Are you ready to die?

It's all coming to a big leaping off point...I've been watching this world circle around me for years now. Ever since I was a child, I've known that I would see a huge change happen with these hazel eyes. I knew then that I should learn to work with the Earth on an intimate level - feeling her get more tired and more angry. I can feel her shoulders shiver as we pull the yokes tighter.

I was once asked to hold a position in an autumnal ritual - Eric and I were asked to play the role of the "Ooga Boogas." As the ritual attendees paraded themselves to the valley with the raised circle waiting for them, we were all told to think of the things we wanted to accomplish, we were to think of the harvest of our mind and body's work of the previous year. As we all began to close our eyes and focus on those visualizations, all of the Ooga Boogas peeled away silently from the line and began darting around, whispering doubts into the ears of those meditating. We asked the tough questions that one rarely can ask while staring into a mirror.

"Are you happy with your life?"

"What are you doing with your time here on Earth?"

"How much is life worth to you?"

And as the ritual progressed, we melted back into the lines of attendees...riding the waves of magic as it went on throughout the night. Confidence was granted back to those who questioned and heard the doubts and fears prompted by our whispers, and life was released to continue down it's merry way.

One of my fellow doubt-bringers was a Priest of the Serpent path and was quite an appropriately chosen Ooga Booga, in my opinion. Yet after the ritual, I found him quite distraught, seemingly wrapped in the doubts he'd been asked to spread. I asked him if he was well, and he explained that he couldn't whisper a single thing to anyone participating. He said that the only question that he could imagine was too harsh, and would terrify people.

The only question he has was "Are you ready to die?"

Most people know me as a creature of light, oh my gentle readers. And this is true. But I am more than that a creature of balance. I acknowledge the dark desires as well as the selfless and pure. And I informed this priest that his question was the more potent and precise of all that I heard asked.

Am I ready to die? Should it all end tomorrow, would I be satisfied with all that I have accomplished, or experienced? Most of my soul feels that it is so - I would not be a weeping and wandering ghost full of unrequited loves and unspoken words. (Were I to be a ghost, I would be one just for the fun of terrorizing and alternately amazing people with my shimmering nature. It's a kick! I suggest you try it sometime, when you are good and dead.)

Are you ready to die? And if not, then what is it you haven't done, and why haven't you done it? This is the season of mirror-staring; of ompaloskepsis, of scrying. Enter into winter prepared, my lovies. This season has some big ripples for us to ride.

Are you ready to live?