So I’ve closed out this last secular year. I look back and find that I have failed at my desire to begin writing more. That was the whole point of opening my journal back up and creating this space, separate from my past. So I’m making a point to recommit to it by setting aside time each week, even if it’s just a brain dump.

The last remaining threads of a past chapter disintegrated in the past year. Last Christmas eve, I spent the day holding onto the first furbaby that I chose, in absence of the failed partnership that brought me her sister and brother, as she slipped across the veil. She was preceded 2 years before by her older sister, and this Samhuinn her slightly younger brother joined her. 23/24 years of my life between the 3 of them. The pain was so great that I just kept quiet, preferring to grieve in my own time in my own silence. Only one person, out of all of my close friends, reached out to me to express her condolences. The rest chose to extend them to my partner on his FB page.

I tell this tale because it was an eye opener for me. In fact, most of this year has been one. I’ve always been the “outsider”, the person that kinda wafts between groups, cliques, friends. Rarely having that bond that some claim is a “BFF”, though, oddly enough the few people I can look to and see that bond share a birthday with me. It’s sparked a conversation between me and my parents, especially a few months ago when I was at the deepest point, traversing the staircase that takes me to my psychological basement. A connection that I’ve never had with either of them and a connection that has led my mom and I closer, as we’ve finally found that thread that connects us past our DNA.

I have had bright spots. The brightest being the connections I’ve made professionally and somewhat in the activist world. My professional connections are what is going to make this next year interesting. A new direction in my career, which I hope see blossom in the coming months. Goals have been set, plans are being put onto paper and courses set.

Activist-wise, I’ve always leaned towards the greatest freedom. I grew up in rural areas, surrounded by remnants and spirit of the original caretakers of this land. I’ve always felt connected to them in some way, even though my beliefs are a follow up to those of my pre-Christian European ancestors. The land, the sea, and the sky are the threads that connect those ancestors to the ancestors of the land I live upon. The last few years I’ve had a wrenching in my heart about something that has been long in coming. This year, that knot has slowly been unravelling as I watched the nations that inhabit North Dakota and the surrounding areas stand up to a gov’t that has long reneged on its treaties and promises. I watched as more and more indigenous voices rose and claimed a right that has long been theirs, but has been shouted down because the wounds of others are more recent and viewed as more raw. I’ve watched as they, and those with more recent wounds have been heard. I view myself as privileged to have made acquaintance with these voices and been witness to their strength in rising. And privileged in being able to support these people with such inherent greatness.

While this last year has obviously had some overwhelming dark spots. My ability to be “a watcher” has helped me take a different tack from most of what I see in the news. Yes, my country stands teetering on the precipice that many nations have faced in modern times. And which direction we will ultimately fall on remains to be seen. But if we are truly in an era of a great unraveling, then what better way to unravel than through the actions of the jester, the machinations puppet of a trickster god? In most tales, and philosophies for that matter, one cannot truly move forward until one unloads the baggage of the past. And if this is how we dump that suitcase and deal with all the horrors that we’ve created for ourselves and leech the wounds that have been inflicted, so that they can really heal, then I can be okay with that. But it requires us to work toward healing – which, unfortunately, it’s obvious that for some healing is a continuance of the illness that got us here in the first place. But I have hope.