Bealtaine 2008, Hidden Falls Park.
Maybe 100 people are gathered in two concentric circles. The Great Man-Woman Dance is about to begin.
Our coven kid, of course, wanted to be in the midst of all the excitement, but at three he was a little small for the dancing, and I didn't want him to get tromped.
As it happens, I was standing in the middle of the circles, leading the singing, so I scooped him up and set him on my shoulders. There he sang along happily, drumming on my chest with his heels, and watched the wheeling of the Men's and Women's Circles, their parting and their coming together.
Afterward, over the food, we discussed.
“The presiding priest spent much of the ritual with a child sitting on his shoulders,” air-reviewed my friend Sparky T. Rabbit.
He laughed, then added:
“Which pretty much tells you everything about paganism that you really need to know.”
Photo: Bruner Soderberg, "May Stang"