Issue 83, Summer Solstice 2003

Number 83, Summer Solstice» 2003. Priée £1.25
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CONTENTS
Jaki da Costa
Ancient Amazons and Contemporary Spirituality
Denise Margaret Hargrave
Rites of Passage (poem)
Julian Colton
Green Man (poem)
Rosie Mere
My Goddess (poem)
Philip Kane
Invocation (poem)
Monica Sjoo
Avebury Stone at Midsummer (drawing)
Willow la Monte
Dear Inanna, Dear Ninhursaga (poem)
Daniel
Cohen
The Dancer and the Dance
Poppy Palin
Find Your Stars (poem)
Plus reviews, miscellany, etc. Front cover by Poppy Palin. Poppy is the author and illustrator of four
books on her experiences as a natural Seer, all published by Capall Bann. Her Waking the Wild Spirit book
and tarot set was published by Llewellyn in 2002. Her next two books about green-spirited magic are with
the publishers. She is a sacred tattoo artist whose work can be seen at www.poppypalin.com (please note the
new Web site). She can be contacted for appointments for sacred tattoos by e-mail at
[email protected], or by mail c/o Profound Piercing, 11-12 St Johns Sq
Glastonbury, BA6.
© Daniel Cohen and Jan Henning 2003. Individual writings and drawings © by their creators. Please
write to Wood and Water for permission to reprint.
June
July
August
September
August 1st
August 2nd
September 22nd
September 23rd
MOONS and SUNS to Summer Solstice (London GMT)
Full Moon
New Moon
Sun enters
29th 18.39
13th 19.21
29th 06.53
Leo 23rd 06.04
12th 04.48
27th 17.26
Virgo 23rd 13.08
10th 16.36
26th 03.09
Libra 23rd 10.47
Sunrise
4.23
4.25
5.46
5.47
Sunset (London times)
19.49
19.47
18.00
Equinox 10.47
17.57
WOOD AND WATER SUBSCRIPTION RATES
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renew.
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Wood and Water.
ADDRESS, c/o Daniel Cohen, 77 Parliament Hill, London NW3 2TH, or c/o Jan Henning, 18
Aylesham Rd., Orpington, Kent BR6 OTX. E-mail: [email protected].
Wood and Water, volume 2, number 83. Summer 2003.
A Goddess-centred feminist-influenced pagan magazine
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Editorial, Summer Solstice 2003
For the first time ever, I'm writing a fiction that approximates in its time-span to the time of year it
really is now. Naturally, I've managed to slip by a couple of weeks, but that's not bad. I hope to make
fictional Midsummer soon. In the meantime it's real Midsummer's Day here, with weather to match, and
plenty of birds to sing to me. Oh, incidentally J. K. Rowling has cunningly chosen today to restart the Harry
Potter wheel rolling (not that this matters to me - I'm not allowed to have it until my birthday ... argh!).
It occurs to me that I have remissly (is this a real word??) neglected to review either HP or the
ongoing saga that IS the LOTR movie-business in these pages. For this you may blame Real Life (sadly). In
the meantime - do any readers have views? FOTR too much of a war-movie? TTT too inconclusive? Do we
REALLY need that giant spider in "Chamber of Secrets"? Who wins out of Gollum and Dobby the House
Elf? I think we should be told!
Jan Henning
This has turned into a poetry issue. Not that this is a bad thing. We get lots of good poems, and this time
the Goddess is so directly present in many of the poems that we have a themed issue.
Nonetheless, it is time once more for our usual request to our readers for articles, illustrations, stories,
book reviews, and any material that you think will be of interest to other readers.
Daniel Cohen
I
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1
ANCIENT AMAZONS AND CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY
I think we are all familiar with the myth of the Amazon, the beautiful female warrior with one
breast who shuns the company of men. Still admired in popular culture in such incarnations as Emma
Peele, Lara Croft and Xena the Warrior Princess, Amazons have haunted our imagination since they were
first described by Homer as 'women equal to men', by Hellanicus in the 5th century BCE as 'goldenshielded, silver-sworded, man-loving, male-child slaughtering' and by Aeschylus as 'virgins fearless in
battle'1. But is there any historical evidence to suggest that such a race of females really existed? And if
they did, what spiritual relevance can they have for today's women?
