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A loving springtime tribute to the Spirit of Skyclad.

Jack-in-the-Buff

(Tune: Jack-in-the-Green)

Now Winter is over, and Summer's come in,

so it's finally safe to start showing some skin.

Our ski-masks and parkas we joyously doff,

to go about dancing with Jack-in-the-Buff.

Parkas we doff, parkas we doff,

to go about dancing with Jack-in-the-Buff.

Now Jack-in-the-Buff is a singular man

with sandals and beard and an all-over tan.

A pentagram pendant is more than enough:

“Adorn, but don't cover,” says Jack-in-the-Buff.

More than enough, more than enough:

“Adorn, but don't cover,” says Jack-in-the-Buff.

Now Jack-in-the-Buff has a very strange power:

be they never so prim, in less than an hour,

wherever he goes (it amazes us all)

the clothes will start dropping like leaves in the fall.

Amazes us all, amazes us all:

the clothes will start dropping like leaves in the fall.

When you raise a standing stone, or build an important structure like a house or a temple, you'd do well to begin by making a foundation offering first. That's the pagan way.

What archaeologists call the “foundation deposit” is prayer made permanent. It embodies, in an ongoing way, the builder's intentions for the new structure, constituting the foundation beneath the foundation.

Among the Copper Age cultures of what archaeologist Marija Gimbutas called Old Europe—as in Minoan Crete, Old Europe's final flourishing—it was not uncommon, when building a house, to bury beneath it first a small, clay model of a house: action made articulate. The intention could hardly be clearer.

So when, at Beltane, we raise the Bull Stone at Sweetwood Sanctuary in southwestern Witchconsin's Driftless Area, you can be sure that, before the raising of the Stone itself, we'll first be laying our intentions in Earth.

The Bull Stone marks the marriage point of Earth with Sun, of People with Land. The Stone itself makes the Great Marriage with the Land both in microcosm—at the shrine itself—and in macrocosm, lining up with the notch on the horizon where two ridges meet that marks the place where the Sun sets on the shortest day of the year.

In the Earth beneath the Bull Stone we will lay three carefully-chosen offerings:

At Beltane, we raise the Bull Stone.

How, you ask, did we manage to get a ton of local limestone from the wall of the coulee (ravine), across the bed of the coulee itself, and all the way up the hill to where it now lies?

Not difficult.

The Witch sat at the top of the slope and Sang the Stone up.

Really. She Sang, and the Stone just—as it were—floated up the hill. Call it levitation.

I, Steven of Prodea, tell you this, and I know it to be true because I was there, and saw it happen myself.

See that grayware jar there on the sideboard? The tall one, with the swirling black spirals?

That's for my ashes.

Bring it to the first Grand Sabbat after I die. (You might want to seal the lid with beeswax first.) On the first night, set it at the foot of the altar. Let it stand there throughout the gathering.

On the night of the Sabbat, when you remember the dead, call my name. When you pour for the dead, pour for me.

(Pinot noir by preference, but you know me: anything but mead.)

And then the Old Buck's last Grand Sabbat.

(Be careful not to kick the jar over during the Grand Sacrifice. You know how frenzied those can get.)

On the last morning of that first gathering of the tribe of Witches after I die, when the Horned comes for the last time to lead the people up out of the forest and into the sunlight, bring the jar.

When, at the foot of the hill, he turns in final farewell, set it in the crook of his arm.

He'll take it with him up the hill then, as he sinks (in a pillar of white flame) into the Earth, as he walks into the Sky.

Why did the standing stone climb the hill?

Well, I think we know.

Before the Bull Stone began its two-year journey from its natal rock-bed, across the coulee floor, and up-slope to its new shrine, I asked:

Will you come? Will you chance this adventure? Will you receive this adoration?

For these are the questions that must be asked.

And the Stone said: Even so.

Two years, much sweat, and the work of four days later, the Bull Stone now lies, gazing at the sky through autumn's yellow canopy, on the shoulder of Sweetwood Ridge. In spring, we will raise him and, if we do our work well, he will stand in consummation long after we are gone.

And all the while the priestess, the clan-mother, sat at the crown of the slope, singing the song of Calling.

Why did the standing stone climb the hill?

Go between the two standing stones into the woods.

Follow the path down to the Great Circle.

When you get to Aphrodite, turn left.

Then head down the hill through the trees.

That's how you get to the Bull Stone.

So, I'm going to take a little time to brag on my brother warlocks. In traditional language, this is known as a vaunt.

I'm just now back from a weekend with the warlocks at Sweetwood sanctuary, among the incomparable autumn vistas of the hills and misty hollows of Witch Country's Driftless area.

The weather was miserable, cold and damp. It rained torrentially most of the time.

I haven't had so much fun in months.