After the sun’s eclipse,The brighter angel and the spear which drewA bridal outcry from her open lips,She could not prove it true,Nor think at first of any means to testBy what she had been wedded or possessed.–Richard Wilbur, “Teresa” (1976)
do you think any deity has known depression? they can weave serpents and scorpions from saliva and tears, yet did even one goddess ever experience a dawn without bringing specks into being? did any of the goddesses ever experience a dawn that was not preferable to the nightfall in the sky and in their mind?
would Harriet Tubman think herself a goddess? in a targeted ad on instagram, I saw this jewelry seller suggesting that Tubman is a goddess that survived (or survives, in that poppy, strong-independent-woman archetypal sense); but what are the differences between survivors and fugitives and refugees? aren’t all of these conditions the clearest indicators of a divinity-on-earth that is smoked out with the pollution that raises sea levels and temperatures globally? can you smoke out a goddess?
and if we see Harriet Tubman as a goddess, why shouldn't I see my psychiatrist as one of many diviners? are a physician’s orders not incantations sans structural demonization? what magics are available to me, someone who is not a goddess or a diviner, someone with not a lot of money or capacity for spellbinding or necromancy, someone who wants to touch her grief? (certainly not searching for more SSRIs or textbooks or online courses or candles. but I have found velvet for free and likely pass by medicinal herbs without so much as a whiff of mutual recognition.)
what colors and textures and shapes conjure and configure grief? should i dress myself in these colors and textures and shapes? what magic must I make to adorn myself in the texture of my losses?
if I were to adorn myself in my grief, I’d wear navy blue sweaters and brick red sweaters and white sneakers, maroon t-shirts styled with grey pants. a quilted bag would hold my medications. pearlescent coral lipstick. menthol. unidentified, but not unidentifiable, stains that last through a laundering. a black garden snake dripping in grass clippings and seaweed. George Michael’s cross earring. rain backlit by brake lights, racing and lacy. no vowels or only vowels. a gauzy prayer to “let this place become land for me/ in the midst of the primeval water/ in order that I might rest on it” (Lesko, p. 61). grapes previously stuck in the throat.
***
I haven’t forgotten about this blog. I haven’t been awake enough to work on much more than anything with a deadline. but I have been thinking. always thinking. and with my birthday this past Monday, re-shaping loss with layered color gels. after all, I did get the death card. after all, I did rescue bruised marigolds and other perennial-types from a florist, fashioning them into a bouquet with a garish dunkin’ donuts straw and hair tie as tourniquet.
please remind me I don’t want to do a phd when I am crazed like this, dropping theological nightmares like bombs into my writing. my time would be better spent dyeing fabrics and stapling mesh into all the layers of my grief. remind me that if my life will be a witness to disenfranchised loss, mine and others, then I need more sleep and more butter. I will choose my outfits, my meals, and my company carefully.
clothing, food, and people – the essential components of goddess worship in a world full of death.
in hope for further offerings to you and to me,kay