According to the myth, the Amazons first appeared in ancient Libya about 3000 BCE. Living in
tribes composed solely of warrior women, they established an empire in this area that included the
legendary island of Atlantis. Under their queens Marpesa, Lamped and Hippo, they conquered large areas
of Asia Minor and Syria. They ruled with a double queenship, one being responsible for the government
of the city date, the other in charge of the army and the defence of the realm."
Matrilineal and matrifocal, the Amazons worshipped the Mother Goddess under several names,
including Artemis. Indeed, it is said that Amazons founded the great temple to Artemis at Ephesus.3
Unlike their depiction in popular myth, they do not seem to have severed their right breasts to improve
their archery. In fact they are usually depicted in Greek art as having the right breast covered and there are
also images where one side of a figure is male and the other female, which may have caused the
confusion.
There are various stories as to how they conceived and treated their babies. In some, they go to a
neighbouring tribe to lie with the men, handing any boy babies that resulted over to their fathers. In other
stories they cripple the boy children and in yet others put them - and their fathers - to death. '4
Their empire seems to have flourished for about a thousand years before a series of Greek demigods and heroes, including Dionysus, Bellerophon, Perseus and Heracles all made it their purpose to
defeat them. Heracles is reported to have been so outraged at the idea of a nation governed by women that
he deliberately set out to destroy it, killing many of the female soldiers and trying to send the captives
back to Athens as slaves. But the women escaped and managed to make their way to around the Black
Sea, in the area of modern Ukraine, where they established themselves, reappearing in history about the
second half of the second millennium BCE. Theseus delivered the coup de grace to the Libyan Amazons
when he just managed to repel their invasion of Athens in 1256 BCE.
The last mention of an Amazon in Bronze Age myth is in a now-lost epic called Aethiopis and
describes how Penthesilea allied herself to the Trojans during the Trojan War and went out to fight the
great warrior Achilles one to one.5 He defeated and killed her, but one version reports that he was so
struck by her beauty after death that he "fell in love with her", although another, less euphemistic, tells us
he committed necrophilia on her body.6 From then onwards, Amazons disappeared from the heroic myth,
being gradually dismissed as an invention of the imagination.
Recent excavations, however, by a group of women archeologists in the Ukraine, led by Professor
Renate Rolle, have uncovered evidence of warrior women being buried alongside their men. Though not
apparently separatist, these women have lying with them artifacts both domestic and martial - combs and
swordheads, arrowheads and babies. While not proof of the existence of the separatist tribes about whom
Herodotus wrote (c. 484-425 BCE), these graves nevertheless indicate that the idea of fighting women
was not foreign to the ancients. And if we look at another event that took place roughly
contemporaneously as the defeat of the Amazons at Athens we may begin to perceive the emergence of a
pattern. I speak of the take over of the Gaian oracle at Delphi by followers of the young god Apollo (c.
1200 BCE).
The Bronze Age can be read as a transitional period leading from a Mother Goddess worshipping
Stone Age to an Iron Age dominated by the worship of a Father God. During the Bronze Age, pantheons
of gods and goddesses flourished but many of the stories stemming from this period describe the wresting
of power from the female Great Goddess by her lover/son, her grandson, or a hero. According to Engel's
theory of the development of capitalism, primitive humans seem to have enjoyed a fairly equal distribution
of strength; male and female alike could wield the earliest tools. But about three thousand years ago, a
2
shift of power occurred as weapons, in particular, began to be fashioned from newfound metals and out of
this development; men gradually emerged as the dominant sex. One irony is that Amazons are credited
with the first use of iron!7
The myth of the Amazons may well be a race memory ofthat pivotal moment when patriarchy first
established its dominance over matriarchy. Confirmation ofthat may be read into the Athenians' attitude
to their victory over the Amazons. 1256 BCE remained the most important date commemorated by the
city-state, not just because the warrior women had been driven out of Attica, but also because they had
been "driven out of nature".8 Classical Greece, that most male-dominated society and culture, flourished
and subsequently heavily influenced European thought, particularly Christianity. As a consequence,
European women remained disempowered, second-class citizens for the next three thousand years. How
might history have been altered if the Amazons had indeed conquered Athens!
