In September, I helped a friend build a toolkit to prepare for the death of a family member that they wouldn’t be able to be physically present for. That toolkit included a prayer to offer upon first learning of the death. In this time when so many of us will experience that same physically isolated loss, I thought it might be helpful to others, and my friend graciously agreed to let me share it.
In a time when we are barred from many of the conventional rituals of death, spontaneity and organic growth of ritual can be the best way to go – individualized rituals of the heart that truly reflect who your beloved was and who you are. But I find that in that moment when you first hear that someone close to you has died, a shocked numbness often descends. You know you want to do something, but your brain can’t quite get together the what. Having a set prayer or action you can call on every time helps your voice and body keep moving while your brain catches up. If your religion or culture doesn’t have something like this, I humbly invite you to use these words.
A Prayer Upon Learning of a Death
[NAME], I honor the body that you were The words you spoke The passions that moved you The love you shared The life you lived.
These were not always easy to live Or to live with But they were always you, And I honor you in that wholeness.
I grieve that you are no longer a living presence in my life I regret that I could not be with you at the end I allow myself to hurt and to heal Whatever form that takes However long it takes
Whole and holy Earth, take back the body of [NAME] that was formed from you Make new forms and lives from it May a piece of [NAME]’s life infuse the new lives that grow from it. May the passing forms of this life and the tears of our grief sustain the web of your creation.
My wise friend Michael Merriam says, “The perfect is the enemy of the done.” I made a temperature blanket in 2023, and boy howdy does it exemplify that truth.
If you’re not familiar with the concept, a temperature blanket works like this: divide your location’s usual temperature range into segments. Assign each segment a color of yarn, thread, or fabric. Then every day for (usually) a year, crochet/knit/weave/quilt/etc. one row, round, motif, or… whatever in the color that represents that day’s high temperature. Some crafters incorporate secondary colors and/or special stitches for low temperatures, precipitation, or other noteworthy climatological happenings, but the basic concept stays the same.
My 2023 temperature blanket used Heather Love’s Thorofare Temperature Blanket pattern (with minor modification). I finished it on January 3, 2024, which I honestly hadn’t thought I’d do, given the clusterfork the last section was for me. Now that it’s done, I love it (though not as much as our oldest cat does; he’s claimed it as his blanket).
2023 temperature blanket. Thorofare pattern by Heather Love. Blanket and photo by the author.
This blanket taught me so much about both crochet, which I have almost 20 years’ experience with, and myself, which I have over 40 years’ experience with. I share the following reflections (after the cut) to offer future would-be temperature blanket-makers (including Future!Me) food for thought.
What kind of children find and go through these portals?
What happens when the children leave those worlds and have to relearn how to live in this world?
I read it in January. Yes, the whole series. As of this writing, 8 novellas and 3 short stories. The series is that good. But it also found me at exactly the moment I was ready for it.
Here’s what the series’ protagonists share: someone central in their lives (usually parents) has very narrow ideas about who and what they should be—and has made clear that their love is contingent on the young person’s ability to conform to those ideas.
Mostly, the young people comply. These aren’t books about rebels. These are quiet kids who either 1) genuinely believe that the adults in their lives know best, or 2) know they’re being sold a bill of goods but decide—quite reasonably, given their age—that the love and regard of their primary people matters more than living authentically, at least for now.
Then these young people find portals. Every one, somewhere on or near it, says “BE SURE.”
The first time I read this, my middle-aged brain shouted, “No one’s sure of anything at that age!” As I read on in the series, I realized, No, they’re not sure. That’s the point.
For the young people in the series, sureness is a privilege of adulthood. Adults are sure about things, and they’re expected to go along, to take the adults’ word that this is The Way to Go. For many of them, this is the first time surety is asked of them. In that moment, some are sure. Others convince themselves they’re sure. Some are absolutely unsure, but the novelty of the offer outweighs the uncertainty. They step through the portal.
Some of the worlds they find are dreams come true. Others are living nightmares. Some are just weird. But the young people later agree that those worlds were the first places where they could be fully themselves—maybe where they learned who “themselves” are. They were free to try new things, make mistakes, and simply be, without the weight of other people’s expectations for, or influence on, them. Some relish that freedom; others fear it; but they all know the experience shaped them in inalterable ways.
Then they come back to this world, either by choice or by force. And they have no idea how to function here anymore. They’ve forgotten how to comply. How to mask. The people they’ve become no longer fit in the boxes they’ve previously folded themselves into.
If I had read Every Heart a Doorway (the first book in the series) even one year earlier, I would’ve enjoyed it, but it wouldn’t have gripped me the way it did this January. I wouldn’t have read the entire series in a month. I wouldn’t have been ready to see myself in the characters, to acknowledge the confusion, sadness, and anger I share with them. Now, thanks to a lot of therapy and self-work, I see the boxes people in my formative years tried to shove me into, and the damage that did. More importantly, I can see, like many of the Wayward Children ultimately do, that those boxes don’t define who I am now.
