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Published on 1 Comment on Responsible to the centres

The main lodge and fire pit at a Pagan gathering This past weekend, I went to my 18th Gathering for Life on Earth. There were rituals, and swimming, and workshops, and feasting, but best of all, there were juicy conversations. One of my favourite people to talk to every year is a brilliant woman who runs a local Pagan choir and who does a sung devotional ritual every year. She is so thoughtful in how she approaches ritual, and how she sets a tone and guides without controlling... her rituals inspire me on several levels.

Naturally, she leads devotional rituals because she is a polytheist, which I am not. This year, we touched on this briefly in our meandering theological discussion, and I mentioned the four centres of Paganism theory. Though we agreed that people may be centred in multiple areas or may slip between them, she did identify primarily as deity-centred and I as community-centred. We discussed how non-deity-centred public ritual leaders should be cognizant of not offending those for whom the gods and spirits are literal. It isn't that hard, and seems mostly common sense: don't invoke gods if you don't know at least a little about them, lest you offend them; don't invoke gods together who are enemies; don't call on spirits unless the literal energy is what is desired. Basically, it seemed all good practices to me anyway: avoiding cognitive dissonance amongst knowledgeable or conscientious non-believers, not offending believers, and not making a fool of yourself by parading your ignorance around the circle.

A good ritual leader wants everyone to get something out of their ritual. That's a challenge in a public or semi-public setting where people could be from any of the centres, and be any of the kinds of deism as well1. Making a ritual that works for everyone is a big challenge, but it isn't a bad start to figure out what responsibility you have as a leader to each of the four centres. Here are just some ideas to get us all started; feel free to add more in the comments:

To the deity-centre, you have the responsibility to use respectful language and actions towards the gods and spirits, as discussed above.

To the nature-centre, you have the responsibility to be conscience in your choice of materials and tools, avoiding plastics and waste and being aware of the kind of offerings being made and their impact on the plants and animals. You would also want to be aware of the actual environment of your ritual (and not, for example, turning your back on a lake in order to invoke Water in the West), know your science if you are going to be using natural concepts (and not, for example, calling on a non-local bird as your spirit in the East), and being careful in your language around grounding (really, stop dumping all your negative energy into the earth) and elevating or privileging people over nature.

To the inner-centre2, you have the responsibility to not preach or lecture, and not to imply that lack of belief in external, literal gods makes someone a bad Pagan, or that lack of faith will drive one mad. It is also important that your ritual have a coherent theme and that the components make psychological sense in how they come together and build towards something. I think this is also the centre that would most want to know what words mean when chanting or invoking in another language, since intent is so important to many inner-centred traditions. Providing context and translation would be crucial to their comfort and involvement.

To the community-centre, you have the responsibility to offer opportunities for people to participate together; to offer opportunities and activities that someone could not experience on their own. From the comfort of our homes, we can watch videos of liturgy being recited, we can listen to recordings of talented singers, we can mediate and pray - what we want from group ritual is that which we can't get any other way. Being asked to merely witness is usually not sufficient for this centre, except where community witnessing is the whole point, as in a handfasting.

Following these guidelines won't guarantee that everyone will grok or even enjoy your ritual, but it does mean that people won't be put off or jolted out of the experience you are trying to create by something that offends their fundamental beliefs. If you want to offer rituals to the Pagan community, especially in public or semi-public settings like festivals or Pagan Pride events, it is important to recognize that you are responsible to the whole community, not just the centres you are most familiar with. A public ritual is about more than your own practice, or even presenting your tradition to a larger audience; it is about engaging your community - your whole community - in something spiritual, religious, and meaningful.

I suspect some people will fear that in trying to please everyone, you will end up with a mess of compromises that pleases no one, but I think that reading over the points above makes it pretty clear that it is possible to make a ritual that fills at least the basic needs of all the centres without losing meaning or purpose. It is a great gift to the community to offer a ritual, but only if it is offered with respect and love for everyone.

