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Consider the apple tree and its ways.

Early in summer, it sets as much fruit as it can.

Later on, it drops many—even most—of those hard little unripe apples.

With what it can draw from Earth, Sun, and Thunder—the Deep Gods of the witches—the tree has only so much main—energy—at its disposal. The resources available to the tree to nurture its apples are limited. With what it has, it can produce either many small, or a few select, apples.

As I rake up fallen green fruit, I reflect. The Craft is an apple tree. Why do so many leave?

Even back in pagan days, witches were different.

They lived in cities and ran things, like government and armies.

We lived in the sticks and tried to raise enough to get us through the winter.

They worshiped Younger Gods, the ones with human faces.

We still worshiped the Old Gods, the untamed powers, the wild.

They went to temples to pray.

We went to the woods to dance.

Their priests wore white linen.

Ours—if anything at all—wore black, and probably wool.

Their gods had beautiful statues.

Ours had trees and standing stones, the woman in white clay, the man with horns.

A Qabalist was explaining to me the mysteries of the Christian Qabalá.

I can't remember whether or not she knew that I speak Hebrew.

So, here's how it works. You start off with YHVH, yod-he-vav-he, “Yahvéh,” the secret name of El, the Canaanite High God.

Into this, you insert the letter Sh, shin, one of the Three Mother Letters (whatever that means).

And voilà: YHShVH, “Yehoshuah”: Jesus.

Pretty nifty, eh?

“But that's not how you spell 'Jesus' in Hebrew,” I objected.

 the guests had one month fewer

they do not speak the language of nature

We take ancient gods and goddesses, revive them, and think that that's paganism.

But that's not paganism; it's a cartoon, a caricature, of paganism.

For an older, realer paganism, read the work of Saami poet Nils-Alsak Valkeapää (1943-2001).

Here there's a life lived so thoroughly among the old gods—the Sun our father, Earth mother of life, the Moon, the Winds, the Lake, the Mountain, the Reindeer—that there's no space between: a living relationship with a living world.

Listen to his shaman's song:

Woe, I cry, woe: five long years, and never a good tomato.

Either it got too hot, and the tomatoes languished.

Or it didn't get hot enough, and they never ripened.

We didn't have enough rain, and so they were tough-skinned and bitter.

Or we had too much rain, and they swelled up obese and flavorless, red water balloons.

Oh, but this year: this year the gods have been good.

Earth and Your two boon husbands, Sun and Thunder: thank You, thank You All.

Firm, sweet, kissed by the Sun: at every meal tomatoes, and you never get tired of them.

Glory to the gift of the Aztecs, best of Nightshades! But in every good tomato year, you always reach glut: the point at which they're coming in so fast that you can't keep up, no matter how many you eat.

That means that it's time for the Nectar of the Gods.

Since Kilauea began its most recent eruption a fortnight ago, we've been hearing a lot in the news about Madame Pele, Lady of Kilauea.

Every pagan should sit up and take notice.

Even from here in Minnesota, I've heard Hawaiians of many different ethnic backgrounds talking about Her. It's well worth listening closely to what they say.

No one tries to explain Her away as a metaphor or an archetype. No one mounts a defense of Traditional Hawaiian religion. They simply speak of Pele as an indisputable datum, as real as the old lady next door.

In fact, people do see Her in human form all the time. “With great regularity Pele stories appear, usually on Page One, of every Hawai'i newspaper from Hilo to Hanalei,” writes Rick Carroll, editor of the anthology Madame Pele: True Encounters with Hawai'i's Fire Goddess. “Over the years, I clipped Pele tales from Time magazine, the New Yorker, National Geographic, and mainland newspapers” (Caroll xiii-ix).

I've noticed that people usually (although not always) give enough qualifying explanation for us non-Hawaiians to understand what they're saying: “the goddess Pele,” “Pele the volcano goddess.” Information needs to be contextualized, after all; your hearer needs to know enough to be able to understand what you're saying.

I doubt that most of the folks that I've heard speaking of the Red Lady to reporters would describe themselves as practicing Traditional Hawaiian religion.

In those days, I didn't know how to be pagan.

Lake Erie taught me how.

When you live near a large body of water (“large” meaning you can't see to the other side), life is relationship. You come to know the Lake as individual. You come to understand that it's not just a thing: it's a Being.

This Being, vast, becomes intrinsic to your thought-world. Consciously or not, on some level it becomes a constant Presence.

Even cowans feel it.

But for pagans, this is religion. Relation is its essence.

Earth, Sun, Thunder, Fire, Wind, River, Lake: to These Mighty Beings, we say You.