My portal wasn’t a mysterious door that said “BE SURE.” It was a college in St. Paul, Minnesota, that said, “Natura et Revelatio cœli gemini.” And, y’all, I’m 45 years old and still don’t know how to behave when I go back to my “old world.” Some people from that world can’t accept or love or talk to me as I am and spend our time together getting upset about how I’m not. Because this world isn’t as neat as the worlds of books, those challenges may never go away. That’s life.
Tattoo & photo by Erin Elizabeth Hunter
But I’ve learned, and this is why I’ve chosen to have this gorgeous image from the series permanently inked onto my body (by the awesome Erin Elizabeth Hunter of Weird Ink Society), that whatever uncertainty the people in my childhood may have been trying to spare me or themselves by boxing me in so tightly, I don’t have to be 100% sure of everything all the time. I just have to be sure enough—of myself, my resources, and the people who love me—to walk through the door.
A few days before Purim, I read a blog post describing the holiday as “Jewish Carnival.” I hate describing Jewish holidays as “Jewish [NAME OF CHRISTIAN OR SECULAR HOLIDAY HERE].” Purim celebrates a specific event where Persian Jews turned the tables on their persecutors. It’s not “Jewish anything” except Purim. Still, the comparison to Carnival made me notice something that is similar between the two, and I’ve been thinking about that ever since: both are holidays of excess leading into periods of limitation.
Carnival, a holiday of drunkenness, gluttony, and general costumed debauchery, rolls directly into Lent, a period when many Christians up something dear to (and possibly bad for) them for forty days1, and Catholics in particular have periods of complete fasting and abstaining from meat. A month after Purim, a holiday of drunkenness, gluttony, and general costumed debauchery, comes Pesach, when Jews are commanded to give up leavened goods for eight days.
Paganism – at least my branch of it – doesn’t have anything like that. We move from Imbolc, celebrating the early-season fecundity of domesticated animals (depending on who you ask, the source of the word means either “in the belly,” referring to pregnant farm animals, or “ewe’s milk”), to Spring Equinox, celebrating the balance between darkness and light and the arrival of Spring (the eventual arrival of Spring, in our neck of the woods). Pagans are not, by and large, people of privations, especially not at a time of year when the natural world is waking up and bursting forth with new life. And yet for me, at least, a sort of “shaking off” does happen at this time of year.
I’m essentially a hermit from mid-December through mid-February. I might attend a couple holiday dos in the Winter Solstice/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa holiday constellation, but otherwise, if something’s not necessary to my life or livelihood, I don’t leave the house for it.
I make no apologies for this. This period of rest is essential to keep me going the rest of the year. But when spring comes (or at least looks like it’s thinking about coming), it’s time to release not just my hermitude but the complacency that can come with it.
In the middle of writing this post, I actually left my house, voluntarily, on a Thursday night, to attend a rally for the celebration and protection of trans lives organized in response to the brutal attack of a trans woman not two miles from my house. Overcoming Winter Hermit inertia took a lot of pep talks. But it’s essential to me that I show up for my communities when and how I can, and I knew it was time to shake off sleep and complacency and get ready to re-engage in the fight.
So as we move from Purim to Pesach, Imbolc to Equinox, Carnival to Lent, or whatever we observe at this time of year, let’s celebrate waking up and giving up something that holds us back from full participation in life and community. Although we acknowledge the discomfort the sacrifice brings, let’s stay focused on what we gain – and what the world can gain – in return.
Blessed be.
1 One year while I was in college, one of my Catholic friends wanted to do a big community service project during Lent – “taking on” rather than “giving up.” Her priest said no; to “count” for Lent, she had to give something up. At the time it seemed ridiculous, but these days I have a better appreciation for the importance of sacrifice in this context. (My friend still did the project. She said she was giving up a certain amount of time with her friends, which she just happened to fill with a community service project.)
Image description: a white banner reading “DEFEND TRANS LIVES.” “Defend” and “lives” in black; “trans” in blue, pink, and white. The backs of some people’s heads are visible beyond the banner. It’s snowing, and everyone is dressed for winter weather. Photo by the author.
In the last days of 2022, I read four books in the Steve Haines/Sophie Standing “…is Really Strange” graphic nonfiction series. I was struck by Haines’ discussions of reframing, of how we can often transform our experience of emotions, trauma, and pain by the way we think and talk about it.
My mom’s family can be superstitious about New Year’s Day. They say that what you do that day sets the tone for the whole year (which has always struck me as a lot of pressure to put on a single day).
One of our older cats is starting to have health challenges, including one that leads to him sometimes pooping outside the litter box. New Year’s Day, as I was cleaning up the latest mishap, I heard my mom’s voice as clear as day in my head saying, “Well, now you’re going to be cleaning up cat poop all year!”
My immediate response was Good! That’ll mean the cat’s alive all year for me to clean up after. Then, with Haines’ books on my mind, I thought, Or I could look at it like this: I saw a problem and am dealing with it right away, rather than putting it off for later or hoping someone else deals with it. “Cleaning up cat poop” may not sound like the best use of my year, but “dealing with challenges as they arise” feels pretty good.
