INGWAZ:: Where are you in the cycle? Cycle of death, cycle of birth, cycle of change, cycle of earth? :: Yesterday in The Runic Feminine Collective we traveled with Ingwaz to the fertile field and asked this question. I don't normally vision when leading a journey, but immediately saw scorched earth, the aftermath of fire cleansing so common in the Willamette Valley where I live. I was at dirt level, eye level, microcosmic, and emerging from the soil, renewal: the tiniest shoots of vibrant green. :: In death transitions faith is hard. I've been thinking about these a lot lately, as I sit with mine. What is the difference between a life transition and a death transition? In life transitions, everything carries a modicum of sameness even as you change. Death transitions are wildfire, volcanic, meteor, flood. The entire landscape of your life changes. Nothing is recognizable. In the liminal of a life transition you feel still the wyrd webs of support shaping your outcome. In death transition the liminal is dark, chthonic, you are liquid, acid, dust. What happens next is inconsequential. It cannot be visioned, your dissolution is that absolute. :: If that sounds bleak, it can be. But death transitions are cyclic, too. Even physical death is not an end in the mythic. I can't speak to all death transitions, or even to most. I know intimately that chronic illness is one, and that is why so many people fall away. In death transitions, we become what everyone fears most. What nourishes me are the small daily practices, the call to presence, the songs of the runes, the love and prayers of family and friends who remain, even if they are baffled by what they see, even if they don't know how to help. :: There is no true help for death transitions, only through, only the dance of cycle which is many cycles at once. It is possible to be in life and death transitions simultaneously. Wholeness is nonlinear.