Creating Circles and Ceremonies: Rituals for All ... - reading...

64 Creating Circles & Ceremonies
53. Our Lady of the Beasts
We call your name Fauna:
For truly you are the Sovereign Female
Spirit of all Creatures.
At once the vixen and the hen you are...
Hawkeyed, deerfooted, cat whiskered Lady
Who floats on silent owl-feathered wings.
Celebrating with the voice of larks; keening
with the dirge of wolves;
You sing the lonely music of the whale song.
Bitch and sow in the heat of your passion;
Likewise the Great Mother of all Humankind.
You are well pleased with the sound of
rattles and tympani;
With the voices of birds, the outcries of
frogs and bright-eyed lions.
We call your name Anima Animalia:
Tender Huntress, Fierce Mother,
You stalk our hearts amid tangles of primal
urges...
Down rivers of blood...through vaginal
tunnels...
We are caught! Devoured! Reborn!
By your Grace...
...By the milk of your breasts we are
nourished; we are nurtured.
O restless one, forever hungry, in search of
your Lover
You roam with migrating herds of reindeer,
elk and bison;
You hide and seek under drifts of fallen
leaves
Where squirrels hide their winter stores.
We call your names: Circe, Hathor,
Artemis Orythia,
Britomartis, Hecate, Sehkmet, Kundalina,
Medusa.
Mother Nature’s hot-blooded daughter;
cold-blooded killer.
Mistress of both the wild and the tame
You are the Queen of every hive.
Answer our call, o Goddess; let us prey
with you.
Our throbbing pulse is your drum beat;
Delicious shivers shake your sistrum...
...the growl becomes a purr.
Outside our Circle of Firelight we see your
glowing eyes.
—Morning Glory Zell, 1978
54. Epona
Through warlike stormcloud cumulus
Epona gallops by.
I see Her on the tumulus,
Her blazing sword held high.
Black mane the harpers sing of
Whips in the rising wind;
Her sinews are the string of
The bow no man can bend.
The Queen of Amazons She is,
A proud and shining mare,
With courage in Her heart free as
The hawk who rides the air.
The peace She brings our village
Has banished fear’s dark end;
No rogues would dare to pillage
The hearth She does defend.
The tides of Fate She must obey
To breast the swirling flood.
The wine of Life She drinks today
With laughter dark as blood.
The Omens point a finger:
Her exile nears its end.
From Shadows where we linger
She comes to Earth again!
—Morning Glory Zell, 1978
1. God Invocations
-Generic
55. To the Laughing God
What God is this who beckons me
With laughter in his eyes?
Who plays his pipes so hauntingly
With tunes from paradise?
Are you Apollo, radiant Sun,
Or Pan with wild delights?
Or Dionyos, guardian
Of secret mystic rites?
Or are you Hades, Lord of Death,
Or young Adonis fair,
To whom sweet Venus sends her breath
To play upon your hair?
You are them all, yet you are He