A Kind of Magic

Here is another sad cancer story. It’s a tragedy that so many of our Blessed Dead were taken from this world because of cancer. I’d like to extend extra blessings to those who are inflicted with this disease, as well as extra support to those who love those who are inflicted with cancer.

Zach was one of the first kids to talk to me when I moved back to Montana. I was shaken and upset about moving from Washington, and had a hard time adjusting. We were a natural fit as friends – outcasts, creative, nerdy, and socially awkward.

Zach loved art, but most of all he loved music. He could play the piano beautifully, and he sang all the time. He played a song on the piano for me once, and it was so beautiful I cried. But with all of his art, he was a brilliant scientist as well. He traveled throughout the US going to conferences, schools, classes, camps and workshops. His focus was water purity, and he would have worked wonders and changed the world, if only given more time. 

Out of all of the lessons Zach taught me, it was one of magic. He loved fantasy books and was an avid reader of all genres. We’d play these elaborate fantasy games and create extraordinary worlds. To Zach, the world was magic, and magic was real. It was alive. The world was full of creativity and wonder. He had an active, lively, beautiful imagination, and he encouraged creativity in others. Because of Zach, my journey into Paganism has been easy. Like me and Zach, me and magic have been a good fit.

I wasn’t always nice to Zach. The other kids didn’t like him very much, and sometimes I’d ignore him so I could hang out with the “cool” people. I wish I hadn’t done that. He was bullied a lot in his life. He was beat up a lot, sexually assaulted, and basically tortured. Was he gay? Was he bi? It didn’t really matter. He was beautiful and full of love. 

That’s all that matters when it comes to life. Be like Zach. Be full of life. Be full of beauty. Be full of love.

I knew Zach had cancer, but he kept the severity of it from me. On the day of my wedding he sent me an email that was basically “let be your Jewish momma and spit on your on your big day. Ptt ptt ptt!” This might have been the last correspondence we ever had.

He got more and more sick, and finally it was pneumonia that killed him. When I found out I was devastated. I cried and I cried and I cried. That night, I got drunk, wore black, and danced all night at the goth club. It still makes me angry when I think about how young he was. There are so many shitty people out there. I know it’s unfair of me to say it, but why couldn’t the cancer have taken them? Why did they have to take Zach?

I cried for months after Zach died. I dreamed of him all the time. My heart was still breaking constantly. But one night, I had a dream that was unlike the others. In my dream he came to me and said “Amanda, you can’t keep on doing this. You need to stop crying.” He said “you can’t keep holding on like this. Let me go. You have my blessing. Let me go.”

And I haven’t dreamt of Zach since.

But that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten. I still mourn his passing and cry when I remember he is gone. There is a hole in my heart and in my life, knowing he is not spreading his love and beauty and brilliance around the world. His photo gets a place of prominence on my ancestor's altar, with my grandmothers’ jewelry. When I encourage creativity, imagination, and magic, I do so in honor of Zach. Sometimes I still can’t imagine that he’s gone. He was so young – a brilliant scientist, an amazing artist, and a loving man. Because of Zach, magic is alive in my life.

Dead on Time/Walk the Line

Everyone used to call my Grandma Johnson “Snooks.” I don’t know where the nickname came from, but I only wish I could be so cool as to have a nickname like that. Her mother named her Norma Jean, and she was a skinny, black-haired lady who was full of piss and vinegar. I was told once that she was in an accident when she was younger, that all of her blonde hair fell out, and it all grew back black. I don’t know if this is true or not. Maybe I made it up.

She was born to a feisty Scottish woman, and she had three older sisters. Her father was an Irish ballplayer and bootlegger. She used to sell buckets of water to the gypsies who lived in the park across the street. She herself had a little bit of gypsy blood in her as well,  what I like to imagine was the blood of the Irish Travelers, but I’m not positive.

Grandma Johnson met Grandpa Johnson while on horseback. He was out riding with his best friend, a Norwegian named Johnson. Grandma was out with her best friend. The four met, paired off, fell in love, and were close for most of their lives.

Grandpa Johnson was drafted into the Army and the family moved to Hawaii. There they had my Uncle Jim, who was the apple of my Grandma’s eye. She came from a family and a generation that favored boys over girls, which seems paradoxical to me when I look at the dynamic women in her family.

