Grief Series Part One - Othala

This is the first in what will be a 24-part (daily) series of meditations on Grief. Each day I will pull a rune, and discuss what that rune means in terms of grief.

As a death doula, and as a human being, I have encountered grief many many times. There are many theories and studies on how grief "works," and of course many ideas of how it "should go." Grief doesn't care about any of that - each grief follows its own path, takes its own time.

Othala. We begin at the end. Home, what is inherited, usually in the form of land or immovable property. Ancestral inheritance.

Home is where the heart is. Not all ancestors are of blood. Inheritances can be refused, accepted, changed.

I think in this of my father, and of my friend. Both men who had huge influence on my life, and on my son's life. Both of whom are gone from us now, and both of whom loom large in our lives daily as beloved people and as those we mourn.

It is interesting to me that Othala turned on its side is a fish such as Christians (which my dad was) use to symbolize their faith. I know I will not see my dad again when I die, as he is in another place - a place of his faith, and while I am happy for him, I am sad for me. Maybe there are dispensations one can get - visitors' passes? I don't know.

My dad was home in many ways to me - though we had a long period of separation (the divorce when I was a little past two years old took us away, and we did not meet again until I was 28), we also had a strong connection all along. I knew when things were well or not for him, even without contact. We were attuned. The greatest tragedy is that he was ready to be a father, and I was wanting to be a daughter, and we did not get that chance together.

Othala here asks me to take my inheritance - all the memories, all the wished-for memories, and live in them. Both. Root myself and my relationship in both what was and what should have been. To understand and love who we became in each others' absence. My dad had a lot of heartbreak, but he never let his heart become hard in repairing. He never built a wall around it. This is my inheritance: in the face of heartbreak - to not grow hard and cold, but softer and softer, stronger and stronger, as he did.

I might see my friend Michael again. Like Odin, he wandered, he searched, he told, he wore many disguises. He could turn up anywhere. He was similar to my dad in that he did not grow cold to the world, though he saw a lot going on in it which gave him grief, anger, despair. Where my father was quiet, my friend was loud - railing against - and doing things about - injustice, unfairness, pain.

My inheritance from Michael is to be in the world - be *in* the world. To observe and to act. To find the ways forward, to find the ways to communicate what is happening, find what need to be done, and to Do.

In looking at Othala, there is a tendency to emphasize place, a homeland, or a house, or such. All these can be important, but for many of us we have no One Place. There is no shame in this, it's just a fact of modern life. I think sometimes the emphasis on idealized past locations can distract us from where we are now. Rather than an anchor, for some it becomes a blinding focus.

I tend more toward looking at the people I have known, and lessons I have learned (or am still trying to figure out) as the real home and inheritance. Where are you rooted in this world?

Note: The runes I am using were made by ALittleGreenWitch at Etsy. She works in Turkey, hand-shaping and firing lovely and energetic runes.