Crossing Over

I won't lie; at one point in my life, I feared the idea of death and dying more than anything else.  It once reduced me to tears as a child, to the point where it became difficult to sleep properly because of it.  The very idea of my own mortality was so much of a concern that the thought of it would nearly paralyze me.  Most kids consider themselves immortal and invincible; they never consider death as something that awaits them, they never think if something may wind up ending their existence in this life.  And yet, there I was, the odd child that realized everything physical is finite and limited, and would inevitably end.

It's worth noting that as a child, raised in a Catholic family, I believed in the idea of Heaven and Hell.  That being a given, death should not have been so terrifying.  Be a good person, go to Heaven, nothing to fear there.  Yet at an age where other kids were playing with their toys in the sandbox, I'd find my mind drifting to what would happen if I were to stop drawing breath and pass on, and was in abject fear of what would lie beyond for me.  I never thought of myself as a bad child, deserving of eternal damnation.  Looking back now, it's still a mystery as to just what had me so shaken.  It wasn't even limited to myself; when a beloved pet would die, I'd have the same shaken feeling as I used to with thoughts of my own mortality.

Now, I can look back and understand it a bit more clearly.  I've always had a certain sense for the other side, particularly around spirits who had suffered before death.  I've walked into places completely unknown to me and been able to describe in perfect detail what horribly violent things had happened there in the past, simply because of the physical pain that I would feel as a remnant of that past (for example, when visiting the Spalding Inn in New Hampshire, I was able to pinpoint the events of a room not mentioned in the documentaries, and had this confirmed by staffers shortly after).  I would venture a guess that my fear of death came from that perspective that hadn't yet become something I understood, glimpses of how painful some transitions could be.

Even with that understanding, there's still a sense of uncertainty in death for me.  I know Heaven and Hell to be a false dichotomy; there is no universal paradise or damnation.  I believe in a variety of possible fates, and in reincarnation (I've done too much work with past-life regression and experienced too many sense memories to doubt in rebirth).  To be overly brief about it, I don't know what to expect when my time comes.

For a time, when I was still dutifully paying lip service to Odin, I aspired to enter the Golden Halls of Valhalla amongst the great warriors of the past.  I knew that mine would have to be a more modernized warrior path, as I refuse to join a military organization on personal principle, and that one based on defense of personal convictions would be just as glorious as any other cause to die for.  I soon realized, however, that I would never enter Valhalla, even if the noble death would come.  My years as an occult practitioner would bar those gates for me, as seidhr is unmanly and goes against the warrior code, despite Odin's own practices.

I do know that the Otherworld awaits me with open arms, but I expect that returning to the Otherworld of my Irish ancestors will require a struggle on the path to rebirth.  Why?  Well, it's just a hunch, really.  The whole notion of rebirth is a cyclical journey, and to me, it doesn't make sense to simply flit from one life to the next, or to be absorbed into some greater mass of spiritual energy only to be spat out whole again when there's an available/compatible body.  No, that doesn't do at all.

So, then, what awaits me?  Currently, I expect it's a trip to Helheim to dwell among the Jotnar there and the dishonored dead.  What better way to wait out the time between rebirths than living with the failures, victims, and dishonored dead?  What better way to learn how to live life to its fullest?  In being surrounded by those who failed to gain that ephemeral glorious death, you see exactly where things went wrong, and you get a better grasp on how to set them right.  I've grown rather fond of this idea.  I've come to like the notion of walking up to Hela's gate, greeting Mordgud and Garmr with solemn acceptance, and taking up residence in the halls of the unwanted.  I find some measure of comfort in it.

The Otherworld will come to me in time, and I will start again in a new life, I'm sure.  Finding comfort in the in between does wonders for alleviating the uncertainty of what comes first.  Makes living in the moment so much easier.