Читать книгу Witch, Please: A Memoir - Misty Bell Stiers - Страница 9

Choosing Wicca as my path didn’t just hand me answers. In many ways, it had me searching for them all over again. I was asking myself some big questions, and I wasn’t always able to immediately find a response. In fact, I’m still asking myself big questions. And of course, all those years ago, thinking about the events that had led me out of my former faith and onto the path toward a new spiritual practice, I started with one of the biggest ones: What happens when we die?

Figuring out how I felt about this question, the answer to it that I already felt I had, allowed me to live and breathe a belief that had remained hidden in my heart since long before I left the Catholic Church. It never quite sat well with me, the notion that after our spirits left our bodies, they were supposed to arrive before a jury of our peers or an omniscient, godly judge to have our merits weighed and counted. I never understood how anyone’s singular life could be fairly punished or rewarded. (This is the point in the discussion where my husband inevitably reminds me of Hitler and a handful of other horrible historical figures, and yes, I get it—but aside from the very obvious, how many people’s lives can really be weighed in such a way?) And after that judgment, then what? What is heaven? Hell? How could an all-merciful god who created every human possibly consign some of his own creations to eternal damnation?

I just didn’t get it. When I was small, it terrified me—which is, of course, the whole point. As I got older, I became less terrified and a lot more obstinate. The rules of heaven seemed ever changing: Do you have to accept Jesus as your savior? What about all the people who don’t believe in Jesus but are living what they believe to be good lives? Are there exceptions? How does it work? How do we know? What about purgatory, the great waiting room, from which if I just pray hard enough I can release my family and friends into the greater good—how does that work? Why can’t I pray someone out of hell?

Now, don’t get me wrong—all of these questions are answerable, at least if you have faith in the system. But I always struggled with those answers, and I now understand why:

I never truly believed in the system.

In the process of researching other belief systems, of course, I had encountered many different beliefs about death. I went back again and studied the Abrahamic viewpoints and found that they simply didn’t speak to my heart; I was intrigued by the Islamic idea that death was just a gateway to another world but got lost once I got to the details.

Old legends enthralled me: Valhalla and Folkvangr seemed filled with such honor, though I have never been much of a warrior, at least not the kind I think they were looking for. I was fascinated by the views of the Egyptians, the idea that the degree to which you were alive or dead was tied directly to the relationships you nourished with those around you. You could be physically alive, but if you were withdrawn from others you were viewed as being much closer to dead than someone who might be physically dead but fondly and actively remembered. That notion spoke to me in ways of which other philosophies had fallen short. But again, I was lost in the details.

I adore the idea of reincarnation. I’m a sucker for a second chance—or a third. Or an eighth. I want to believe that I will meet my husband and love him wholeheartedly through every coming lifetime, and if I’m given that chance, I know I will. I will seek him out with everything I have.

But in my heart, I’m just not counting on it. My truth is different: I believe this may really be it. This world, as flawed and hurtful and cruel as it can be, may be as good as it gets. (I realize that sitting on this pile of privilege allotted me by place and time and other circumstances of birth makes that idea perhaps easier to swallow for me than it might be for those who don’t share my good fortune, but all the same, it’s my truth.) When we die, I now believe, our tale simply ends. There are no more first loves, no more first steps, no more grand adventures. It doesn’t mean we end, of course. Our spirit lives on in the ways that matter most: through the memories and stories we leave behind, through the love we shared with others, through the giant gestures and grand plans we made happen, in all the small moments when we affected someone positively and never even knew. It’s the memory of us that lingers in the smell of the pie we baked every Thanksgiving. It’s the story our kids tell of that time Mommy got so upset she flushed Wylie’s churro down the toilet (a tale for another day, perhaps); it’s the song we sang as they drifted to sleep.

We stay alive in a million small ways in people’s hearts and minds, ways we are more than likely blind to day-to-day but that slowly add up to the Story—the one that echoes long after we’re gone and keeps alive who we were, the words that eventually wear down after years of reciting them, until all that remains is the feeling of what was once us, once ours.

For me, as a witch, that’s the gift, the reward, the shining castle on the hill: to live a life right now, this second, that leaves an imprint on this earth that can be cherished and held close by those I loved, so that when I am no longer physically here, someone can say, “She made a difference to me.” If over time all I leave is a faint feeling of something, please let it be of love.

