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There's a phenomenon of pagan ritual that I've noticed again and again down through the years.

I'll call it the “dark light.”

The pagan calendar (day begins at sundown) and pagan schedules (most of us work day jobs) being what they are, we do a lot of our ritual at night. This means that we do much of our ritual by firelight.

Bonfires, candlelight, torchlight. Which is it to say that, by the usual electric-lit 21^st century standards, there isn't very much light.

And yet consistently, again and again, as I think back to any given ritual, I find myself remembering more light than could possibly have been there.

But it's not just a matter of memory. In ritual, colors are brighter. Bodies, faces, things seem to glow as if from within, transfigured.

I think of the Grand Sabbat. Cross-legged up there on his altar, the Horned glows, I swear it. I swear it. He's lambent: the light comes from Him.

Our chant begins low and slow, but soon we are shouting, frenzied.

Horned One! Horned One! Horned One!

From the woods, a horn rings out. Another joins it, nearing, and another.

We call, He comes.

In the moving torchlight, He shines. Borne high, He stands astride, arms raised. His horns reach up to heaven.

At a run, His bearers cross the final slope and enter our midst, bringing Him in. He steps, precisely, from palanquin to altar. The drums fall silent.

In the sudden stillness, He scans our fire-lit faces. Between His antlers, constellations revolve.

The Sabbat is the true paradise...where there is more joy than I can express. Those who go there find the time too short because of the pleasure and happiness they enjoy and, having once been there, they will long with a raging desire [un désire enragé] to go and be there again.

(Jeanne Dibason, 1630)

The Old Blood calls.

The Sabbat: the ecstatic adoration of the incarnate Horned God, the witch's True Paradise.

For nearly 25 years, the Midwest Tribe of Witches has gathered regularly—at the requisite irregular intervals—in immemorial Grand Sabbat.

Plans for Grand Sabbat 2018 are already under way.

I have seen him stretch out his naked limbs on the altar.

I have seen.

I have seen the flash of blades descending.

I have cried out.

I have anointed my brow with his blood.

I have mourned with the others.

I have eaten the red bread and drunk the red drink.

What does he feel, the Horned, as he sits upon the altar and gazes on the faces of his people?

What does he feel?

This I can tell you, I his priest, who have sat upon his shoulder and watched with him there.

It is love.

When he sits upon the altar and looks upon his people, he feels for us a love so unbounded, so all-encompassing, that he would do anything, give anything, for us.

Even to the laying down of his life upon that very altar, that we might feed on his flesh.

Deep in the heart of every modern pagan lives the longing for the Pagan Place, where the old fires burn undiminished.

For 13 years, here among the hollow hills of the Midwestern US's Driftless Area, for one week a year, the mists would part, and we would enter into that place, the secret heart of Witchdom.

We called it Avalon.

In 1995, priestess Lhianna Sidhe dreamed of a gathering where those of deep experience in, and dedication to, the Craft could come together and collectively Turn the Wheel.

And turn it we did.

 New this year at Black Mountain Seeds:

Giant German All-Black Turnip (Brassica rapa pernigra)

Long believed extinct, this legendary heirloom turnip from the Harz mountains in Germany has long been prized by cognoscenti for its sumptuous all-black flesh. 

Yes, unlike other so-called "black" turnips, the German All-Black has sweet, meaty flesh that is just as black as its skin! 

Just think: no more need to laboriously stain those turnip slices with expensive, carcinogenic dyes! Just slice and serve. (The skin is so tender, you won't even need to peel 'em.) No messy clean-up either.

These cylindrical, pleasingly phallic roots (up to 13" in length) will make prepping for your next Black Mass fiendishly easy.