I really love the idea of a handfasting. It's Celtic and Pagan in origin, and is an ancient marriage ceremony. Before they had churches, a couple would have a handfasting ceremony. That meant that different cords would be tied around their wrists, bounding them together. Kind of like the invisible red thread, only visible. That is where the expression ''tie the knot'' comes from...handfasting.
For our 10th anniversary last summer, I had planned a handfasting for us in Iceland. I had the flights and air bnb apartment booked, and I was going to make the cords myself. We were going to do it down by the harbor, although I really preferred a lava field instead. Defunct lava fields are, evidently, surprisingly beautiful.
However, it never happened. I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks later, and we had to cancel the trip.
That brings me to Wildfire.
I capitalized Wildfire because it's actually the name of a brilliant literary magazine. It is called Wildfire, if I understand correctly, on the concept that cancer can clear out things in your life to make way for something even more extraordinary to go in its place.
I think that is probably the most positive spin I have ever heard about having cancer.
While last summer I was so angry I was practically spitting feathers, this summer I look at the whole situation entirely differently. Now I think that, perhaps, I was never meant to have that hand fasting with my husband. I was meant to have to with someone else one day. Honestly, if I never had cancer, I would have probably never realized that.
Wildfire has come and gone, clearing out the old to make way for the new.
My five year old daughter said something curious a few months ago, out of the blue; ''I think that you are going to get married someday.''
''I already am married'', I replied. ''To Daddy''.
''No, not him. Someone else. I don't know who, but someone else. Can I be in your wedding when you do?''.
Needless to say, my jaw practically hit the floor. She is one of those highly intuitive children, who likes to leave wildflowers for people who died over a hundred years ago at the old cemetery across town. She is always talking about philosophy, what happens to you when you die, if aliens exist. She is that sort of child. So when she says things, I really take notice.
The other night I had a dream I got married again. I have no idea to whom, as I dream in energy and not images. I pick up energy, vibes, that sort of thing. There was the beginning, which ended as soon as it began, with a ceremony outside in the woods. It was winter, and the trees were bare. God, I love the winter, and naked trees in all of their wild, imperfect glory.
There was cranberry garland in the trees, like the kind I make for the deer in our backyard every Winter Solstice, and I was wearing a big crown of evergreens and ivy in my hair. I felt beautiful.
I could tell we had a handfasting, because I could feel something on my wrist. It was my left one, the one that was badly broken. But it felt fine, so it must have been healed by then.
Soon the dream skipped to a room, a cozy room, with a few people milling around. It was intimate and lovely. So lovely. There was a little table with a few bits and pieces on it, I guess food and drink and that sort of thing. And lace garland hung up on the wall. It was simple, so, so simple. I loved it.
Now I was wearing a different dress, it was a 1950s style frock, strapless, with a puffy skirt. I know because I felt Mr. Wonderful, Rupert, whatever his name will be, put his hand on the small of my back and I felt his lips press against mine and him gently slip his tongue in my mouth. He felt warm and perfect. I could have pinned dear Rupert down then and there and made sweet love to him, I swear I could have. It's funny, because in real life I am not like that. At all. When I was a teenager, my nickname was even Granny Irondrawers because I was such a prude. I really, really was. But in this dream, with Rupert, oh my stars. I couldn't get enough of him.
Despite the incredibly lovely wedding my husband and I had, overlooking the Atlantic on a summer's day, catered, cocktail hour and champagne and sit down dinner and open bar, I didn't feel the same way I felt in my dream, in that cozy little room with Rupert. I was happy, sure, but I didn't feel the same way. It's hard to explain.
I didn't need anything else with Rupert. We were blissfully happy and madly, madly in love, on a cold winter's day in that cozy little room. It was the kind of dream that you wake up from so happy, so full of hope. That maybe, just maybe, one day that might happen for real. That I could really find Rupert, and marry him, and feel his hand on the small of my back and his tongue in my mouth and just be happier than I'd ever been in my whole damn life.
The reality is, I may never find Rupert. He may not exist, and I may end up all alone. Or maybe he does exist, and will think a handfasting is stupid. Although I think that wouldn't be Rupert then. Rupert would appreciate the historical significance and symbolism.
Anyway, the whole point of this was to explain that while a year ago I was positively heartbroken about canceling our Icelandic handfasting, I now realize that it was a blessing in a disguise. I will never, in any universe, call cancer a blessing. Never. However, it did just so happen to occur at an interesting time of my life. And if I never had cancer, I would have never realized that my marriage wasn't meant to last. I would have never noticed the cracks in the foundation that existed way before I even had cancer. I would have continued to live in blissful ignorance, potentially missing out on the real love of my life in the future as a result.
I would rather have a handfasting in the woods somewhere with Rupert and retire to a cozy little room with his arms around me than have one in Iceland anyway. Because the one in Iceland would have never made me as happy, because it wouldn't have been with the right person. It just wouldn't have.
Maybe I'll never have Rupert, or a handfasting, or wear a crown of evergreens and ivy in my hair. That's okay. It really is okay. Because it is still better than living with, ''What if?''. Because it is still better than living a lie.
I have every confidence that Wildfire has cleared the way for something even more extraordinary to take the place of what it destroyed. In fact, I am certain of it. I am learning to let go, and trust the unknown. Embrace it, even. In the face of precariousness, I am more hopeful than I have ever been.
What was it that Shakespeare said, ''To thine own self be true''? Yeah, it's that. It's exactly that.
