Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Magic Most Sympathetic
Whew. There's the garden finally planted. First we did the work; now we do the magic.
We dance leaping dances to show the crops how high to grow.
(“The higher we leap, the higher they grow: around and around and around we go!”)
We plant wide-hipped little terracotta goddess figurines around the edges, to encourage and oversee.
We make love in the fields, that most sympathetic of sympathetic magics.
In the 2005-7 BBC series Rome, set in the time of Julius Caesar, ex-centurion-turned-senator Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) is finally granted a latifundia (country estate) by the Senate. In the official rite of seizin (land-taking), he and his wife Niobe (Indira Varma) process, along with the estate's people and the village priest, out to a newly-plowed field.
As the others respectfully look on, they walk together out to the middle of the field. Niobe lays down in the midst of the furrows; Vorenus lays on top of her.
Vorenus: For gods' sakes. How long are we supposed to lay here?
Niobe: Until the priest rings the bell.
Vorenus. Oh, for gods' sakes.
(They lay there.)
Niobe: Oh!
Vorenus: (Grins.)
Niobe: Oh! Oh!
Priest: (Rings bell.)
Priest: (Rings bell.)
Priest: (Rings bell.)
Photo: UrsaDea
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