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Published on 1 Comment on Link roundup: inspiration

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
Source: Hubblesite.org

Being a part of a diverse religious community of passionate people with strongly held opinions can be challenging. Sometimes it is really easy to get caught up in debates and drama and forget how powerful and beautiful our community can be. As organizers begin working on their local Pagan Pride Days, I suggest reviewing HecateDemeter's posts on framing (this one is a good one to start with) and creating your own quote about why you are proud to be Pagan. Here are some I found around the Internet:

"We are the intellectual heirs of the ancient Greek philosophers who invented democracy, poetry, philosophy, the Olympics, etc. We're going to be holding a Pagan Pride event on Sept. 23rd to emphasize how local Pagans contribute to our local economy by farming, creating jobs in local businesses, supporting our local schools by donating books to school libraries and...

"Stop letting your opponents define your message."

– Framing on the Eve of Lughnasadah.

"[Pagans'] work may seem silly to outsiders, but they have taken on a huge task – to create anew what was lost, a vibrant culture, filled with songs, ceremonies, dances, lullabies, myths. To create such a culture – one that is rich yet at home with notions of individual freedom and modern life – what a Herculean task!

"But a possible one. And as the last flames flicker out and the last tone dissipates, each person returns to their ordinary life with some small remnant of the incredibly subversive notion that the world can be transformed and reborn, that 'we are as gods and might as well get good at it'."

– "Heretic's Heart: A Journey Through Spirit and Revolution" by Margot Adler, quoting "Whole Earth Catalog" (Menlo Park, Calif.: Portola Institute, 1969) 367; I found it here.

"Paganisms are not proselytizing religions. We don't have to proselytize. Our job is to provide for ourselves a vibrant, flexible, and ongoing sustained pagan culture that is so beautiful, so rich with, and so sexy and so desirable that people will want to come to us because they see us and they say, 'I want what they have.'"

– Steven Posch, quoted in Five ritualists I'd like to invite to dinner, Part 2: Steven Posch.

"... comfort is not what I seek from religion. I want challenge. I want danger. I want to be shaken to my depths. I want to be scared shitless. A Dionysian religion breaks down social structures and breaks down the walls of the ego. As Harry Byngham (aka "Dion"), chief of the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry, wrote: "Our Dionysian morality is not 'safety first', but 'vitality first'." Neopagan religion is not a religion of good behavior, but a wild religion, a religion of "drums, moonlight, [feasting] rather, dancing, masks, flowers, divine possession" (Robert Graves). It makes me very uncomfortable — and it is what I need."

— My love/hate relationship with Neopaganism, Part 2.

"We are a religion of many sects, many cults, many expressions. From the "hard Gards" to the solitary eclectics weaving their own magic. We are each full of the same awe, wonder, mystery, and joy. We cast the circle, call the elements, honor the Gods, celebrate the Mystery and send our energy to make a positive change in the world. This happens in rituals containing hundreds of people. This happens silently in candlelit bedrooms of closeted solitaries. Our words may be different, our mythos vary and the details be different, but as Wiccans we are all calling forth the same Mystery."

— Why I Love Wicca.

"There is nothing in our lives that is not sacred. ... There is nothing in our lives that is not sacred because life itself is a holy and blessed thing. Every flower, animated. Every rock, an ancient pattern. Each song, an expression of humanity in relationship to all things.

"We are star stuff, it is said, and this is true. We are made of the same iron that gives off distant, dying light. We are made of the same iron that anchors us to this earth. Sometimes we remember. Sometimes we forget."

– Living Sacred.

And because I think Paganism could fill this need:

"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."

– Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1984), as quoted here.

Published on Leave a comment on Link roundup: sacrifice

mythumbnailI have always been a bit interested in the idea of sacrifice. I remember listening in fascinated horror to the stories of human sacrifice when I visited the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza when I was about 12 years old. Though I have used the various myths of Gods who sacrifice themselves for the crops and the good of their people in rituals, and I have a line about sacrifice in my pre-meal prayer, I feel like there is a lot more to learn and explore about this topic in a modern Pagan context:

"While it is perhaps noble to make offering with your last or most precious bit, sacrifice is not based on suffering. Most sacrifice is done in a mood of thanksgiving and comes from the abundance of the offerer." - Pagan Restoration

About the two meanings of 'sacrifice': "The common meaning of sacrifice is "to give up." We pour a libation, giving up the opportunity to drink the wine in order to give it to the gods. We give money to worthy causes, giving up the opportunity to spend it on ourselves. ... Sacrifice in this regard is a tangible expression of unselfishness or of long term thinking or both. ... The older meaning of sacrifice is "to make sacred." By dedicating something to the gods through ritual and ceremony it becomes sacred – it takes on some of the essence of the gods. Some of that divine essence then returns to us." - Under the Ancient Oaks

