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.
Pagan Nativity
Pagan Nativity
Among the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush,
who alone among Indo-Aryan peoples
still hold to their old pre-Vedic religion,
all expectant women give birth
in the bashali, the house of blood. There
(as always until Enlightenment
doctors, pleading ease of access,
laid them out on their backs)
they squat to push, with gravity
to pull, bracing their labor against
the building's central column:
axis mundi, the typical Tree of Life.
Just so Leto clutched the bole
of a palm tree, bearing Apollo
and Artemis. Even Maryam
the virgin (in Sura xix) brought
forth Isa embracing the self-same
date-palm. Now in these days
of darkness, under the usual
tree of stars, how many
straining mothers crouch
among witness animals,
working out a world's salvation
there in its wonted place?
Yule 2020
Minneapolis
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