Take, Drink, This is My Blood The emptied Cup shall be Refilled' .,, ..

REPEATING CYCLE: "GREEN BUD LEAF".

(This developed out of a Word a.s.sociation Trance, as in Exercise 8. Words should be stressed evenly, with no breaks between groups, which are separated for ease of memorization. The entire cycle repeats over and over.) Green Bud Leaf/Bud Leaf Bright/Leaf Bright Flower/ Bright Flower Grow/Flower Grow Fruit/Grow Fruit Ripe/ Fruit Ripe Seed/Ripe Seed Die/Seed Die Earth/ Die Earth Dark/Earth Dark Waken/Dark Waken Green/ Waken Green Bud .. .

SUMERIAN CHANT.

(Half-sung on two or three notes-repeat entire chant.) NAMmu NAMmu O NamMU AE EE AE EE O NamMU NINmah NINmah ONinMAH AE EE AE EE O NinMAH MAmi MAmi O MaMI AE EE AE EE O MaMI MAma MAma O MaMA AE EE AE EE O MaMA MAH MAH O MAH MAH AE EE AE EE O MAH MAH.

INVOCATION TO THE DEWY ONE.

All-dewy Sky-sailing Pregnant Moon Who shines for all, Who flows through all.

Light of the world which is yourself.

Maiden, Mother, Crone, The Weaver The Green One Isis Astarte Ishtar Aradia Diana Cybele Kore Ceridwen Levanah Luna Mari Anna Rhiannon Selena Demeter Mah See with our eyes, Hear with our ears, Touch with our hands, Breathe with our nostrils, Kiss with our lips, Open our hearts, Come into us!

Touch us, Change us, Make us whole.

HONOR TO THE G.o.dDESS, LADY OF MANY NAMES i DEMETER, THE IMMEASURABLE ONE, & TO THE MAIDEN by Karen Lynd Cushen Take, Eat, This is My Body Which shall Rise in You & Be Made Whole' Take, Drink, This is My Blood The emtied Cup shall be Refilled'

G.o.ddess of the Harvest, the fruit of Whose joy in the return of Your Daughter, sustains us even as You make bleak the earth at Her leaving The earth is rent & Persephone the Maiden Whose name may not be spoken is swallowed by the land of the dead She will come again, in Whose footfalls spring the flowers & the grain carrying up with Her dark memories of whence She came Demeter Near in our grief because yearly we see Your own sorrow ravage the face of earth & Your Daughter Close at the hour of our death because yearly death claims Her We know hope because we remember again & again Persephone healing Herself &. You with Her, rising Demeter, Mother We who have lain on Your knees & slept in Your arms, give You honor, Anoint us & place us at night in the red heart of Your fire; we shall not flinch & let none in terror s.n.a.t.c.h us from that hearth.

Anneal us at unspeakable heat & give us a slow cooling that pliant we may return evergreen with the spring We Your holy grain honor You not in slaughter but as we plow, plant our feet, scatter Your seed in Your Daughter's returning footsteps & reap We the threshing floor Ground of Your Being where you stand smiling with sheaves & poppies in Your hand watching the winnowing In the heat of the morning we wake our parched throats thirsty for the cup of Eleusis cooling draught of the reaper , Our limbs longing to sway again in the wind in Your ancient dances Out of our dreams, our myths, our nursery tales those ghettoes in which survive Your memory, we behold the Ear of Corn we know the song You sung, Song of the Sacred Body Yours & Our Own & honor You, Lady of Many Names, Maiden & Immeasurable One.

KORE CHANT: SPRING AND FALL EQUINOX.

Her name cannot be spoken, Her face was not forgotten, Her power is to open, Her promise can never be broken.

(Spring) All sleeping seeds She wakens, The rainbow is Her token, Now winter's power is taken, In love, all chains are broken.

(Fall) All seeds She deeply buries, She weaves the thread of seasons.

Her secret, darkness carries, She loves beyond all reason.

She changes everything She touches, and Everything She touches, changes. [Repeat-chant.]

Change is, touch is; Touch is, change is.

Change us! Touch us! Touch us! Change us!

Everything lost is found again, In a new form, In a new way.

Everything hurt is healed again, In a new life, In a new day.

[Repeat any and all verses.]

