Love your fate

"At a certain moment in Nietzsche's life, the idea came to him of what he called 'the love of your fate.' Whatever your fate is, whatever the heck happens, you say, "This is what I need." It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge.

If you bring love to that moment - not discouragement - you will find the strength is there. Any disaster that you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You'll see that this is really true.

Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not."  -- Joseph Campbell



I've thought of this quote often in the last couple months, in different contexts.  Most recently, it's the possessive quality in the phrase, "the love of your fate".  As in, this fate is mine. It is something that belongs to me, and was even chosen by me before I was born to this life.  (That is my personal belief, at least.)

I can lament, I can rage, I can weep and pound my fists... And the pain of having been separated from my beloved certainly warrants all of this and more. Sometimes the sheer terrible reality of it hits me out of nowhere. That I can never again look in his eyes or hear his laugh or feel his touch. That his body is now ashes.  And just as terrible, sometimes, is the deep knowing that I will never experience such happiness as I did in those few years we were together.  That just as everyone else gets to live in a state of hopeful anticipation of their future, that mine could never live up to my past.

But on the other hand... I was blessed to be embodied with him in this life, to have known that joy and happiness, to have truly experienced unconditional love.  Should I be considered less fortunate, for having known such blessings in my past versus having the amorphous possibility of something like it in my future?  When not one of us is guaranteed anything in life, except for death?  Would I wish to trade places with anyone I know?  The answer to the last is a definite no, and even that small realization is empowering. Taken as a whole -- my fate, my life, the entirety of my relationship with my beloved -- they are mine to cherish, even when it sometimes feels like my heart is breaking.

And my beloved's fate is his own as well, and I can not try to rob him of its significance -- I can't belittle it as simple tragedy or happenstance -- not on a spiritual level, anyway.  His death was his, and the manner and timing of it all significant to his soul and his path.  Even if one does not believe that such things are planned, per se, it is still certainly sacred and even beautiful.  When someone you love transforms, literally transitions from one form to another, can you do other than continue to love them in their new form, and honor the transition?

Part of our wedding vows:

Him: "I pledge myself to you, and I will love you even beyond death."
Me: "I pledge myself to you, and I will embrace our fate and all that it brings."

So perhaps we even knew, on some level.  Regardless... here I am, my love. Embracing our fate.  And I know you are loving me still. 

Small Epiphany

I was driving and thinking about Joseph Campbell's maxim of "follow your bliss."  (Since college, I've been very fond of Campbell and his work.)  It was an online conversation that led me to back to it, and I found myself imagining how I'd explain sources of bliss in my life.  I would say, it's twofold: experiencing life, union and communion with my lover/husband/soulmate AND worshipping and experiencing communion with the gods and everything that entails, the mysticism and devotion to Them.  And it hit me.

These things ARE my bliss.

You see, I'd always interpreted a subtext to "follow your bliss".  Namely, that one should be able to turn one's bliss into a vocation, and that is what you should do with your life.  That whatever you love or whatever fulfills you should be able to be transformed into a career.  I've never loved any job that I've had.  I went to college to try and figure it out and got a degree in General Arts because I didn't.  The job I have now I've had for nearly 10 years, because I'm good at it, it pays well and it helps people.  But I don't love it, and some days I don't even like it.  I've long thought myself as a little "lost" because I couldn't figure out how to reconcile what other people seem to be able to.

But in another time, my devotion to the gods COULD have been a vocation.  I could have served in a temple or been a priestess.  I would have done it in a heartbeat.

Like most epiphanies, this probably seems pretty ordinary and obvious to anyone else.  But it was a subtle shift in perception that makes me feel not just less "lost", but just a little more justified in taking what time I need to devote to the gods.  I don't know how to turn mysticism into a career, but I think I can figure out how to make it a priority in my life.