wear during my Flamekeeping shift. I light a physical candle during this ritual, even if I'll only be able to keep an LED one "burning" during the shift itself, and I pass the pendant above the flames while chanting, "Fire and Water in the Earth of my body, I keep your Sacred Flame." I don't really have a similar thing to do for Manannan, though I've been thinking for a while of finding either a shell pendant to wear, or a ring made of shell (like those hokey ones you can get at beach tourist gift shops). Instead of lighting a candle, I have a blue pitcher that I fill with water which I'll hold between my hands to charge, then pouring libation into my offering bowl (and taking a sip to honor the Spirit/god within). I do have a large whelk shell that was a gift from the sea when I was down at the beach last fall that I also bless. Afterwards, for both Flamekeeping and Seakeeping, I spend some time in meditation and prayer, maybe doing some trance work if I have the stamina for it, and usually concluding the ritual with a divination. During the next 24ish hours, I keep/carry/wear the symbol of my shift with me (and for Brigid, keep either a real or LED flame burning) as a reminder and object of focus for my shift. The next night at sundown, I do a closing ritual where I thank the god/dess for the gifts they've brought into my life, and basically do a kind of "unwinding" (for Brigid, this kind of takes the form of a metaphorical "smooring the fire" for safekeeping until my next shift).

This works very well for Brigid… but I'm finding that for Manannan, it's not jiving as well. For one thing, the metaphor of the flame or fire as something that requires tending (and then can be "smoored") means that the activity of the Flamekeeping shift is actually, well, active, even if only in a metaphorical sense. I feel like I'm actually doing something during my Flamekeeping shift, and usually my creativity feels a bit heightened. During my Seakeeping shifts, though, I've more often felt at a loss for what I was supposed to be doing… There was kind of a sense of the ocean not really being something that needs tending or "keeping," and lighting a candle just feels more active then filling a bowl with water (which will slowly evaporate over the next month, whether I pay attention to it or not). I think this may be one area where I need to rethink the Seakeeping shift and how I approach it. I'm exploring the idea of incorporating some ritual practice that's more about opening myself up to receptivity and relaxing into the presence of Manannan, and not so much about the active engagement and honoring that I do with Brigid during my Flamekeeping… if that makes sense. Some kind of ritual bath would probably be good in this case, but not always possible depending on where I am and what my schedule is.

Like I mentioned already, what I'd really like is to be able to develop some unique rituals for each of the Flamekeeping and Seakeeping shifts, particular to the energies of those deities, but then have one or two practices that I do during both that kind of connect or help to integrate them in some way. (I'm thinking, for instance, of the "Running the Iron/Pearl Pentagrams" in Feri, though I know very little about that other than their names, or the Turning the Three Cauldrons meditation that I've heard about here and there.) So that's where I'm at right now. Trying to find some kind of ritual that is simple enough and practical enough that I can actually commit to doing it regularly… but is also effective and ritually/symbolically meaningful and fitting…. So, lots to think about and experiment with.

Brigid Star Fire, An Imbolc Meditation

I began in a field, a green expanse full of flowers and bright sunlight unrolling on all sides. A figure danced in green and gold rippling, barely distinguishable at first from the wind shifting and dancing through the long grasses — yet as she moved closer, I was able to make her out. Eyes that flashed black and full of stars, a glimpse here and there in her turning and spiraling of a darkness, glinting cold and dark, then slipping, spinning back into green and gold. The mantle she wore spun out around her as she turned and danced, the colors of its threads flung out like sparks from a fire, leaping, or like flower petals of purple crocuses and myriad colored wildflowers — some falling to the ground to spring up as blossoms from scattered seeds, while others fluttered, took flight as a thousand butterflies flirting with the warm breeze.

So unlikely a scene, in the midst of this cold and bitterly long winter, that it took me a moment to adjust, to sink more deeply into the sense of place and allow myself to enter, to engage, the awakened land. The candle on my altar — the golden fire-in-the-water afloat among golden flecks of glitter in the blue bowl, the flame of transformation and forge fire that marked the opened center way — hissed and sparked as it consumed the offering of butter. On either side, the red candle of fire, poetry and inspiration and the blue candle of water, healing and integration burned steadily in their holders. But my eyes were closed, as I sunk deeper into trance. The green, gold meadow grew more intense in my mind's eye as I slipped down into my true center.