INVOCATION TO THE G.o.dDESS AS MOTHER.

by Susan Stern Mama!

From my heart, From my blood, Mama I call you . . .

My heart of your heat Limb of your Northwind Water of your Water c.u.n.t of your Hillside c.o.c.k of your Springtime Eyes of Your Stars, Mama Eyes of your sun, Mama Of your Sol, Mama My soul of your Sol Mama Come Mama!

Come into our circle Our womb Be with us now, Mama Be with us now!

MOONMOTHER.

by Laurel moonmother i am your child of innocence your natural born no laws but yours can tame me no love but your own everlasting everchanging thousand formed your eyes are ducks on the wing your foot is dancing foam i am your dancer you are the dance song without limit drummer and tune a whole orchestra of your love i could walk your golden path straight to the sun two-step my way to your heart o send me away let me swing on your star inconstant ripple stream lake pond ocean whirlpool crashing great one earthsucker the one and only true love you leave treasure everywhere sand dollars smooth stone your edible green hair this is our life mama yours and mine all the flickering powers all the shimmering lights currents alternate and direct i might hold the cork but you are the flow the circuit the breaker the spare dry cell insanity at midnight prayers at dawn ecstasy in the noon heat mirage that points to the real splendor gold and saffron ruby and red sunrise moonset the single song of all that is was and ever shall be Blessed be.

INVOCATION TO THE QUEEN OF SUMMER.

Queen of Summer Queen Bee Sweet-smelling Flowering One Honey Nectar Overflowing fountain Full-blown rose Intoxicating dancer Whispering wind Singer Spell-binder Blossom and thorn Rhiannon Arianrhod Aphrodite Ishtar Cybele Come into us Carry us off!

CHAPTER 6. The G.o.d.

Between the Worlds.

INVOCATION TO THE G.o.d.

The Priest steps into the center of the circle and picks up the drum. Beating a strong, pounding rhythm, he begins the chant: Seed sower, grain reborn, Homed One Come!

Other voices join his. Hands clap out the rhythm on bare thighs; feet stamp the floor. There is one great shout: "lo! Evohe!"

Silence. A soft tenor begins to sing: Bright sun, Dark death, Lord of winds, Lord of the dance, Sun child, Winter-born king, Hanged One, Untamed! Untamed!

Stag and stallion, Goat and bull, Sailor of the last sea, Guardian of the gate, Lord of the two lands, Ever-dying, Ever-living, Radiance!

Dionysus, Osiris, Pan, Dumuzi, Arthur, Robin, Janicot, Hou!

Move us! Touch us! Shake us!

Bring us through!

All is quiet. The Priest sets down the drum, and says simply, "He is here." The coven echoes, "He is here!"

"Blessed be."

I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

T. S. Eliot "It is very much in style today to urge men to feel. However, this urging is partially reminiscent of taunting a crippled man to run."

Herb Goldberg The image of the Horned G.o.d in Witchcraft is radically different from any other image of masculinity in our culture. He is difficult to understand, because He does not fit into any of the expected stereotypes, neither those of the "macho" male nor the reverse-images of those who deliberately seek effeminacy. He is gentle, tender, and comforting, but He is also the Hunter. He is the Dying G.o.d-but his death is always in the service of the life force.

He is untamed s.e.xuality-but s.e.xuality as a deep, holy, connecting power. He is the power of feeling, and the image of what men could be if they were liberated from the constraints of patriarchal culture.

The image of the Horned G.o.d was deliberately perverted by the medieval Church into the image of the Christian Devil. Witches do not believe in or worship the Devil-they consider it a concept peculiar to Christianity. The G.o.d of the Witches is s.e.xual-but s.e.xuality is seen as sacred, not as obscene or blasphemous. Our G.o.d wears horns-but they are the waxing and waning crescents of the G.o.ddess Moon, and the symbol of animal vitality. In some aspects, He is black, not because He is dreadful or fearful, but because darkness and the night are times of power, and part of the cycles of time.

There have always been traditions of the Craft in which the G.o.d is given little recognition. In the Craft, separate Women's Mysteries and separate Men's Mysteries may be performed. But in most Witch traditions the G.o.d is seen as the other-half of the G.o.ddess, and many of the rites and holidays are devoted to Him as well as to Her.

