Happy Birthday, Life!

What does fertility mean to you?

Well… Not a lot. I mean, I could go on about it; I’m initiated into a Gardnerian-derived Wicca line, which is pretty much a fertility cult. (Though if anyone asks, you didn’t hear it from me.)

Also, Dionysos is the life of the vine, the force which brings the vine to flower and fruit, and the one who makes the hungry, hungry yeast eat sugar, piss alcohol, and make more yeast. So there’s a connection there.

But I just don’t feel it, you know? Come spring equinox, I don’t even get particularly excited about the chocolate, much less the spring. I’m much more into autumn.

Ah, autumn. I love living in California, but I really miss mid-western autumn. A billion shades of red and gold on the still-green grass, knife-edge of chill on the wind… Perfect Halloween weather.

Skeletons, ghosts, graves… Give me a midnight cemetery with frosted leaves underfoot, sharp black shadows, the feeling of dead eyes watching from everywhere and nowhere…

Come to think of it, where does fertility grow from? Dead things. We’re all worm food in the end (embalming aside), the stuff grass turns into green and and wheat turns into… well, wheat. Life feeds on death, ancestors are reborn into later generations.

Mr. Dead is the guy that throws Life’s birthday party.

So fertility is nice and all, but I’m more in tune with the phase before. I’ll help host, though.

My lover Ember and I have decided to go through Galina Krasskova’s Devotional Polytheist Meme questions together, over the next several months. We encourage our friends to follow along, and welcome links to other people’s answers in our comments, as well as your thoughts on our answers. Ember’s answer can be found at her blog, Embervoices.