I’m not trying to be a white-lighter or a power-of-positive-thought Pollyanna. Some things in life suck, no matter how we think about them. I’m not dismissing or downplaying that. But I can shape my experience of a lot of things.
My 2023 focus word is “Reframe.” By approaching non-objectively-sucky experiences (and maybe old memories) with curiosity instead of cynicism and taking a moment to consider whether I can find a more positive way to frame them, I hope to live a more joyful, present life and free up some energy to fight the things that are really just awful. It’ll take work, because many of my earliest experiences of the world taught me to brace for the worst—and sometimes to see the worst even when I get the best or the averagest. And it won’t be all the time, and I’m fine with that. To paraphrase something we used to say at work, if I can make things even 3% better for myself, that’s a success. Cat poop and all.
Happy 2023, everyone! May you find all the words you’re looking for.
Image description: a light-skinned hand frames a beach and cliff with a white frame. Photo by pine watt via Unsplash.
Yom Kippur was last week, and I found it trickier to integrate into my Pagan practice. While Rosh Hashanah has several lovely rituals that felt easy to respectfully adapt, Yom Kippur is literally 25 hours of fasting and asking God to put away the smitey stick for another year, which jars with my beliefs about sin and the sacred. Also, the Yom Kippur machzor is approximately 20 billion pages long and includes stuff like the men thanking God that they aren’t women. So I took a while to find my bearings with this holiest of Jewish holy days.
I remembered something Rabbi Anne Brener says in her incredible book Mourning and Mitzvah and dug out my copy. It took me a minute to find the quote, but it was well worth the search. Rabbi Brener writes:
On Yom Kippur, traditional Jews wear a kittel, the white garment in which they will one day be buried. They recite the Viddui, a prayer of confession similar to the one recited by a dying person during the last moments before death. During the period preceding Yom Kippur, Jews are expected to put things right between themselves and others, as if there would be no other opportunity for such repentance.
See, the idea is that during the Days of Awe, God records every living person’s fate for the year to come and then seals that fate on Yom Kippur. And while some say that sincere repentance on Yom Kippur might sway God to change your fate, others argue (it’s Judaism, folks; theological debate is pretty much the name of the game) that All Decisions Are Final, and that the reason to atone on Yom Kippur is that, if you’re fated to die in the coming year, you want to face that fate with as clear a conscience as possible. As I read Rabbi Brener’s words, my observance took a shape: how would I live if I knew this was my last year of life?
I also shifted the focus of my observances to allow self-compassion. I wanted most to acknowledge the harms I’ve caused myself, the Earth, and other living beings, made what amends are possible, and figure out how to do better from now on, rather than just keep focusing on what a terrible person I was for having messed up in the first place. This clashes somewhat with the traditional mood of Yom Kippur, but my therapist was proud. 😀
Tuesday evening I cast my circle and performed a very pared-down version of the evening service, tweaked to align with my naturalistic beliefs (all my Psalms, for instance, came from the incomparable Earth Psalmsby Angela Magara [Z”L]). I wore as much white as I own (I don’t have a kittel, but making one is for sure on my to-do list now) and a fringed shawl that, while nothing like a tallis, fulfilled a similar role in keeping me focused on my obligations. I started Wednesday morning with a shortened version of the morning service and read the book of Jonah as instructed (anyone else think it has the weirdest ending?). Wednesday evening I undertook a short meditation where Spouse and I sat in a sterile medical office while a doctor told me that I had Madeupenitus and had, with or without treatment, exactly one year to live.
Then I opened a spreadsheet on my phone. Not the most sacred act, I know, but in no time flat I had 30+ items under “things I would do if I had a year to live.” Once the spreadsheet was filled in, I went outside to complete the (once again, highly abridged) Neilah, the service that closes the Yom Kippur observances, and to open my circle.
No, I didn’t fast; I didn’t feel right taking the day off from work, and I knew better than to try to put in a full workday while fasting. Maybe some year. We’ll see.
On Thursday, when I had more time and a bigger screen, I opened my spreadsheet and split the items in it into two columns: Do and Hold. That is, I want to do some of these things now, prognosis or no prognosis, while others will wait until that (heh) deadline is staring me in the face. Some people would say that if I would do something immediately if I knew I were dying, I should do it immediately now, but that isn’t always practical or desirable. For instance, if I knew today that I absolutely only had a year to live, I would buy a plot in one of our local green burial grounds. But I won’t do it without the prognosis, because I hope to live long enough that one of my preferred options – conservation burial or natural organic reduction (human composting) – has become legal and viable in my state. Don’t worry – my Do list has plenty to keep me busy in the year to come, whether I kick off before next Yom Kippur or not.
And there you have it: all the Yom Kippur that’s fit to print. While the actual ritual is still very much a work in progress, I feel confident saying that I will observe this holiday again in the years to come. Assuming my name’s in the Book of Life.
Eli Effinger-Weintraub 