Requiem

We are once again at the place in the spiral of our seasons when Life dries and crinkles at the edges like brown oak leaves. I was born here on this curve and emerged covered in the scent of the death of whatever came before me. Dark-eyed and silent, like the Autumn itself, I arrived on All Souls Day and they had to baptize me twice, three times to make me stay. I seemed reluctant to be born {I was two weeks late} and suspicious of this Life in all its brilliant newness. “How like a Scorpio…” all the astrologers say. How like someone who was born during the parting of the veil, unsure of which side to call Home. 

My life has required many a funeral and I am someone well-acquainted with the process of composting. Not that I do it well by any means, my regenerative process contains an awful lot of awkward thrashing and violent death throes for someone who was born stained by Samhain. You’d think I’d be “good” at the Dying part by now and not feel like every Autumn was here to strip me from existence forever, but no. I fight it ~ as David Foster says, “...everything I’ve let go of has claw marks on it…” I resist the dying out, the fading, the letting go, the releasing, the burying, the death-like rest that comes once the soil has settled over me. As a ‘child of the thinning veil’, I am learning to sing those death songs, to offer masses for the skins which tighten and die and then must be shed, to light a candle for the loss of things no longer belonging to me, to lay down in Hope of the Spring that will resuscitate these dusty bones of mine. Does the caterpillar feel this depth of resistance as it dissolves in its chrysalis? Does it also feel hope, or curiosity at least? Maybe this isn’t a ‘Scorpio thing’ so much as this is the part of BEING {whether plant, animal, bug or human} that Scorpio is here to give us the ability to experience and express. The Scorpio season can be our opportunity to offer up our own eulogies, to wail by open graves we’ve dug ourselves, to buy ourselves flowers knowing that the next step is being born again. 

It’s true, those of us with our Sun painted in Scorpio’s colors may exist like concentrated pockets of this energy, everywhere we go we bring a bit of Samhain with us, everything we touch tends to transform in some way, but the experience of death and rebirth belongs to any and all Beings which participate in existence. Halloween is for everyone, right? We all have a space in us which is devoted to keening the mass for That Which is Now Gone {For Now}; a quiet chapel or woodland glade or garden compost pile devoted to the Rot, the Death which is the true womb of Life. It may be intimidating for us to visit this place, but what a wonderful practice for us to embrace while we are surrounded by a world which gathers with us in its mourning and its releasing and its burying in Hope. Earth, which knows that Death means going home, returning to the Soil and the Stars and engaging once again in intimate connection with Every Thing. 

This is an interesting, if challenging perspective to hold concerning what we let go of, whether it’s a storyline in your life that has now ended, a relationship severed, a job left, a mindset that has become too small, or a dream that is now without a heartbeat. Whatever we keen, whatever we bury, whatever we release, becomes compost for whatever is next to be born. It isn’t “lost”, simply planted, offered to the loving hands of Death to be composted into the very stuff from which Life is brought. 

Flower Essences for Writing {and Singing} Your Requiem:

Called “Holy Herb” by the peoples who lived in relationship with it for generations, Yerba Santa has a very unique way of dredging up the “sludge” which settles in the respiratory system during illness. Energetically, Yerba Santa is worked with as a flower essence to “scrub” our inner spaces from the tar-like wastes that may have accumulated. I think of this plant when we have something that is dead but we are reluctant to let it go, unwilling to bury it. We are not meant to be in a state of stagnant rot, it must be put back into the earth so that it can be transformed. Yerba Santa helps us to release those things we might be clinging to long after their expiration date, or the things that cling to US which need to move on. 

~What is it you carry that you are being called to release and bury? What sticks to you like tar, what is unwilling to let go? What keeps you hovering in the liminal space between dying and rebirth?

Here comes Ghost Pipe, like the pale hospice nurse with a cold compress and kind eyes, come to hold your hand during the passing. This ghost-like ‘plant which is not a plant’ has often been in the position of offering relief during the darkest of times. It is familiar with keening, and begging and the reluctance of Life in Pain. As an herb, we look to Ghost Pipe to release us from agony, to help us “stand beside” our pain ~both mental and embodied~ and have compassion for it. It offers the sweetness of severance. Energetically, we work with the essence of this graveside ally when we are lost in pain, swallowed by grief, overwhelmed by loss. It supports us in the grieving and tethers us to the loving earth so that we are not lost completely. Ghost Pipe can also support us when we hold too tightly to that which is hurting us; the time has passed for us to let it go and yet we find ourselves unable to. Ghost Pipe feels like gentle fingers opening a hot, tight fist. 

~ Where is this point of pain in you? Where is your grief standing, what does it weep beside? What/Who holds your hand in this moment? Where do you turn to be held and comforted? 

One of my absolute favorite plant beings to work with, Walnut is an essence we work with when we are in the fragile and volatile state of Transition. As a tree, Walnut emits a toxin from its roots to discourage the growth of competing plant life, creating a safe “bubble” for it to grow and thrive within. I often offer Walnut to folks who are struggling to maintain their course, who have the desire to move forward, to grow and evolve but find themselves vulnerable in their “cocoon” stage. Maybe it’s relationship strings that are knotted and entwined, a habit that won’t break all the way, perhaps it’s a mindset or thought pattern that just won’t shift. Being able to decompose and recompose oneself in safety is very important. It is delicate work, compost, and Walnut allows us to form a container in which to create it and then foster new life from it. 

~What is pawing at the grave of that which you have buried? What threatens to distract and disengage you from the work of creating compost from what has been released/lost/given?

Evergreen Pine with its fragrant wood, fat and oozing with life and vitality; I am brought to ancient practices involving its resin to purify burial places and graveyards. Representing immortality and Life’s insistence on continuing, Pine offers hope that spices the air and revitalizes the body. As an essence, we look to this ally for support in evolving into the next phase or evolution of our lives by releasing the regrets, guilts, “shoulds” that need to be buried with the old skins. Few things dig as deeply and with as sharp claws as regret and shame ~ they have a sort of “zombifying” effect on us, we live on but it’s in a state of decomposition. It’s not the clean rot of garden compost, or the rest of conscious burial, it’s carrying the stench of Dying around with us, IN us. That is the kind of purification I see Pine offering, whether it’s the guilt or remorse from some thing we’ve done, or shame that’s been put onto us from an outside force, we can offer it a proper burial and give it rest so that we step back into life “free and clear”.

~What gangrene needs to be addressed? Are you carrying zombified shame, guilt, regret like a funeral bouquet? What “should’ves” need to be given a proper burial?

*Flower essences are a wonderful modality to weave into your ‘web of well-being’ that might also include community support, somatic therapies, talk therapy, raging against the machine, journalling, spiritual practices, herbal supplements, laughing, dancing, painting, ritual work, divination, and of course, pharmaceutical supports. I in no way offer these essences or my thoughts about them as replacements or alternatives. Weave a wide, strong web and be well, my friend. Thank you for being here.