I went to the first group ritual I've been to in a while last night.
Samhain has been a turning point moment for me - one that I've looked forwards to for the past few months. Even still, when an invitation from a friend in Seattle hit my inbox, I was unsure of whether or not to go. It would be on a Thursday of a week where I'd come back from a week long vacation. It would require dealing with traffic. It meant arranging a place to stay. It meant running into someone that I was wary of for various and sundry reasons.
But it was good. It was a koi pond and a gazebo and candles found in a free box. It was being able to express my awkwardness in dealing with my own gender and my gratitude towards those who've helped me. It meant an unexpected, and comfortable sort of intimacy that seems to exist within the bounds of the circle. It meant calling the watchtower of water, and reading the cards for the small group.
It meant breaking bread and toasting to my evil twin, my Uncle Richard, to enduring a year full of shit, to enduring all the changes I've been through and coming out on top.
There's still something else coming for me, but the reading my twin gave for me last night tells me it's the last thing. From the Nine of Swords, to The World, to the Ten of Swords, there's one last "stabby", as she puts it. Her comment: "it's to get the remaining evil out."
I don't know what that sword will be. There's two more months to the year.
I'm wary of 2013. But I'm also ready now, I think. Having been warned, it's not unexpected.
One last sword, and then the chain of swords stops. That's not, maybe, such a bad thing.