Ask the Priestess

It is night, and quiet. I am at home, typing while reminiscing. Tonight, is New Year's Eve, and tomorrow - nay, in a little under 3 hours (local time), a new year will commence. Instead of 2016, we will be dating all our documents as 2017. I sit, type and remember what I have done in such nights in the past years. Last year, I was a friend's house in the south of England. Half of the party was in the hot tub, while others like myself chose rather to curl up in the living room. I felt blessed and observant, as ever surprised at the choices we all have yet often don't realise. The Hot Tub New Year's had come up suddenly, and I had decided to join these people whose hearts I knew but their lives a bit less so. The First Day of the Year saw us walking to the sea in gusty wind and smattering rain, joyous and full of life. Other years, I have spent the celebration with other friends at other parties, other homes, other countries. Once, I was in Vienna for the fabulous Sil...

This 12th October, 2016 is a fabulous parallel to the conflicts I find within my identity. On the one hand, today is  Yom Kippur - Day of Atonement. Observant Jews, and many secular ones as well, have been fasting since yesterday afternoon. It is 26 hours of no food, drink (even water), smoking, driving, fun... It is the time to reconsider the last year, become aware of one's mistakes and wherever we may have injured others; a time of honest soul-searching whilst hoping that God will consider us worthy of being in the book of life for another year. Here, in Israel, the country is at a standstill - there are no cars on the roads, no radio or television broadcasts, no open businesses, no music, no groups of people sharing a fag. Not only are many people fasting, but the whole nation is remembering also the beginning of the Yom Kippur War , a conflict that was both psychologically and politically decisive for the country and the world at large. In Spain, where I was born and ra...

Time has seemingly just passed. It did not give advance notice, late apologies, or even a half-hearted hand wave. So, a year and a half has slipped by, and I wonder why I let it happen; why I did not make a record of me, of it, of all those people and events around me. I can feel my fingertips clumsily caress the keyboard, having to retype again and again, trying to unravel the confusion of long silence. Thoughts are not things, right now, but rather elusive shadows which I struggle to individualise. Maybe, if I were an ornithologist I would be more successful at it, with the added expertise of identifying one single song among the cacophony of a jungle canopy. Be that as it may, shortcomings or apprehension aside, I sit at my computer and chose to climb back to the peak of my mountain, ready to yodel away. Silence, like time, is a curious estate to be in. Some people merely feel awkward when facing silence; some others feel lost in the border-less expanse of nothing opened up by s...

They say that we are mostly made up of water: drop, drop, drop,... pond, lake, river, ocean. We, humans, are made up of water. What does it mean, to be made up of water? Would it really matter, if we were mostly air? Would we then believe more in spirits and sprites, see faeries and not call ourselves mad? What if we were made up of granite, would that make us titans but not humans?  We seem intent in making sure that we can be identified with something beyond ourselves, something larger, something unafraid. Water is, indeed, 3/4 of Earth's surface, and where air and fire can be tamed, water on the move is unstoppable. I wonder whether that is the main reason we want to define our components, and feel comfort in repeating it: we are mostly made up of water.  Water, the element identified with emotion, under the auspices of the moon; temperamental, crystalline, salty, sweet, life giving. We are water, thus more than a drop - we are gases but not air, minerals but not...

I am always grateful for the amazing people in my life. Often enough, though, I feel I don't do them justice. I mean, it's just me being me most of the time, so what's there to be got from being my friend? I suppose a self-definition of this ilk is an example of woeful self-deprecation - not necessarily a good thing, despite standard religious education. In fact, I have often realised it is a smoke screen to myself, as many others I use, mostly unaware. But, why would I make use of such a tool? To help ask myself, of course! Or, if not of course, at least it is what I have come to think, considering the amount of questions the strategy has brought up just by making its presence known. Ask myself. Yeah, that sounds deep and important enough. Still... does it matter? Does it matter if I discover some dark reason hidden in the darkness of my forgotten memories? Would my life change dramatically by shedding light on the very instant I first recognised my jealousy, or sa...

There are few things as wonderful as a few hours spent sharing with a friend, running trough the whole range of feeling, from joy to anger to pain. It is such a simple blessing, so easy to attain: meet up with a friend, chat and share. Today I have had such an experience, I've been blessed once again. And I have been reminded why it is so essential to follow one's heart, to put love/friendship/family/passion/you-name-it first and before all else. Seriously, it could have been so easy to be waylaid by the myriad elements in the day - the delay leaving work, the fact that I was feeling guilty for the previous week, the busy days ahead, the tasks that have not been finished as I would want to finish them, the coworker feeling lost whom I have not saved, dot. Dot. DOT. So ominous, to know the list could be continued, that I can always find another reason to flagellate myself and forgo my choice, postpone my time with my friend. So empowering, to a point even funny, to realise...

Time is one of those things we all know to be a construct: hours exist only in clocks, days change at sunset or sunrise or in the middle of the night. And today, after three years, time compressed yet again. It is true what they say, that a minute can be the longest time in the world, and a lifetime but a sigh. Today, once again, I have my attention drawn to the fact that Mam died three years ago, and it feels unbelievable that it could already be so long, and still feel so untrue - as though I could just pick up the phone (or get on Skype) and have a chat. But no. Time, that wonderful trickster, is also a surprising healer. In its unreality, it knows whatever we cling onto is but a phantom; so it works its magic and lulls us to complaisance. And once we're strong enough, it lets us open our eyes and poof ! we have reached another era. It makes sure we are so busy following its ticking that our hearts will beat to its rythms, sustaining us, tying us to life. I am grateful to ...