Well, I can truly say that I've met the maenads now.

It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

Let's do it again.

The god of witches is (ipso facto) god of women, so before the witches' sabbat the women fetch the man, the mask, and the makings of the sacrifice, and bear them off to the sabbat-stead, where they strip and paint the man. The man dons the mask, the god mounts the altar, and so the sabbat begins.

This year the procession was spearheaded by Iowa's redoubtable Prärie Hexen, a veritable force of nature. It was something like riding a tornado: wild women, wildly chanting the ecstatic praises of the Horned. It felt as if at any moment they might tear him limb from limb. (But of course they didn't; that comes after.) It also felt like a cultural turning point.

Discussing the experience the next day, it became clear to me that when I hear women talking about men, or men talking about women, generally what they say is something disparaging.

That's terrible, maybe even pathological. It's certainly not culturally sustainable.

Yet here were women of undeniable power, ecstatically praising the divinely Male.

I think that oftentimes, from without, the men of the pagan community seem weak because we're surrounded by women of power. And, of course, that's not the case at all. But that's how it can look to outsiders.

Whereas in fact, precisely what we're striving for as a community is men and women meeting in power and mutual respect.

That's the kind of culture that I want to live in, dammit.

And we were there. That's what we're building together.

Well, f**k.

So I can truly say that I've met the maenads now.

It was one of the most beautiful—and terrifying—experiences of my life.

For gods' sakes, come on: let's do it again.