Osatara and the Moon of Mourning
Thursday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Her memorial service and each of those who attended. Each person who has Kate in their heart right now. Ruth, who offered to stay with me last night and the night before. And, did. Jon, who saw Kate’s spirit before she died. Gabe. Kep and Rigel. The Woolly Mammoths.
Sparks of Joy: Ritual and its healing power. Sitting shiva. SeoAh’s arrival.
Wednesday I drove down the hill on an icy Shadow Mountain Drive. Evergreen Memorial Park. Finish the details of Kate’s cremation. When I left, as I realized suddenly what I had done, I had to stop, put my hand out and steady myself on the door jamb. Goodbye to the earthly container, the thing of Malkut.
Kate has returned to the cycle of life, ready to join the upcoming surge of spring and the growth of Beltane. As you, as I, move through this turning of the Great Wheel, she can walk with us, point out the energy and the power from her side of the veil. The gardener in her delights in this time and I delight in it with her.
As her condition deteriorated, I bought two sets of emergency call lights, synched them and place them around the house and up in the loft. We never used them. This morning, when I came up to the loft to write this, the receiver next to my computer blinked off and on, blue light flickering. I plan to let it blink until it runs out of energy.
We decided that I would I sit shiva, go through the mourning rituals. And, I am. There’s a lot about it that I don’t understand, most of the rules I don’t know, but CBE will guide me through it. Rabbi Jamie and my buddy Alan Rubin.
The torn garment, or torn ribbon, represents rending of life by the fact of death. I’m choosing a black ribbon to tear.
Not sure whether we’ll do seven nights (shiva means seven), probably not, but on Sunday night there will be a shiva minyan, requiring at least 10 members. A service very like the one done on Wednesday will be held.
Of all the statements made about Kate over the last week, the one that touched my heart most came from Lisa Deutsch, a CBE member and member of the Thursday mussar group Kate and I attended, “She was,” Lisa wrote, “what you would call a good Jew.” That makes me so happy because Kate considered her Jewishness a primary fact of her life, one she was only able to honor fully after we joined CBE.