From a review of Religion of the Gods: Ritual, Paradox, and Reflexivity about the meaning of ancient Greek artwork depicting Gods making offerings and sacrifices: "The question that follows is how that is possible as all sacrifices need a recipient; a recipient who stand higher than the donor so that could be propitiated or worshiped. The author gives a remarkable, but at the same time, simple answer: the sacrificing Gods and, thus, their religious praxis is not directed towards a higher being than themselves, because simply religion itself belongs to the Gods. Accordingly, They perform libations and sacrifices as Gods, and this divine practice does not intend to venerate the 'other' – as a human worshiper will do – but, on the contrary, the god's 'self' as the source of religion and not the participants – a clear proof of Their omnipotence." - Nikolaos Markoulakis, Tropaion

From a blog post about the book review: "But while I pour libations and make other offerings, I never once thought that I was making these offerings to someone or even to something. I do not pour libations out to gods, who I wouldn't imagine would need them if they did exist. Nor do I make offerings to the earth or nature — unless you count my compost box. Who then am I offering to? Not to myself. Instead, I find value in the act of making an offering, a ritualized giving, even when there is no recipient." - The Allergic Pagan

"Modern Pagans love to talk about how the Gods evolve with us, and how forms of offerings can be different in modern times. I agree – but I think the important thing that has shifted isn't whether or not living sacrifice is needed or useful. What has shifted is the importance of the individual soul and the idea of consent, the willing sacrifice. ... That focus on volition with regard to human offerings is reflective of how sacrifice can evolve in a modern context – a religious practice now shaped by modern values on individual liberty, but still preserving the core function of the act, which is the offering of vital life." - Banshee Arts

"Sacrifice is often seen, in modern times, as hardship endured for the greater good, while ancient sacrifices are stereotyped as some kind of Gods-mollifying bribe or payment. It's rarely thought of as an exchange between your present self and your potential for greatness. Odin's sacrifice "of himself, to himself" during a nine-night ordeal while hanging on the world tree brought forth insight in the form of runes." - Shirl Sazynski, Witches and Pagans

"When we share our food with the Gods we invite them to be part of our family. Sometimes that means giving up the food – pouring a libation on the ground or burning a piece of meat or bread in a fire. Sometimes it means offering it to them with ritual and prayer, and then eating what they do not consume – what the Egyptians called "reversion of offerings."" - Under the Ancient Oaks

Oh, and I can't forget "Destiny" by Mojo of Parnassus (lyrics and sample and song purchase), which makes me tear up every time I hear it.

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Published on 1 Comment on Link roundup: hospitality

mythumbnailWhen I'm working on a ritual, especially one I'm having trouble writing, I tend to do a lot of internet research and collecting a lot of quotes and links. Here are the ones I found most inspiring on the topic of Pagan hospitality:

"... hospitality is practiced as a way of showing respect to the sacredness inherent in all people." - Musings of a Kitchen Witch

"Hospitality is about interdependence, between ourselves, and between us and the Gods. ... It encompasses compassion, sensitivity, understanding the needs of others, and not waiting to asked. We are all guests in each others’ lives, and the best thing we can do is be good guests and good hosts." - Julie of Thornhaven Grove (ADF), quoted in The Pagan and the Pen

"We receive hospitality, whether we want to admit it or not, every time that we step or sit or screw anywhere in this world: all things were Created and Blessed and are enspirited by some forces greater and infinitely more complex and holy than we. We are guests here. And in turn, our religious structures are a way of reciprocal hospitality: we provide in our home shrines a space to welcome those (sometimes invisible, sometimes terrifyingly visible) forces, powers, gods and goddesses and ancestors and holy powers into the center of our homes and lives and families." - Thracian Exodus: Nomadic Musings of a Wandering Polytheanimist

"The laws of hospitality are ancient and to a certain extent elastic enough to stretch into different contexts, but always it is about the relationship between being welcome and being welcomed..." - Thracian Exodus: Nomadic Musings of a Wandering Polytheanimist

"The exchange of gifts is a way of establishing relationship. In gift economies, gifts are given without any formal agreement as to when the favour will be returned; however, the ethic of reciprocity is so strong that the gift creates an obligation to return the gift or favour, and in this way, an ongoing relationship is created. ... The giving of money in exchange for something does not create relationship, it ends it. If I pay in full for a service or a commodity, my obligation is discharged, and that ends the relationship." - Sermons from the Mound

The ritual I wrote inspired by this research: Imbolc: Being Welcome & Being Welcomed.