In the medieval Witch cult, the G.o.d may have obtained prominence over the G.o.ddess for a time. Most Witch confessions speak of "the devil," as the Christian priests transcribed the Witches' words for their non-Christian G.o.d. Fewer mention the G.o.ddess, who is usually called "The Queen of Elphame." However, the interrogators of Witches were looking for evidence of Devil worship, not G.o.ddess worship. They recorded evidence that supported their accusations of Satanism and ignored or twisted other evidence. Tortured suspects who reached the end of their endurance were often given already prepared statements to sign, which expressed what the Christian Priests wished to believe, rather than the truth.

A common practice in the medieval Craft was for the Priest and Priestess to enact the parts of G.o.d and G.o.ddess, who were believed to be physically incarnate in the rites. and One old account cited by Margaret Murray expresses the importance of this custom to illiterate peasants, for whom seeing was believing: The Priest mocked those "who offered to trust in G.o.d who left them miserable in the world, and neither he nor his son Jesus Christ ever appeared to them when they called on him, as he had, who would not cheat them," For most Witches, "that earthly Sabbath was to her the true Paradise, where there was more pleasure than she could express, and she believed also that the joy which she took in it was but the prelude to a much greater glory, for her G.o.d so held her heart that no other desire could enter in."

In the women's movement, Dianic/separatist Witchcraft has become the fashion, and some women may have difficulty understanding why a feminist would bother with the Horned G.o.d at all Yet there are few if any women whose lives are not bound up with men, if not s.e.xually and emotionally, then economically. The Horned G.o.d represents powerful, positive male qualities that derive from deeper sources than the stereotypes and the violence and emotional crippling of men in our society. If man had been created in the Horned G.o.d's image, he would be free to be wild without being cruel, angry without being violent, s.e.xual without being coercive, spiritual without being uns.e.xed, and able to truly love. The mermaids, who are the G.o.ddess, would sing to him.

The G.o.ddess is the Encircler, the Ground of Being; the G.o.d is That-Which-Is-Brought-Forth, her mirror image, her other pole. She is the earth; He is the grain. She is the all-encompa.s.sing sky; He is the sun, her fireball. She is the Wheel; He is the Traveler. His is the sacrifice of life to death that life may go on. She is Mother and Destroyer; He is all that is born and is destroyed.

For men, the G.o.d is the image of inner power and of a potency that is more than merely s.e.xual. He is the undivided Self, in which mind is not split from body, nor spirit from flesh. United, both can function at the peak of creative and emotional power.

In our culture, men are taught that masculinity demands a lack of feeling. They are conditioned to function in a military mode; to cut off their emotions and ignore the messages of their bodies; to deny physical discomfort, pain, and fear, in order to fight and conquer most efficiently. This holds true whether the field of conquest is the battlefield, the bedroom, or the business office.

It has become something of a cliche to say that men have been trained to be aggressive and dominant and women have been taught to be pa.s.sive and submissive, that men are allowed to be angry and women are not. In patriarchal culture, both women and men learn to function within a hierarchy, in which those at the top dominate those below. One aspect of that dominance is the privilege of expressing anger. The general chews out the sergeant; the private cannot. The boss is free to blow his stack, but not his a.s.sistant. The boss's wife yells at her maid, not vice versa. Because women have usually been at the bottom of hierarchies, from the business world to the traditional family, they have borne the brunt of a great deal of male anger, and been the ultimate victims of violence. Anger can be seen as a response to an attack; very few men are in positions where they can afford to directly confront their attackers.

Men's anger, then, becomes twisted and perverted. It is threatening to recognize the true source of his rage, because he would then be forced to recognize the helplessness, powerlessness, and humiliation of his position.

Instead, he may turn his anger on safer targets-women, children, or still less powerful men. Or his anger may turn to self-destruction: disease, depression, alcoholism, or any of a smorgasbord of readily available addictions.

Patriarchy literally means "rale of the fathers," but in a patriarchy, very few men are allowed to enact the role of "father" outside the limited family sphere. The structure of hierarchical inst.i.tutions is pyramidal: One man at the top controls many below. Men compete for money and power over others; the majority, who do not reach the top of the chain of command, are forced to remain immature, enacting the roles of either dutiful or rebel sons. The good sons eternally seek to please the father by obedience; the bad sons seek to overthrow him and take his place. Either way, they are cut off from their own true desires and feelings.

