Requiem: the Beauty of Mourning in Witchcraft

In this video I talk about death and death Magic and Witchcraft Rituals to help with mourning the loss of a loved one, in this case my pet cat Merlin. Necromancy is a powerful tool that Witchcraft and Magick offer to help us process death, loss and grief.

Mourning the loss of a loved one is never easy. It often takes months or even years to fully process and mourn the loss of someone close to you, and the modern paradigm doesn't seem to provide for us any real tools and Rituals to do so in a healthy and whole way. But Witchcraft offers us many tools and Rituals that help us to mourn, process and heal from the loss of the souls that were close and dear to us in life.

I, for one, have recently suffered the loss of my dear cat companion of sixteen years, Merlin. He and I had such a complicated relationship. When I went to the shelter to find a cat, I had no idea what I was really getting myself into. I looked at every single cat in the place, and he was literally among the last. When I walked into the room, he was sitting in the window looking out, and immediately turned to me as I entered. We made eye contact, and he meowed, and I immediately walked over to him. When I got close enough, the first thing that he did was to put his paws on either side of my face, look me lovingly in the eyes, and meow at me. It was as if he had been waiting on me, as if we already knew one another, and it was in that moment that I knew that I had found my cat.

Merlin was one of the most loving, and affectionate, and codependent cats that I had ever met. And he loved hard, and insistently the entire time we were together. Age, sickness and loosing his hearing did nothing to dampen his affection for me, and need to be near me. This was especially hard sometimes for me to deal with. There were times when I just wanted to be left alone, but he rarely (as with most cats) respected my boundaries. But I loved him deeply and dearly, even when I sometimes hated his demanding my affection. Losing him has been very hard, and so I have turned to the tools of my Craft, Witchcraft, to help me to process, mourn, honor him and the life we shared together, and to eventually heal.

When Merlin first went missing in October, I didn't know for sure if he was really gone, so I created a Sigil of Homecoming, combined with a Sigil for his name, in order to draw him back, and lead him home if he was out there somewhere still living. (Creating a Sigil involves working the letters of your subject, thought, and/or intent together into a meaningful symbol, while all the while holding your intent in you heart and mind, and putting that energy into the fashioning of the Sigil. Thus it becomes a Powerful and concentrated form of Magic.)

For a little over a month I left the Sigil on my Altar in order to enhance its power, and every time I glanced at it or thought about it, I would refocus on my intent to bring Merlin back home. I also posted flyers all over the neighborhood, knocked on doors, and called every shelter in the area, to no avail. Then the synchronistic message came to me that I should speak to one of my friends who has a really strong Psychic gift for perceiving, Intuiting, and communicating with living animals, spirits and the dead. She told me what I already knew in my heart, that he had passed on, and that he loved and missed me, but that it had been time for him to do so.

It was after my conversation with her that I decided that it was time for me to start collecting materials for Merlin's Requiem, so I found a lovely black, beeswax taper candle, and a black, beeswax, kitten skull candle, both perfect for my Requiem Ritual.

But, it wasn't yet time for me to mourn, or to perform Necromancy (Rituals of Death, Death Magick and/or mourning) for Merlin.

And sometimes that's the case with death. It takes awhile for us to be able and ready to mourn. And that's okay. Unlike the pressures we face from the dominant patriarchal paradigm, from friends, family, and society, to mourn quickly, in the allotted, socially acceptable time and space and way, Witchcraft allows us to walk the journey of mourning and loss, of Death, in or own time, in our own way.

So I waited. I thought. I checked in and checked inward. And yet it wasn't time. I have learned to trust myself, and my Self said that I wasn't ready. I also checked in with myself about the Sigil, to make sure that it wasn't somehow holding Merlin and his spirit here, and keeping him from moving on to his next home.

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[beans]

Thank you for sharing this, how beautiful and vulnerable this is

[colourmequaint]

Thank you. I am currently mourning my feline soul mate George. I would love to be inspired by your actual ritual, if you would like to share. Much love your way. Losing a cat in unbearably hard...