01 November 2001 ~ No wind...

Note: There's a good chance you're not going to be able to handle this. There's also a good chance you're not going to like me much after you read this. They say, after all, never to discuss religion or politics... Well, it is my website, after all, and it's my business, so you can read this, or you don't have to. But if you do, don't say I didn't warn you, and do NOT take it upon yourself to attack my guestbook with your own differing beliefs. It won't be tolerated. On with the game:

* * * * * * * * * * *

I do not consider myself a religious person at all. I do not attend church or temple or whatever. I do not adhere to any of the "normal" rituals of contemporary white, middle-class, protestant, 86-IQ Americans, at least not in the way of worship.

I do NOT like dogma. Of ANY sort.

But that DOESN'T mean I don't have a soul. And it doesn't mean I wouldn't like to let it have some air once in awhile.

So, for the past few years, I've been using the Pagan holidays as excuses to meditate, to think, to worship, to give thanks, and to ask for help.

To clarify: no, I am not "Wiccan," and generally speaking, neither are ninety percent of the people who will tell you that they are. Wicca has its procedures and its specific rituals, and I do not necessarily adhere to those. I do not necessarily believe what Wiccans believe. Defined very loosely, I am a Pagan. But "Pagan," can simply mean somebody who doesn't go to church on Sundays. Orthodox JEWS can be called "Pagans" for gahd's sake. "Paganism" is, obviously, pretty broad. *I* use the word to mean this:

I have a soul. I think everything else has a soul. There is power in everything. There is no such thing as coincidence.

So, last night, on All Hallows' Eve, or Hallowe'en, or Samhain, I collected a little sack of instruments, changed my clothing, and went "out." I did not tell Norman where I was going, and he seemed quite suspicious and asked why I was being "secretive." Why? Because "I'm going for a walk" sounds ridiculous when you're dressed in a floor-length red dress. Because "I'm going out to do a spell," wasn't exactly accurate, and I didn't want to have to explain.

I went to My Place. Everywhere I've ever lived, I've always had one place where I could go, just to think, without being bothered. At my dad's house, there was this tiny round clearing about a half mile away. It always sort of gave me the creeps, but I liked it anyway. In Santa Fe, I'd sneak out at night with a notebook and sit by the Theater building for hours on end, and the whole world was asleep. And if they weren't asleep, at least they weren't bothering me. And in Binghamton, there is this place by the Rivers.

Like I said, I'd packed a little sack full of instruments. A bunch of candles, some incense, two apples, two little dishes, a tiny pentacle that somebody once fashioned for me out of fishing wire or something, and a silver stone that Neil gave me once. I think the stone is unrefined coal. He said he found it in a parking lot. He said it was just a dumb stone, but that it was for luck.

The pentacle represents -- for me -- the elements: earth, air, water, and fire, as well as the life-force. You know, like on "Captain Planet"? Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! By these powers combined, I am CAPTAIN PLANET! Okay, forget it, bad example. No, I'm not trying to base my spiritual practices on a fucking cartoon. Just go with me here. The pentacle represents those things, anyway. The candles are for fire, the incense is for air, one of the dishes is to scoop up some water from the Rivers, and the fourth dish was to hold the little silver stone: earth. The apples were representative of the life-force.

So after you get all this weird stuff together, what do you DO, Helena? Chant and shit?

No. I light the candles, I light the incense, I set up the bowl of water, and I sit in the middle of it and think. I try to clear my mind, and I just think. That's it. And whatever comes to mind is what it's important to think MORE about. Or to work on. You know, in the right frame of mind, I know a HELL of a lot more than I think I know. Maybe my subconscious is just some brilliant little bitch. Maybe the gods and goddesses or whatever there might be are telling me stuff. Maybe it's all in the energies around me. Whatever. All I know is that I've never failed to be inspired by this sort of ritual.

I got down to my place by the Rivers.

Well, kind of...

My place is GONE.

No, it isn't gone. It would be difficult to just shove a field into the River and make it non-existent. It's not GONE exactly...

There's a Caterpillar truck sitting on it. And a nasty little blue Toyota. And some digger-thingys. It's covered in orange and black plastic. The bench that once sat at the top of the little field had been uprooted. There was no grass. NONE. All of the grass was GONE. Not one blade of grass on the whole field. Granted, it's a small field, but imagine, if you can, a small, lush upstate New York field turning into the barren brown DIRT PILE you might see in the Texas panhandle. Think of a nice green field. Now think of dirt. My place isn't gone, but it's destroyed.

Huge tire-tracks cover the dirt where the grass used to be. A long path of large stones runs through the middle of it, as though someone's getting ready to lay down tarmac. Down by the water, the diggers have built an enormous pile of rocks along the edge of the water. Boulders, really. And black plastic things are floating in the water. What have they DONE to my place by the River?

It's not COMPLETELY my place. When it looked sort of promising that I would no longer be living in Binghamton within the year, I began to show it to other people. It's not all that hidden, really, anyway. Lots of people probably know about it. But it's still MY place. Well, it WAS.