And so our religions reflect a cosmos in which Father G.o.d exhorts his "children" to obey the rules and do what they are told, lest they align them-selves with the Great Rebel. Our psychology is one of war between sons and fathers who eternally vie for exclusive possession of the mother, who, like all women under patriarchy, is the ultimate prize for success. And progressive politics are reduced to alignments of rebel sons, who overthrow the father only to inst.i.tute their own hierarchies.

The Horned G.o.d, however, is born of a Virgin mother. He is a model of male power that is free from father-son rivalry or oedipal conflicts. He has no father; He is his own father and as He grows and pa.s.ses through his changes on the Wheel, He remains in relationship to the prime nurturing force. His power is drawn directly from the G.o.ddess: He partic.i.p.ates in Her.

The G.o.d embodies the power of feeling. His animal horns represent the truth of undisguised emotion, which seeks to please no masters. He is untamed. But untamed feelings are very different from enacted violence. The G.o.d is the life force, the life cycle. He remains within the orbit of the G.o.ddess; his power is always directed toward the service of life.

The G.o.d of the Witches is the G.o.d of love. This love includes s.e.xuality, which is also wild and untamed as well as gentle and tender. His s.e.xuality is fully felt, in a context in which s.e.xual desire is sacred, not only because it is the means by which life is procreated but also because it is the means by which our own lives are most deeply and ecstatically realized. In Witchcraft, s.e.x is a sacrament, an outward sign of an inward grace. That grace is the deep connection and recognition of the wholeness of another person. In its essence, it is not limited to the physical act-it is an exchange of energy, of subtle nourishment, between people. Through connection with another, we connect with all.

In the Craft, the male body, like the female body, is held sacred, not to be violated. It is a violation of the male body to use it as a weapon, just as it is a violation of the female body to use it as an object or a proving ground for male virility. To feign desire when it is absent violates the body's truth, as does repression of desire, which can be fully felt even when it cannot be satisfied. But to feel desire and longing is to admit need, which is threatening to many men in our culture.

Under patriarchy, men, while encouraged to expect a great deal of nurturing care from women, are taught not to admit their need for nurturing, their need to be pa.s.sive at times, to be weak, to lean on another. The G.o.d, in Witchcraft, embodies longing and desire for union with the prime, nurturing force. Instead of seeking unlimited mothering from actual, living women, men in Witchcraft are encouraged to identify with the G.o.d and, through Him, to attain union with the G.o.ddess, whose mother-love knows no bounds. The G.o.ddess is both an external and an internal force: When her image is taken into a man's mind and heart, She becomes part of him. He can connect with his own nurturing qualities, with the inner Muse who is a source of unfading inspiration.

The G.o.d is Eros, but He is also Logos, the power of the mind. In Witchcraft, there is no opposition between the two. The bodily desire for union and the emotional desire for connection are trans.m.u.ted into the intellectual desire for knowledge, which is also a form of union. Knowledge can be both a.n.a.lytic and synthetic; can take things apart and look at differences, or form a pattern from unintegrated parts and see the whole.

For women raised in our culture, the G.o.d begins as a symbol of all those qualities that have been identified as male and that we have not been encouraged to own. The symbol of the G.o.d, like that of the G.o.ddess, is both internal and external. Through meditation and ritual, a woman who invokes the G.o.d creates his image within herself and connects with those qualities she lacks. As her understanding moves beyond culturally imposed limitations, her image of the G.o.d changes, deepens. He is the Creation, which is not simply a replica of oneself, but something different, of a different order. True creation implies separation, as the very act of birth is a relinquishment, a letting go. Through the G.o.d, the woman knows this power in herself. His love and desire stretch across the abyss of separation, taut as a harpstring, humming one note which becomes the single song, the universe, of all. That vibration is energy, the true source of power-from-within. And so the G.o.d, like the G.o.ddess, empowers woman.