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Published on 2 Comments on How wild are we?

mythumbnailmythumbnailThis post contains sexual imagery and coarse language, but I didn't write those parts; they are from some award-winning poetry.

I was lucky enough to see Sarah de Leeuw at the Writers Fest this year. I chose the event on impulse, not having read any of the works by the authors on the panel, and was surprised and delighted by the intellectual, thought-provoking conversation on women's sexuality that occurred, mostly stemming from Sarah's breadth and depth of knowledge. After, Robyn (of the Pagan Ritual Hack Space workshop) and I talked the whole way home about feminism, geography, bondage, bodies in nature and bodies in urban environments, sex metaphors, and whatever else came into our heads.

We both bought copies of Geographies of a Lover and I read it in a single sitting on Saturday morning. I will definitely have to read it several more times to even get a sense of everything that's packed in the book, but in broad strokes, it is big: flowing, stream-of-conscious poetry full of icebergs and giant trees and mountains. There are urban geographies too, but they are limited in scope: "... i am concentrating on nothing else, not the city sounds of heels on cobblestones or the smell of chocolates and cigarettes or the snow starting to fall again, i am on my knees my cunt wet, wrist sore ..." (page 38)

Contrast that with: "... as you fuck me from behind the speed of glacier retreats escalating with climate change a rapid withdrawal up valleys toward the comparative coolness of mountain tops soon there may be nothing left of the ice bodies and it feels as though a knotted leash of pumping blood connects my cunt to the pulse in my neck ..." (page 20-21)

Most of the book is more similar to the latter quote. There are connections being drawn here between female sexuality and nature in all its power. As in much of Paganism, this work finds a mirror-image, writ large, of us in nature. Both say that we are animals, we are of nature, and perhaps that there is wildness in us yet, despite our steel and plastic surroundings.

My cat, Zoey, thinks she's a wild animal too. When she hears the crows outside, she runs to the window and gets her hunter look on: alert stillness, but for her twitching tail, and pricked ears. That the birds are almost bigger than her tiny 7-pounds of fluff and eyeball, and that she has proven herself incapable of hunting even a little house mouse, and that she is terrified of outside and can only scream at the door when accidentally shut out of the house does not seem to factor into her reaction.

I like honouring that we are dependent on nature, and women's sexuality has too often been dismissed entirely or reduced to metaphors about roses or orchids. However, I also like the idea of honouring who and what we actually are now; that we're urbanized, that we're domesticated. I think it would be interesting to explore urban sexual metaphors. Maybe we even need cyber sexual metaphors as we become more and more cyborgnetic in our interactions with technology.

A different kind of sexuality might be suggested by urban and cyber metaphors. Natural metaphors lend themselves well to animalistic, out-of-control passions, but not to other kinds of sexual expressions: elaborate role playing, bondage, fantasy, the complexities of sex in a long-term relationship; all manner of sex that is as much in the mind as it is in the body. We need room for all, especially when discussing women's sexuality, as to not reduce us to only one thing. Perhaps we also need to add these things to our Pagan spirituality, as to keep our religion grounded in the time and place where we actually are. As Pagans, we know that the metaphors we choose to use are important; that's the basis of magic.

A poetry book entitled "Geographies of a Neo-Pagan" would have to include physical geography, but also human geography: social and cultural, and probably the newer discipline of cyber-geography. And maybe a geography of the invisible and imaginary. If such a thing doesn't already exist, we would have to invent it, as we work in in-between places.

What matters to us - beyond metaphors - are our physical and our social surroundings. Someone else will have to write the poetry of Pagan geography and the poetry of urban sexuality, as poetry isn't my art form. It is perhaps because my main creative outlet right now is writing rituals, but as soon as I am inspired, I want to direct that energy into a ritual... when all you have is a hammer, you know. Maybe a ritual where natural images are paired with urban metaphors: grounding into bedrock and into cement; north as earth/mountains and as the foundations of homes; east as air/wind and as the sounds of the city; etc. Because, let's face it, as much as we might want to hunt the crows, most of us are house cats.

