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 I wonder what the old North European ancestors would have called asparagus, had they known of it. Considering the ways along which the old tribal imaginations were wont to run, I'm guessing, probably, “spear-grass.”

It even kind of sounds like “asparagus.”

Oh asparagus, most ephemeral of seasonal delicacies. The Red Crests savored it back in old Romeburg days, of course: “quick as boiled asparagus,” Augustus Caesar was wont to say.

(Anyone who has ever tried to poach asparagus will understand that this means very quickly indeed.)

Things look different now, of course. Driving through rural Germany in the Spring some years back, I saw fields and fields and fields of asparagus, mostly for the domestic market. Per capita consumption of asparagus (spargel) is higher in Germany than anywhere else in the world.

Just about every restaurant where we ate that Spring had a separate asparagus menu tucked into the regular menu. You could put together an entire meal for yourself from one of these, with asparagus in every course—appetizer, soup, salad, entree—even, incredibly, dessert.

Savor while ye may, O ye lovers of Spring. Like Spring herself, asparagus season will soon pass by … just as quick as boiled asparagus.

An altar is a place of power—your personal power—where you can make magic. It should be an expression of your deepest self, filled with artifacts that hold personal resonance. Allow your altar to be a work in progress that changes with the seasons and reflects your inner cycles.

To create your altar, find a small table and drape it in richly colored, luxurious fabrics—perhaps red satin or a burgundy velvet scarf. Take one red and one pink candle and arrange them around a sweet-smelling incense such as amber, rose, or jasmine. Decorate your altar with tokens that represent love to you: a heart-shaped chunk of ruby glass, potpourri made with rose and amethyst, a photo of your lover. Fridays are the time for spelling love, right before dawn. Before you light your candles, anoint them with a love oil you select from the following pages.

I grew up steeped in a Christian idea of worship: as humble devotion paid to a perfect, all-powerful God. Such devotion could feel inspiring, promising a kind of ultimate consummation.

But it depended on a level of belief I could not sustain, and dogmas I could not accept. I needed God to be perfect, but reading the Bible put that deeply in question. In the end Christianity seemed to limit my experience rather than complete it.

I left God behind, but not the need to worship, to taste the exaltation of reverence. As a refugee from mainstream religion, to whom could I bow?

Here, at your magical power source, you can “sanctify your love.” Collect your tools as well as meaningful symbols and erotic iconography, and prepare for the sacred rituals of love.

Supplies:

In Which Our Intrepid Blogger Makes Some Really Bad Puns and Denies Being Anti-Kemetic

Who? Me? Anti-Kemetic? Gods, no. I'm not anti-Kemetic. Seriously, one of my best friends is. Kemetic, that is.

Yes, it's true: I do call him my “effete shaveling.” Hey, he calls me his “vile Asiatic.”

But that's not anti-Kemetism, just what passes for humor in the pagan community.

(Why “vile Asiatic”? Well, because, when the bristles hit the breeze, my sympathies—such as they are—lie with the Hyksos, not the Egyptians. I suppose it's remotely possible that some of my ancestors actually were Hyksos.)

Yes, it's true that I did once describe Kemetic ritual as being “props-intensive,” but that's not anti-Kemetism, either.

Listen, I'll tell you a story.

The Golden Barque of Isis

Say what you will about Odun and the old Sabaean Temple of Chicago back in the 70s—and I've heard the stories, just like everyone else—their craftsmanship was immaculate. They're the ones that made the Golden Barque of Isis: just like the processional shrines that they used to use in ancient Egypt.

When the Sabaeans moved from Chicago to New Orleans, my Kemetic friend Sirius inherited the Golden Barque and he, in turn, brought it to the Return to Avalon festival. The spectacular Barque of Isis procession that he staged there in the 90s was by far one of the most memorable rituals of that festival's entire 13-year run.

I had the honor to be one of the Barque's bearers that day. I'll never forget the sight of the Processional Way, lined with people, all dressed entirely in white. As someone remarked at the time, only Sirius could possibly have turned out so many witches all in white.

Along with the other Barque-bearers, I was kitted out in a white kilt and nemes (= head-cloth: think King Tut). Bare-chested, be-kohled, I looked like something out of C. B. deMille; at least until the moment that we lifted the Barque's carrying poles to our shoulders.

“Um...Sirius...ah...this kilt isn't long enough.”

After a quick reconnoiter, he smiled and patted my shoulder.

This Night of the Witches (heks, meaning “witch” in Dutch and nacht meaning “night”) was created originally out of the need to overlay a Christian rite onto a Pagan festival that was hard to abolish. In Germany it was called Hexennacht, in Scandinavia Walpurgis Night. At the end of winter, people wanted to celebrate and hurry on the coming of spring, and bonfires would be lit to drive out the spirits of winter and also reflect the return of the light and warmth of summer. However, this became the fires that would burn the witches, or at the very least keep them at bay while they travelled on to a night of revelry on The Brocken in Germany.

For on this night, the Christians said that the witches gathered on the Hexentanzplatz (the Witch’s Dance Floor) which is a high plateau in the Harz mountains of Germany. Some believe this place to be an old Saxon gathering place/cultic site, which was later banned by the Franks and given its current name. According to the Christians, after the witches gathered at Hexentanzplatz they then travelled to The Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz to dance away the night with the Devil. This is thought to reflect an old Saxon custom of leaving animal and possibly even human sacrifices on the mountain to the god Odin (or Wotan, as he was probably known then).[1]

Known as Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht) in the Christian calendar, this festival was created to commemorate the English nun, Walpurga and her mission to Christianise the heathens. She is said to have been canonised on 1 May 870AD. Thus Walpurgis Night fell around the same time as the pre-Christian festivals, and thus transformed them, at least for a time.

In the period of Romanticism, after the hysteria of the witch burnings died down, there was a revival across Europe of the old folk customs and lore. This brought Heksennacht, the Witch’s Night back to many countries in various forms, falling on the 30^th April.

Today, across Germany and other European countries,as well as throughout Scandinavia, this festival is still celebrated.

In Henry Treece's 1968 novel The Green Man, his brutal, gripping retelling of Hamlet in its original pagan cultural context, Beowulf is—let me avoid anachronism here—a man for men. He even puts the moves on young Hamlet.

(Horse-faced young Hamlet, himself a man for women, isn't having any of it.)

Yes, that Beowulf: Beowulf Grendel's-bane, King of the Geats, hero of the sole surviving Old English epic of the same name.

I'd always thought that Treece was taking some pretty broad literary license with his gay Beowulf, but after a recent intensive immersion in the original text of Beowulf, I've come to think that he may actually be onto something.

There's no evidence that Beowulf—his name means “bee-wolf,” a kenning for “bear”—was a historical character. He appears only in the eponymous epic, and is never mentioned by any historian of the period.

So, was he gay?

Well, here's what we know about him from the epic:

• He never married. (At least, no wife is ever mentioned.)
• He left no children behind him.
• All his loves—and Beowulf, as the poet testifies frequently, lives by his loves—are towards other men.

You do the math.

Myself, I had always assumed that Beowulf's lack of queen and dynastic offspring were to be read as evidence (such as it was) of his non-historical status. This still seems to me the most likely reading of the evidence, such as it is.

That said, it also seems to me that Beowulf (the epic) will unforcedly sustain a gay reading of its central character's character, and personally, I'm good with that. Beowulf the Geat: a man's man, heroic, generous, utterly admirable.

Gods know, we could use a few more larger-than-life gay heroes.