For both women and men, the G.o.d is also the Dying G.o.d. As such, He represents the giving over that sustains life: Death in the service of the life force. Life is characterized by many losses, and, unless the pain of each one is fully felt and worked through, it remains buried in the psyche, where, like a festering sore that never fully heals, it exudes emotional poison. The Dying G.o.d embodies the concept of loss. In rituals, as we enact his death over and over again, we release the emotions surrounding our own losses, lance the wounds, and win through to the healing promised by his rebirth. This psychological purging was the true purpose of dramatic tragedy, which originated, in Greece, out of the rites of the dying G.o.d Dionysus.

In Witchcraft, death is always followed by rebirth, loss by rest.i.tution. After the dark of the moon, the new crescent appears. Spring follows winter; day follows night. Not all Witches believe in literal reincarnation; many, like Robin Morgan, view it as "a metaphor for that mystically cellular transition in which the dancers DNA and RNA immortally twine themselves."" But in a world view that sees everything as cyclical, death itself cannot be a final ending, but rather some unknown transformation to some new form of being. In enacting and reenacting the death of the G.o.d, we prepare ourselves to face that transformation, to live out the last stage of life.

The G.o.d becomes the Comforter and Consoler of Hearts, who teaches us to understand death through his example. He embodies the warmth, tenderness, and compa.s.sion that are the true complement of male aggression.

The Dying G.o.d puts on horns and becomes the Hunter, who metes out death as well as suffering it. Few of us today directly partic.i.p.ate in life processes; we no longer raise or hunt our own meat, but get it plastic-wrapped at the supermarket. It is difficult for us to understand the concept of the Divine Hunter. But in a culture of hunters the hunt meant life, and the hunter was the life giver of the tribe. The tribe identified with its food animals; hunting involved tremendous skill and knowledge of the habits and psychology of the prey. Animals were never killed needlessly, and no parts of the kill were wasted. Life was never taken without recognition and reverence for the spirit of the prey.

Today, the only thing most of us hunt for regularly is parking places. But the Hunter has another aspect: that of searching, of seeking. He embodies all quests, whether physical, spiritual, artistic, scientific, or social. His image is poemagogic: It both symbolizes and sparks the creative process, which is itself a Quest. The G.o.d seeks for the G.o.ddess, as King Arthur seeks for the Grail, as each of us seeks for that which we have lost and for all that has never yet been found.

Like the G.o.ddess, the G.o.d unifies all opposites. As in the invocation that opens this chapter, He is both the bright sun, the light-giving, energizing force, and the darkness of night and death. The two aspects, as I have said before, are complementary, not contradictory. They cannot be identified as "good" and "evil": both are part of the cycle, the necessary balance of life.

As Lord of Winds, the G.o.d is identified with the elements and the natural world. As Lord of the Dance, He symbolizes the spiral dance of life, the whirling energies that bind existence in eternal motion. He embodies movement and change.

The Sun Child is born at the Winter Solstice, when, after the triumph of darkness throughout the year's longest night, the sun rises again. In Witchcraft, the celebrations of the G.o.ddess are lunar; those of the G.o.d follow the mythological pattern of the Wheel of the Year.

At the Winter Solstice, he is born as the embodiment of innocence and joy, of a childlike delight in all things.

His is the triumph of the returning light. At Brigid or Candlemas (February 2) his growth is celebrated, as the days grow visibly longer. At the Spring Equinox, He is the green, flourishing youth who dances with the G.o.ddess in her Maiden aspect. On Beltane (May 1), their marriage is celebrated with Maypoles and bonfires, and on the Summer Solstice it is consummated, in a union so complete it becomes a death. He is named Summer-Crowned King instead of Winter-Born, and the crown is of roses: the bloom of culmination coupled with the stab of the thorn.

He is mourned at Lughnasad (August 1), and at the Fall Equinox He sleeps in the womb of the G.o.ddess, sailing over the sunless sea that is her womb. At Samhain (Halloween, October 31), He arrives at the Land of Youth, the Shining Land in which the souls of the dead grow young again, as they wait to be reborn. He opens the gates that they may return and visit their loved ones, and rules in the Dreamworld as He too grows young, until at the Winter Solstice He is again reborn.

This is the myth: the poetic statement of a process that is seasonal, celestial, and psychological. Enacting the myth in ritual, we enact our own transformations, the constant birth, growth, culmination, and pa.s.sing of our ideas, plans, work, relationships. Each loss, each change, even a happy one, turns life upside down. We each become the Hanged One: the herb hung up to dry, the carca.s.s hung to cure, the Hanged Man of the Tarot, whose meaning is the sacrifice that allows one to move on to a new level of being.

