The Grief within Switching Spiritual Paths

Whew. If I ever learn how to not be hard on myself, it's during this period of my life. I knew that moving to a new state and city would be an upheaval and that such big moves inherently involve grief, but I didn't expect to be so submerged.

Everywhere I turn, there's grief old and new. I have been putting off writing my second paper for class on Alzheimer's because it involves hearing from people who directly experience the disease and then I have to think about my grandfather who died 10 years ago or what I might go through when I reach old age. Or my dog wakes up coughing in the middle of the night again and I think about the cardiologist vet's news back in September that the size of his heart indicates that "he is on the verge of something." And then later that day, I run into a giant ofrenda at an antique shop filled with photos of people's passed relatives and pets and have nearly a panic attack running back out.

Is there solace in spirituality? Usually. I mean, it always helps to be able to go over to my ancestor shrine and say hi to previously mentioned grandpa. But for me, my spirituality is changing so much that there is death and grief in it as well.

My turn to Luciferianism was so abrupt as to surprise me, never mind friends who have known me and my flavor of astrological paganism for years. For awhile, especially when I lived back in southern California, I thought I could and would hang onto Apollo and the planetary spirits while pursuing my new relationship with Lucifer.

Instead, once I arrived at the Pacific Northwest, things changed. First, Lucifer started expressing displeasure and confusion at my continued relationship with Apollo and the others. He had thought I would shed them upon my arrival in my new setting, apparently for my betterment. Second, my actual relationships even outside of his perspective did not flow naturally like they once had. I had pared down my once all-planet shrine to just Venus and Mercury with Apollo's shrine nearby. Sometimes, I just couldn't figure out when to talk to them. Other times, I set dates and failed to meet them. I didn't know what to ask of them or politely turned down their offers for favors, no longer feeling the need to accept.

Part of this was because some of these relationships were so tied up in my ex-girlfriend and even the deities didn't seem to know how to transform the foundation of our dynamics away from her. The other part is maybe what Venus said when I confronted her about her only electing to appear to me sometimes outside of shrine time in contrast to Lucifer having full conversations and responding to my needs daily: "Well, a lover is always going to show up differently."

When you cultivate such close ties with spirits, they are in many ways like family. So I do not say this as if to throw entities I love away frivolously. But like how my new city offers me so much more than my old city, I couldn't go back to interacting with deities the way I once did after Lucifer had opened the door to something new. And the thing is, I think the planetary spirits tried meeting me there. I had such weirdly vivid and personal experiences with them near the end of our time together than I ever had in the preceding 3+ years of worship I gave. But the moments that could have been taken before to deepen our ties had already passed. Turns out our relationships with the divine can change same as our relationships with fellow embodied beings. And the truth is... I may be a person who will always transform away even from what seems to be core tenets of who I am.

So, this New Moon which is happening almost exactly on my natal Ascendant and very closely to a Mercury cazimi on the same degree, may be the last I seriously notice for awhile. I'm saying goodbye for now to the gods who helped me survive my last few months in New Jersey, discover southern California, experience my gender egg cracking and the familial consequences, and basically grow through my secondary teenaged years. I may even say goodbye to astrology since what had once obsessively captivated me now seems tiresome. Tonight is the last time I know of that I will sing their Orphic hymns (Thomas Taylor versions), light incense for them, and commune. Grief will fill and ignite the eight of us, like self-alighting fuel.

There is joy and hopefulness in this. Like a seesaw, my body is swinging from the murky depths of grief to the bright potential I can feel ahead of me by more fully embracing Lucifer and his pantheon. I wish to shake off the remainders of my determinism. I wish to alter the course of my life for the better. I long, more than anything now within the independent adulthood my old gods had pushed me toward, to be free.