Bean Sidhe

Illustration by Tallulah Fontaine
Originally published in Broadview magazine for my reflection What is Precious in Life.

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Today is seven years since Paul slipped away. The veil had been gossamer for a week. He wasn’t ready to let us go, his beloved Finn, the beauty that had emerged between us. I felt the veil flutter as his body could no longer hold him. An exhale brushing past and then . . .

I only looked up the meaning of Bean Sidhe after it broke me open today. How did my body know? 1

About six months after Paul died I wrote “joy and sorrow are not opposites. They are here together companionably having tea, inviting me to sit and drink in both the gladness and anguish because both speak to what is precious.” Today I am feeling grief and gratitude. So much has happened in seven years. I am not the person I was. Like Jesus’ disciples needing his death to integrate what he had been trying to teach them, it was after Paul fell ill that I began to understand what he had been teaching me. Since then I have looked deep into the depth of my own brokenness and the hurtful ways it rose out of me. Paul was the one who that most landed on as he held the container for me.

My grief today emerges out of loss. And so does my gratitude. The truth is that Paul’s shift also untethered me. I was suddenly freed to begin a journey. Not that he had ever held me back from anything. His support allowed me to shift careers, pursue interests, become a diaconal minister. But this journey was one I needed to do on my own. It has taken me many places both earthly and other-worldly. Some of my grief is that he did not experience the partner that I could be to him now. Some of my gratitude is that others will experience that as I am more able to offer grace and love to those around me.

Desert, hill and mountains later, I am preparing for another journey. This one into the depth where the roots of Yama (Mountain) mingle with the roots of Sakura (Cherry Blossom) deep in Earth and bones ~ the ancient and lasting with that which lives seasons upon seasons then ultimately gives it’s body and seed to something new. These two energies have accompanied me for the past 4 years of exile and isolation. Now we are all emerging out of isolation and this place of exile has become my home. Only as I write do I recognize both the Biblical and mythological in this. Now begins a necessary deepening as I draw down into these roots.

There is a convergence of energy happening. In me, in the world, in this moment. Thank you Paul. Because of you I am more ready for this. Because of you I am more ready to encounter me. 
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Thank you Bean Sidhe for cracking me open. I’m coming in. ~
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1Bean Sidhe is a track on Alana Levandoski’s Folk Opera Cianalas/Tãsknota, released February 1, 2024.
Bean Sidhe is an Irish fairy woman who keens at the death of a family member.