The family moved back to Montana, and my mother was born. Grandma Johnson wasn’t a great mother, and Grandpa Johnson wasn’t a great father. This chapter of my family’s history is riddled with abuse, alcoholism, and poverty. But, for all of the stories of the bad things that happened, I’ve heard just as many, if not more, stories of the good things, too. It’s like that Hank Williams Jr. song, “if I get stoned and sing all night long, it's a family tradition."

Snooks struggled with alcoholism her whole life. She smoked. She had eating disorders. She wrote bad checks. She was abused by her husband. She fought (physically) with her sisters and other family members. Her son and nephews were drug addicts and brought criminals to her home on a regular basis. When she’d call us up on holidays, she was often drunk on tequila. She told us once that she loved to howl at the moon.

Grandma Johnson loved cats, even when they were mean to her. She loved her grandchildren. She loved horses and she loved Native American artifacts, jewelry, artwork, and memorabilia. I have some of her beaded earrings. I don’t know if a Native friend of hers made them, or if she crafted them herself. She liked the color pink. She loved turquoise. While I won’t wear her giant pink earrings, I love wearing her turquoise rings; big, huge, gaudy, beautiful. They’re full of luck.

She was wonderful artist who painted epic, beautiful landscapes. I used to go into her studio and look at all of the oils, paints and colors. Look and never touch. Grandpa Johnson kept her artwork around his house throughout all of my childhood, even though they divorced when I was about ten. Grandpa was abusive (and I imagine Grandma was, too) but he loved my Grandma her whole life, and he was devastated when she passed.

Grandma Johnson moved down to New Mexico and was there for a few years. This gave her enough time to reconnect with my mother, and to form a relationship with my sisters. She came to Texas for Christmas one year to celebrate with me and my then-fiancé/now-husband (who she never did like). It was a great holiday, but she was diagnosed with cancer immediately after. I’ll always wonder if the trip was what made her so sick, after a six hour drive from Alamogordo to Lubbock and back again.

The cancer was pretty terrible, but she fought it the best she could. My family took care of her, and I’m so glad that they were able to spend this time together. I have guilt feelings about not being there to help out, but I’m proud of my family for being so loving and strong through those hard times.

When I was a baby and toddler, she took care of me. We were very close. She would feed me ice cream and let me play with kittens. I loved her very much. She gave me her mother’s jewelry, my Great-Grandma Lonie. The last time I saw her, her psychosis from the cancer was setting in. She was barely coherent. She was not the strong, fiery woman I knew. I’ll always regret those last moments. The women who took care of me in my infancy, I was unable to help her in her old age.

She wasn’t happy in New Mexico, and though it was a painful decision for her and for my mother and sisters, Grandma moved back to Oregon to die. She was back with her sisters, the alcoholism and drugs, but this is where she wanted to be. My mom was able to fly up there and say goodbye. When she died, her family pawned all of her belongings. I was able to get some of her jewelry, and I put this out in a bowl on my altar every year with her mother’s faux pearls, and with Grandma Val’s penguins.

 

When she died, I was relieved. She had been in pain and fighting for so long. I was so glad she was finally at rest. Her cancer was terrible, and it was killing my mom and sisters to be so far away from her, so helpless. Like the true cowgirl she was, Grandma Johnson never stopped fighting, though. I’m sure she’s up there Indian Wrestling angels in heaven and drinking Jesus under the table. And I’m sure that Johnny Cash, one of her favorite musicians, is singing just for her. Because she lived her life like his words – Snooks walked the line.

All God's People

Grandma Val passed away not too long ago. I don’t think she and i ever met until after Mutti and Chris got married. I remember coming home from college to visit my family over the Easter holiday, and I had Easter dinner with my newly mixed family. I had been nervous about meeting my mom’s new in-laws because as with all families, there had been some tension and I can sometimes be defensive of my mother.

Val was shy, and maybe a little introverted. She might not have been overly outgoing when I was there, but she made sure everyone was well fed, and she even surprised me with an Easter basket. This immediately made me feel like I was part of the family, even though I hadn’t lived at home for many years and even though this was the first time I had participated in a Morris/Hanson family event.

And every time I went home to New Mexico after that, we’d have Sunday dinners with Grandma Val and the family. She’d make a point to take out the good dishes, the wine glasses, always made sure that there was red wine in the house because she knew I liked it, even though she didn’t drink. Grandma Val helped my little sister plan my New Mexico wedding shower, and that meant a lot to me, too. It was a beautiful day, the food was great, and the companionship was even better.

