Yom Kippur, Mabon, and Folsom

[danaeris]

Tonight at Wine and Song, I brashly proclaimed that I didn't feel that there was much of anything I'd truly want to repent if I were celebrating Yom Kippur. Upon arriving home, however, I began to think about it, and discovered, of course, that there were several things I could think of with minimal digging worth repenting. And several I dare not repent.

The concept of seeking out sins from the past year is potentially quite dangerous for someone with my issues, and with the depression I've been struggling with. Acknowledging some things from this past year as sins, faults, or mistakes, would be the beginning of a downward spiral difficult to check, kind of like opening the floodgates on self-flagelation, masochism, and self-hate.

I know Yom Kippur is supposed to be like that in some ways, but my concern goes beyond Yom Kippur. I beat myself up year round for my mistakes, although I'm trying to learn not to do so. Some mistakes hit closer to home than others, however, and it is very easy with those to get into a closed loop of self-hate if I regard them as faults, mistakes, or sins. Instead, I choose to accept them as facts, and strive to change the facts of my psychology. Doing otherwise makes my depression ten times worse.

One of these things are the things I failed to do, or handled poorly, due to depression. If I can truly believe that it is ok for me to be depressed when I'm depressed, that it doesn't make me a bad person, then the depression is far easier to cope with. The problem with this, of course, is that there is a large grey area where I may or may not be making excuses for myself. During the depression, there are things which I perhaps SHOULD push myself harder to achieve, and don't. After the depression, there are things I did in its throes which may or may not be facts of being me -- for which I may be culpable. But I cannot distinguish between those, and so if I find culpability for any mistake which stemmed from my depression, that downward spiral of self-hate will take effect. For that reason, I choose to let those "sins" slide. I can ambiguously say, "If there are sins I committed while depressed, I am sorry and hope to do better in the future." But I cannot catalogue them and identify them. That way lies madness.

In a similar vein, my ethics are a little strange in that direction. You see, my sense of morality and ethics incompasses human weakness. There are many mistakes I've made, sins I've committed, etc., which are excusable given my ignorance, depression, or situation. I view morality as a scale, from the "worst" thing to do to the "ideal" thing to do. I do not expect myself to always do the ideal thing, although I strive for it. If, taking into consideration my circumstances, I conclude that it was reasonable for me to do whatever I did, then I find no fault with my actions even though they were less than ideal. If, however, I look back and think "I should have known better," or, "I'm stronger than that. I could have done differently, but instead I cosetted myself," or somesuch, then I HAVE transgressed, made a mistake, sinned, or whatever word is appropriate. And that is my take on this particular aspect of ethics and "being a good person," in a nutshell.

...

I find the overlapping of Mabon, Yom Kippur, and Folsom to be... interesting. In some ways, Yom Kippur and Folsom are very well in keeping with each other (except for the wearing leather part). In other ways, as people take pleasure from the pain, it is a perversion of the goal of Yom Kippur.

Mabon, on the other hand, strikes me in some ways as the polar opposite of Yom Kippur (at least, as I understand Mabon). It is about plenty, about the wonderful things we hope will be included in the next year. It looks forward. It is a feast of the foods we hope to include in the future, and much more. Yom Kippur, on the other hand, is about looking back over the past year, and cataloguing the bad things we did, and punishing ourselves for them--asking for forgiveness. We fast on Yom Kippur; on Mabon we feast.

If I thought I had the fortitude...
I would be fasting for Yom Kippur
I would spend Yom Kippur meditating both on the past year and on things that need to happen to fix things in the past year so that I can move onto the next year.
I would clean as much of the apartment as possible, in a meditative fashion.
I would make sure to get a harsh beating at Folsom.
I would fight against some of my current issues to overcome them, even briefly, in order to have a taste of the things I dream of having in the next year (no, I won't be more specific than that).

I'm not saying those things will happen, or that they won't happen. I'm saying I would like it if they happened.

Comments

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

The concept of seeking out sins from the past year is potentially quite dangerous for someone with my issues, and with the depression I've been struggling with. Acknowledging some things from this past year as sins, faults, or mistakes, would be the beginning of a downward spiral difficult to check, kind of like opening the floodgates on self-flagelation, masochism, and self-hate.

