Life and Death and Rebirth
I've mentioned the veneration of those who willingly share their souls with Eoni who need to eat, and how we view life as sacred. What I haven't mentioned is how life and death are treated as a whole. The Cycle is described as Life, Death and Rebirth, but it isn't rebirth in the way that most know it as.
We describe Rebirth as the life that comes from our bodies as a result of our Death, so think of the fungi off a rotting tree as our definition of Rebirth.
It is understood amongst Eonians that Life begins at First Breath, not with the first heartbeat, and Death is the Last Breath. Rebirth is an honorable task that our bodies undergo as time goes on, and as repayment and thanks for the Life we lived.
Now, the Rites for Life and the Rites for Death are drastically different, but both encompass a sense of joy about the occasion, celebrating the upcoming phase.
This joy, this excitement, it brings our communities together. My mother mentioned that when Xarin and I were born our relatives came out in droves to greet us and make sure she and my father had committed to the Rites we needed to be fully accepted as Eonians.
The Life and Death Rites aren't all that different in the level of reverence they're delivered with, and many Eonians believe they ought to only exist as word of mouth prayers. I'll be honoring that request, especially considering what each Rite entails, and the depth they go into in confessing the love and faith in that particular person.
Eonigia's Death Rites were delivered with almost every Eonian alive present, over five-thousand people flocking to the island, candles everywhere. It was a beautiful ceremony to honor her.
The fear is, however, since she was never granted the Life Rites, that we will not see her again when we also pass. The Rites act as an open and close to one's life, and since hers never had a proper introduction, it is seen as closing a book that was never written.
There aren't a lot of stories surrounding the births and deaths of people, which is strange. The Rites have been passed down since the beginning, and there are names for each prayer in these Rites. Life being "Breathe", "Welcome", and "First Light", while Death is "Last Breath", "Goodbye", and "Nox", (translated the names roughly to what they mean in the common language, it's not exact).
I imagine for many its common for many to just fall into rituals to make themselves feel better about the passing of their loved ones, but I'm not so sure what the worry is with the beginning of one's life. Having Rites of Life performed feels like there's some horrible thing expected from the beginning. Not many Eonian infants die so immediately after birth, not even historically.
It's strange, isn't it?
I know this isn't really a story surrounding these rituals, but my experiences with these rituals leaves me questioning why exactly they exist.
Each prayer is solemn, each practice revenant, up until the Rebirth ceremony, where it is assumed that the person who passed has started to decay in their grave, or when their ashes are spread.
Only then do people actively celebrate, as if the existence of the person was a debt to be repaid to the land we live on, and to the oceans we sail. It's the strangest feeling hearing my own grandmother tell me that I will be such beautiful ashes once my burden has passed.
That was her phrasing, of course, and grandma Naveha is, of course, not in the best years of her life, but still. Hearing that your life, your existence, is your burden to bear, as if there is nothing worth celebrating, is… It does something to your head.
Yaldabaoth never let us close to our grandmother when we were younger, instead insisting she simply call and he would hang up once she started to start her stranger tangents. Maybe he was trying to protect us from that thought that being born means being a burden.
Growing up and witnessing only the Death and Rebirth Rites and rituals leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to understanding how we open the book of someone else's life with the appropriate rites. Solemnity around Death is understandable to me, it's the end of an entirely unique existence that we cannot regain. It feels surreal, knowing that you will only ever remember that person, instead of experiencing life side by side with them. Knowing you will never converse with them again, knowing you will never know them so personally, never hear their voice, never see them smile.
And perhaps Rebirth is meant to celebrate the letting go of the sorrow that surrounds Death, I mean, the grief by then must feel so much smaller. We come to understand that the person can no longer suffer, and left behind a legacy worth remembering, and may even be doing some good in Death! Those are all things to celebrate!
But contextualizing it with the opening that we are immediately understood to be a burden, that our existence is an obligation to carry for our whole lives, that we are a struggle to be endured by the land and those around us, it cheapens the celebrations and mourning in Rebirth and Death. It hurts my heart to think that's what my grandparents thought, and that my parents spent so much energy trying to protect us from starting with that self-deprecating ideology.
It definitely puts into context what Mom went through, why she would spend her birthdays trying to hide tears after we were born. She would do everything in her power around my and Xarin's birthdays to truly celebrate our existence, and show us we were loved in our sadder moments.
How she managed to fight everything she had been taught from birth is beyond me, but I know she couldn't have done it without my father.
I mean, consider for a moment what it takes to deconstruct that. Being told from the get-go that you are a burden, that you exist at the expense of others, even if it is just one or two people, or at the expense of the land you live on. What does that do to people? It has to make them feel guilty! Guilty and ashamed to be their fullest self if it doesn't serve others from the onset. It's almost tragic that that is what people start out their lives believing, that anyone would be subject to believing that from the onset.
How does that guilt serve the community in the end? Does it just allow someone to ask favors of others knowing they'll feel guilty for saying no? Does it empower any particular group, because I know even the Queens are taught this from the onset, the royals forced to learn it even more deeply as they hold our communities together.
Guilt and obligation only serve to brew resentment in almost every other society, so is it that everyone understands some of the pains the others go through that it hasn't for Eonians?
I tried talking with my father on the issue. He refuses to entertain my thoughts, my questions on the matter almost seeming to cause him physical pain.
"Let that past lie with your mother. Xiomara, you are as worthy of life as anyone else, and it is no burden to anyone, nor is it a burden to the land," He adamantly explained. It wasn't an answer to my question.
"Dad, that's not what I asked. Why would anyone allow that belief to persist beyond the dark ages? It's hurtful to everyone who grows up under it."
He hesitated, and gave me a strange look. For a moment, he seemed almost proud I was trying to understand, before he became concerned.
"Why? Control. If you can control how one feels about what they are in the world, whether burden or the gods' favorite progeny, you can manipulate the rest of their life to your purpose. It took awhile for Sarothi to understand why I was so insistent she was never a burden to me.. Eonigia has been fighting for decades to remind the people that there is no burden, just a desire for understanding and compassion."
Yaldaboath wouldn't answer anymore of my questions, especially not when it came to Eonigia. He would cut me off saying that I could go ask Eonigia myself. I think he's been trying to forget she's passed on at this point, quite purposefully. It hurts to know Mom and her childhood home will never be the same as they once were for him.
I don't know if Xarin's had to take any of it to heart himself, especially considering he's managed to successfully have a few Eonians live with him as a living island. He hasn't shown any real signs of having the same issues, and remarkably has gotten more patient with me when I've made suggestions in the past.
Though, I'm worried that may be because he's starting to succumb to the rhetoric that he is a burden and that he's only here because Eonigia is gone. He hasn't outright expressed that, but I think I'm allowed to worry—
That's well and beyond the point, though. Imagining what the world is looking like for him does nothing to help him or help me.
