Culture Blogs

Women’s Herbal Conference, Glastonbury Goddess Conference, West Kentucky Hoodoo Rootworker Heritage Festival, and other gatherings.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form

The Way We Say Good-Bye

the south altar, dressed for the wake


Several years ago, I met a big loud Irish-American man who told a good tale and couldn't be trusted as far as you could throw him. He was one of those wounded braggarts that seemed so common in the Pagan community in those days--an obnoxious exterior that shielded a deeply flawed and troubled person, a person who wouldn't have been so bad, if he hadn't been raised so rough.

We tested each other's mettle at a local pub where he had a notion that he was a hard drinker and I was after all just a girl. Please don't throw me in that Guinness patch! Needless to say, he didn't regret the craic or the tunes but he also didn't have the satisfaction of drinking the girl under the table.

Too early and after a long and confusing illness, this big man died.  His community came together to send him off to Tir Nan Og on a bitterly cold evening, made colder by that crap we call "Pagan Standard Time."  We might could have honored him if we'd started the outdoor rites before the sun set on the western hills. But we started in the darkness and the cold and we shivered and our teeth chattered. At one point I realized my boots had frozen to the ground.

There've been many deaths in the long years of our young community and we are in an age now where the Elders (who don't seem so much older than me any more) are passing the dark veil into the land of memory. Since that frozen funeral, I've been present for the celebrations of many rich lives and each commemoration is the same and each is very different indeed.

We're coming to terms now with what happens when a Pagan dies--what shape the rites can take, what grave goods and music we can reasonably bring to a funeral that may include family members of the beloved dead who are still Presbyterians or Baptists or observant Jews.

Tonight a small group of us gathered to honor a great teacher, writer and scholar--someone who had influenced our own work or our practice or our lives. She wasn't a close friend to any of us but several of us knew her or had worked with her or had met her.  And here's how we said good-by--we set up a memorial altar in the South and we reset the North altar (which still holds its Ancestral votives). We made a 7 day candle with Pat's picture on it. We brought food and drink--a mod version of colcannon, a traditional soda bread, sweet potatoes, clementines, hummus and three kinds of Irish whiskey.

We read the prayers for the dead from Caitlin Matthews and we sang songs and we told stories of how we knew her. We read some of her poetry and hunks of lovely prose from some of her books.  We sang a song to Brigid the Gold-Red Woman and we reprised  "Hoof and Horn" which we sing throughout the Samhain season.

Then we ate and laughed and talked about that tatty giftshop at the foot of the Hill of Tara.  We drank to her memory and we cried a little. Then we tidied the place up and blew out the candles. We reset the chairs for tomorrow's devotional at the temple and we put on our cloaks against the cold of the night and we all went away home.

That is how we said good-bye to Patricia Monaghan tonight--with a sharp sickle of the Moon above us, songs in our throats and life shining through our runny eyes.

Last modified on
H. Byron Ballard is a ritualist, teacher, speaker and writer. She has taught at Sacred Space Conference, Pagan Unity Festival, Southeast Her essays are featured in several anthologies, including “Birthed from Scorched Hearts“ (Fulcrum Press), “Christmas Presence“ (Catawba Press), “Women’s Voices in Magic” (Megalithica Books), “Into the Great Below” and “Skalded Apples” (both from Asphodel Press.) Her book Staubs and Ditchwater: an Introduction to Hillfolks Hoodoo (Silver Rings Press) debuted in June 2012. Byron is currently at work on Earth Works: Eight Ceremonies for a Changing Planet. Contact her at info@myvillagewitch.com,

Comments

  • Hec
    Hec Sunday, 18 November 2012

    May the Goddess guard her. May she find her way to the Summerlands. May her friends and family know peace.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGNLLJz4Ajw

  • Byron Ballard
    Byron Ballard Sunday, 18 November 2012

    Thanks, dear sister. May she be well remembered.

  • Diotima
    Diotima Sunday, 18 November 2012

    And bless you, my dear, for always being there to do what needs to be done for your tribe. "The owl flew low tonight. The hare knew why"

  • Byron Ballard
    Byron Ballard Sunday, 18 November 2012

    Priestessing really is a service industry. :>) Thanks, dear one. Your kind words--and beautiful quote--brought a few tears.

  • Please login first in order for you to submit comments

Additional information