LISTEN TO THE DRUM. LET IT BECOME YOUR HEART BEAT, YOUR THOUGHTS, YOUR FOOTSTEPS. THE DRUM BECOMES YOUR PATH TO HER. IMAGINE YOURSELF OUTSIDE FACING THE WOODS. THE NECK OF THE VALLEY IS A PORTAL, AN OMPHALOS, A VAGINA. WITH EACH BEAT TAKE A STEP FORWARD INTO THE VEIL OF HER MYSTERIES.
John described the quality of the woods – their cold air, the brush of the undergrowth, roughness of bark − requesting me to relax with each step. After what was perhaps two minutes, he quickened the beat and described a moonlit clearing in the forest. In this clearing a ritual had commenced. A circle of naked women loosely encircled a robed female standing, arms aloft, by a raging bonfire, a pall of smoke spiralling up to the full moon. The drumbeat mirrored the steps of the dancers as they spiralled deosil around the high priestess.[1] After two, maybe three, revolutions the dancers peeled off and gently coaxed me into the presence of the high priestess. Gently forced me to kneel before her, and she shed her robe and then grabbed my imagined right hand whilst intoning:
I INVOKE THEE, MIGHTY MOTHER,
BRINGER OF SEED AND ROOT,
MAKER OF FLOWER AND FRUIT,
BY LIFE AND LOVE,
AS BELOW, SO ABOVE,
I DO INVOKE THEE TO DESCEND UPON THE BODY OF THIS THY SERVANT
AND PRIESTESS.
Whilst she recited this, I was to imagine her tracing a clockwise circular motion with her hand upon mine from her right breast, thence to her left breast, then the abdomen, back to the right breast, then again to the left breast, abdomen, finally ending back at the right breast. I was then invited to imagine the priestess, arms now aloft above me possessed and transformed by the power of John’s Goddess:
I INVOKE THEE ISIS. HAIL!
I INVOKE THEE ARADIA. HAIL!
I INVOKE THEE GODDESS. HAIL!
MOTHER OF ALL GODDESSES. HAIL!
WITH MY LIPS WITHOUT FAIL
I INVOKE THE POWER IN THOU,
THE PROTECTION YOUR LOVE WILL ALLOW
IN THIS HUMAN BODY NOW!
- ↑ The Wiccan term for clockwise movement within a rite is deosil.
