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.

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In Which Our Intrepid Blogger Hopes that He's Wrong

The Romans (of course) had a phrase for it.

Absit omen: “May it not be an omen.”

As resident priest here at the Temple of the Moon, I make offerings twice daily—mornings and evenings—and pray for the well-being of pagan peoples everywhere. As one might expect of a pagan temple, the prayers take different forms depending on what time of year it is.

The prayers, of course, are recited from memory. Twice now during the last few days, I've slipped up and started prayers in their Winter form. Both times, thankfully, I've managed to catch myself before I'd got very far, and corrected the prayers to the proper Summer form instead.

But now I'm starting to worry. Even though, here in the North, Winter is the general default setting, somehow (whether rightly or wrongly) when things go wrong in ritual, they seem to take on a super-charged significance.

It's been a cool, damp August here in the Land of Sky Waters, unlike our usual hot-and-dry end-of-summer. Here and there, you'll see leaves starting to change. The winter squash are coming in. It's easy to see why I inadvertently slipped into Winter mode. If you asked me, I'd say that signs are pointing to an early Winter.

But here's hoping that I'm wrong.

Absit omen.

Absit omen.

Absit omen.

 

 

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Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

Comments

  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham Saturday, 31 August 2019

    Well it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere. I did read a magazine article about climatologists watching three of Antarctica's ice sheets for signs of collapse. Perhaps your slipups presage two of those ice sheets collapsing this winter; Antarctica's summer.

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