love – Crow Violets

January

I took the tree down. It absolutely kills me to do that; I’ve had the house decorated since Halloween, and a lot of the decorations get transferred over, so for a whole quarter of the year, this place has had the symbols of the season all over it. And then one hits January and the act of removing all this becomes a symbol in itself. I suppose a part of me feels like I’m taking down memories; this has been one of the most dramatically transforming quarters that I’ve ever experienced.

October seems so long ago, but this is the time when things start to shift and change more than we expect. Midwinter is a celebration of everything we’ve reached, and my god, the changes in my life have been extreme, and frankly, they’re going to become more extreme yet, ideally in a positive way.

Even in occult traditions, this is rather a sparse time of year, yet I refuse to see this as anything other than to be grateful for. This is the space that we need, the silence that lets us speak. It’s the lead in to Imbolc or Candlemas on the first of February, the night of remaking vows. Oh, vows and promises; sometimes I think that the only vows and promises that one can make under the Candlemas night are the vows we make to ourselves, but there are others. I don’t mean vows of eternal love or fidelity, perhaps. Certainly not fidelity as it’s traditionally as I’m fiercely non-monogamous (and of course, there is fidelity of a different kind there) and as for love, who can promise to love forever? But what I can swear to is to defend those I love with my heart’s blood if it’s needed. To be the very spirit of the lioness herself when those I care for need me.

These are the days that let us build our futures. Silence is the thing I am most afraid of in the world, the loss of adventure, to be imprisoned in the cage of day-to-day, trapped in linear existence on the escalator to the little retirement party, the increasingly empty days. But now, I’m finally learning that the silence is full of a song, a savage and wonderful melody, right on the edge of the senses. Or perhaps a story, a story about other stories.

The little reminder that the fear is just a game our society made up to help a particular system operate, but we all got stuck in it and forgot that we were the ones who made up the rules. Magic, myth, art, love, sexuality; these things allow us to rewrite that text and make it something better, something stronger, something that belongs to the cold spaces and the wild January nights just as much as it does the glory of midsummer, or Christmas Eve, or Halloween. This is the time when we have to run wild in our own skins, when the decorations are in our eyes. When our memories and our love will make light and song in the dark places.

I asked who can promise to love forever – I can. I do. For all this world, my love, “all that will survive of us.”

(And if you think you’re one of the people I’m talking about, you’re very much correct)

– throughout all the pain and fear, all our dark days, yours and mine, there’ll always be Tuesday night, and the big secret of Tuesday nights,

with just a little rain, but still quite bright somehow without a sun that you can see, and it’s not quite seven yet, and not many people about, because everyone’s home having their tea, but not quite everyone, people going somewhere, they’re starting to appear,

and it’s not a frenzied carnival like Saturday, it’s so gentle and the city holds you and smiles and it’s all right, that’s the big secret really, that it’s all right and Tuesday will come back around again, normal Tuesday, with all the stories carrying on, ending and starting and normal Tuesday night in town, absolutely like every other one, big life stories walking quickly across each other’s path, like skipping stones across the flat grey river, down by the bridge on the island,

and you aren’t at home, not nearly, you’re a bus ride, a long walk away, somewhere that’s different and holds the shape of your face with the shopfront lights left on and that couple walking past, still in shirts and lanyards and shoes that no-one wears, because it’s Tuesday night in town and not quite dark yet and still time to work a little bit late and get home in time,

and it’s all right, even when it sings paper cut sharpt in your chest and behind your eyes, paper cut sharp on the edge of the evening, it’s all right, and Tuesday night when no-one’s out, there’s music somewhere and it doesn’t matter about work tomorrow, because there’s somewhere to be that isn’t the end of the world,

so normal and so full of a magic that sings like wineglass song right through our heads, and the roads will shine a bit in the half rain and half light, and it’ll be full of an enchantment too big for any one heart alone. Hold my hand tight my loves, and we’ll go walking, shiny second skins reflecting all the stars as they come out one by one.