Image: My First Pagan Holiday

by Woodrobin


I sit, a link in a chain.
Friends I do not know, but have always known,
arrayed in a circle
on the hard brown smooth-polished boards,
on the floor that once hosted pews and an altar.

I breathe.
I can hear my pulse in my ears, nervous...anticipating what? 
I do not know, but yet I know.
Everything strange but familiar, right, somehow.
The words: I've never heard them yet they feel right.
"The Goddess is Alive and Magick is Afoot!"
And She is, and always was
and though I never knew, I always knew.

I look around the circle.
Bundled and booted, wrapped against the December chill, we stand
In the center a flickering candle lighted at the sunset of the longest night.
The essence of sunlight, magickal.
The promise of sunreturn in our faith, in our vigilance, we dance
we chant, we sing and we do not let the candle gutter
we do not let the flame die.
The sun will return, the light will be reborn, will grow once more.

In the morning we all stumble out groggy, giggling
we shout cheers and blessings to the sun, 
"Hail!  The light returned!  Lugh!  Apollo!  Hail!"
Together, we walk into the crisp bright morning,
and in the cold, we are warm.