On The Blessedness Of Mourning

A homily for the New Moon on October 2, 2024.

Dearly Beloved,

Blessed New Moon in Libra, and a double Libra, no less!

On this New Moon, I find myself in mourning. I am in mourning for Palestine and Lebanon, for Ukraine, for the victims of gun violence in America, and (always) for women, BIPOC, queer people, and the poor and disabled everywhere. I find myself praying fervently that all of those in need, all of those who have found themselves exploited, victimized, harmed, or in need find relief in the scales of blessed and divine Justice, however they—or you, dear reader—may know Her. May your tears be wiped away, your wounds and sicknesses be healed, and your bellies be filled.

So mote it be.

I am also in mourning for a very personal loss I should have felt 26 years ago, a loss that I hid behind a veil of guilt so I that didn’t have to feel it, the loss of a whole life that could have been but never was.

As such, I find myself moved to speak about that special grief that feels like a hole in our chests, that grief that feels like the end of the world. I find myself moved to speak about the sadness that sits quietly weeping at the side of an open grave, the loss that screams at the sky in the middle of a thunderstorm, the pain that sits in stunned silence at the end of a final phone call.

I am moved to speak upon mourning.

I have lost many people in my life, not just to death but also to time and change, those other absolutes of our natural world that stand next to death. And some people have lost me. The same forces that take people away from us can take us away from other people. There are the people who I thought were my best friends, the loves I thought would be forever, even the people who I used to be, the shards of crystallized self that once brought me into focus but, over time, ceased to serve me. I have loved and mourned them all.

And it has been heartbreaking.

Again and again, my heart has been split open, soft and vulnerable, laid bare by the past, by the memories and experiences that made me grow and change and become far more than I could have ever been without them. I have been hounded by thoughts that wound from behind, by the fantasies of what could have been (if only), and by the empty moments that are revealed by the absence of those we love.

And in these times, I have sometimes tried to avoid the feelings. I would drink or smoke or fuck myself into a temporary oblivion. I would hide myself in stories and music. And of course, as anyone who knows me can attest, I would find escape through endless hours of games.

I have always so loved games.

But life isn’t a game. The people we come to know and love during our lives are the really-real, the true truth. They give us some of the few signposts we can count upon to show us our way in a world that is often confusing and frightening. It is through seeing the good in others that we often come to admire the good. It is through seeing others be kind that we often come to value kindness. And it is through loving others that we often come to understand what it could possibly mean to be loved.

Unfortunately, this incredible joy, this continuous growth into a new creature based in love and shared vulnerability, comes with a price: it is temporary. Every person, place, thing, or situation we fall in love with, including ourselves, will come to an end. Even the universe as a whole, according to most accounts of the universe both scientific and mythical, will someday come to an end. The light will go stale, the darkness will grow tired, and the gods will sweep the floor and put the chairs up on the tables. The party will, at long last, be over. All over but the crying.

The mourning.

So what does it mean to mourn? What do we do when we wail over the dead, over the lost, over the endings of things we’d once felt like were forever? What is the meaning of our grief? These are questions so heavy that they can break our backs, can make us get stuck in our mourning, because whatever else mourning is, it is a process, and processes can get stuck, can get derailed, can get postponed. We can get trapped in our mourning, turn our mourning into a blanket that we pull over ourselves, nice and warm, until it becomes suffocating. We can fall in love with our mourning and make it a part of our identity.

At least, I know that I can.

But mourning is a gift, a way of honoring those people and situations that we love. We offer up our grief and tears, our sad and suddenly empty moments, to what has come to an end. We offer up our weeping and our beloved memories of what we once had on the altar of our love. They are a solemn treasure, given in honor of what was, and such a treasure is holy.

There are many who become impatient or annoyed by mourning, by the time that it takes and the energy that it uses. In our world, where “optimization” has become embraced as a universal good, mourning is singularly less than optimal. It grants no advantage over competitors in the market, it doesn’t gain likes or subscribers, and even worse, mourning doesn’t care about any of that…all mourning wants is to finish mourning. The “Spirit Of Mourning” wants our tears and our hours, our dreams and our memories, so how can we blame those who become impatient, who want us to “just get over it” and “move on”? They want us to be fun again, to be available again, to have space for them in our hearts again.

And the secret of mourning is that we will be fun again…someday. The tears will come to an end and we will find ourselves looking forward to the future again. As nature teaches us, Winter always comes…and it always comes to an end. But until then, we must hold our tears tight. We must let ourselves mourn.

So let us embrace the crying, dear siblings. Let us embrace the sighing, the empty moments of staring into space. Let us embrace the terrible feeling of absence, that forlorn feeling of lack that feels like it will tear us apart. Because in that place of loss, of lack, of mourning, there is a beauty, a tribute, a loving offering.

So let us love each other deeply, dearly beloved, and let us miss each other when we are gone.

Let us mourn.

Happy New Moon.

In love,

Soror Alice