Published on Leave a comment on Mushrooms for Mabon?

Large mushroom growing in gravel

There seem to be mushrooms popping up all around me right now. The photo above is of a mushroom growing in my front yard. There are several other patches of different mushrooms on my walk to work, my work is selling two different kinds of mushrooms next week, and my in-box contains an invitation to a wild mushroom meal. Finally, today, I came across the mushroom photography of Bryan Beard and decided that perhaps something's trying to tell me something. I've got my oyster mushroom growing kit set up again and I've been reading weird facts and stories about mushrooms all evening.

There are, of course, stories of mushroom rings associated with fairies, and in medieval Ireland, mushrooms were thought to be umbrellas for leprechauns. Ancient Egyptians thought that mushrooms grew by magic, due to their sudden appearances overnight. Egyptian pharaohs reserved mushrooms exclusively for the royal tables because of the fungi's association with immortality. Ancient Romans called mushrooms "food of the Gods", and other cultures thought that mushrooms had powers that could give people super-human strength, help them find lost objects, and lead their souls to the Gods.

Moving away from mythology and ancient history, I really enjoyed this blog post: What mushrooms have taught me about the meaning of life. I especially liked his thesis statement:

I would like to share three things that I have learned about the meaning of life from thinking about these extraordinary sex organs and the microbes that produce them. This mycological inquiry has revealed the following: (i) life on land would collapse without the activities of mushrooms; (ii) we owe our existence to mushrooms; and (iii) there is (probably) no God. The logic is spotless.

I'm not as atheistic as the author, but I am always intrigued by the ways things we don't see or appreciate are so necessary for life as we know it. Fungi.com points out that without the external digestion and recycling powers of fungi, turning dead plants into rich soil, the Earth would be buried in several feet of debris. Mycelium, the body of the fungus which lives in the soil or in wood, are the ultimate recyclers:

Due to it's ability to decompose organic matter, and recycle it back into the ecosystem to further enhance life around it, mycelium may very well prove to one of the most significant organisms that graces the planet earth. ... Some of the enzymes produced by mycelial colonies are powerful at breaking down long chains of hydrocarbons. The colony is so efficient at secreting these enzymes and breaking down the hydrocarbons that soil contaminated with them and other toxic oils can be restored in a matter of months. ... When these hydrocarbons have been broken down, the fungus produces lovely blooms of mushrooms and the surrounding environment is nourished, alive and thriving.

Fungi were among the first organisms to colonize land about a billion years ago, long before plants came about. Miracle Mushrooms adds:

Mushrooms are not plants. They are fungi. Fungi are as uniquely different from plants as plants are from animals. In fact, fungi and animals are now in the same super-kingdom, Opisthokonta . More than 600 million years ago we shared a common ancestry.

We're related to mushrooms... the idea gives me goosebumps.

Speaking of goosebumps, A World of Words blog offers, along with beautiful pictures, this intriguing thought:

... what if God is Mushroom? Now, of course we all know that since God is too big for just one country, just one religion, just one planet, this all-encompassing energy of boundless and unconditional love and truth is also too big for just one species. But I like the idea of these beautiful, primordial and little-understood forest creatures as manifestations or metaphors for something as large and omnipresent as divine inspiration.

Mushroom expert (mycologist) Paul Stamets may be a scientist, but there's something about fungi that inspires spiritual thought:

See, this is the thing about mushrooms: It's not luck. There's something else going on here. We've been guided. But this is what happens.

Domestic mushrooms - white button, cremini, portabello, cultivated oyster - are available all year around, but fall is when the wild mushrooms can be found in our damp forests. September is even National Mushroom month in the United States. Mabon could very well be a mushroom harvest celebration just based on the timing. Add in that Mabon is an equinox - a time between seasons, between light and dark times of the year - then fungi seem very appropriate. They are both above and below the ground; they are between plants and animals, being truly neither; and the fungi family includes yeasts, used in baking bread, which is more traditionally associated with Mabon and the harvest.

