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Argh! Again?

All right, folks. This shouldn't need to be said, but apparently it does. Think of it as a friendly reminder.

Remember, this is a Maypole we're dancing here. It's something that people do together. It's its own kind of magic, a powerful magic that you do with other people. You can't dance a Maypole by yourself.

What we are not doing is some all-by-your-lonesome-in-the-back-bedroom Silver Ravenwolf-y cord magic shite, OK? This is way bigger than that. You do not stop the dance to [voice goes all sing-songy] “tie off your spell with a magic knot” when you get to the end of your ribbon. You do not. When you get to the end of your ribbon, you let go and you get out of the effing way, OK?

Beltane, folks. This is sex, not a wank. Sex. We do it together. Remember?

[Aside, mutters under breath.]

Stopping the dance. Ye gawds. What do they teach them in witch school these days?

OK folks, let's take it from the top.  I've written us a new verse for Hal an Tow, just to help us remember.

One-two-three, and...

Back in the early days of Paganistan, word went around that Circle Sanctuary's Selena Fox was going to be interviewed on a local TV talk show.

Not only that, but—hoping, no doubt, to generate friction—they had invited some fundie to "debate" her.

Yes, folks, from the city of St. Paul, it's the Pagans v. the Nazzes*, Live on 5.

Virtually the entire pagan population of the Twin Cities converged on the studio that morning. When, priming the audience before the cameras started rolling, the host asked if he had any pagans there that day—expecting, no doubt, a resounding silence in response—the eruption from the bleachers nearly knocked him off his feet.

The nazz—I can't remember his name or what charnel** he was from—looked equally gob-smacked. Whatever he'd expected, it certainly wasn't a vociferously partisan audience for the Opposition.

Cameras rolled. I can't remember anything that the nazz said; I can't remember anything that Selena said. That wasn't really, after all, what this was all about. What I can tell you is that Selena landed the winning punch: towards the end of the debate, to emphasize a point, she whipped out a maquette of the Statue of Liberty—our Lady of Freedom—and gleefully waved it in the air like a torch.

I'll bet they heard the cheers across the River in Minneapolis.

To be quite honest, I was really worried about us when this pandemic began.

Compared with other religions, contemporary pagans just don't have the resources to draw on to get us through times of crisis. We don't have the institutions, we don't have the time-depth of lore and precedent to draw on, we don't have it all in one nice, handy little book that you can take with you anywhere. Stories aside, we're a family of new religions with not a whole lot of collective experience of trauma.

Are we going to make it through? I wondered. Do we really have the depth and resilience to keep us going through the dark? Tribal religion being premised on—well, the tribe—will it keep us going when the tribe cannot gather?

I'll admit that I'm luckier than many. My coven of 40-some years has been a source of strength and inspiration to me all along. May Thunder strike me if ever again I take our meetings for granted. Throughout the pandemic, we have continued to meet, and we've done it safely. Sometimes we had to get creative, but we've kept the Wheel turning, and we've all managed to make it through.

Are you a better pagan now that you were a year ago?

Well, if crisis doesn't destroy you, it makes you stronger. When I ask myself this question, I have to answer: My paganism is the deeper and the wiser for it. The past year has taught me many things, foremost among them the eternal wellsprings from which my paganism, like all genuine paganisms, arises, and always will arise.

The Sun coming up right there on the horizon.

The bees droning in the scarlet runner-bean flowers.

Those two squirrels, mating there, on that particular branch.