Eulogy, of sorts
Oct. 20th, 2002 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cdybedahlEarly yesterday morning Laila Wiberg breathed out for the last time. She had the good fortune to pass away in her own bedroom. With her were her husband, one of her oldest friends and two nurses from a nearby hospital. It was not unexpected, since she had been fighting cancer for a long time, but it still came as a shock. The finality of death is something you are never really prepared for, even if you think you are.
I don't remember when I first saw Laila. It must have been at a roleplaying convention, so it can't have been before 1991. By 1996, when I first really met and talked to her, I'd known her by sight for a long time. She was hard to miss, being taller than most women and quite fond of less than discreet hairstyles in strong colours.
My first contact with Wicca had came several years before, when my then-girlfriend bought a bunch of books by Starhawk. I read them and liked what I found more than I'd liked any other occultish path, so I tried to find some actual wiccans to talk to. I succeeded, and the experience made me stay the fuck away from Wicca for years. They were the worst kind of selectively blind New Age fluffheads I'd ever met, and talking to them left me with an exceedingly strong feeling that This Was Not For Me. I held that opinion until the 1996 LinCon.
I don't remember exactly what was doing when a friend of mine came and dragged me away with the words "You need to see this". Probably I was gamemastering in the drop-in improv RPG activity that we were running for the first time that year. In any case, she dragged me down to the dealer's area and up to the tables occupied by a store called "Häxans Hus" ("The Witch's House"). Which had been started and was run by Laila and a girl by the name of Sara. I talked to Sara for a while, and my friend nearly talked the ears off Laila for a long time. When I left, I knew that they were wiccans, that they belonged to a wiccan coven in Stockholm and that they were not at all fluff-headed. Later that year, when I got a job and moved up to Stockholm, I looked up their store and started hanging there. After a few weeks, Laila mentioned that she was about to start monthly meetings with some people who wanted to join her coven. I asked if I could come too. Which I could.
And there started my path with Laila as teacher and guide.
Laila was opinionated, stubborn, demanding, clear-sighted and she had absolutely no tolerance whatsoever for fluff-headed bullshit. She knew about as much as there is to know about ancient celtic religion and very much overall about the history of Western religion and occultism. She came down like a ton of bricks on any attempt to claim that Wicca is a religion from ancient times, loudly demanding evidence to support such claims. Any claims about ancient times she'd go over with the fine-tooth comb of academia, angrily pointing out all the places where New Age writers would disregard evidence that didn't support the conclusion they wanted. When her illness stopped her, she was working on her Ph.D. thesis in theology and Ronald Hutton had agreed to be her advisor. It is a great pity that that thesis will never be finished.
Most, if not all, of us who came to her in her role as priestess brought along a baggage of misconceptions and delusions about what was what. By her incessant questioning and arguing, she helped us lose the chaff and falsehoods, so that we could find the core of our own beliefs and experiences. She led us where we would not ourselves have dared go, and we always knew that she would be there to catch us when we fell. As great teachers do, she removed the obstacles that prevented us from growing and then she let us grow as we would. We most certainly did not always agree with her, but we always knew we could trust her.
I knew Laila as priestess and to some extent as a writer of roleplaying games. Other people knew her in other capacities, as Tai Chi teacher, theater director, medieval dance teacher, diviner, shopkeeper, lecturer or student. She made many friends, and quite a few enemies. You can't be as outspoken and opinionated as she was without making enemies. She had many jobs, and she met many people, and I am sure that she left very, very few of them behind untouched. But through all the things she did, I think that the one she herself thought most important was being a priestess. It is certainly the one thing she worked hardest to keep doing all through her ilness. She was active and kept her place in the circle even at the last equinox, only weeks before she left us.
Never again can we go to her and ask about what in a text can be verified and what is the writer's wishful thinking.
Never again can we ask her for guidance.
Never again can we rely on her to raise and lead the circle.
She has gone, and we have to grow up. We have had the privilege to be lead by someone who I believe was one of the truly great priestesses of our time. If I can ever be half the teacher and priest that she was, I will count myself lucky.
For the last time, she has gone before us and led the way. One day we will all follow her, again, and we will meet her, on the other side. And she will look at us, and she will say "Ah, you're here now," and she'll point us at a task that she wants done. And it'll look large and frightening and it'll scare us, but we will go ahead and do it. Because we know that she knows us, and if she thinks we can make it -- then we can.
Blessed be, my High Priestess. Until we meet again.
I don't remember when I first saw Laila. It must have been at a roleplaying convention, so it can't have been before 1991. By 1996, when I first really met and talked to her, I'd known her by sight for a long time. She was hard to miss, being taller than most women and quite fond of less than discreet hairstyles in strong colours.
My first contact with Wicca had came several years before, when my then-girlfriend bought a bunch of books by Starhawk. I read them and liked what I found more than I'd liked any other occultish path, so I tried to find some actual wiccans to talk to. I succeeded, and the experience made me stay the fuck away from Wicca for years. They were the worst kind of selectively blind New Age fluffheads I'd ever met, and talking to them left me with an exceedingly strong feeling that This Was Not For Me. I held that opinion until the 1996 LinCon.