The a.s.sociation of love and death is a strong one in the mythology of many cultures. In Witchcraft, love is never a.s.sociated with actual physical violence, and nothing could be more ant.i.thetical to the spirit of the Craft than the current rash of violent p.o.r.nography. The G.o.d does not perpetrate acts of sadomasochism on the G.o.ddess or preach to Her the "power of s.e.xual surrender." It is He that surrenders, to the power of his own feeling. Nowhere but in love do we live so completely in the all-consuming present; and at no time but when we are in love are we so searingly conscious of our own mortality. For even if love lasts-and both popular songs and personal experience a.s.sure us it does not-or metamorphoses into a sweeter and deeper, if less fiery form, sooner or later one lover will die and the other will be left alone. The Craft does not try to resolve that dilemma, but to intensify it, because only through that bittersweet realization, through the embrace of Pan whose hairy thighs rub us raw even as they bring us ecstasy, can we learn to be fully alive.

And so the G.o.d is the proud stag who haunts the heart of the deepest forest, that of the Self. He is the stallion, swift as thought, whose crescent hooves leave lunar marks even as they strike sparks of solar fire. He is the goat-Pan, l.u.s.t and fear, the animal emotions that are also the fostering powers of human life; and He is the moon-bull, with its crescent horns, its strength, and its hooves that thunder over the earth. These are only a few of his animal aspects.

Yet He is untamed. He is all that within us that will never be domesticated, that refuses to be compromised, diluted, made safe, molded, or tampered with. He is free.

As G.o.d of the waning year, He sails the Last Sea for the Dreamland, the Otherworld, the internal s.p.a.ce in which creativity is generated. The mythic Shining Isle is our own internal source of inspiration. He is the Self voyaging the dark waters of the unconscious mind. The gates He guards are the threshold that divides the unconscious from the conscious, the gates of night and day through which we pa.s.s to go beyond the illusion of duality, the gates of form through which we pa.s.s in and out of life.

While He is ever-dying, He is also ever-reborn, ever-living. In the moment of his transformation, He becomes immortal, as love is immortal although its objects may fade. He glows with the radiance that sparks life.

The G.o.d, like the G.o.ddess, has many names. He appears, linked with Her, throughout time, from the Paleolithic caves to the bulls of ancient Crete to the medieval tales of Robin Hood and his merry men. Any of his names or aspects can be used as a focus for meditation.

Although there are many men in modern Witchcraft, in general they are less immediately attracted to the Craft than women. No matter how simplistically or superst.i.tiously the Craft is understood, it offers women a model of female strength and creative power; in that, it has remarkably little compet.i.tion from other religions. But for men, it demands a giving up of traditional forms of power and traditional concepts of religion. What it offers men is more subtle and not always easy to comprehend.

Men are not subservient or relegated to second-cla.s.s spiritual citizenship in Witchcraft. But neither are they automatically elevated to a higher status than women, as they are in other religions. Men in the Craft must interact with strong, empowered women who do not pretend to be anything less than what they are. Many men find the prospect disconcerting.

The Craft also demands a new relationship to the female body. No longer can it be seen as an object or vilified as something dirty. A woman's body, its odors, secretions, and menstrual blood, are sacred, are worthy of reverence and celebration. Women's bodies belong to themselves alone; no spiritual authority will back a man's attempt to possess or control her.

The body is not to be celebrated in isolation. Men in the Craft must come to terms with woman's power: the power of a whole woman, a completed woman, whose mind and spirit and emotions are fully awakened. A man must also know and accept the power of his own, inner, female self; to generate a source of nurturing and inspiration within, rather than demanding it exclusively from without.

Witchcraft also means losing the "Great Man" model of spirituality. Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, and the whole horde of preachers, prophets, gurus, and group leaders who claim to teach in their names, or the names of secular descendents, lose their halos. In Witchcraft, there are no comforting, all-knowing father figures who promise answers for everything at the price of one's personal autonomy. The Craft calls on each of us to be our own authority, and that can be an uncomfortable position.

In fact, there is no more G.o.d the Father. In the Craft, the cosmos is no longer modeled on external male control.