What is this dancing? I asked her, running to keep up as she laughed and twirled. What do you have to teach me, Brigid? Is spring here already? It seems so cold still. She seemed to ignore my half-frantic questions, challenging me with her movements to stay on my toes. Suddenly, she flopped down in the grass like a small girl, giggling, laying on her stomach propped up on her elbows, running her fingers through the grasses and flower blossoms. Her gold-flamed auburn hair fell around her face in braids, and the soles of her bare feet were slightly darkened with the dirt of the earth. I looked more closely at where her fingers were playing and dancing through the rich flora of the meadow. She plucked a white-fuzzed sphere of a dandelion and sat up, cross-legged, and held it up between us for me to examine. "Funny," she mused, "How the same flower that can be so golden and bright as the sun — turns to white, soft fluff carried on the wind when it goes to seed...." She took a deep breath and blew, closing her eyes for a moment as if making a wish. The we both watched as the seeds one by one let loose and drifted like snow across the wide field — some snagging in the nearby grasses and trembling there, others carried far and high until they were lost to our sight against the bright sky. "How much they look like tiny stars!" Brigid exclaimed, and she was on her feet again, running and dancing among the flowers. The field seemed suddenly full of dandelions, most of them golden yellow and bristling with sunshine. When Brigid found one ready to seed, a crystal fuzz-ball of intricate webbing in white, she'd flick it with her toe as she danced past, sending the seeds scattering to the wind.

But, I called out, what about my work? What work should I be doing? I have been so tired, it's so hard for me to work up the energy to stick to a discipline. You are the Goddess of the Forge, of the steady and unglamorous work of transformation! Don't you have any advice for me? She laughed with that laugh that always seems to mean, "You just don't get it, darling!" She continued dancing through the green, sun-bathed fields, calling out behind her, "The dandelion is not always sunny. Sometimes it must go to seed to survive, sometimes it must put down deep roots! Not every season is the season of discipline and work! Things change! I am not just a goddess of transformation — I am also the goddess of inspiration!" As if in response to these words, on my altar the red candle sparked and hissed, and its flame danced in its holder. "Now it's time for you to indulge in some joy, my darling!" Brigid announced, catching me up with her hands and swinging me around trying to urge me to dance. "Now is a time for the joy of inspiration — do what brings you joy, find again the playfulness in yourself. Now is not a time for work — I am sick of work — now is the time to play! As the spring comes and the days warm, play and be joyful! These are your duties now, to dance the spring in, to welcome it as it deserves!"

Her words kept coming, urging me to seek again the source of my joy, to sing my soul-song in playful notes, and set aside my worries about obligation and progress. Moved by her words, I joined her dancing, and together we spiraled and swirled and skipped through the grasses, singing and laughing beneath a high, bright sky. After a time, I asked her, Should I — I mean, you are my goddess. Should I take an oath to you, a formal vow? She scoffed kindly at my question. But others in our group have done so — and I have no doubt in my heart that I am devoted to you... Her dance slowed beside me so that she could gaze more deeply into my eyes. "For others," she said, "An oath is like the spiderweb that connects and weaves them together in my service — and it is on those strands that the jewels of transformation, devotion and inspiration collect like dew. But you — you are already too full of duties and responsibilities, shouldering too much of the world as an obligation. No, you do not need to make any more promises to me that you have not already made. What you need to learn.... is a little bit of joy and freedom!" And with that, we were spinning again, dancing. The red candle on the altar sparked and danced along.

And as the trance deepened, as I slipped in and out of the rhythm of the spiraling dance across the meadow, it seemed that suddenly she caught me up in an embrace full of passion and joy, kissing me deep on the mouth — her breath becoming my breath, sweet and warm with the scent of flowers and greenery in springtime. I opened my arms to embrace her, and found I was embracing nothing but breeze and sunlight, as my body shivered, transfused with a sudden warmth tingling in every cell. She had entered into my body, or merged, or blended — I found myself to now be wearing the lush green robe and mantle hemmed with golden knotwork ribbon weaving its patterns along each edge, and as I spun, it rippled out around me in long undulating waves that seemed the very expression of joy and creativity rooted deep within the earth. The dandelion seeds drifted white around me, and soon the field was full of them, wafting as thick as snow but warm and soft. I found the meadow had grown dark and the seeds drifted upwards to mingle with the stars against the darkness of the night sky. I seemed to hear her voice from within — yet from a great distance — "What you need to learn, child, is how to plant the seeds of joy in your heart and nurture them as they crave. What grows of these — leave that to me...."

Then slipping quickly back, the trance came to an end and I was sitting before my altar again, watching the three flames burning steady and silent in the still air. Dipping my finger in the butter again, I consecrated a fourth candle, a large white pillar in a red-and-orange stained glass hurricane jar. This was to be my flamekeeping candle for the coming year, lit and tended every twenty days during my shift. What promises you have from me are already enough, Brigid? I pray this is so, and that I may keep them dear....