Melancholia: Spring's First Funeral

Spring's First Funeral

I am suffering from a strong bout of melancholia today. Perhaps it is the queer, bittersweet, post-celebratory nostalgia following the Changeling's first birthday. Or, perhaps I lingered just a bit too long over the respirated, intubated, incubated baby photos...

Perhaps it was because just this morning I finished the first book written by author Patricia Geary, which is ironically the last for me to read (Living in Ether). I loved Geary's other books so much that they earned her a spot on the forthcoming "Guru Board" I have assembled for the Spiritual Nomad course. However, this book... I had to take it outside into the sunshine to finish it -- it was just that dark. I think it ruined my day. 

Since I closed its covers, I have been wondering what part of this story disturbed me most... the nonchalant incest? the abundance of strangely unlikeable characters? the slow, unstoppable drift towards oblivion? the main character's abstracted passivity? the vague spiritual sadomasochism? the ending that revealed nothing? ...or is it because I don't think I really understood it & now I feel compelled to endure its comfortless pages again in an effort to grasp its meaning.

Perhaps I just need more exercise.

Since I am already followed by a creeping, crud-like sadness, I shall take a moment to document our funeral for a little avian neighbor. (There has been so much Sun, warmth, new life, joy & discovery recently, that I kept putting it off.) About a week ago, we had our first spring-fever fatality. The Goldfinches are going wild at the thistle seed feeder & this means the inevitable window-collisions will ensue. Especially when the hawks kick into gear. The raptors, being clever beasts, are tuned into the feeders & use them like a drive-thru (or fly-thru, rather). When this happens, the food birds are flushed every which way. Sometimes, straight into the dining-room window. 

Carduelis tristis awaits a guide.

There is something about those fragile, weightless little bodies which commands overflowing sympathy. Every death evokes an upwelling of glass-guilt & 'why, why, why windows?' 

Every birdfriend gets a funeral. Rose petals & rosemary under the watchful eye of a rock garden guardian.  

Every funeral is followed by the corpse's reentry into the Great Cycle -- with the cooperation of a scavenger-psychopomp whose entrails serve as the gateway to a new manifestation.


To prolong the melancholia, see: The Goldfinches. An Elegy. written by Reverend Richard Jago  in 1752. It can be found in it's original pages (in four parts) thanks to the Landesbibliothek Oldenburg.

• The Goldfinches. An Elegy. Part 1
• The Goldfinches. An Elegy. Part 2
• The Goldfinches. An Elegy. Part 3
• The Goldfinches. An Elegy. Part 4