Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
The Running of the Deer
A dead body, hanging from a tree.
When I boarded the school bus that frosty October morning, who could have guessed that what I was about to see would sear itself into my memory forever?
You have heard it said that Samhain marks the End of Harvest.
You have heard it said that Samhain marks the Homecoming of Flocks and Herds from the Summer Pastures.
Hear now as I tell of Samhain's First Beginning.
My school-mate's older brothers hunted.
That's how, when the bus stopped at her house to pick her up that Monday morning, there came to be the gutted carcass of a buck hanging by a rope from the big old maple in the front yard: strung up to bleed out, kept fresh by the autumn cold.
Never before had I felt so viscerally just how similar in weight and size a deer is to a human being.
It was like a crucifixion.
Long before the field, long before the herd, Samhain marked the running of the deer: the hunt and the rut.
(Samhain rutting for Beltane fawning.)
To live, we must eat. To eat, we must kill.
In this season of the ancestors, we remember.
Stag Rune
Stag run through with a spear,
Stag hung from a tree,
Stag strung up to bleed:
Glory, Stag, to thee.
Comments
-
Please login first in order for you to submit comments