Sometimes we’d all go out for pizza, and we’d get green chili pizza and Dr. Pepper. My all-time favorite story of Grandma Val is over pizza (with green chilies!) and she said she and Pop-Pop would buy this meal every Friday night and watch Star Trek. I said “oh, Steve and I are watching Star Trek, too. We’re on the episode when Picard does such and such.” And she looked at me and said, “No, Amanda. Star Trek. The real Star Trek, with the real Captain. The only Captain.”

The Friday night after Grandma Val passed away, we ordered pizza. I drank Dr. Pepper. We watch Star Trek. The real Star Trek. With the real Captain. 

Val had cancer, very terrible cancer. It was hard on my family when she was sick because they had just gotten over the shock of our Grandma Johnson's long fight with cancer as well. But they took care of her, sat with her until the end, and prayed for her when the local priest would not. I found out about her passing while I was at work, and after my shift I went to the Duke Chapel and spent some time in there after lighting a candle for her. Later, a bishop friend of mine performed a mass in her name, and assured me she is at rest, at peace, and at One.

I have some of her jewelery, some penguins, and a lovely mauve/purple colored ceremonial communion chalice of hers that I claimed last time I was in New Mexico.  This Samhain season I honor her by including her jewelery with that of my blood grandmothers, who get a special bowl of jewels on my altar every October.

Grandma Val was a friend to my mother, a grandmother to my sisters, and a strong matriarch to the Hanson/Morris clan. I'm sad I wasn't able to spend more time with her, but I'm glad for the time we did have. I'm thankful for her in that she took care of my family when I was not there to do it. She loved her family very much, blood and otherwise. She is an example of the saying I grew up with, "mi casa es su casa".

And after a long, extremely painful fight, I'm glad she is at rest. Blessings, love, and honor to Grandma Val!

Heaven for Everyone

October and November are times to honor the blessed dead, and the first Blessed One I'd like to honor is Ray Bradbury.

The first sci fi book I ever read was War of the Worlds, and the second was the Martian Chronicles. Reading these books marked a turning point in my life, and fundamentally helped to create who I am. I wrote my senior paper on Bradbury, and he came up often in college papers, too. Regretfully, I haven't read a lot of his more contemporary writings, but I've read a whole lot of his sci fi short stories.

He's one of my favorite people ever, and one of my favorite writers (the others including Neil Gaiman and Frank Herbert). Bradbury's writing is beautiful, tragic, inspiring, amazing. He crafted worlds and stories and places and things that are unforgettable. Even the most alien of his subjects is familiar. He had a gift of looking into people's hearts and writing what was to be found there.

When he died this past spring, I cried. I had had a terrible day at work. I was probably sick. I was anxious. I was depressed. It was one of those days when everything that could go wrong, went wrong. So after a terrible morning behind the bar, I sat down at my desk and read the headline.

And I cried.

And I was so angry because I was so busy and so behind that day, I couldn't properly mourn him. The tears came but I had to fight them back because how could I say "I can't go to the bank today. My favorite writer died." or "I can't go to this meeting because this author who was very old passed away."

I cried on my way home from work, and sometimes I still get teary-eyed when I think about Ray Bradbury and his passing. I have not yet properly mourned this man who was like an uncle to me - far away and distant, yes, but still influential. Still familiar.

Last October I read a lot of horror and scary literature, which included re-reading a lot of Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes, The October Country, and other short stories). Nothing captures October so well as Something Wicked This Way Comes. Just open your eyes. You'll find them, the October People. They're there. Doing their October thing. They come out every year.

I found a cheap copy of The Halloween Tree, so I put away a book club read and started reading this Bradbury Classic.

Where has The Halloween Tree been all my life? Truthfully, I've been too busy reading everything else by him to find time for this one, but since it's probably the only book I'll be reading all month (despite having both Rosemary's Baby and the Stepford Wives waiting on my bookshelf) nothing could be more appropriate.

