On The Blessedness Of Endings

Homily for the New Moon in Gemini on 6-6-24.

Dearly Beloved,

Happy New Moon in Gemini! And a double Gemini New Moon as well, with both the Sun and Moon in Gemini today.

Today, as with every New Moon, is the end of one lunar cycle and the beginning of another. So today I feel moved to talk about endings.

So often, in modern “Western” culture (such as it is), we dread endings. Our favorite show reaches its conclusion and we weep not just because the final climax is moving, but because there will be no more new episodes. When we beat a video game, there is always a bittersweet note, even as we exult in the rush of delicious accomplishment, because we know the fun is over, at least for the moment. And, of course, most of us dread death, that of ourselves or that of others.

But this is not the way of nature.

In nature, every ending is a beginning of something new. The flower ends in fruit, the fruit in seed, the seed in plant, and then the cycle renews, with each ending of one mode of existence leading to the beginning of a new mode of existence. When each living thing dies, its ending is the beginning of life for innumerable other beings, as the decomposers and scavengers of our beautiful world begin their job of breaking down the dead to give birth to the living. It’s true that rot and decomposition is an ugly (and stinky) process, but as any person who has kept and maintained a compost heap can tell you, that process of decay produces heat and rich, fertile soil, ready to give birth to new life. And as many people who enjoy a darker aesthetic can attest, there is a beauty in decay itself, in endings, in the way the world breaks down the old to make way for the new.

As pagans, we participate in a naturalized theology, a mysticism that patterns itself on nature and nature’s cycles. Within those cycles we see mysteries, places of intersection between the physical and the spiritual, sacraments of birth, growth, and life, yes…but also aging, decline, death, and decay. There is nothing within nature that is outside these mysteries, there is nothing within nature that is not holy, that is not a mystery, that is not a sacrament.

So let us look to the endings of things with joy when we can and understanding when we must. Let us embrace the death and decay we see in the cycles of nature and embrace the dark sacraments. Let us look to each ending, even those of ourselves and the phases of our lives, as the beginning of something new. Something wonderful.

Happy New Moon.

With love,

Soror Alice