The Resurrection Tale
Art @lafoto_graphica
Being a witch does not preclude enchantment by the beautiful fables, tenets and architecture of other religious paths. If anything it has connected me more deeply. This week and its first eclipsing full moon after the equinox has been fairly crammed with them.
Tales of protection and betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection, grit and grace are more than stories from old books. Like the very best fables, their resonance echoes in us and offers a vast humanist learning. We too can feel unheard or misunderstood. Persecuted or betrayed, ostracised or abandoned for holding fast to that which we have faith in, as the baying masses spectate and hunger for blood. And even if we just gobble eggs and act like dumb bunnies on a four day weekend bender, we are still observing a change in season and the rites of Spring. Which is weirder still in Autumn, but then no one credits colonisation with smarts that ever translated.
In the Christian faith, whose current fundamentalist stranglehold of our democracies seems to constantly break all its own commandments, the Easter sequence of life death and rebirth arrives this weekend. Delivered in a blur of public holidays and chocolate comas, whilst awkwardly conjuring the angel of death lurking in a sea of tin foil.
Azrael is the archangel who delivers ultimate transformation to our front step unbidden. His name in Islam translates to helper, bringing all else that comes with death and follows after too. He reminds us of the permanent shadow of his spectre over our lives, an intelligence beyond our full understanding whose darkness is designed to shape and frame light. We live differently when we know that any moment may be our last. Suddenly no longer beholden to the shoulds and imperatives. More connected to what's truly precious. Less enamoured of what we defer to instead.
Most of us unwittingly sacrificed something precious to that blazing lunar eclipse. Perhaps wept at its feet and prayed hard for its prophecies. Wandered stripped into the breach between its death throes and our own rebirth at the next. Only our faith in the process sees us through, conjuring everyday miracles from the mundane with eyes primed for its magic.
Words c. Kerrie Basha 2024