I think this is why one does Yom Kippur communally, and when reciting sins (the Al Chayts), one does so as "For the sin we committeed..." (not I). If we do this as a group, each acknowledging for the other, then we can focus on changing our behavior and not entering the spiral of depression that a personal confession might start.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Atually, I always though the point of Yom Kippur was so you could be *done* with the mistakes you'd made over the course of the year. Spending one day a year begging for forgiveness for your mistakes, rather than doing it constantly over the course of the year, and then having all of your mistakes/sins/etc. either forgiven or not (it's assumed that if you live out the year God has forgiven you, and if not then that's just how the Book of the Year was written) sounds like a pretty good system to me. So good, in fact, that the Catholics took the idea and made it uniquely Christian by putting a priest between God and a wrongdoer, which is a control thing but also more reassuring because another human being can tell you exactly what you need to do to be forgiven while God tends to be pretty quiet on the subject.

Actually, the ten days between Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur is your golden window of opportunity to try to amend any bad juju that you've got lying around from the previous year. In Judaism that doen't mean creating good karma by doing good deeds (cause you're supposed to do that year-round anyway and there isn't really a notion of karma), but rather asking for forgiveness from people you've wronged. The rule about forgiveness (from the Talmud, IIRC) is this: if you ask 3 seperate times, in a sincere fashion, and they still do not forgive you, the onus of the deed lies upon them rather than upon you. It's the sincere part that most people screw up with.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

In spite of the fact that Yom Kippur is supposed to be about getting forgiven so that you can forget about those sins/mistakes and move on, I know that I would NOT forget about those mistakes. It is in my nature to constantly punish myself for things. Perhaps someday when I am mentally healthier and have moved beyond this tendency, I will be able to fully practice this holiday, but at the moment, it would be damaging for me in some ways.

[whipsnkisses.livejournal.com]

I actually see Mabon as the gateway to inner reflection. With the onset of Fall, the world begins to turn in on itself into it's "winter slumber" as it were. For many, it's a very powerful time to begin some deep soul searching.

As for being thankful for the plenty - I would say thankful for the fruits of the past year in a similar way that Yom Kippur asks you to reflect on it, but to come out thankful for the experience.

Here's an excerpt from an article on witchvox (http://www.witchvox.com/holidays/mabon/mabon_details.html):

"It is a time of great joy and great sorrow, it is the time of great change. Mabon is as much about life as it is about death, it is the reminder that within life there is death and within death there is life. It is about the dance that partners life with death.

Mabon is a time when we are poised between the worlds of life and death, of light and dark, of day and night. We mourn that which is passing, celebrate that which is bountiful and are consciously reminded that the Mother will hold the seed of Light in Her womb until the time of rebirth. Once more the realization that the Wheel of Year has turned, as it always has and will always continue to do as our time is circular not linear, there is no end without new beginnings, it is the continuance of life eternal.

For the second time in the year, day and night are once again equal, creating for us the time to look at our own scales, the bounty of our own personal harvest weighted against our life's experience. A time to take the gifts given from experience hard wrought, make them apart of who and what we are. These past experiences, regenerate into wisdom, which is reborn within. By doing so we honor these events, people, and experiences that have so impacted our journey, our being, and in honoring these we make them sacred and their passage one of distinction and consequence. For we can not know what we have not experienced. The journey of life is one of knowledge and through that knowledge growth."

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I've never taken the time to research the meaning of Mabon; my only experience with the holiday was a small personal ritual of a friend's in Boston I attended in 2001. She claimed that part of celebrating Mabon was to symbolically or literally partake of those things we hoped would happen in the next year, with the idea that this will make their occurrence more likely. The implication was that the festival's roots were in partaking of different kinds of foods to ensure that they would all continue to flourish and be available for consumption throughout the year.

At the time, she was studying Blue Star Wicca, which is an off shoot of either Gardnerian or Alexandrian (I forget which).

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

Reading your post after morning services, I noted the following:

If I thought I had the fortitude...
I would be fasting for Yom Kippur
I would spend Yom Kippur meditating both on the past year and on things that need to happen to fix things in the past year so that I can move onto the next year.

Here's something to think about. The haftorah for the morning service is from Isaiah 58:1, and talks about what is more important, actually fasting or making the change. It has the famous lines:

Is such the fast that I have chosen? the day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

In other words, it is not important whether you fast or meditate. What is important (and our Rabbi emphasized this) is the doing: Look back over the past year, and make the changes in your life that you need to make.

I hope this comment helps.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

It is good to know that that's the take tradition has on it. It's the one I would choose anyway -- the point of any holiday is more important than the traditions which have arisen over time surrounding it. The traditions are often helpful in getting to the point, but they aren't the point themselves. :)

In spite of that, I haven't eaten or drunk (except to take meds) since I wrote that entry. I'm debating whether I will fast until sundown, or until sunrise, since I did eat last night, but understand that it doesn't really matter, ultimately, which I choose.