I don’t need prayer to release me from all the mistakes I have made, I need no intervention to help me make it to a cloudy place filled with harp-playing cherubs. My mistakes are mine to live with and try to make up for. I walk with them every day, and every day I create my own prayer of redemption as I move through the world and try to do better. I can only hope what is left in my wake is more hope than fear, more love than hate. In the end, my children and the legacy they, in turn, leave behind will be my reward. So perhaps I do have cherubs; mine just aren’t quite as angelic as the ones on the prayer cards.

Answers that are true don’t come easily. It was a difficult transition to go from having all the answers defined for me to what seems a never-­ending list of questions. I have had to make peace with the mystery of it all, to learn to enjoy the journey and keep my heart open. I have learned that sometimes I find my answers when I least expect to. I can read a library’s worth of books, and one brief passage will stand out and ring true. Sometimes it’s a bit of an overheard conversation that will send me reeling, or inspiration found in a snippet of song. Sometimes I stand in a cold, windswept Texas graveyard and suddenly know in my heart what I believe will happen when I die:

I’ll go on a road trip.

My cousin Kathy ran toward me in the parking lot, panic and bemusement chasing each other across her face.

“Find a place to park your car, for a couple days at least. You’re coming with us.”

What?

“They’re driving her to Texas.”

Driving whom? Who’s driving?

“Nana. Our parents.”

My paternal grandmother had recently died, and my aunt and father had gotten it into their heads that my grandmother should be buried next to my grandfather on his birthday—admittedly a sweet and romantic idea—and a plan had been put into motion. As far as I could see, this plan had only two flaws: my grandfather was buried two states away, and his birthday was the next day.

It had been decided that the only way to make this a reality was to take her there ourselves. I’d like to say that we were all on the same page regarding the inherent absurdity of this plan, that everyone involved understood we were boarding the crazy train. But that was ardently not the case. To my father and aunt, this seemed a completely logical turn of events.

One might ask, I daresay, how one gets a recently deceased woman across state lines to be buried beside her one true love in less than twelve hours. One might actually assume local authorities would, say, discourage a flight of fancy of this sort—and one wouldn’t be entirely wrong. However, in the hours it had taken me to drive from Kansas City back to my hometown of Salina, Kansas, on hearing the news of my grandmother’s death, papers had been filed and the back of my father’s Chevy Suburban had been carefully measured. When I arrived, they were already stamped, loaded, and ready to go. This was really happening.

And so it went—my uncle Phil, my mother, my cousin Kathy, and I drove in one car, while my father, my aunt Judy, and my dead grandmother rode in the other. We headed south toward Texas as the sun began to set over the endless winter fields of Kansas. As we drove down the dusky highway, it became clear that despite the measurements, we might very well be pushing the Suburban’s carrying capacity. Any change in the vehicle’s speed pushed the coffin against the back door, causing the interior dome light to turn on, shining what felt like a spotlight on our rather unusual cargo. Soon we had a regular routine developed around stopping to push Nana farther in and shut the tailgate tight once again.

It stopped being odd after the first couple times. Of course it did.

In fact, after the first couple times, my uncle Phil began to take a bit of joy in shining his brights on my father as he shoved the coffin, flowers sliding off the polished top, back into the truck. I wonder to this day if some other family has a story they tell of the time they saw what looked like a coffin sliding out of a Chevy Suburban on I-35 late one winter’s night.

But aside from the obvious, it really was very much a typical family road trip. People stopped too often to go to the bathroom. No one could agree as to what speed the caravan should be going, nor when would be a good time to stop to get something to eat. We eventually stopped at a roadside McDonald’s, my Uncle Phil ordering an extra cheeseburger for “our nana waiting in the car.”

The highway south through Oklahoma is a desolate one, a straight line running through occasional small towns and lonely gas stations. The skies stretched wide above us, and during our sporadic stops to push Nana back inside and re-close the back door of the Suburban, it seemed every star in the galaxy was witnessing our small clan on its sacred mission. Despite our determination to keep going, eventually we had to stop for the night. My father and aunt spent most of the night in the parking lot, making sure our grandmother continued to rest in peace undisturbed. (It was decided taking the coffin into the hotel was possibly a bridge too far, and eventually I stopped arguing over whether anyone would actually ever steal a truck with a coffin in the back.)