I don't remember exactly what was doing when a friend of mine came and dragged me away with the words "You need to see this". Probably I was gamemastering in the drop-in improv RPG activity that we were running for the first time that year. In any case, she dragged me down to the dealer's area and up to the tables occupied by a store called "Häxans Hus" ("The Witch's House"). Which had been started and was run by Laila and a girl by the name of Sara. I talked to Sara for a while, and my friend nearly talked the ears off Laila for a long time. When I left, I knew that they were wiccans, that they belonged to a wiccan coven in Stockholm and that they were not at all fluff-headed. Later that year, when I got a job and moved up to Stockholm, I looked up their store and started hanging there. After a few weeks, Laila mentioned that she was about to start monthly meetings with some people who wanted to join her coven. I asked if I could come too. Which I could.
And there started my path with Laila as teacher and guide.
Laila was opinionated, stubborn, demanding, clear-sighted and she had absolutely no tolerance whatsoever for fluff-headed bullshit. She knew about as much as there is to know about ancient celtic religion and very much overall about the history of Western religion and occultism. She came down like a ton of bricks on any attempt to claim that Wicca is a religion from ancient times, loudly demanding evidence to support such claims. Any claims about ancient times she'd go over with the fine-tooth comb of academia, angrily pointing out all the places where New Age writers would disregard evidence that didn't support the conclusion they wanted. When her illness stopped her, she was working on her Ph.D. thesis in theology and Ronald Hutton had agreed to be her advisor. It is a great pity that that thesis will never be finished.
Most, if not all, of us who came to her in her role as priestess brought along a baggage of misconceptions and delusions about what was what. By her incessant questioning and arguing, she helped us lose the chaff and falsehoods, so that we could find the core of our own beliefs and experiences. She led us where we would not ourselves have dared go, and we always knew that she would be there to catch us when we fell. As great teachers do, she removed the obstacles that prevented us from growing and then she let us grow as we would. We most certainly did not always agree with her, but we always knew we could trust her.
I knew Laila as priestess and to some extent as a writer of roleplaying games. Other people knew her in other capacities, as Tai Chi teacher, theater director, medieval dance teacher, diviner, shopkeeper, lecturer or student. She made many friends, and quite a few enemies. You can't be as outspoken and opinionated as she was without making enemies. She had many jobs, and she met many people, and I am sure that she left very, very few of them behind untouched. But through all the things she did, I think that the one she herself thought most important was being a priestess. It is certainly the one thing she worked hardest to keep doing all through her ilness. She was active and kept her place in the circle even at the last equinox, only weeks before she left us.
Never again can we go to her and ask about what in a text can be verified and what is the writer's wishful thinking.
Never again can we ask her for guidance.
Never again can we rely on her to raise and lead the circle.
She has gone, and we have to grow up. We have had the privilege to be lead by someone who I believe was one of the truly great priestesses of our time. If I can ever be half the teacher and priest that she was, I will count myself lucky.
For the last time, she has gone before us and led the way. One day we will all follow her, again, and we will meet her, on the other side. And she will look at us, and she will say "Ah, you're here now," and she'll point us at a task that she wants done. And it'll look large and frightening and it'll scare us, but we will go ahead and do it. Because we know that she knows us, and if she thinks we can make it -- then we can.
Blessed be, my High Priestess. Until we meet again.
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(no subject)
Date: 2002-10-21 02:53 am (UTC)Sadly, we never got to meet her although she was on my Lexx-list for a while. We all hoped she would get better.
May her memory shine in our souls.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-10-21 12:56 pm (UTC)She will not be forgotten soon. Or at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-10-21 06:46 am (UTC)I too often thought of Wiccans as ignoring theology and archaology for some rose painted fluffy universe.
It is always refreshing to find someone who knows the truth, but is able to live and believe with the truth not with an idealized falsehood. I met this teacher from Wisconsin named Oakbear who is much like that.
There are those who are attracted to the trappings and those who are attracted to the path, free of trappings.
Some of the language you used reminded me remarkably of some of the Buddhist language I have encountered.
A truly good teacher removes obstacles and challenges you to grow and to venture forth on the path.
Now the best thing you can do, as you mourn, is to use what she gave you and continue with your community and help each other. But you probably already knew this.
I'll be thinking of both her and you and your community, and sending you hugs from across the Atlantic.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-10-21 01:01 pm (UTC)I too often thought of Wiccans as ignoring theology and archaology for some rose painted fluffy universe.
Many do :-( Also, it often seems that the most vocal wiccans are the fluffbunnies.
Now the best thing you can do, as you mourn, is to use what she gave you and continue with your community and help each other. But you probably already knew this.
Yes, I did. The entire coven has been very, very nice through all of this, and I'm sure that we'll do well in the future. We know what Laila wanted to achieve in the long run, and at least some of us will try to fulfill that.
She will be missed by many
Date: 2002-10-22 05:49 am (UTC)Unfortunately I have lost contact with her during the last years but I will always remember her for her entusiasm and her willingness to teach other people some of all the different things she knew.
There is a big whole in the universe now when Laila is gone.
Really miss her.
Ewiz Ehrsson / Kalessin