New Year, New Life

One of the Christmas cards I received recently described the Christ Child as the "New Light of the World". The days before Christmas are so dark here.... Just before the holyday, we add lights outdoors to brighten the landscape and help us through the dreariness of the winter solstice. We light the Yule Log to brighten the darkest nights and we find inspiration in the flickering flames of the log, as well as in the colorful twinkling lights we see everywhere. Just adding an extra bit of light can make such a difference in the dead of winter.

And so, a New Year begins, a "New Light" fills the dark skies,the sun once again begins her journey to the south, and our spirits are filled with hopes, goals, "resolutions", the opportunity for a new start.  Days become longer by the minute, and we await the return of Persephone so the world can come alive once again.

New starts mean change. The last year has brought so much change, how can I even think about MORE change? But I know that change is necessary if I am to move forward. If not, if I cannot think of re-doing, re-making, re-vising my life, I will not be able to accept the challenges ahead- challenges in aging, challenges in grouping all of my skills into some cohesive whole to try to make a living, challenges in improving my health and weight. If I cannot embrace change, I will remain stuck in the "Widows' Walk". (The widows' walk is the small room. like a small celestory, where women watched the sea and waited for their men to return from their fishing vessels. You can still see these in the homes near the seaside in New England.)

Persephone, my muse, beckons. Her courage and resolve in choosing to eat that single seed, is my image. Persephone chooses to fully embrace life, whatever of it is available to her in her darkened den. She forsakes her deity by "taking a bite of life", and becomes fully human in that single act.

The seed of change. The seed of new life, the image of a personal journey that has begun falteringly, with unsure steps, but made nonetheless. Isn't it notable that the pomegranate is everywhere now, in every grocery store, in abundance. Is it co-incidence that pomegranates ripen in the coldest, darkest months? I somehow don't think it is mere coincidence that we are invited to take a juicy bite of life with this mythical fruit at the very time of the year that represents the dark night of the soul.

In A Year, A Seed of Change

Florida, Alaska, Greece, 
             Trust Lawyers, IRA Funds,Memorials, 
                        Home Repairs, Donations, Professional Development, 
                                     Pomegranates......oh, my.....what a year.....'

In the years of our marriage, raising children, working, building, saving, the thought was always there that one of us would survive the loss of the other, and the survivor would carry on. Realistically, since Bill was older than I by some years, I subtly surmised that I would be the one left to do the carrying.

I thought about how I would manage, and was grateful for my father's insistence that we kids learn to change our own tires and oil, care for lawnmowers, and help with gardening....

I hadn't gardened in forty-two years of marriage.  With  full time work, raising the kids, and taking classes,  who had the time? Now,  suddenly, the survivalist urge took over, and I was determined to "provide for my family" by growing our own veggies. Never mind that the boys are in the prime of manhood themselves, and fully capable of growing their own gardens.

In February, I filled foam cups with seeds and placed them in the south window of a second floor bedroom, recalling my father's cups lined up in the basement ready for spring planting. By April, long before the weather would enable planting, my seedlings went all gangly, and they never saw garden soil. By late May, I had the land tilled and ready, but by late June, the rabbits and squirrels had eaten every tomato, squash, and bean plant I had purchased from the local nursery. They left the habanera peppers, the little buggers, and all I had to show for my work by September were a few prune-sized green tomatoes dangling from shriveled vines.

Dark Amidst the Daylight
This was the darkest time of my soul. Even with the increasing light that had brought the year to summer, the nights of tears and anguish were long and lonely.  There was no escape from the reality that Bill was not going to walk in any moment and ask what was for supper.

As the days passed, I was forced to consider my response to this life-altering event, the loss of half of my being. I had been able to run away to Florida for a few weeks to escape the cold and the dark right after his death in December, but I did not escape the wrenching tears that mingled with the gulf's salt water as I swam.

{People allow widows to cry as much as they want, whenever they want, to wallow in tears, for as long as it takes. It has become very easy for me to nestle into the sofa with a blanket and sip tea for hours on end. I have come to be content in the silence and the dark and take some comfort in the admonitions to not push myself, to not try to take on too much, to give myself some time to adjust. This slower pace, with so little expected of me, has provided the time for reflection, but it could get way too easy to remain here forever.}

In June, I was offered a free ferry ride to Alaska after a shared cross-country drive in a '59 MG. (It's a long story.) Mercifully, I accepted the ferry ride and only a portion of the MG ride, but even a week in Anchorage, Whittier, and the Kenai Peninsula with a "native" could not stem the flow of endless tears.

The end of the summer found us reunited in Greece with family, for a few days, to sign documents conveying Bill's inheritance to us. The pleasure I had always experienced being in this enchanted land eluded me this time. Though I had often been in Greece without Bill, I was forced to accept that he would never join me for the six months of the year that we had planned to call Greece "home" once we retired.


Repair, Replace, Renew
Within the year I had successfully created a trust to protect the properties, paid off the repairs on the house, and become comfortable as a "landlady" and handyperson for small rental units purchased only months before Bill's death. Now that these tasks are complete, and the formal year of mourning has ended, I reflect on the enormity of this change process.

Yes, the roof, the living room ceiling, and the back stairs were repaired. No more leaks. We even added a little deck to the second floor- something Bill and I had longed to do the next time we fixed the stairway.

I have packed and given away boxes of old books that are not yet antique, have little resale value, and were written by once popular, but now washed-up politicians. I have created a collection of reference books that Bill used in writing his Lexicon. They will all go to the new Greek Cultural Center and Library. Damien, has been arranging with WIKI to create WIKI-LEX, for the Hellenophiles and others who just love to argue word origins.

A Seed of Change
It has been a process, and it has taken time. But now I feel the urge to move forward, into the next phase of the life left to me. With Persephone, in mind, I, too, can choose to" take a bite of life", even it it means surrendering the safety net of this darkness that I have hidden in for a year.

Persephone, "Kore",  has made this journey. Immersed in the comfort of the darkness, the contemplative time of quiet and withdrawal, the goddess has had the time to think, to evaluate, to ponder, and to plan. Her dark and quiet solitude has transformed her maidenhood to womanhood, her innocence to wisdom. She now has the courage to face the world not as she imagined it to be in her naivete, in the safety of her meadow filled with summer flowers, but as it really is, sometimes cold and forbidding, sometimes sunny and bright. She chooses to fully embrace life, and in an instant, with the bite of a pomegranate seed, she surrenders the darkness for light, the safety for the unknown, and she begins the journey to becoming the woman she has chosen to be.

With Persephone, "Kore," as muse and guide, transformation is the way out of the darkness.  The pomegranate seed is the ticket to ride.