the Sacred Mystery of Denial #paganvalues

The agrarian mysteries conferred the secret of the vine. Ecstatic mysteries the secret of sex and reproduction. The Mystery of the 2 x 4 is when the universe clobbers you after trying to show you gently what you needed to know several times. Sacred consent, sacred sex, love, joy, passion, death, survival, healing, sharing, compassion – we’re all about it.

But there is another mystery. It’s actually a Mystery of light – but we have come to treat it like a shadow.

It is no shadow.

The Mystery of Denial is how we keep light when dark would overcome us. It is how we choose dark when our life is spent and we have no more to give to the light.

It is how we are able to change paths and pursue our truths – rather than be overwhelmed by a truth that isn’t ours to live out.

Denial is our gods-given right to refuse. It is the manifestation of free will; saying no is how we know that we are free.

We may choose to live when we are given a crippling disease that removes any quality of life. But our choice to refuse to is also sacred.

We may be offered the pleasures of the flesh – but we are meant to be free to refuse them. We may have those pleasures requested of us, for selfish or shared pleasure – and it is a sacred duty for the asker to accept a refusal, as this is the play of free will upon the earth.

We may be asked for money, for food, for shelter, for things trivial and significant. We may give and this is sacred. But refusing to give is, too, sacred.

No is not the enemy.

No is simply our guardian, our tool to mark what is ours upon our person.

The word no causes the mind to cloud and the throat to tighten. But it should not.

When you master this mystery, you will relax upon hearing it – because no simply means to take another path, until such a time as your path is also to say no.

This is the sacred Mystery of Denial; if we are truly life affirming, we must have room for this negative.