Three colors adorn the altar, three colors, ancient in meaning, starkly beautiful as I sit in meditation, with my rosary, saying recrafted ancient prayers, prayers as fresh as the new religion I amalgamated, and prayers honoring the most ancient of ancients. Black for life, Red for life, White for Rebirth. Ancient colors standing for the Maiden, the Mother, the Crone, for whoever heard of something so silly as a male giving birth to children through breathing dirt, or building a person from a rib? No, life is difficult, life is breathed in the dirt, the blood, and the returning light, whether it is real or manufactured by our brains to protect us from the pain of a body shutting down.
Three colors, in honor of my mother's birth, life, and rebirth.
Black for the dirt of which we are made, which through the soil we sustain our lives. Black for the first great mysterious gate, the journey that starts black, and has us traveling through to the light of life. Black for the return of the body to soil, no longer able to decompose and feed the worms, but sealed in a steel vault and sunk underground. Black for the color of the Gaia's bones, jutting up from the island of her birth, Newfoundland, the island that taught my mother that people are good at heart, and that if we all banded together in community, sharing each other's burdens, giving what we have, taking care of each other, perhaps meaning can be found. Trusting in the black of the soil to produce all, trusting in the inky depths of the water that enough cod will be brought for the year. Black was the color of the rosary, dedicated to the Black Madonna(if only my staunchly catholic mother knew what her beloved Mary actually symbolized, a loving Great Mother instead of the fierce sadistic asshole of a god who allows his followers to say, "God only allows the very good ones to suffer so much" during the last few horrible days of her mother's death), wrapped around cold dead hands, lying in a red rose strewned white coffin. Black the color of absence.
Red, for the blood of life. Woman born, Woman who bled life in her five children. Woman who bled the red blood out any orifice that would allow an exit, in chunks of thick red clots at the end of her life. Red, the color of that flooded the suction catheter, as I took it from the nurse who was trying to do four things at once, Red chunks of red blood as I suctioned chunks of blood out of my mother's red throat, praying that the nurse would be merciful, and would drop more morphine than slightly necessary in the IV port, in an effort to be kind rather than legal. Red Roses, on the white coffin, surrounding the coffin, and even now, her faithful eldest daughter leaves red roses on a newly dug grave site. Red roses, grabbed from the top of the coffin sit on the altar of remembrance of a being bled red into life, a woman who bled red for the start of her children's lives, and a woman who bled red on the ending of that life. Fiery, passionate warm red, and life.
White, for death. I am told by others that white is the actual color of death. White is the color that is associated with Easter, and rebirth. White, the color of death, but what is death but a rebirth into different energy, different form of life? White for the kitchen that she had painted five years ago, when I told her, "no you don't really want a white kitchen," bearing the burden of never being right in my family even when I am, and of course as it was with my mother, having her say to me six months a white kitchen, "I never should have chosen white". White is the color of the angel on the quilt hospice placed over your body as they wheeled what remained out to the hearse. White is the color of the coffin chosen, White the color of the light I hope the mediums are right when they say "she went to the white light and was at peace". White, the color of canvas once stained with the black, and reds, and greens of life, that the artist now painted over in white gesso. White, the color of endings and beginnings.
Mom, it was indeed an honor and privilege to be your caregiver the last year and a half. Indeed, it was one long goodbye for us wasn't it? I dress the altar in Red, Black, and White for you for 30 days, and say the rosary, hopefully you are in a place where my paganifying it up a bit is smiled upon, 30 days, when the altar will be dressed in White with the red roses set upon it, to honor your rebirth.
May the Goddess Guard You. May You Find Your Way to the Summerlands. May Your Family and Friends Find Peace.