An Interior Life

G/Son and his 'rents celebrate secular xmas, and today, while I was over at his house w another wonderful witch from my circle, he was showing her some ornaments off the xmas tree that he so much adores; the ornaments, as he named then for her, were Yoda, Vader, R2D2. His tree also has a TRex ornament and an ornament that he loves with his name, DiL's name, and Son's name printed on it, and some bells that he loves to ring.

Later, after my Sister Witch and I sat at G/Son's kitchen table and planned a Yule ritual surrounded by plastic Spidermen and foam building block pieces, I took G/Son to the local public garden to see the model train exhibit. G/Son's quite the train enthusiast, and he and a just-barely-three-year-old there had a long discussion about "tenders" and "cow catchers," and, of course, "Thomas the (good cog in capitalism's machine) Tank Engine."

On the way home, G/Son and I were talking about Santa Claus and G/Son asked me where Santa came from. I told him that Santa used to be a shaman of the Saami people, and that shamans go between the worlds and help people talk to their ancestors and to animals and that Santa realized on his journeys that children love presents and so he decided to make presents for children. G/Son and I like to read Tolkein's Father Christmas Letters, and G/Son has a keen interest in the North Polar Bear, who causes so many mishaps for Father Christmas. G/Son said, "So that's why Father Christmas lives with a bear and can talk to him, because he was a shaman," and I said, "Yes, I imagine that's so." G/Son said, "Nonna, there isn't really a real North Polar Bear who can talk, in the real world; he's only in the make-believe world," and I said, "Yes, that's right. Which world is more important?" and G/Son said, "Nonna, they are both important because for of different reasons."

And so then we had a fun game saying, "Well, if you had a book about a fairy who lived with Peter Pan, would that be make-believe or only real?" and "Well, if you had a book about how firemen fight fires, would that be make-believe or only real?" "and "Well, if you had a book about Spiderman and Venom would that be make-believe or only real?" and "Well if you had a book about how dinosaurs lived, would that be make-believe or only real?" and we had a lot of fun and then we learned the words "fiction" and "non-fiction" because, damn it, Nonna has a BS and an MS in education and she knows how to use them! Truth be told, she cannot help herself in any world.

And then G/Son said to me, "Hey, Nonna? When I'm all by myself . . . and there's no one to talk to me . . . I think to myself about what Santa Claus might bring to me . . . and I talk to him . . . and no one knows but me and Santa Claus, and I like that, and, Nonna . . . even if I'm mad or sad, I think what I would say to him and Santa Claus is not mad at me if I get sad about something." And I just wanted to fall prostrate on Mother Earth and kiss the dirt and absorb the cold into my very body and to cry with gratitude that G/Son has an interior life. But I was driving, so I settled for some weepy eyes and saying, "Well, that's good. You can talk to Santa anytime, even if you are surrounded by other people."

And they are going to have to pry me, kicking and screaming, from this world w/ G/Son in it. I will not go gentle into that Good Night (although my words have, indeed, from time to time forked some lightning) until I think that it's come to the time to make a good example. I won't. I am having too much fun. It's just getting interesting w/ this little person whose Sun and Moon match mine and whose Ascendant matches his father's Sun. I want to see how this story turns out. It's a good story and it's not "only" real. In the words of the prayer that I say each morning upon arising: it's all real, it's all metaphor, there's always more.