Confirmation of my theory is to be found in the work of Lyn Webster Wilde. She writes:
"...it does seem that the man-killing Amazons are an expression of the mood and conflicts of a
particular time in our evolution, when men were taking religious power away from the hitherto allpowerful goddess and her priestesses.
Wilde suggests the root of the Amazon myth may lie in the ecstatic, orgiastic religious practices of
the priestesses of Artemis/Cybele, and the bull-dancers of Crete.10 Armed Corybantes, perhaps female,
perhaps castrated males, danced in honour of the Great Mother on the sacred island of Samothrace while
from the 4th century BCE onwards, 'professional dancing girls with helmets, shields and spears' would
perform sometimes graceful, sometimes comic and sometimes lewd dances for Greek men in a degenerate
form of archaic religious practices.11 Wilde is clear that for her, the Amazons represent "lost forms of
female power".12
One of the most surprising and pleasurable things I discovered while researching the Amazons is
that they are credited with having been the first people to mount the horse and utilize it in warfare.13 This
must have been an extraordinary achievement and would certainly have given whoever the innovators
were an edge in battle over infantrymen. Always described as ruthless fighters, but beautiful, the
stereotype of the gorgeous female warrior is one that has never lost its attraction for men. I watched a
movie only the other day that featured a character called Druida, a female gladiator from Britannia. The
movie is called The Age of Treason (1993) and is set in Rome 69 CE, but the character was referred to as
an Amazon and was depicted as being feisty but beautiful, deadly but sexually attractive.
In an extraordinary occurrence of life imitating art, news was released in September 2000 of the
archeological find, in 1996, of a Roman woman in London who may well have been a female gladiator.
Although we know of an inscription in Pompeii referring to women in the arena and there is also evidence
that Emperor Septimus Severus (193-211 CE) allowed combat by females, there has never before been
any physical evidence discovered. In the London woman's grave, a dish decorated with a fallen gladiator
and lamps associated with Anubis (Roman Mercury) point to some connection with the arena; slaves
dressed as Mercury were used to drag away the bodies of the fallen. Also found there were the remains of
pinecones, which were used in the arenas to mask the stench of death.14
There is no evidence as to the geographical origin of this possible gladiatrix. However, a second
century relief carving exhibited in the British Museum shows two women fighting with short swords and
shields, the inscription identifying them as Achillea (a female form of Achilles) and Amazonia. Whether
this was a popular generic name for a woman fighter or whether it indicates her homeland as round the
Black Sea, we cannot know. We can only note, and perhaps admire, the persistence of a legend.
What I think we can learn from the legend of the Amazons, and even more so from the
archeological evidence from the Ukraine, is that it may well be NATURAL for women to be forceful,
even dominating. Cultural choices today may deem that as unacceptable as male domination, but for an
individual woman it can be liberating and empowering to realize that rage and assertiveness, not to
mention superb fighting skills, are part of her 'make up', no less than compassion and gentleness. An
attractive version of the Amazon myth is the character of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a popular television
series. By day an average American teenager, all blonde hair and boyfriends, at night she uses her
supernormal strength to defeat the forces of evil. Her best friend is a 'white' witch and Buffy and her gang
win each confrontation by a mixture of brute force and magical skills. This is surely an empowering image
for teenage girls. Wilde makes the extremely important point that there is a secret that women always
3
forget, "...that women have the power, we have it inside us anyway..." This power she names as the
power of shakti, a Hindu word used to describe the female partner of a god and also the power she
embodies. This elemental power is erotic and sensual yet terrifying, annihilating and captivating, but
Wilde argues that it is an active power that arises between the goddess and the god. To withhold it from
men as the Amazons are reputed to have done "cannot, in the long run, be a positive thing for