''You know that I could somebody. Someone like you, and all you know, and how you speak''. **Link below to ''Use Somebody'' by Paramore.**
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR1fQqy3sfA
For our 10th anniversary last summer, I had planned a handfasting for us in Iceland. I had the flights and air bnb apartment booked, and I was going to make the cords myself. We were going to do it down by the harbor, although I really preferred a lava field instead. Defunct lava fields are, evidently, surprisingly beautiful.
However, it never happened. I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks later, and we had to cancel the trip.
That brings me to Wildfire.
I capitalized Wildfire because it's actually the name of a brilliant literary magazine. It is called Wildfire, if I understand correctly, on the concept that cancer can clear out things in your life to make way for something even more extraordinary to go in its place.
I think that is probably the most positive spin I have ever heard about having cancer.
While last summer I was so angry I was practically spitting feathers, this summer I look at the whole situation entirely differently. Now I think that, perhaps, I was never meant to have that hand fasting with my husband. I was meant to have to with someone else one day. Honestly, if I never had cancer, I would have probably never realized that.
Wildfire has come and gone, clearing out the old to make way for the new.
My five year old daughter said something curious a few months ago, out of the blue; ''I think that you are going to get married someday.''
''I already am married'', I replied. ''To Daddy''.
''No, not him. Someone else. I don't know who, but someone else. Can I be in your wedding when you do?''.
Needless to say, my jaw practically hit the floor. She is one of those highly intuitive children, who likes to leave wildflowers for people who died over a hundred years ago at the old cemetery across town. She is always talking about philosophy, what happens to you when you die, if aliens exist. She is that sort of child. So when she says things, I really take notice.
The other night I had a dream I got married again. I have no idea to whom, as I dream in energy and not images. I pick up energy, vibes, that sort of thing. There was the beginning, which ended as soon as it began, with a ceremony outside in the woods. It was winter, and the trees were bare. God, I love the winter, and naked trees in all of their wild, imperfect glory.
There was cranberry garland in the trees, like the kind I make for the deer in our backyard every Winter Solstice, and I was wearing a big crown of evergreens and ivy in my hair. I felt beautiful.
I could tell we had a handfasting, because I could feel something on my wrist. It was my left one, the one that was badly broken. But it felt fine, so it must have been healed by then.
Soon the dream skipped to a room, a cozy room, with a few people milling around. It was intimate and lovely. So lovely. There was a little table with a few bits and pieces on it, I guess food and drink and that sort of thing. And lace garland hung up on the wall. It was simple, so, so simple. I loved it.
Now I was wearing a different dress, it was a 1950s style frock, strapless, with a puffy skirt. I know because I felt Mr. Wonderful, Rupert, whatever his name will be, put his hand on the small of my back and I felt his lips press against mine and him gently slip his tongue in my mouth. He felt warm and perfect. I could have pinned dear Rupert down then and there and made sweet love to him, I swear I could have. It's funny, because in real life I am not like that. At all. When I was a teenager, my nickname was even Granny Irondrawers because I was such a prude. I really, really was. But in this dream, with Rupert, oh my stars. I couldn't get enough of him.
Despite the incredibly lovely wedding my husband and I had, overlooking the Atlantic on a summer's day, catered, cocktail hour and champagne and sit down dinner and open bar, I didn't feel the same way I felt in my dream, in that cozy little room with Rupert. I was happy, sure, but I didn't feel the same way. It's hard to explain.
I didn't need anything else with Rupert. We were blissfully happy and madly, madly in love, on a cold winter's day in that cozy little room. It was the kind of dream that you wake up from so happy, so full of hope. That maybe, just maybe, one day that might happen for real. That I could really find Rupert, and marry him, and feel his hand on the small of my back and his tongue in my mouth and just be happier than I'd ever been in my whole damn life.
The reality is, I may never find Rupert. He may not exist, and I may end up all alone. Or maybe he does exist, and will think a handfasting is stupid. Although I think that wouldn't be Rupert then. Rupert would appreciate the historical significance and symbolism.
Anyway, the whole point of this was to explain that while a year ago I was positively heartbroken about canceling our Icelandic handfasting, I now realize that it was a blessing in a disguise. I will never, in any universe, call cancer a blessing. Never. However, it did just so happen to occur at an interesting time of my life. And if I never had cancer, I would have never realized that my marriage wasn't meant to last. I would have never noticed the cracks in the foundation that existed way before I even had cancer. I would have continued to live in blissful ignorance, potentially missing out on the real love of my life in the future as a result.
I would rather have a handfasting in the woods somewhere with Rupert and retire to a cozy little room with his arms around me than have one in Iceland anyway. Because the one in Iceland would have never made me as happy, because it wouldn't have been with the right person. It just wouldn't have.
Maybe I'll never have Rupert, or a handfasting, or wear a crown of evergreens and ivy in my hair. That's okay. It really is okay. Because it is still better than living with, ''What if?''. Because it is still better than living a lie.
I have every confidence that Wildfire has cleared the way for something even more extraordinary to take the place of what it destroyed. In fact, I am certain of it. I am learning to let go, and trust the unknown. Embrace it, even. In the face of precariousness, I am more hopeful than I have ever been.
What was it that Shakespeare said, ''To thine own self be true''? Yeah, it's that. It's exactly that.
''You know that I could somebody. Someone like you, and all you know, and how you speak''. **Link below to ''Use Somebody'' by Paramore.**
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR1fQqy3sfA
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