Witches Haven

TO MARCH INTO HELL FOR A HEAVENLY CAUSE.
by
Deena Fredenburg
Jan.2/08

I wish, I wish, I wish, I was a great orator that could affect nations.

I wish I had the ability to use words in a way that could change a perspective.

I wish I had the power to inspire one to stand up and march through hell with a strong sword and helmet. I don't have that gift. But I am going to try.

It's important that I do, because of the great pain with which so many walk.

When we are born, we grow up believing we have somehow entered into a form of contract, with life itself. We have rights.

• We have the right to be safe.
• We have the right to be loved.
• If we work hard in life we will succeed.
• If we take care of ourselves we will be healthy.
• We will grow up and find someone who will cherish and love us.
• We will be parents if we so choose to.
• We will raise our children to the best of our abilities.

Someday we will dangle little chubby grand babies on our laps, and when we are very old, our children will bury us. We, of course, won't ever bury them.

Well now, that doesn't seem to be a lot to expect from life. We DO NOT believe it our right to be famous, or talented or rich. That happens to the lucky few.

But these other things? Why, these are just the basics; not only do we expect them, we even think we are entitled to them. And you know what? We are.

Isn't it one bitch of a shock, when we find out life is a liar. Life does not keep to the contract. Life is out to screw us over, every step of the way.

• 1 in 3 women are raped. Those women, did not grow up safe.
• 7 in every 1000 infants born in America die within the first year of their life.
• 44-50 % of marriages end in divorce (depending upon what statistic you believe)
• 80,000 women will develop a uterine cancer this year.
• How many of those, lose their ability to ever have children?

I could throw more statistics at you, but I know you don't need to see them. You only care about one statistic. The one you live. The moment we become a statistic, a dream dies. A basic tenet of our life, dies. When anything dies, there must be a grieving process.

At first, we live in our little denials, then we bargain with our Gods, then we become angry and lose faith in our Gods; we cry until there are no more tears, and then? We accept. Once we accept, we learn to endure. When we endure, we rebuild.

When we rebuild, we come to realize we can continue with life, despite the loss of our dream.

We endure the unendurable.

Do you know the song, 'The Impossible Dream'? There is a line in that song that I am particularly fond of: "To be willing to march into Hell for a Heavenly Cause".

Yes, that is a good line. It can mean so many things, to so many people. To some, it is a Joan of Arc who marched into hell for her religious beliefs. To others, it is a Benazir Bhutto who accepted the risk of assassination for a vision, a vision of democracy.

Warriors, who have marched into hell for a heavenly cause.

But to me it means something else. See me? I believe that all of us make our contracts with life before we get here. I believe that we choose for ourselves exactly what we need to endure in order to learn something this time around, in this life school.

That is very much a Pagan perspective. Although not all Pagans hold that perspective. All of us who have been forced to endure the unendurable, chose that ourselves. We choose our own march. We choose our own hells, and we did it for a heavenly cause.

In order to learn, and to grow in spirit.

If we endure the unendurable, an amazing thing happens. We change as a soul. We grow as a spirit. We come to realize what incredible Stars we really are.

We are really only entitled to one right in this life. We are entitled to live our lives in any form of attitude we want.

That's it. That's all. Nothing more.

We can march into hell and find ourselves a nice warm seat inside of there, plunk our arses down and never come out.

We can march through hell and keep marching until we have spent enough time walking that eventually we just stumble out of it, because? Well, there really was no other direction but straight through. Only to realize we really didn't pay attention to the potential directions when we were on the inside. We really didn't learn much in hell at all.

Or we can slap on our helmets, lift up our sword and shield. Fight our way through it, and learn the directions as we go. So that the next trip, and by the way, there will be another trip; we will damn well find our way out faster and smarter.

Live long enough and all of us will march through hell for our own individual heavenly causes.

Most of the folks carry the scars of their own individual marches and battles. Some denied their right to love, their right to safety, their right to raise their children to adulthood. Their right to have children at all. Their right to good health.

What is your heavenly cause? Everybody has one. This end of a dream, this death of a right, this unendurable hell.

I tell you now, this is your moment. Raise your sword and fight your way through this. You will grieve. You will be angry. You will bargain, I will bet. And then?

You accept. You will always grieve, but you will survive. You will redirect and refocus your life. You will rebuild. You will create a new dream.

Tell me now; if you are in hell, how will you march?

What attitude will you live the rest of your life in?

Choose. It is your right to choose.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Canada License.