civilization".17 Therefore, for her, the Amazons had to be defeated in order for humanity to progress. This
progression occurred particularly in 5th century BCE Athens, which developed a patriarchy under which
most women remained the property of their fathers and husbands, living secluded and constrained lives
while their men folk enjoyed democracy, theatre, philosophy and homosexuality, all practically
exclusively male pastimes! It was only in certain religious festivals, such as the Thesmophoria, or the
Eleusinian mysteries, that Athenian women were able to be free of their husbands, husbands who were
nonetheless obliged to fund the celebrations18 It seems that although Greek men took control of both the
social and political areas of society, in religious matters female power was still acknowledged and
respected.19
However, times have changed. Christianised Europe effectively excluded the female from its
religious practices. Only the safe, maternal aspects of the goddess were allowed to linger in the guise of
the Virgin Mother. The dangerous sexuality of Ishtar or Cybele was demonized by the Church with the
result that most women were prevented from exploring or enjoying their femaleness. But we have moved
into a period of gender confusion, similar to Florence Bennet's "oriental idea of sex confusion". Women
in Euroamerica are not bound by their biology. Cross-dressing is common, particularly among women.20
Females undertake all traditionally male jobs and female nudity or semi-nudity is a common sight on the
beaches of Europe. Nor is the biological imperative to breed necessary. Humans are the most successful
species on the planet, threatening all others except the insects. World population has risen exponentially
since the Industrial Revolution. But we are so successful, we are threatening the very environment that
sustains us. Wilde quotes from a book about a woman's initiation into the South American tradition of
sorcery, where the initiate learned to save her sexual energy and use it for "exploration of the unknown."21
Thus we are being invited to evolve, not reproduce. In her deeply unpleasant book The Myth of
Matriarchal Prehistory, Cynthia Eller concludes: "We do not need matriarchal myth to tell us that sexism
is bad or that change is possible."22 No, one might say, but myth inspires us with the belief that we are
capable of making the necessary changes. Similarly, the myth of the Amazons reminds us that we have
the inner power and can achieve the outer strength to affect necessary changes, whether to demolish
sexism or to address environmental abuse, whatever our individual or collective cause is. We will not
achieve anything, however, unless we learn to embrace the Amazonian ability to express our aggression as
openly as men. This may be their true heritage to us.
However, I like to think that the Amazon archetype has not actually been driven out of our
consciousness but, like King Arthur, only sleeps until the time it is needed and called forth.
Jaki da Costa
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baring, J. & Cashford, A. (1991) The Myth of the Goddess BCA
Geographical Vol 71 no3 (1999)
Sobol, D.J. (1972) The Amazons of Greek Mythology. Thomas Yoseloff Ltd
Walker, B.G. (1983) The Woman's Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. Harper and Row
Wilde, L.W. (1999) On the Trail of the Women Warriors. Constable
http://inq.philly.com.com/content/enquirer/2000/09/13/national/GLADIATOR13.htm
http://www.speakeasy.org/~music/name.htm
'Quoted in Wilde (1999) p. 3
Sobol(1972)
3
Wilde p. 20
2
4
4
Wilde p. 43
Wilde p. 28
6
Wilde p. 177
7
Lysias, Funeral Oration 4 quoted in http://www.speakeasy.org/~music/liistory.html (1997)
5
8
Himerios quoted in Sobol op. cit.
Wilde pp 105-6
10
Wilde p. 80
11
Wilde p. 146
12
Wilde p. 6
13
http://www.speakeasy.org/~music/history.html op cit p. 1
14
http/inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/09/13 pp 1-3
15
Although Buffy's breasts may send teenage girls seeking cosmetic surgery, her kick-boxing skills
may also send them to the gym!
16
Wilde p. 158
17
Wilde p. 9
18
Wilde p. 75
19
Wilde p. 74
20
Marlene Dietrich is credited with popularizing trousers for women.
21
Wilde p. 186
22
Eller (2000) p. 188
9
r.
The Woman of Cathole Cave is an exhibition of artwork by Angela Brunt, a personal interpretation
of Woman in the Stone Age, based on the shape of Cathole Cave, Green Cwm, Gower. It is help at the
Gower Heritage Centre, Parkmill, Gower, through August (and maybe into September).
