things straighten out

It’s been well over a month since I broke my elbow. Since then, equinox has come and gone. Samhain approaches, with each day the air thickening with incoming dead. I continue to mull on the meaning of the break, it being the third in my household in the past year (my son and housemate both were on crutches in the early spring) and the third time I’ve had an elbow break in the last fourteen years. Was it a lucky break or a break-through? The crack in the elbow facilitated a break from writing, the longest one since I began writing this blog. A break was taken, due to the break. Being a witch, I can’t help but try and divine the significance in every little thing. My broken elbow was a rather middling to big thing, so you can imagine the sifting of significance this has engendered!

Six years ago (November 11^th to be exact) I found myself out on the street with my young son in the middle of the night, clothed in only the top of my flannel pajamas. My house was on fire, and the flames danced out of the living room windows. We watched as the fire trucks screamed up, with firemen pouring out and up into the blaze, saving our home from complete ruin. Later, with blankets wrapped around us provided by kindly neighbors, a fireman questioned us and the downstairs neighbors (also witches and close friends) as to what we thought had caused the fire. I said I thought it was connected to my husband recently moving out. My son said the dead didn’t like George Bush winning the election. Karl and Patti disputed whether the invocation of the Fey Patti and I had done at the Spiral Dance could have been to blame. I remember the fireman tipping his head, a strange look on his face, saying; “No, I mean, were there any candles left burning or do you think it was electrical?” The fire turned out to have been started by one of those black and turquoise halogen standing lamps sold at Costco and Home Depot, lamps which are now known inanimate arsonists. Nevertheless, all our original answers are still strongly held as possibilities of true causation.

Later, as checks were arriving almost daily from the insurance company, I ruefully realized that I’d been repeating an incantation for weeks which asked for money to come out of the dark, and incantation I’d learned from Luisah Teish years back. Money was pouring in, money which indeed helped me buy out my husband and eased my financial worries. However, those worries were replaced by other anxieties, and it was well over six months before my son and I were back in our home. It was this cautionary tale of spellwork which led me to do less meddling and more paying attention, and to be much more general in my magical practices. I know that lamp started the fire, but I also hold true that my spellwork sparked the lamp. The more I believe in magic, the more sparingly I do spellwork of that kind.

So, here it is, a month and half since this elbow was broken. So much has happened. This break from writing has been productive in that I turned my attention to my home. There’s been a great clearing, a mighty re-aligning. This past weekend I hired two guys to take away a truckload of boxes and bags, all full of things that no longer served, of debris that I needed to let go of. My ritual room is free from all the old spells that were cluttering up the energy, and my art studio is immaculate, organized for fresh bouts of creativity. My home is my own, cleaned and cleared of all that doesn’t belong here anymore. My arm is sore from the exertion, but it is healing, and the tendons needed to be stretched. I’m appreciating the mindfulness that can be a gift of pain. I’m grateful for the full use again of my right hand, my right arm. Now that I have it back, I realize I would not give my right arm away for anything.

It’s great to be writing again.