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That morning, we divided into Toughs and Prettys.
(Such things happen at pagan festivals.)
I wanted to be a Tough; I figured I'd earned it. Little sissy boys don't grow up to be happy, sane adults, after all, if they aren't the toughest of the tough.
(I have to imagine that, in the current cultural environment, I would now be experiencing all manner of social pressure to Transition. Gods help me, it would have been the ruin of me.)
Boss Witch had other ideas, though.
Here is a pagan ritual I have performed on weekends, when the full moon shines bright. Over the years, I have added many embellishments, such as astrological or holiday themes. This basic ritual, Moon Cakes and Ale, however, is a timeless and powerful classic.
Gather a group of friends either outdoors under the moon or in a room large enough for dancing, drumming, and singing. Have the guests bring a cake of their choice as well as a cider, mead, beer or juice to share. Place the offerings in the center, on an altar table. Then light a sage leaf and green and brown candles for home and hearth.
If you could live in an all-pagan world, would you do it?
Of course you would. So would I. Any pagan would.
That's why I love pagan festivals so much. What they offer is the opportunity to live in that ideal pagan world, if only for a little while.
That summer, the festival was only 40 minutes out of town: an easy striking distance, one might think. Well, but I couldn't get the time off work.
I was waiting tables that year at a little jazz club cum restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. At the time, our cobblestone patio was the only outdoor dining venue in the area. We were packed every night. The work was grueling, relentless, nightmarish; only the money made it worthwhile.
Every night was all hands on deck. There was absolutely no way to take time off for a festival, because there was no one to cover for me.
So I decided to commute.
Every morning, I drove out to the festival and immersed myself in the nurturing waters of pagan culture. Then I'd drive back to town and deal with the teeming cowan masses.
“This is going to be the worst,” I thought.
But I was wrong.
There I was, every night, in an aureole of golden festival energy, my witch-fires stoked high. I was golden, I glowed: you could see the light from the next room. The cowans didn't know what hit them. Night after night, tips just rained down onto the tables. In my entire wait career, I'd never made so much money.
It should have been awful, but it wasn't. I danced my way through that week, elegant as hell and utterly unstoppable.
As summer festival season begins in the Pagan Northern Hemisphere, I sing in praise of Festival culture's magical child, the Festival Romance.
Festivals are magical, places of discovery: hotbeds of intensive growth, where Pagan Modernity recreates itself.
In so charged an atmosphere, people meet. How can they help but fall in love?
Here, in a place where time runs differently, how should a love not run its entire course—birth, consummation, and death—all in a few shining days?
There's love and love, as there's life and life. Life in the temporary pagan village is good; so too is life in community at home.
So too with festival romances. Some fruit into ongoing partnerships. Most don't, but there's no shame in that. A flower is no less beautiful because it bears no fruit.