I decided to make an attempt at lighting my candles and thinking anyway, although I really just wanted to run away and cry. MY place. A place I could always go to, a place that loved me, that inspired me, that smelled a little bit like dead fish but that was beautiful nonetheless. A place where there were people all around me -- the Rivers flow right through downtown -- but where people didn't bother me, didn't even see me. A place where I used to write stories and pick flowers, and toss things into the Rivers and yell stuff at the forces that be, and share good stuff with the forces that be, and occasionally bring a bottle of alcohol and a lovely companion and drunkenly confess my secrets in between delirious kisses... (Okay, that only happened once, but once was plenty enough to make a fine memory or two...) My place. Gone. What is there LEFT to take away from me?

I set up my candles and my incense. I'd forgotten an incense holder, so I poked the sticks into the top of one of the apples. I took off my shoes and stepped into the water to scoop up a dish full of it. I laid Neil's little silver stone in the other dish.

[I should tell you one other neat thing about all of this... When I do this sort of thing, this kind of "ritual," I am immune to extreme cold and heat. For example, last night it was snowing a little bit, but I didn't feel uncomfortable standing ankle-deep in the Rivers. I also didn't feel uncomfortable when hot wax from the candles fell on my hand. I was not uncomfortable without my heavy leather coat; a light shawl was sufficient to keep the wind out. I cannot explain the reasons for this, but it's quite real...]

So I commenced to think. I couldn't really clear my mind. The boulder on which I sat was hard and uncomfortable. Nothing like the soft grass I used to sit on just a few weeks ago.

I did not have any visions. I never really do. It's not like climbing a hill, lighting a candle, and seeing the face of God or whatever. It's like giving yourself a quiet place in which one can honor nature and the energies therein, and pay attention to one's daydreams. I daydream ALL the time. But I never have a chance to daydream in peace. This was my chance.

I had a little daydream. A brief one. Then, I heard someone behind me. Three little boys in vampire costumes were peering at me from the bridge nearby. Sound carries easily on water, and I heard them asking each other if they thought I was a witch. It was dark, and they probably only saw the candles and the outline of me in my long dress. It was evidently enough to scare them, because they ran away, and that was my signal to pack up and leave. Gahd knows, they probably ran off to tell dear old mommy and daddy they saw a witch down by the Rivers performing evil spells or something, and who KNOWS what might have happened if any adults had come down to see what I was doing. Nothing illegal, I don't think, but STILL...

But in my little daydream, I saw an old man. He was thin and weak, but he glowed with white and blue light. He had white hair, and looked to be dying. In a way, he looked frail, but in a way, he looked terribly wise and vibrant. I thought maybe he was looking at me, sadly and with a great deal of loneliness.

I heard, in my mind, David Gilmour's soft voice sing just one song lyric: "...'cos there's no wind left in my soul and I've grown old..."

And that was that.

As I turned to go, I whispered to my Rivers, "I'm sorry." Sorry? For what? Because someone has destroyed their most beautiful place, I suppose. Because they look so unloved. Because they've had bikes and shopping carts thrown into them. Because, after thousands of years of flowing through this little area, it's taken Binghamton less than 200 years to nearly ruin them. Because their souls are becoming extinct. Because I think I know how the Rivers must feel, if they can feel. Because I know what it's like to have a soul, and to have everybody insist that your soul is not a priority. I know what it's like to be made ugly and sad. To have beautiful things ripped out of me, and be left with nothing but dirt and tire-tracks where there used to be grass and flowers. So I whispered to the Rivers: "I'm sorry." And I tossed one of the apples into the water, where it bobbed off, Westward.

[Samhain is traditionally a time of harvest and thanksgiving, so far as I can recall... Many old nature religions traditionally offered pomegranates or apples to the Goddess and the God as sacrifices, or presents: a way of saying, "yum, food rocks, thanks." I ate the other apple. It tasted like a womb. And a casket.]

So who was the old man supposed to be? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. In the same way that I don't care what Mulholland Drive was about. It had a point, and I FELT it, even if I couldn't give some nice, neat analysis about it. I only know that things are not good. And in this place, in this time, in ME, something is dying, sad and alone. In this place, in this time, in me, something has grown old and has lost its yearning.

Change is needed. Immediately.

Perhaps it's too late. I guess I don't really know.

I walked home. I tried not to cry. It wasn't all that difficult, I was surprised to note. I guess I'm just used to losing things I've loved. It's not that I don't care. It's just that I guess I can't really expect things to last very long...

Fell asleep on the couch watching "Bram Stoker's Dracula." I couldn't give a shit about stupid Hallowe'en vampire movies. They've got their vampire facts all fucked up anyway; even the Binghamton library could tell you that much. Well, it could have before they took all the books out of it and made it into an insurance company or something.

"...there's no wind left in my soul..." --Pink Floyd

~Helena*