The next morning, as the sun rose above the frozen fields of southern Oklahoma, our family was gathering in Texas, awaiting our arrival, and things felt almost normal again. We had survived the worst of it and were eager to deliver our precious cargo and reunite with our people. It was time to get to the funeral.

The graveyard was in the middle of nowhere down a small dirt road, and in the last dregs of winter it was both peaceful and unbelievably barren. It was cold and quiet and a bit lonely there—even with all of us crowded under the big white tent someone had set up for us. It was a place for endings, is the best way I can describe it, and that hit me straight in the gut. While the preacher spoke about new beginnings and the hopeful future in which we would see my grandmother again, I couldn’t help but feel like this was a good-bye that was final.

I realized I wasn’t willing to hedge my bets on something coming along after this. I wasn’t going to assume I’d get more time in the afterlife with these crazy people—this amazing, heartfelt, determinedly insane group of people. I wasn’t going to get a second chance at this life. If I was lucky, someday people who loved me might be willing to drive across the plains through a cold winter’s night to deliver my body to the place they felt it should rest. If I was lucky. How lovely to think this life might all be just a practice run, but I was no longer able to take that gamble.

Standing in that cold, wind-blown cemetery, my beliefs were cemented. I wanted—needed—to live my life believing this was my one and only shot, my chance to make good decisions and fulfill my responsibility to live with and try to make up for the bad ones. I had to believe that someday, I’d have one final road trip, and that’s all it would be: one final road trip. Odds were, even that would be taken without me; whatever was left of what I am now might bounce around in a coffin in the back of a truck, or fly on the wind in a million microscopic pieces once I met my end.

I wouldn’t ask for more than that. One final road trip feels like a pretty good deal.

In my heart, I truly believe this is how it is. I wasn’t always as sure as I am now, and honestly, I don’t believe I ever will be completely sure. Who of us truly can be? I’ve just found an answer that makes living this crazy life a little easier for me to bear. It gives my heart a kind of peace I never had before about how I choose to live. Whether what I believe is actually the case, well, we’ll all eventually find out. Until then, I will live as if this is all I will be given and hope I’m doing okay.

My truth, however, isn’t necessarily every Wiccan’s belief. As with so much in Wicca, the number of theories and thoughts about the afterlife probably equals the number of witches themselves. Many people I know found their own truth within an existing system. Reincarnation is a popular belief, the idea that you return surrounded by the same core group of souls through every lifetime, over and over. In addition, while a good portion of Wiccans believe in reincarnation, others believe in Summerland. (Some Wiccans believe in both.) Summerland is similar to heaven in many ways, though there is no bar of behavior to meet for entrance into Summerland; even the souls of the wicked are admitted. Among those who believe in reincarnation, it is sometimes said to be a place of rest between earthly incarnations, providing a place to reflect on all you learned in your life and choose what you may need to experience in the next life—yes, some believe you actually get to have a say in what is to come, just not the details—so that with each incarnation you can strive to do better, to learn more, to help more, and to be more.

For others, who don’t believe in reincarnation, Summerland is a sort of Wiccan Shangri-La, though it’s different for every person. There you are reunited with those who have gone before you, and you can watch over those you left behind. The general idea is that once you have learned all you need and have lived the full gamut of emotional experiences, you can stay in Summerland for eternity.

Regardless of these differences, all Wiccans simply believe we have a place on the wheel. Where that wheel ends, where each of us stops in the spinning and what that means, well, that’s up to each witch to figure out.

Often, that’s no simple task. For some Wiccans, research is the path to peace, while others form their ideas purely through discussion. I often find those of us who have broken away from organized belief can be a bit annoying to everyone else: we’re drowning in curiosity and overflowing with questions. Yet the process of asking those questions and stumbling upon my own answers (as well as learning to make peace with the unknown) has made the ground beneath my feet feel steadier—somehow now I feel more substantial and resilient than I ever felt simply accepting the answers someone handed down to people like me lifetimes ago.