I happen to like melancholy. I know that makes me a big fat weirdo, but hey! Think about it! When I’m not feeling all up and bright and shiny, I slow down. I slow down and I spend time in my own company, sometimes with a journal and pen, sometimes with podcasts I love plugged into my ears, sometimes on a long and rambly walk through Mount Hope Cemetery.
I’m not good at taking time for myself unless I have the blahs. Having the blahs gives me the perfect excuse to go get me some solitude, which I heartily need, and more often than I allow myself.
Yesterday I spiked a fever. I felt really down in that subdued sort of not quite depressed but not happy either way. I felt like I wanted nothing more than to crawl under the covers and hide from a world that, while not exactly hostile, wasn’t feeling none too friendly, either. H1N1, shitty reviews, back handed compliments, days growing darker sooner, and the realization that the festival season is truly, officially over and I missed *so much* this year…
Kaleidoscope Gathering, Harvestfest, Feast of the Dead…
Missed ‘em all.
Boo, hiss.
But, crawling under the covers and liberally applying OJ to my feverish innards seemed to kick the crap out of whatever was attempting to plague me. I got time to journal and think, to plan for next year’s festival season, to plot new shows and daydream about someday when my house is beautiful (that time, she’s a comin’!) and I can fill my hearth space with people and laughter and parties and circles.
It was good. Really good.
Now maybe one day I’ll get beyond needing the melancholia as an excuse to go be with myself for a while, but in the meantime, I’m grateful that my body does this. Turns itself down low, flickers where once it danced like flames. And the bright, shiny, bouncy me always returns in short order, so I’m doubly grateful. Without this message from my body, this overcast sort of throbbing need for self-care and time alone, I’d probably burn out. No. I know I’d burn out!
So thank you to my body for giving me fits of melancholy, and thank you to my spirit for knowing what to do with those fits; for succumbing and flowing through it so I can emerge on the other side refreshed and ready for more ohhhhhh, shiny!
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November 11, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Oraia Sphinx
Interesting timing on this, Feithline – today I just listened to a recent episode of the Tarot Connection podcast, about Saturn in tarot and astrology. Part of what they talked about was the benefits of melancholy, especially with regards to creativity. It was episode 97, if it sounds interesting to you.
I’m always struck by the synchronicities I run across in people’s thinking, when I hear someone talking about something I was *just* thinking about the other day. Like in one of your recent episodes you mentioned seeing the sabbats as seasons rather than single days–and within just a few days of that I had a Scrying Bowl episode coming out that remarked on the same exact thing. (I had recorded and scheduled that episode a couple of weeks in advance.) I see it as more evidence of the energetic cycles we all move through, and which move through us.
So sometimes I think that in addition to our own individual troubles that we’re dealing with, a lot of us go through a sort of group melancholy, maybe helped along by Saturn, maybe not. Thinking about that helps me get a new perspective on it, like it’s not just *me* stuck in the dumps, and maybe I shouldn’t take it personally.
But anyway, I’m glad you’re feeling the benefit of slowing down, and I also hope you feel better soon.
Blessings,
Oraia