Stamets also says that western society is pervaded by "mycophobia": an irrational fear of fungi. He traces this fear back to England, where mushrooms are often associated with decay and decomposition. This feels like another opening for Pagans as we try to reclaim the dark, the breaking down, as part of the wheel of the year and the cycle of life. Fungi take what is corrupt and, through their mysterious underground processes, they turn it into fertility again. They break down the dead and make space for life.

Oh, and one last awesome mushroom fact: The world's largest living organism is believed to be an Armillaria ostoyae fungi living in Oregon, occupying 2,384 acres. It is estimated to be 2,400 years old, based on its current growth rate, but it could be as old as 8,650 years.

Edited to add: The Mabon ritual I created from these ideas is now available on the website: Mabon: Mushrooms.

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Published on 2 Comments on The beauty and tragedy of a beating heart

It is raining again in Vancouver. Cherry blossoms are being washed down the streets, and the temperature is back to autumn. This is quite the change from the gorgeous sunshine and early summer weather that so recently blessed us; I think we all have a kind of spiritual whiplash from the back-and-forth.

Despite the cold and wet, this weekend's projects include writing the Beltane ritual for my spiritual family. This is one of the things I struggle with as a ritual writer who wants to connect my rituals to what is happening with the season: I have to write the ritual in advance, without really knowing what the season is going to be when it is performed. It is working out this time, though, as the ritual I have in mind is about the heart.

A couple of years ago, I was training at the gym with a very athletic friend of mine. He gave me a lot of fantastic advice, but I remember one conversation in particular. We were discussing why it is important to do frequent cardio and he said:

"You only get so many heart beats. If your heart beats slower, they will last longer."

There's a joke about that, of course. A well-meaning seeker asks a monk: "What exercise should I do to live longer?" The monk responds: "Your heart is only good for so many beats, and then it will wear out! Speeding up your heart won't make you live longer; that's like saying you can make your car last longer by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap!"

Though exercise does temporarily increase your heart rate, doing it regularly decreases your resting heart rate, resulting in a net savings in heart beats. Which goes to show that you shouldn't take health advice from jokes... or monks.

Anyway, my friend's comment stuck in my head, and I've been contemplating a heart-themed ritual ever since.

I am fascinated by the connection between heart beats and life. I like the seeming paradox: make your heart beat faster in order to make it beat slower. And there's a beautiful tension there: our beating hearts keep us alive while counting down to our deaths. So much of the language of a full life is about the heart - her heart felt like it was going to burst, his heart grew three sizes that day, she took that to heart, he took heart in that - while each beat is closer to our last. To me, that tension feels like the same tension we have with Beltane and Samhain - Sabbats that are directly opposite on the wheel of the year. One is a celebration of love and life that includes death and the other is a celebration of the dead and the ancestors that embraces life.

On this rainy day that feels like autumn, I am trying to write a Beltane ritual that honours the miracle of our hearts: the real, physical importance, and the metaphorical truths. To that end, here are some random heart facts that get mine racing with inspiration:

The natural length of a lifetime for birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles seems to be about 1 billion heartbeats. Modern humans seem to get about 3 billion. (1 Billion Heartbeats – The length of a lifetime)

A mouse's heart beats about 500 times a minute and an elephant's about 28 times. A mouse lives about 4 years and an elephant about 70. (Size Matters: The Hidden Mathematics of Life)

The heart is the first organ to form in utero. The embryonic heart looks the same across nearly all species, including frogs and fish and mice and elephants: a pulsating tube. In humans, that tube will eventually loop to form the four-chambered heart we are most familiar with. (What is a beating embryonic heart?)

The heart symbol evolved from the ivy leaf portrayed by prehistoric potters. “This botanic symbol found in ancient Greek and Roman art ... represented both physical and, above all, eternal love, withstanding death. ... During the Middle Ages and early modern times, when medicine had a scholastic character, this symbol was used even by anatomists to portray the heart.” (Heart Symbol & Heart Burial: A Cultural History of the Human Heart)

The ritual is still taking shape in my head, but I think there's a two-parter in the works – one ritual for Beltane and one for Samhain – both playing on the tension between life and death.

Edited to add: The Beltane ritual I created from these ideas is now available on the website: Beltane: The Heart.

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