A Hekate pilgrimage to Greece, visiting sites, working ritual, and having a magical time, will occur
from 31st August to 7th September. For details, sned a s.a.e. to Adrian Harris, 23b Pepys Road, London
SE14 5SA, e-mail [email protected], or look at the Web site www.hecate.org.uk/trip.htm
An experiential camp based on the deep ecology "Council of All Beings" workshop will be held
12th to 14th September. For details, send a s.a.e. to Dragon Camp, c/o 23b Pepys Road, London SE14
5SA, e-mail [email protected], or look at the Web site www.dragonnetwork.org
Some of our readers will know and love the Lunar Calendar: dedicated to the Goddess in Her many
guises as much as we do. They are in a financial crisis and are appealing for donations. More details from
us, or by looking at the Web site at www.thelunapress.com
5
RITES OF PASSA GE
In blood-red sunset
She will ride in her chariot
Drawn by proud lions,
Their flaming manes blown on the wind,
Trailing crimson clouds
As they stalk the darkening sky.
The planets will turn
At her voice and the stars will spin.
As twilight unfurls
She will walk in the dark meadows
Of the dusky sky,
Each footprint a shimmering star
In the Milky Way
And countless the constellations
In the velvet wake
Of her flowing midnight blue cloak.
Silver is the smile
Shining on the face of the moon
And gold the sunrise
Flooding the olive groves with light
When she is worshipped
By paupers, kings, wise men and fools
In the hour of birth
And the hour of departing.
Denise Margaret Hargrave
GREEN MAN
Binding, Branching,
Limbs, head and seed,
Withering, rebuild him, hypericum and reed,
New Age, Old Age, solstice and sun,
An icon, enduring, Pagan and Pan.
Take him, burn him, replenish all land,
A symbol, a meaning, midsummer Green Man.
Julian Colton
6
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Terry Deary. Top Ten Greek Legends. Scholastic 1998. Pbk. £4.99.
Francesca Simon. Helping Hercules. Orion 2003. Hbk. £6.99.
Terry Deary has written many books for schoolchildren, particularly the "Horrible History" series,
and this is a related book. It's full of jokes and cartoons. The story of Theseus is reported in the Athens
Echo (somewhat like the Sun), where he is referred to as Thezza. The Standard Attainment Tests for
heroes are taken by Heracles, with a description of the twelve tests, student reports and teacher comments
on each, there is the diary of a teen-ager named Perseus, and so on. It's all very silly and great fun. The
crucial point is that beneath all the jokes lies accurate and carefully researched information about the
myths. I strongly recommend it for children at secondary school, but recommended also for adults.
Francesca Simon's is another original way of retelling Greek myths. The principal character is
Susan, a young girl who is transported from her home and school to the world of Greek myths. Her
intelligence and spirit helps the heroes to perform their tasks, though they are often not grateful. She
advises Hercules how to clean the Augean stables (following the traditional story, which in my view is
ecologically unsound), suggests that Paris should divide the apple three ways and tries to remind him that
he is already married, and so on. Though not as readable for adults as Deary's book, it's an enjoyable little
book, well-suited to introducing the myths to children.
Daniel Cohen
Jill Smith. Mothe r of the Isles: Landscape, myth and meaning in the Western Isles of
Scotland. Dor Dama Press (51 Cam Bosavern, St. Just, Penzance, Cornwall TRI 9 7QX). Pbk. £9.95.
Regular readers of Wood and Water will know the writings and artwork of Jill Smith. Now living in
Glastonbury, she lived on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides for many years.
This book is a guide to the Goddess energies of the islands in the many forms Jill has experienced
them. The Goddess is seen as Brighde, as the Cailleach, and in many other aspects. She is seen in the
landscape and in the legends, in place-names and in Jill's own experiences. The book shows u the goddess
in the landscape and the landscape in the goddess, enriching both our understanding of the Goddess and
our understanding of the character of the Western Isles. Jill comes up with many interesting speculations
about the significance of names and the meaning behind old tales. Unlike many writers, she makes it clear
which connections are speculative and which are well-established.
As can be expected from Jill, the book has many illustrations, including a front cover in colour. I
highly recommend it.
Daniel Cohen
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MY GODDESS
To Asphodel
She is the beautiful power of the dawn
Which tells us we have made it through
And she is also the power of the night telling us
It is time to rest and dream.
She is the night which is never what we thought it would be,
When friends weren't as scintillating as expected,
And the wine left a sour taste rather than a glow.
She is the time when we knew it was not the time to act but did
And the moment when we did and it all went well.
She is the forecast of sun which turned to rain
on the day we thought it was silly to take an umbrella.
