It’s almost Mabon, and that means the veil is thinning. As my teachers have taught me, Mabon is the transition into the dark half of the year, and it is a time for understanding the transformation of death.

This past weekend, the staff putting on Hekate’s Sickle Festival got together for the weekend to discuss the rituals, and in the evening Bella taught us how to hold a séance. As you might imagine, it’s nothing like the movies portray it, it’s much more organic. But, that’s not the important part here – the important part is what I got out of the séance.

One of my coven-mates called out “Does anyone know a Mary?” My grandmother, Mary, passed over a week before Thanksgiving last year. “She says ‘Thank you. I appreciate what you are doing, and I am so proud of you.’” What my coven-mate didn’t know is that we had to move my grandfather out here to Seattle from Michigan, and I have been helping my mother take care of him.

My grandmother on my father’s side passed when I was 11 years old, but at that point I was too young to understand what death was. She lived in Kentucky and I rarely saw her, so not seeing her was nothing new. Now 25, this was the first time I really had to face death, and I didn’t know how.

There was a book series I read in middle school called “Circle of Three.” It was a series about three girls who discover Wicca and their year-and-a-day study before being initiated into a coven. In this series, there is one memory that stands out, and I’m going to do my best to recount it (it’s been a long time).

One of the girls was at a workshop during the winter in which they were learning about death and how to come to terms with it. They were making masks that they were going to wear outside into the snow to signify something about meeting death with a certain face. A woman helped her throughout the workshop, and this woman made a mask covered in sunflowers. The book describes the girl standing in the doorway, looking at this woman in the snow in the dark with a bright sunflower mask, meeting death head-on.

That image of the sunflower mask in the glowing snow in the night has come to me over and over again since my grandmother passed last year.

When I first told my grandmother I was going to start studying and practicing Wicca, her first question was: “What do they believe happens after you die?” She wasn’t really religious, but she said that her view on religion was that it was a way for people to have hope for the afterlife and to be able to cope with death.

I had never thought of religion that way. When I thought about it, I realized that though most of the Wiccans I know believe in reincarnation, that is not the reason for practicing Wicca. The way I see it, we practice Wicca because we want to learn how to live in the moment and live as one with the earth and the people around us.

Sunflowers are called so because not only are they the same bright yellow, but they constantly face the sun. In Greek Myth, a nymph named Clytie loved Helios, and mourning the loss at not being able to be with him, turned into a flower that followed him each time he rode across the sky in his chariot. Sunflowers can be a symbol for always seeking the light and trying to connect with Deity.

Looking back, those sunflowers on the mask were perfect. When someone dies, we have wakes and memorials to remember the good times and the wonderful thing that person did. We look to the light, we look forward, we try to find the things they taught us so that we may carry that wisdom on while living in the moment.

Transformation is prevalent in Wicca, and death is the ultimate form. We can all learn from death, just as long as we keep our eyes on the beauty that comes from it and remember to bring it with us to each moment we experience in this life.

Brenna is a 1st Degree Priestess in the WISE Tradition in the ATC, a senior at Woolsten-Steen Theological Seminary, and the Assistant Marketing Director for the ATC. She does a little bit of everything (being the Gemini that she is), but when she isn't living up to her workaholic reputation, she likes to go on walks, paint, and play video games.