November: Death as it proceeds rebirth.

   There is something about this time of year that is always filled with a desperate intensity. As one reality is dying and fading into a ghost, the specters of the past seem to drift forward to witness the last rites of yet another phase of life. I find myself watching them lined up transparent, sad, and wise.

   We have all lived many lifetimes, each one with a different starring cast. Sometimes I think my heart is just too big, too sensitive. I look back on the characters from these past lives and my heart still bleeds a little. I miss them. I have the misfortune of once loving, always loving. My heart is filled with these names and tastes of lovers, and memories though faded can still overwhelm me with a subtle sadness. Especially in November. 

      I have noticed that people seem to break up between October and November......maybe I am just seeing patterns where I am looking for them. But every year.....around this time the heartache abounds. This is the month of Scorpio, whose corresponding card in the Tarot is Death. Many people associate fear with death, because they know with endings come pain. The Death card speaks of the absolute ending of one cycle, to allow for the birth of a new one. We humans like the familiar, the known. We fight subconsciously the change, we anticipate the hurt, and generally have to be forcibly dragged to our own 'death.' Yet, in nearly every case, I find the painful ending was necessary for some crucial growth only appreciated in retrospect.
  
  I sit here on an oddly balmy November night, and still in my mind there is that winter chill. The breeze seeps into my bones and makes it known that things are never going to be the same after this month. It lends to melancholy, fanciful notions of headless horsemen, and hauntings. So in honor of my uneasy reflections, I line up my ghosts--all oct/nov casualties--starting five years ago..........
     Five years ago, I left everything I knew, hometown, friends, a boyfriend, to move across the country to Los Angeles. Four years ago, I found myself recovering from my first big city musician heartbreak and gratefully putting to rest the me who didn't respect herself. Three years ago, a dramatic ending of a friendship, perhaps the ugliest I have ever experienced. Two years ago, the deepest heart wound I have yet experienced from a relationship I hadn't even expected in the first place. One year ago, I was planning my trip to India as I learned my father was dying. Every year another little death. From each of them I am changed. Perhaps sadder, but hopefully also wiser.
       
         Somehow reflecting on them makes me feel comfort, but I am still pensive. Knowing you will live through the pain and be a better person, does not take away the fear of the pain. It just gives you a little more courage to face it. Next year I will know what it was that died this November.......from my new lifetime.