A Grove of Ashes and Aspens

Now Playing: From Blood to Stone by Elvenking

Now listen. I get it. “Another post about remembering the fallen and all that sappy shit.” Yes. That’s essentially what this is. But with a twist.

Remembering fallen soldiers will mean different things to different people in different ways, depending on their position either in the military or in relation to the military (military spouse/romantic partner, parent, child, sibling, etc). If you don’t know anyone in the military, you’re going to have a different look on this kind of thing than if you’ve had someone you care about serve a tour and be unfortunate enough to not come home.

I happen to be dating someone in the military. (Have been for 2.5 years, it’s fun.) This means that while I haven’t had to deal with my partner going on any tours yet, that doesn’t mean I’ll never have to deal with it. That changes how I look at this.

When I was a kid, I understood the point, but it was still really boring, because I had no stake in it myself other than my own safety, and I never thought it would affect me. Now, while things like war are never going to affect me directly in the sense of me getting involved, there’s a chance they could affect me through my partner. And that can be scary.

But how can paganism come into this? Well, welcome to that rant.

My partner is sometimes away doing military things when high days come around. (Or we’re both busy, but that’s another matter.) That means we can’t celebrate together. Is that a huge deal? No, but it does still kinda suck.

The bigger part of how it connects to me being a pagan is that now I have a solid way to connect to the more war centered deities in my practice (as much as that can be a bit scary). Through this connection, I have a bit of an oath to myself (and to the gods in a way) to do what I can to protect those I care for. It’s one that I renew with myself every year, as a bit of a personal ritual.

Now, will every pagan with a military partner have this sort of thing in their practice? No, of course not. That would be ridiculous to assume. But it is important to keep in mind that some may find solace in their practice, as I have in mine. It just may look different from how I do it, because people are different and weird (observation).

Anyway, that’s just my own take on all of this. While it does annoy me how aggressively Christian a lot of this is, that’s a rant to save for the manifesto.