My friends and I semi-joke that “aligning yourself with the cycles of nature” is more than a vague mental wisdom-thing. Once you’re Pagan and have been practicing for a while, celebrating the Sabbats, etc., everything falls in line with them as well. Emotions, stress, et al. Things will blow up just in time for you to realize that the next Sabbat is right around the corner.
Fuck ritual being a nice idea. By each Sabbat, you end up NEEDING ritual!
But I guess that’s all part of the plan, right? Needless to say, my Beltane this year was a rather solemn one. Western Massachusetts was overcast on Saturday, the day we’d intended for festivities. I danced the maypole for my first time, weaving yellow-happy-friendliness towards my personal process into my life and spent the day in the woods at a bonfire Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (drinking alcohol out of teacups can be arduous, especially when you’re switching seats every 5 minutes). In the midst of the casual frivolity and my desire to honor the day, it was hard to deter my mind from my recently ended relationship and what the future might hold for my love life.
Love life – it’s a funny phrase. It seems to be the main obsession in pop culture with even the most die-hard subscribers to mass culture checking their daily horoscopes to see what their hearts should be in store for. “How much does he love you?” quizzes abound and our desire to be desired escalates into unhealthy habits, mental and physical. I think I take a bit of pride in my own attempts (mind you, they are attempts) to de-condition myself from this paradigm – to let love and the bonds it creates come into my life as organically as possible while working to better myself and honor my introspective solitude between intimacies.
But as I get older, my desire to have stability with a partner (and perhaps even have a family) becomes more noticeable…