Bradbury tells the story of Halloween perfectly, with all of its myth and magic. No words of mine can do him justice, so here he goes in one particularly memorable section:

A dark creature struck the sun one dreadful blow.
The sun died. It's fires went out.
The boys ran blind in darkness.
Yeah, thought Tom, running, sure, I mean, I think, every night, the sun dies. Going to sleep, I wonder, will it come back? Tomorrow morning, will it still be dead?
The boys ran. On new pillars dead-ahead, the sun appeared again, burning out an eclipse.
Swell! thought Tom. That's it! Sunrise!
But just as quickly, the sun was murdered again. On each pillar they raced by, the sun died in autumn and was buried in cold winter. 
Middle of December, thought Tom, I often think: the sun'll never come back! Winter will go on forever! This time the sun is really dead!
But as the boys slowed at the end of the long corridor, the sun was reborn. Spring arrived with golden horns. Light filled the corridor with pure fire.
The strange God stood burning on every wall, his face a grand fire of triumph, wrapped in golden ribbons.
"Why, heck, I know who that is," panted Henry-Hank. "Saw him in a movie once with terrible Egyptian mummies!"
"Osiris!" said Tom.
"Yessss....." hissed Moundshroud's voice from the deep tombs. "Lesson Number One about Halloween. Osiris, Son of the Earth and Sky, killed each night by his brother Darkness. Osiris slain by Autumn, murdered by his own night blood.
"So it goes in every country, boys. Each has its death festival, having to do with seasons. Skulls and bones, boys, skeletons and ghosts. In Egypt, lads, see the Death of Osiris, King of the Dead. Gaze long."

So we drink a toast to you, Uncle Ray. Thank you for the books and the words and the worlds and the memories and dreams. Thank you, unendingly, for the inspiration. I always wanted to write you a letter, and I never did. I'll always regret that. Twenty years I had the chance and I never took it. So, this season, I drink to you. I write for you. I read for you.

You are among my honored dead.

All Dead, All Dead

October is a special month. We re-adjust to our new work and school schedules. Though the weather might still be uncomfortably warm (like right now in North Carolina!) it starts to vary up between hot, cold, muggy, crisp, perfect, bright, lovely, wonderful. Everything becomes pumpkin flavored and colored. (Steve and I had the most amazing pumpkin custard at Goodberry's this week. Pumpkin, waffle cone, whipped cream, pecans and caramel. Oh yum.)

There are parties and decorations and costumes and concerts and community events. Maybe, just maybe, people have more fun in October than any other month of the year.

Maybe this draw to fun, parties, and community comes from a primal need for us to all come together this time of year. Mother Nature is giving one last push of her bounty before the winter season finally settles over the land. And then that's it. And that's pretty scary, and maybe we need one another to cope, to remind ourselves "no, we're not dead yet! look, we live!"

October in all of its beauty is a season of inevitable change. It reminds us that in order for something to be so amazingly fun and awesome, it can't last forever. All things are created and all things are destroyed. October in all of its bright colors and festivities dances on the edge of life and death.

Some Catholics celebrate All Souls Day and All Saints Day as a way to honor the blessed dead. For the ancient Celtic and other European tribes, this time of year was the time to bring in the last of the harvest and to prepare for a long, cold winder. Herds were culled down and farmers were forced to decide which animals would live through the winter and which ones would not. This practice gives us one folk name of October's full moon - the Blood Moon.

So, for all of our celebration, for all of our fun and candy, October is a time for us to come together as a community, to cling to one another as if it's a matter of life or death because maybe it really is.

Because yes, October is fun. But sometimes the winter is not. And yes, we're alive now. But nature is dying, and we are, too.

October is a time to embrace our lives. It is a time of community and harvest, and of death and shadows. We are confronted with the glory of life and death every hour and every minute of October. The pumpkins shine like giant golden moons. The leaves in many places are still green, but in others they are red, yellow, brown.

In our modern world it's hard to imagine having to slaughter animals and make choices of life and death for the winter. We can just go to the grocery store and buy fruits and vegetables and bacon and just forget all about it. But for a few moments, imagine your ancestors. Imagine how they felt about the change in the season, from summer to autumn, and then to the dark, cold winter. Think about the fear of the unknown they must have felt, the certainty of death within their lives

October teaches us to not be afraid when confronted with our own mortality. Yes, we're alive. Yes, we'll die. Life and death are both gifts. And in October, celebrate. Eat, drink and be merry because the seasons are changing, because tomorrow we, or someone we love, might die. Follow your primal urges in October to make the most of this month and this season.

Watch scary movies. Listen to gothic music. Wear black. Decorate your house in skeletons and skulls. Tell stories of your blessed dead. Toast to the ancestors. Go to parties. Stay up late. Don't get enough sleep. Drink too much. Eat apples and bacon. Look at a pomegranate. Carve a pumpkin. Snack on the seeds. Wear a costume. Spook yourself out. Take a walk. Smell some dirt.

Do not hide from the shadow or death. Confront it. Laugh at it. Laugh with it.

Because, like all of nature, we will die. We will be taken in. But next season, we will be reborn.