She is the interview that went wrong - we took another path
And here we are.
She is beauty and all that means - the Body of fire and of light.
A way to know of not speaking and of how to wander through
The forest of speechlessness.
She is the longing for the body to touch and be touched
and through the water and the fire and desire,
she will not be silenced.
My voice is small in the breath of the voice she is
And I speak with small words
But my breath and words are also from her
and if you do not hear me
you do not hear her.
Rosie Mere
INVOCATION
Lady, drape the hills
with a cloak of rain.
The sea rises to your embrace,
the earth lies supplicant
at your feet.
Let your slender fingers
tap upon my windowpanes.
Let my garden
open to your kiss.
When you call to me,
drumming our sustenance,
let me walk into the blessing
of your welcoming arms.
8
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DEAR INANNA, DEAR NINHURSAGA
Dear Inanna, O Lady of the Date Clusters
Dear Ninhursaga, O Lady of Stony Deserts and Foothills
Dear Ninkurra, O Lady of the Mountains
Dear Nanshe, O Lady of Dream Knowledge
Dear Nannu, O Lady of the Formless Waters
Dear Amadugbad, O Lady Mother Spreading the Knees
Dear Nintur, O Lady Birth Hut
Dear Ninmug, O Lady Vulva
Dear Nindim, O Lady Fashioner
Dear Nidaba, O Lady Architect of the Reed Stylus
Dear Uttu, O Lady Spider Weaver
Dear Ninbahar, O Lady Potter
Dear Ninki, O Lady Earth
Dear Ninsar, O Lady Plant
Dear Ninshebargunu, O Lady Barley
Dear Ninlil, O Lady of Grain Growth
DearNingikuga, O Lady of the Pure Reed
DearNingal, O Great Lady of the Marshes
Dear Ninsuna, O Lady of the Wild Cows
Dear Siduri, O Lady Winemaker —
May a great peace come to Your lands and marshes,
May a great peace come to Your rivers,
May a great peace come to Your sky and winds and air,
May a great peace come to Your hot bright days,
May a great peace come to Your moist nights.
May Your lands, now inflamed and poisoned,
be once more healed and transformed,
knowing the delights of clear-flowing waters
of succulent dates and pistachios
of green-sprouting cress and lettuce
with barley bread and beer in abundance.
May your injured ones be cured and soothed
with Your sweet balm of Goddess unguent.
May You know again the pouring of loving libations.
May your delightful celebrations be renewed once more.
And may our Earth Goddess of Justice
be returned, remembered and regenerated.
And so it is, and Blessed Be.
With love. Willow.
Willow la Monte
10
THE DANCER AND THE DANCE
It must have been over fifty years ago that it happened. I was a young man then, and was the best
man at a friend's wedding one Midsummer Eve. It was a great party, plenty of food and dancing. Good
booze too, but that was the trouble. People were drinking so much that the wine ran out.
As best man, I had to be sure the party didn't fizzle out, so I and another man went down the road to
get some more to drink. It wasn't far, just down the road past the green hillock.
We were bringing the drink back, when I heard some music. It seemed to come from the hillock,
and sure enough when we got close to it there turned out to be a door open in the hillside, and crowds of
people dancing.
I saw at the entrance young woman with golden hair that seemed to have a green tinge to it that
matched the light green of her dress. She invited me in to join the dance.
Well, you know me. Even now I try to dance when fiddles or flutes are playing fast music. In those
days I was a dancing fool and could never resist a dance. One I danced with such fervour that the
musicians said that I had danced till they had no energy left for playing.
So I accepted the invitation, and left my companion to carry all the drink himself, though he urged
me to remember the party we had come from. I danced with that young woman, both as a couple and in
sets. And then I danced with a tall red-haired woman wearing dark green, who seemed to be the centre of
the gathering, the one for whom the dance was held.
Suddenly I noticed an old woman sitting by the fire. I could see her fingers and feet tapping to the
music, and thought she would have loved to dance if she had been younger. So when the music changed to
a very slow tune, I went over and asked her to be my partner. As I had thought, she was a wonderful
dancer, moving slowly but performing intricate steps that were almost too much for me to respond to.
