Historical setting: 589 C.E. when Brittany was forest
Great peaks of flames roll, each tongue rising higher, snapping and hissing then dissolving silently into the hot center of it all. As each finger of flame points deeper into the dark a spew of sparks escapes to eternity with the winter stars. Across the fire I see Thole rolling a log to a perfect spot upwind of the smoke. He carefully arranges a fleece and now he is gone again.
No sooner does Druid Largin begin the ritual than Thole emerges again, this time he comes with a woman bundled in his cloak as though she were his most precious treasure. They sit on the fleece so close to one another they seem one thing. A bellow of smoke rides a wind shift obscuring my curious gaze. But I’ve seen it.
I prayed that Thole would have empathy, so this moment is my heavenly flaunting.
I suppose it’s only I who hear God speaking, “Lazarus, you don’t need to tell me how to distribute empathy or any of the other windows to love. I’ve already set it all out for humankind and yet you trip yourselves into it anyway, hardly noticing all the varieties of love until it tumbles you.”
Thank you God. I will take care.
The remarks of the Druid are of course, not spoken as heavenly blessings, rather as blessings from earth. He is both the father of the bride and the priest and this is clearly the nuptial. A long night and day again of celebration is toasted with a keg of ale. There is no coy secret of the phallus. The druid brings out a sacred white snake, as was gathered from the nearby grasses. This white snake is dancing and twisting as it is held up for all of us to see just how a snake moves. The imagery is clearly something that taunts woman, until the bride here chooses to make it her pet.
It is the universal chant with pagan lyric, and the same tempo for dancing the world already knows. The heartbeat of the Celts is no different than the Hora of the ancients.
And now I see Thole’s bride has one fine dancing foot, and another that keeps the beat anyway. And they dance and dance.
Thank you God, for all the tripings into love you’ve laid out in Creation. May I not loose sight of it. Amen.
(Continues Tuesday, January 18, 2022)
Lazarus Ink 