dancingmoon
This week has had a disappointing setback for one of my children and it has me set me in reflective mode on life in general. This time of year is meant to be celebratory in our household and it still will be as it is my youngest girl’s birthday at the weekend, she being our very own Easter bunny as she was born early on an Easter Sunday morning twenty-seven years ago on Saturday. And as life is reemerging from the wraps of winter and the sun makes its steady upward progress, life should feel good, but then comes a hit to the plan, a spanner in the wheel of life and it can often seem the worst thing ever, but perhaps, if a new perspective can be found, might it be a blessing in disguise?

Just to be clear I am not in a morose or depressed frame of mind, just reflective really. Easter/Ostara, or what ever we choose to call this time of year, can take on a different meaning as the years race on. The new lambs in the fields bouncing and charging about the place, full of enthusiasm and verve are joyous to behold, for me they are the true heralds of spring. A when you put them alongside the brilliance of the brash daffodils, the raucous activity of the birds and the budding, bursting world of action and diversity all around, life seems unstoppable, and yet I feel a tinge of sadness to it all. Ironically it is precisely at the moment that life is bursting free of winter’s constraints that I feel the deepest connection to its swan song. I want to wrap it all up and keep this moment in my heart for ever, but it’s such a fleeting thing, all the more bright and beautiful precisely because it’s so short lived.

Perhaps that’s the message of the crone aspect of life? After all I am a woman of a ‘certain age’ so there are changes occuring within my mind and body that are at times scary, occasionally they produce overwhelming sensations of suffocating claustrophobia as I contemplate my mortality and the inevitable outcome to my life’s journey. In truth there is a degree of panic that rises if I dwell on the idea that I, most likely, have less time ahead of me than behind. Yet at the same time I am less anxious about life and its general ups and downs, I am finally starting to settle into that classic ‘Been there, done that and seen too much to sweat the small stuff’ attitude that older folk generally frustrate the younger with. What the youngsters cannot see yet is that life is an endless cycle and no matter how you shout at the world, some things will always be the same. Mind you that doesn’t mean I don’t sweat the big stuff that affects us all, that righteous sword of justice we should all bear will never sleep in my hand. I will wave it over my head and point it angrily in the general direction of whom ever or what ever I deem an outrageous affront to our extended communities health and well being.

Life is a roller coaster of a ride that only seems to gather speed as it goes on and you cannot fathom how there won’t be an all mighty crash at the end of it. That can mean that every now and then I will find myself on this white knuckle ride, with my eyes tight shut, screaming with my lungs fit to burst and wishing to the gods this bit was over. However, even when I am in that state of blind panic, the goddess will still drop eggs of potential and potency in my lap and I know it’s up to me to catch them, if I dare let go of the rail. So as I hurtle out of another minor dip on my roller coaster ride, I only have one eye tight shut and am issuing forth only a bit of a scream, with the other eye I am looking skyward for the goddess’s, egg dispensing minion to drop another life enhancing nugget of potential my way, or chocolate, chocolate would definitely be good too.

So my uplifting thought for this day/week of reflection is, to paraphrase that great legend I attempt to live by these days, ‘Life is too short to stay for long in the dips and I shant walk meakly to my final resting place. No! I shall skid sideways, after being derailed by the final cosmic spanner from my rollercoaster, in my cardboard, biodegradable cart, to come crashing to rest in a nice woodland burial plot, hooting with laughter at the obsurdness of it all and shouting see you on the otherside.’

Happy Easter or Ostara how ever you celebrate.