Shortly after, the lady of the dance offered me some food. The food and the drink looked wonderful,
but I had eaten and drunk so much at my friend's wedding that I refused. She asked me several times, but
my stomach could take no more, and I continued to refuse. I thought she looked a little annoyed, but she
finally said, "Well, as you're so sure, I won't offer again tonight."
I continued dancing, first with one then another. My head was in such a whirl that at time I couldn't
tell if I was dancing with the young woman, or the old one, or with the great red-haired hostess.
Suddenly I felt a pull at my sleeve. My companion had taken the drinks to the wedding party and
had come back for me. "Come away" he said. "Come away quickly". "What's the hurry" I replied
"Another few minutes dancing won't harm me." As he continued to pull me away I wondered why he had
stuck his penknife into the door-frame, and why he was looking anxiously at it.
Finally he pulled me out of the dance and through the door, and I was angry with him for doing so.
"You could have let me dance longer," I said, looking at the hillock in which no door was now visible.
"I'ld have come back in a short while." "A short while" he said scornfully, "It is a year and a day since
you left the wedding, and no-one had any idea how to find you. It's lucky you didn't eat or drink anything.
If you had, then you would have had to stay there for ever and I wouldn't have been able to rescue you."
But to me it seemed that his action had not been a rescue.
I'm old now, and my memory keeps going back to that night when I danced better than I had one
ever before or since. The words of the lady of the dance resonate in my mind. She did not say that she
would not offer me food again, but that she "would not offer it again tonight." You can be sure that I will
not refuse when she next offers me food and keeps the promise she made me so long ago.
Daniel Cohen
11
FIND YOUR STARS
Whispering voices come to me,
Silvered like leaves on the willow tree,
Wafting down lanes in my memory,
We are calling down the stars.
Blossom in the pool by the twisted tree,
Lowering sky meets the heart of me,
Feather on the life-path soon flies free,
We are calling down the stars.
Crow black, turn back, hollow root,
Sapling shivers to the reedy flute,
See a heron dancing, follow suit,
We are blinded by the stars.
Sun-warmed bark under work-rough hand,
Dry grass swaying on the shifting sand,
Smooth warm stone wreathed in dew-clad strands,
We are wheeling like the stars.
Lost road, double back, winding track,
Beak of a heron spears a glistening back,
Tie up your doubts in a hessian sack,
And drown it in the stars.
Swan feather falls but swan flies on,
Buttercup catches the setting sun,
Shadow swallows silver now the dream's begun,
And the night's alive with stars.
Granite finger pointing high,
Drink down a draught of shimmering sky,
Hide your reflection in a wild rose pie,
And tell it to the stars.
Wing beats time to the ghost-owl's drum,
Foxes bark as their night-blood hums,
Wild is the darkness that we become,
Older yet and wiser far.
Black loam hugs yellowed brittle bone,
Taut skin trembles on an ancient stone,
Bleached wings stretch as the pale moon moans,
12
A
We are falling down the stars.
Night revealed in its spirit-mantle,
Seed-head popping with a death-dry rattle,
Heron weeps alone like a tallow candle,
And goes swimming in the stars.
Dim glimmer held in a mystery's eye,
Milk-teeth biting on an age-old sigh,
Old Ones leap to the heron's cry,
And we celebrate the stars.
Poppy petals fall on withered corn,
Antlers rise to meet rosy dawn,
Tell a velvet secret now the night's undone,
We are shooting down the stars.
Cool still water covers a face,
Slender green fingers find purchase,
Dark earth pillow in a verdant place,
And our place is with the stars.
Brambles and burrs caught in twiny curls,
Lichen eyes see the world unfurl,
Find truth in a snail shell, dive for pearls,
We are wilder than the stars.
This is your home where the heron stands,
Casting a gaze over flat floodlands,
Drink me down, hold me in your hands,
And throw me to the stars.
A
Long-lost, sugar spun, woe-begone,
We are the time that was once upon,
We are all that has ever shone,
And we find ourselves like stars.
Poppy Palin
-W*®?®
13
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Asphodel now has her own Web site at www.asphodel-long.com with many of her articles, book reviews, and
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about publications and other material of interest to our readers.
We also recommend the Web sites of the Pagan Federation and its magazine Pagan Dawn, at
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14