I hear the procession before I see it.
They enter in at the front gate, with rattle and drum. I join them, and together we wind around the house and back to the garden.
All summer the little goddess has presided over the growth of tomatoes, eggplant, beans, beets, kale, and collards, sunk to her knees in the ground.
Now we stand her instead in a bowl of wheat grains, wheat that we will eat (cooked in almond milk, sweetened with honey, perfumed with rosewater) on the year's longest night. We garland her with harvest marigolds.
Lastly, we cover her over with the same veil of night-blue silk that will enwrap her through her winter slumber in the pantry. We're about to process her down a public street, on which she will duly bestow her blessing, but this is, after all, a goddess: not everyone is privileged to see her.
The procession reforms. I walk this street every day of my life; tonight it becomes a sacred route, a processional way. People arriving for choir rehearsal at the corner church stop to watch.
First the rosewater, sprinkled to cleanse the way.
The drums and rattles which follow mark time, and proclaim the coming of the goddess.
The incense sweetens her path.
Then She herself, knee-deep in wheat, garlanded with flowers, covered in blue like the Mystery that She is, borne—of course—on the head.
When we reach our feast-site, the waiting people cheer.
(Nor could the symbolism be more apposite: on this night between the Outdoor and the Indoor, we hold our firelit Equinox feast on a covered front porch, a place that is both and neither.)
The little goddess goes onto her altar, from which—as Lady of Abundance—she will preside over our Harvest Supper, surrounded by all the good foods of autumn.
Turning our faces toward her, we sing her a hymn.
We feast.